Phantom Blade Zero

Phantom Blade Zero is a thrilling action game with excellent combat, a huge selection of weapons, and truly spectacular boss encounters. While it has a few issues, they barely affect an otherwise outstanding experience.

Phantom Blade Zero is undoubtedly an exceptional, remarkable, and truly unique game. With an investment comparable to that of a major AAA production, S-GAME has brought its producer's almost obsessive vision to life, creating a work with an unmistakable personal style and creative identity. At the same time, its mature gameplay framework and broad commercial appeal make even its most demanding and unconventional elements accessible and enjoyable to a wider audience.

With excellent level design, unique and fluid combat that is, above all, fun, a vast array of weapons, and a deep focus on exploration, Phantom Blade Zero surprises not just through its individual merits, but because the experience as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts — making it one of the best games of 2026.

Phantom Blade Zero is a fantastic action game, underpinned by a combat system that borders on perfection. Whilst the narrative requires some patience at the outset and the design of the basic enemies fails to impress, the cast of epic bosses provides the perfect foil for the protagonists and their vast and impressive arsenal, which is brilliantly animated. Far from being just another run-of-the-mill game, it’s a fluid, visceral and incredibly rewarding dance. Long live Kungfupunk!

The more I played Phantom Blade Zero, the more I fell in love with it. S-GAME has crafted an action RPG that delivers exactly what I've been craving: fast, fluid combat with an incredible arsenal of weapons, spectacular boss encounters and enough depth to keep me experimenting throughout the adventure. I wish the early story beats set the stage better and that some traversal mechanics and technical issues didn't interrupt the experience. But when I think back on my time with Phantom Blade Zero, what stands out are the incredible fights, the strange characters I encountered, and how often I wanted to keep playing.

Playing Phantom Blade Zero means, first and foremost, accepting failure—especially when you find yourself embedded in the stone floor of an ancient temple, courtesy of a formidable opponent. And yet, while the game provides every reason to hurl your DualSense controller out the window, it also stands as an uncompromising display of artistic mastery: from its sumptuous visuals and eclectic soundtrack to its inventive arsenal and the sheer abundance of areas to explore. It offers moments of pure, wuxia-inspired grace—though these are framed by a narrative style that could best be described as rather disjointed. In short, it is a grand action game that transcends the sum of its parts, with the potential to become a true cult classic. Just keep an eye on its technical performance at launch.

Phantom Blade Zero achieves its goal of creating wonderfully fluid and cinematic kung fu-style combat - but balance and quality issues ultimately dim its shine.

Jogo excelente!!! Lutas divertidas e bosses bom demais. Uma variedade de armas e combos.

Phantom Blade Zero offers solid combat, weapon variety, and environment design, but they can't hide the fact that the game also has subpar cutscene performance capture, facial animation, texture detail, terribly bad dialogue, rough map design, and uninteresting storytelling. Core boss interactions have problems too, with unclear hit and parry cues and unrewarding boss-fight interactions. Overall, a solid entry from first-time AAA developer S-Game, but it leaves much to be desired, especially following the much more impressive Black Myth Wukong by another high-profile Chinese developer.

O combate é bom mas nada demais. As boss fights são o destaque, e a coreografia das lutas em geral são ótimas, mas particularmente eu esperava mais. É um bom jogo de ação apenas.

I also agree that a difficult game isn't necessarily a "Souls-like." But let’s be clear: The game was marketed as an Action-RPG adventure, and the marketing team explicitly stated that it would NOT have the same level of demands as games in the "Souls-like" genre. Naturally, players concluded that they wouldn't be facing "bullet-sponge" bosses (or rather, "HP-sponge" bosses) that unleash long combo chains, requiring precise parries and dodges with extremely punishing windows for counter-attacks.I acknowledge that there’s no respawn mechanic or loss of resources—fair enough. But look—if it takes you eight days (figuratively speaking) to take down a single boss, some people simply won't find that fun; had they known, they certainly wouldn't have bought the game. I understand that for those who enjoy this type of gameplay, the game might actually be too easy—but you also have to consider those for whom this is absolutely not their cup of tea. As I said, for me—and many others—this isn't at all the game I was expecting. There are several issues: the unacknowledged "Souls-lite" nature, the trailers that looked incredibly good... well, it *is* beautiful in places, but in others, it’s actually quite mediocre or even ugly. (I’m running it on a system with an RTX 5080, 64GB of RAM, and an i7 Ultra.) You might have a decent-looking panorama, but then you turn the camera and see rocks with low-resolution textures and jagged, poorly defined shapes. I’d love to get into the story (really! And i'm actually on the 3rd map), the lore, and the background, but honestly—it’s just poorly told! Crimson Desert was even better, and that wasn't even remotely the game's strong suit... Still, if some people are having fun, that’s great—honestly, I wish I could be like you and enjoy it, but... nope :'(

if it is about this game vs onimusha, onimusha wins any day. this game feels unpolished and is trying to pose as a souls game but is not