There has perhaps never been a statement made by a human or group of humans that I resonate as much as the following words from Phantom Blade Zero director Qiwei Liang to PC Gamer in its new magazine issue: "Nowadays there are too many Souls games."
Yes. YES. If I have to watch another trailer for an otherwise promising fantasy RPG, only to recognize the familiar, lumbering swagger of a big thing with a bigger weapon, a player character dodge-rolling around its orbit, the subsequent clanging of parrying steel, then face the realization that, yes, it's another gosh darn Soulslike, I'm gonna go mad.
Liang has previously insisted that Phantom Blade Zero is "neither a Soulslike game nor a traditional action game," and from what I've seen in gameplay trailers, it does seem to focus more on frenetic, acrobatic combat than the high gravity, methodical movement that defines Soulslike battles. What I'm saying is, I like what I see. That said, Liang said we won't really know what we're looking at until we play it.
"People will not understand exactly what it is until they actually play it. But this is how the gaming industry evolves – many current genres are some sort of mixture. Back in the '60s and '70s, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, all these kung fu masters created a new genre in kung fu movies. We don't call them action movies. We call them kung fu, right? It incorporated some of Hollywood, Chinese kung fu culture, and Chinese traditional opera to make something new.
"So for us, our idea is to create a new subgenre [within] the RPG or action game: a kung fu action game."
I'm skeptical about the suggestion that "kung fu action" isn't already an established game subgenre, especially with Sifu not very far in the rearview and Shenmue going way back to the late '90s, but giving Yiang the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume he's specifically referring to the Soulslike variety of action RPGs and suggesting there's untapped potential in blending that type of experience with a martial arts focus, which indeed sounds pretty cool.
Phantom Blade Zero has no release date just yet, but while we wait for one, here are the best RPGs to play right now.
