Stray Blade review: Lacking soul

When new ideas come about and catch on, it isn't surprising to see many creators try to put their own spin on the idea. Some are successful at taking the ball and running with it. Others simply see what's popular and attempt to emulate it. The last decade of video games has been dominated by the emergence of two subgenres: the battle royale and the souls-like.

It isn't difficult to figure out what made PUBG interesting and try to replicate it - Epic Games did so with quite a lot of success. However, there is a very good reason why no developer has been able to reproduce what Fromsoftware does, and why even fewer have come anywhere close.

To a new land

Stray Blade is an action RPG set in a fantastical world of beasts and sorcery. You play as Farren West, an adventurer and mostly blank-slate character who travels to an ancient land called Acrea to uncover its secrets. Shortly after arriving in Acrea, Farren suffers a fatal wound from an exploding crystal, a shard of which lodges in their chest.

Farren is awakened by Boji, a diminutive wolf-like creature who is native to the area. Boji tells Farren that the crystal in their chest is keeping them alive, but only so long as they remain in Acrea. Farren must travel across the land and gather important items in order to remove the crystal and safely leave Acrea.

With our call to action in place, Farren and Boji travel across the regions of Acrea. Although the land was supposed to be lost and forgotten, Farren is not the only one to reach it and must face off against others who have also travelled to Acrea. Rival adventurers and soldiers are not the only enemies players will face, as Acrea is also filled with fantastical creatures to fight.

Reinventing the wheel

Combat is where we need to start discussing the game in a bit more depth. As an action RPG, there are many ways combat could have panned out, but as we live in this timeline and it is currently a year that comes after 2012, the combat plays much like a Souls game. There is an attempt to design combat that feels weighty and methodical, where each swing of your weapon is a commitment.

Developing this combat style requires walking on a very fine line, a line that few studios have the balance or the budget to stay on. To say that Stray Blade fails to walk that line feels like an understatement, as it feels more like Stray Blade has never seen the line, nor is aware that it should be walking on one.

Swinging a weapon in Stray Blade feels like swimming in molasses, attack animations take far too long to start up, and even longer to recover. As a result, even the most basic short sword feels like a giant hammer or an oversized Final Fantasy sword. What makes it all the worse is that the impact doesn't match the attack.

You can commit to the two weeks it takes to swing a sword, but your enemy won't so much as flinch when you hit them. Even a heavy attack, which takes longer and does more damage, can hit an enemy mid-swing and still, they might not react. There is a jarring disconnect between the motion of your character's attacks and the impact that they have on enemies.

That is before we get on to the real enemy in Stray Blade, the camera. Few things matter more in a game like this than a properly functioning camera. In combat, the camera can lock on so rigidly that it becomes difficult to keep track of what is around you. Further, it snaps so quickly between enemies (and sometimes to nothing) seemingly at random that I thought I was going to get whiplash.

Sense of adventure

With combat pretty much a wash, enjoyment in this game comes largely from exploration. Stray Blade is not a fully open-world game, rather it is made up of several regions for you to explore. This is where the game is best, as the world and art design are both solid. The game has a slightly cartoonish look, simplistic but not overly abstract.

Exploration is light, simple and enjoyable for the most part, traits shared by the writing and characters. The biggest issue here is when this very pleasant world is juxtaposed with scenes of intense blood and gore.

Not that it is necessarily a bad thing or a detraction in any way, but it can be quite surprising when a game that seems so broadly appropriate incorporates such graphic violence. It might look like it, but this game is not very suitable for younger audiences. If you thought this game might be good for a baby's first Dark Souls, maybe look elsewhere.

Back and forth

Furthering the light and breezy vibes of Stray Blade is the writing of the dialogue. Boji will act as your guide through the game, as Farren traipses through this long-lost realm for the first time. Although neither Farren nor Boji has a discernable mouth of any kind, they chat a lot throughout the game. This was the highlight for me, the dialogue is generally witty and fun.

While Boji won't be appearing on any lists of the best companion characters in video games any time soon, that is more to do with the quality of the game than the quality of the character. Boji is very likeable and often quite funny. The player character Farren is equally well-written and performed, making their relationship a strong core that carries much of this game's other lacking features.

The verdict

I would refrain from calling Stray Blade a bad game, but I would absolutely call it an uninspiring one. As they say, bad artists borrow, and great artists steal. Stray Blade borrows much from its predecessors but seems to understand little about them. There have been more than a few games in recent years that fit that description, but few have the redeeming features that Stray Blade does.

The world is fairly interesting and a pleasure to explore (so long as you are not asked to do any platforming). The core characters are quite likeable, a fact that will see you through much of the game. If only the combat was even passable then Stray Blade could be one of those decent little games that most wouldn't bat an eye at, but for some could be a beloved hidden gem.

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.

2.5/5

Reviewed on PC. Code provided by the publisher.