Stray Blade, the second commercial title developed by Point Blank Games, an independent studio from Berlin, Germany, and published by 505 Games, is an action-adventure game with a soul flavor. Players play as explorers in the game, and explore an unknown place called Acrea with mysterious wolf partner Boji, in the process of expedition, we need to constantly collect items to improve our strength, and constantly fight, constantly find new weapon formulas, explore the mysterious ancient civilization ruins, uncover the mysterious history buried inside, and finally unlock the mystery of Akrea.
Game start screen
Character selection (only male and female, no other difference)
Difficulty selection (in-game can freely change the difficulty, enemy health value, etc.)
The visual performance is good, but the sound effect is disappointing
First of all, the game style of "Lost Blade" is a 3D cartoon style, which is very detailed in the picture performance, which makes this Acrea land reveal a sense of mystery. There are 4 areas in total, each with a different unique style, with distinct scene features and landmarks between the zones, but many of the scene materials can be seen to be reused. The performance in music and sound effects is not satisfactory, first of all, music, sometimes 80% of the time in the game there is no music, the sound of monsters and the surrounding environment is also a little monotonous, the sound effect of the weapon blow feedback makes me feel that there is no difference, so I can hardly say which music can make an impression on me, although I have a better game picture, and finally the whole game audition is lowered in terms of hearing.
It's pretty good on the screen
Map details are in place
The scene is also detailed
It's just that a lot of map assets are highly reused
The game has 4 area maps, the map needs to find the mural to see
One of the regional maps, each divided into multiple small areas
Collectibles are displayed on the right, but must be found before they appear on the map
In terms of story, it is a relatively simple story, the protagonist is an adventurous and talkative character, one day discovered the secret of a mysterious ancient civilization ruins, at this time decided to go to these ruins alone for adventure, but when the protagonist found here, he opened the door and died by an energy impact, but fortunately on this continent you can rely on props to resurrect in front of the shrine, in order to find your way back to the original world, you begin to understand the mysterious history of this mysterious continent. There are also many hand-drawn animations on the cutscenes, and narrating in this form can make the story lively and interesting.
Hand-drawn style animation
Hand-drawn style animation
Hand-drawn style animation
The dynamic world is good, but the action elements are not good
"Lost Blade" uses an open world map, there are some collection elements on the map to provide collection, these need to collect elements can be seen on the map interface, but it is not easy to find them, because I saw a TAG on the steam store page before playing - Metroidvania-like City, I learned why this TAG was added in the process of running the map, the game map adopts a multi-level design, and there are shortcuts in various places, even if you encounter places that cannot be passed, Later, you may go back to open a shortcut, or defeat the boss to gain new abilities, and you can unlock the path you can't go.
The map is more hierarchical
The game exploration is mainly collected with Fleke fungi, map fragments, rebirth shrines, erudite point slates, rune recipes, custom colors, etc., which actually seem rich, but the entire map is relatively empty and the content is not rich enough. However, the production team has added a very interesting system here - dynamic world, in this dynamic world, the most intuitive thing for players is to see the changes of day and night, but after the change, the enemy and environment may be different, maybe the enemy camp that the player cleared before has been occupied by monsters, and the monster's lair has been cleaned up before, but now there may already be soldiers camped here, a lot more tents come out, and we may also encounter forges, and we can also create new weapons and armor at this time.
It was occupied by monsters before, and I have already a bunch of tents and soldiers here this time
Not only that, but we may also see a battlefield that looks like after the war, when new forces have taken over and are cleaning up the battlefield, so there are different changes in many places on the map. Then this changing world also has some effect on the main narrative, such as your route suddenly exploring other places, and the game's story not only focuses on you at this time, but also covers all corners of the world, that is, if you go somewhere else, the route of the main line will also change.
The main story changes depending on the area the player is exploring
The game is designed with a lot of weapons and equipment, but in terms of how to get it, we can only get drawings on monsters and some locations, and then go to the forge furnace to create equipment, monsters are more drop materials, and some materials we have to collect around the world, but monsters are more scattered on the map, and it takes a lot of time to run for a while to see the scattered 2 monsters. There is no side line design in the game, only a main line to support, the entire game map teleportation point can be said to be pitiful, most of it will be wasted on running roads, plus the character does not move fast, resulting in the desire to explore is extinguished, but there are some nooks and crannies on the map to see what is a gain. In addition, the design of monster types is not so rich, and there may be only a few monsters fighting around.
