Phantom Blade: Executioners - There's simply too much here!
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Phantom Blade: Executioners (Reviewed)
Developer: S-GAME
Publisher: S-GAME
Release Date: November 2th, 2023
Price: Free to Play
Phantom Blade: Executioners is an upcoming Gacha ARPG that we're seeing no shortage of. Instead of a card game or auto battler, this time around it is an attempt at a side scrolling 2D Hack 'n' Slash with some attempts at a 3D element mixed in.
I've had my fair share of ARPG models; many of them are quite fun and interesting, with a lot of depth and, on occasion, a very terrific story. But what keeps you coming back is the core gameplay, which in this game felt rather bland and absent.
Story
It has a lot of translation errors
The story and the translation from Chinese made it difficult to comprehend some of the references and names, even going so far as to say things that seemed far-fetched and foolish in terms of English language.
The story itself does not appear to follow any particular person. However, the voice actor will change based on the character you select at the start of the game. You're effectively playing the role of executioners, tasked with eradicating the evils that afflict your realm. These are humans who have succumbed to a tainted power that distorts and corrupts their inner chi till they go insane. You've come to find out who's to blame and to clean up the mess they've left behind purging them from this world.
Issues
It feels lacking
I don't like limits on the number of things you may perform during your daily energy quota in almost any game that requires a lot of hard grinding for in-game items.
Instead of gathering materials and constructing upgrades, you have a percentage of success that decreases and becomes prohibitively more expensive as you approach the maximum output, sure you could get lucky and wing it but then you also have the min-max mentality, where you might get bad rolls, and then have to reroll.
It's a ploy to keep you playing the game so you can obtain the best in slot for everything, even if it doesn't matter in the end. The equipment you invest in will ultimately become obsolete unless it is endgame.
Controls and Gameplay
Story, Missions, Side quests, Combo effects, and so on all feel uninteresting, to the point that I wondered why every level you complete just has three sections with three to four bonus rooms to explore for goals and discussion. Control-wise, it didn't feel particularly smooth. Due to the depth perception issue, I felt like I was hanging on to a lot of my attacks and moves, being stuck into place far above or far below the target I was attempting to hit. Not to mention the ability to run felt weird to activate.
Presentation
Falls a bit short
Visuals were a bit inconsistent.
Outside of the actual gameplay, I liked the design they were striving for, but I didn't like how much of it looked pixelated or grainy in comparison to the actual cutouts for dialog and story cutscenes which looks detailed.
I can't say I had a lot of fun with the game. The music was good, and the sound effects were adequate, but the overall presentation of it being a side scrolling ARPG with Gacha elements and very heavy grind mechanics for upgrades and levels, as well as sporting an energy meter to prevent you from playing for extended periods of time without spending money / currency, was a little off-putting to say the least.
Navigating menus and different locations was also annoying. Instead of having one specific menu for everything, there are several. You'd have to go back to camp, walk up to the feature you want to activate (it's not obvious) and find the location you want to activate, then try to remember where they are as you switch positions every now and then so that you can interact with upgrades, Gacha and merchants!
Gameplay
A bit overwhelming
I played the mobile version; while it is for PC and Console, I believe the game's support for mobile devices is a bit limited. The variety of skills and abilities available to you, depending on your unique preferences, may make them operate or hide your full screen by altering the display arrangement to better match your access.
If the screen icons are too large or too small, you will most likely be unable to see anything at allor touch any of the skills with your fingers, because there isn't just one or three abilities on the screen that you have to rotate through, but seven buttons.
The gameplay consists solely of entering maps with energy costs, facing a few trash mob spots before facing a boss and returning to your main hub, or in this instance, it comes to you. You gear up, make some upgrades, and set out again. It didn't leave me feeling satisfied because the gameplay wasn't really enjoyable in the slightest.
Combo Features
The Gacha in this game works by summoning the powers of heroes to strengthen your abilities to do a variety of things depending on what their specials are and what talents you choose to attach to those powers. There may be a healing effect on a hero, which you could combine with a big AoE skill that heals you massively when striking several targets, but is useless against bosses.
There is definitely a lot of variety here, but it also feels meta because some talents did a lot more than others when combined with certain skills, stacking on damage.
Doesn't feel all that adventurous
Aside from participating in several daily and special events that reward you with ability to level up your gear, heroes, and a variety of other features. The real exploration of the game to complete side quests and main story goals wasn't all that incentivized. I didn't enjoy the story enough to continue following it, nor did I enjoy fighting the same types of monsters on a regular basis in the same (3) rooms.
Conclusion
I just didn't get what it was attempting to accomplish
Connecting a controller and playing it as if I were on a PC or PS felt a lot more fluid.
It did still feel clunky and unresponsive at times. I'm not saying this game was terrible or anything. It had its moments, especially through its visual aesthetics in cutscenes, but they were quickly ignored owing to terrible voice acting and narrative that didn't make much sense in English because of the poor translations and words used.
Action Roleplay Games should be enjoyable, engaging, and fluid, particularly when it is the entire idea and focus of the game, there is nothing here but moving to the right side of the screen to kill some monsters, and then the boss. Spend all your resources of min-maxing your gear, and repeating the process, until you run out of energy.
There's definitely some elements in the game that I missed, but I wasn't interested in finding out what they were because the game seemed a little predictable. So I'm quite sure what I overlooked were features I previously knew existed later on.
I also believe that games should stop trying to reach out to users and restrict them from playing for as long as they want due to in-game microtransactions that force you to either wait a full day or spend money to play now. It makes sense for a Gacha, but not really for side scrolling ARPG genres. It ruins the overall pacing and desire.
This concludes my views of this game; while my opinions may be met with criticism, that is what distinguishes gamers; you don't have to like the same things as others, nor do you have to agree with them. If you want to catch me on one of my streams or locate me on social media, you may do so at the following locations, I'm always playing something new.
- Pawkt
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