14 DAY TRIAL // I never thought I would have the chance to play a game where you step into the boots of an anthropologist in search of hard-to-find locations that only exist in legends and myths. But this is just the pretext that makes Farren’s next journey possible.
Acrea the Lost Valley was the home of a mysterious civilization, only heard about in legends. Unfortunately, while weirdly being transported to the new location, Farren pays the ultimate price. Although he miraculously gets resurrected, he is bound to this land until he finds someone you can return his freedom.
Stray Blade is the upcoming action-adventure from indie studio Point Blank Games. Although the game borrows some of the mechanics made popular by From Software’s games, it would be unfair to compare it with either of them.
Despite being made by a small team, Stray Blade is actually a massive game with a huge world to explore and lots of gear to craft. Gameplay is simple to get into, yet hard to master. The game uses parry and dodge mechanics to allow you to get the upper hand on the enemy. Not only that, but developers have implemented these mechanics in a way that doesn’t punishes you even if you didn’t get the exact timing on a parry or dodge.
However, parrying and dodging at the last possible moment is encouraged because you have a higher chance to stun the enemy. There are various melee weapons in the game, including swords, spears, and even pitchforks. Typically, Farren uses two-hand weapons, but using a shield is possible too and gives you the ability to block attacks.
Combat in Stray Blade is tight, methodical, and quite satisfying when it works. When fighting an enemy, your main goal is to deplete its health bar, but most often than not I realized that completely removing the enemy’s stamina bar is much more efficient. Whenever an enemy’s stamina bar is depleted, it becomes open to finishing moves. Same goes for you of course, so having a larger stamina bar and faster energy regeneration is sometimes more beneficial for certain playstyles.
With a good armor, you can easily trade blows with some enemies until they’re open to a finishing move, which also regenerates some of your health. Just like in Dark Souls and Elder Rings, you have limited items in the form of flowers that replenish health, but instead of recharging them at “bonfires,” you can find additional ones throughout the wilderness. From what I’ve played, it doesn’t seem like the flowers that you’ve picked regenerate after you die and get resurrected.
Overall, I found the combat system quite refreshing, but I noticed some issues with the timings of the parries. Despite the fact that the game visually signals when you execute a perfect parry, I’d also like to “feel” that I did manage to parry an attack. As it stands, the combat lacks “weight” and targeting enemies is many times extremely inaccurate.
Although Stray Blade is purely an action-adventure game, it does have some light RPG elements, including skill tree and progression. Speaking of which, the skill tree might seem intimidating at first glance, but it’s 100% due to the size and not the abilities in it.
It goes even deeper than that, as the protagonist is accompanies by Boji, a wolf who guides Farren through the valley of Acrea. Unlike Farren who is a fight and gains experience by fighting, Boji is a craftsman who increases experience by finding pieces of ancient lore. This means that exploration is not just encouraged, but also rewarded. Boji’s skill tree is much smaller than Farren’s, but that doesn’t mean his contribution to the adventure is less impactful.
The game also features a pretty basic crafting system that allows you to create new weapons and armor once you find a blueprint for it and have the necessary resources. There aren’t any stats on the gear, but armor pieces have dodge and parry efficiency on top of protecting you against enemies. Weapons mostly determine the playstyle that you like.
Each weapon has special moves and slots where you can insert runes that you find through exploration. You can experiment with different combinations to find what suits you best. It’s an enjoyable experience that’s both simple and deep at the same time.
Without spoiling too much, I’d like to add that the boss fights are pretty decent. Apart from the occasional mini bosses hidden throughout the world, which are optional, you’ll have to fight big bosses, powerful gods who master various elements.
Visually, Stray Blade looks quite nice thanks to the stylized art. However, I noticed some issues with the character models. Sometimes enemies that are very far appear in low resolution. Same goes for Farren in the inventory window. Also, soundtrack is a very good but a bit lackluster.
Conclusion
Still, considering that the game is not yet finished, I hope all these problems will be addressed. Overall, I think Stray Blade has a huge potential and I’m quite anxious to revisit the valley of Acrea once again. Luckily, I won’t have to wait too long because Stray Blade is now scheduled to release on April 20.
Preview key was provided by the publisher.