Equipment blueprints
Equipment interface
In the gameplay content there is also a skill tree and rune system, skill points and weapon creation are bound together, after the basic several points are completed, you must get the weapon drawings and create them before you can add the skills under the weapon to increase their attributes, and the weapon also has a proficiency system at 25% and 75% proficiency can unlock additional rune slots, runes can be automatically embedded on the current weapon after crafting, but runes have the number of uses, of course, after use, we can continue to spend materials to make. Boji's skills also have arcane, we can press the corresponding button to release, and getting Borgi's skill points can also strengthen runes and arcane.
The skill tree is linked to the weapon crafted
Runes and Arcane
Rune crafting
Repel Runes - Knock enemies back after being attacked
"Lost Blade" is an action-adventure game, natural action elements are essential, the action methods used in the game are almost the same as other 3D action types, with ordinary attacks, heavy hits, dodges, blocks, parry, backstabs, executions, etc., but to use these actions, we must use the health bar, any action almost consumes this health bar, if not operated, the health bar will be restored, when we use the perfect dodge, perfect parry, the health bar will recover a part. Because of the limitation of the stamina bar, it makes the game more difficult.
Perfect parry
execute
The enemy's attack is mainly in 2 attack methods, there is a red icon attack, at this time you need to dodge (parry, parry is invalid), and when a blue icon attack appears, we need to parry, block (dodge is invalid). This battle does have some innovations, but in addition to the fact that some of the enemy's movements are different from the front swing, the battle has become a 2 set of methods to deal with the enemy, just like what color skills the enemy releases and what is like, the experience is more boring, plus there are not many types of enemies, the enemy's moves are clear at a glance from the mid-term.
Blue Attack - Can only block or parry
Red attack - can only dodge
Red attack of elite bosses
In the action of the battle, the sense of blow is more rigid, every time the enemy is hit or the enemy hits the player will put a slow motion, so that the entire action game is very fragmented when attacking, and the blow to the enemy also has a soft feeling, the slow motion effect of hitting and being hit really makes people have a feeling of being powerful and unable to make it. And when the enemy attacks you, you are often beaten on the back of the person, and when you fight the enemy, the enemy is often in a hegemonic state, of course, we can use parry and other ways to file back, and finally you will find that after the file returns to hit the enemy 1-2 times, the enemy quickly recovers, and then hit you a few times, plus that slow-motion effect, and suddenly feels that the action game has become a turn-based sense of déjà vu. Maybe the production team here wanted to make a combat system different from other action games, but unfortunately the innovation did not innovate the taste, making the game more or less disappointing in the action elements. If you change here to the traditional action game combat system, the experience may be better, of course, I hope that the game itself will continue to optimize the action element, which should become a good action game.
The beaten man turned on his back
After the attack, there will definitely be a slow motion, it is very uncomfortable, and the sense of blow is poor
But monsters always have hegemony, and you are hit and put on your back
BOSS
The lens is narrow and shaky, and it is easy to halo 3D
In addition to the above reasons, there are some shortcomings that need to be improved
"Lost Blade" does not do a good job in the movement of the viewing angle, mainly reflected in the relatively narrow viewing angle, mouse rotation perspective, combat, translation and other perspectives are moving or shaking is very strong, resulting in easy dizziness 3D.
In terms of UI, it is almost undesigned, completely does not match the theme of the game, and is also very inconvenient in terms of interaction.
The mechanism of perfect dodge and perfect block is slightly problematic, and it is clear that it is accurately pressed but not judged.
The weapon moves all have very slow movements and long forward swings, which is a bit of a definition of a regular action game.
The game guidance is poor, although Boji will guide somewhere, but the guidance is still very weak and needs to be optimized.
In the open world collection, it is relatively monolithic, and some collections are optional.
The skill tree system must collect weapons and craft them in order to increase points, resulting in many points being unusable.
Game worldview noun explanation
Dyeing system
The UI was really undesigned, and the experience on UE/UX was terrible
epilogue
The dynamic world design of Lost Blade is fantastic, and the abundance of weapons gives players a lot of choice, some of which are also very powerful. But the game needs to be improved in terms of action system and details, and needs to be optimized, so Lost Blade still has a long way to go. But fortunately, "Lost Blade" still retains the characteristics of hardcore action and soul flavor, with a simple way to reflect the core fun of this game, the early stage of the game may take a long time to get started, then after getting acquainted, the charm of this game is also reflected, so here is the game recommended for gamers who like souls, if other players want to try may wish to wait for the production team to update before starting.