Stray Blade

Stray blade is a good product with an fascinating story set in a dynamic open world. But you need to get over many technical and gameplay limitations in order to approach correctly the adventure.

While Stray Blade occasionally shows glimpses of the care and effort Point Blank obviously put into it, the end result winds up not too convincing, mostly due to a general lack of polish and balance.

Despite its generic story, the worldbuilding is great and so is the soundtrack. The art style is pretty good as well. One thing that I’d recommend to fans of the action-adventure genre is to avoid playing Stray Blade like a soulslike game because they’ll have a frustrating experience. Stray Blade is a thing of its own and can be enjoyed without being associated with the Dark Souls series.

Stray Blade finds its ideal dimension among soulslikes for novices. The learning curve of the satisfying perfect parry and dodge mechanics isn't very steep and one way or another, escaping if necessary, you get to the credits in fifteen hours or so. The lore of the articulated world of Acrea is fascinating, the artistic direction that tells it panorama after panorama even more. Too bad that the fight animations are not the basis of an equally physical and engaging gameplay, which after a few hours begins to repeat itself in a very unattractive loop. If you are looking for a colorful and cartoonish action adventure, which soulslike only has the basic setting, however, you will not be disappointed. But don't expect anything else.

It’s a shame when a game is built around a mechanic, only to have that element not live up to its potential. Stray Blade is all about dodges, parries and rolls, but they’re sluggish and imprecise and just don’t work very well. Aside from that frustration, Stray Blade has attractive art and level design, familiar action RPG mechanics, and maybe even some potential, if the combat can be patched into better shape.

Stray Blade attempts to revamp the soulslike formula by focusing on a polished narrative, a close-knit pair of protagonists, a colourful and light game world and a potentially excellent combat-system. Not everything, however, worked as planned.

With the strength of an ant, Point Blank Games managed to create an open world full of opportunities, even though the challenge was evidently larger than the size of the studio. The game has potential, but with a rigid and clunky combat system and many technical issues, it ended up collapsing under the weight of its own ambitions.

All in all Stray Blade is a passable game that plays well. Unfortunately, it doesn't make it easy for you to master its battle system, asi t never quite strikes a perfect balance. Furthermore, more variance wouldn't have hurt the fights, the story is okay at best and the fact that I can only create new equipment myself isn't really satisfying either.

With the current flood of action role-playing games inspired by the Souls series, Stray Blade wasn't setting out to light the world on fire, but the game did have the potential to be much better than it turned out to be. While the experience isn't entirely unplayable when everything clicks together, the clunky execution of most of its gameplay mechanics makes it difficult to recommend the game to anyone but those who live and breathe ARPGs and need to play each and every one of them.

Stray Blade wants too much and fails to deliver most of it satisfactorily. You're better off playing Elden Ring again.

There are things to love here, and there is visible potential within reach. A lot of the major problems with this game could be fixed. That said, with combat as poor and as prevalent as this, Stray Blade is very difficult to recommend to anyone.

Stray Blade has some redeeming qualities, though these will largely be subjective. It is easy to tell that Point Blank Games set out to create a title with passion in an attempt to offer something more unique. The visuals and art design are gorgeous, the world is interesting if a bit generic, and the general gameplay loop can be addicting if you can put up with the clunky combat. Though with that said, Stray Blade does little to warrant your attention in the landscape of today’s video game offerings. If you want a souls-like RPG that you can turn on, take in the vibrant scenery, and play through whilst turning your mind off, you could do far worse. For those looking for a refined combat experience, tight controls, and rewarding gameplay, you would do best to look elsewhere.

Stray Blade tries and fails to free the Soulslike from gloomy settings and opaque storytelling, falling short of both its own ambitions and the genre’s standards.

Stray Blade has promise and could be improved with more polish and balance changes. However, the flawed combat, story-telling, progression and lead character often bring down the experience.