Phantom Blade: Executioners~
A masterpiece in mobile gaming! The game truly understands itself and knows what it wants to establish itself as in mobile market. A side scrolling Dark Souls game. At least that's what I felt from playing it. I had cleared the normal stages for The Maple Temple, before my game apparently resetted? Not sure if it was intentional or a error in the game, so if the Devs are reading some insight into my acct losing all data would be appreciated. I understand the data would be wiped after CBT~ but CBT is still ongoing?
Apart from that this review would've been a lot more detailed had I not lost my details cause I was hopin to share build and skill details but without my acct I can't really look into what I had anymore... so with that said I'll try my best to give a fair review.
The game is visually stunning using a manga visual to narrate the story with pretty ok voice acting. I say ok because I feel if I had the option to opt for Chinese or Japanese VA would've been nicer. Not to say Eng Dub is bad but at times I couldn't really resonate with the male villains pain the first villain we face from the female hero's route. The game being side scrolling is what makes it perfect to run on most mobiles and the fact that it's gonna be available cross plat (hopin for 120fps supp) it'll be really fun to just jump between mobile/console/Pc. The art style can be eerie, beautiful and just straight-out nightmarish at times! Add the stunning score of this game and you have some of the best moments just standing there and taking in the tones & scenery— awe! The sound of your horse carriage arriving every rounds end, just adds up to the vibe of the stage more.
The combat of the game. As I mentioned before the game felt like DarkSouls— fans of the series must be thinking "it's gotta be a hard game then?" well yesn't. You can't really just mash a bunch of moves together and button mash your way through the game to an extent it'll work in the normal modes but it'll very inefficient and you won't really enjoy the game at its finest. The core of the game is how you build your character, you want to get those right moves and those right phantoms and gears to compliment them. I'd love to share my skill set had my data not been erased... but however basically you want to read the description and preview the skill— adjust your other skills in way that the previous skill may lead up to the next skill and the next skill being able correspond to the one after and set itself up to match with the next one. I had a pretty good combo skill set setup and could've helped y'all if you needed help ofc. The only summonable thing (the gacha) is Phantoms, they basically are add-ons that you equip to your combo skills to boost their stats as well as your own characters. Dmg% boowr atk boost hp boost etc etc.
The gear grind is the endgame of this I had reached a total score of 3700+ before my data got lost. I was pretty comfortable with my build and it wasn't really that hard to build tho I had like 3-4 pieces of epic equipment. So epic (golden equipment) doesn't have a really nice drop rate and will surely be a long endgame haul. I feel like the rates should be adjusted because it was really super rare to get em. Considering that there's no auto and I hope it stays that way.
Tho I do feel the daily missions aren't the best. They seem to require quite the time to complete I believe a FGO method should be adopted no dailies just simple weeklies (or were there dailies in fgo) anyhow I think it would suit many more people if the daily missions rewards were upped and served on weekly basis rather than daily. Obviously adjusting the missions so they can fit the weekly timetable.
The game hosts an incredible lore with a lot to explore in side missions and main story. Taking the purple arrow route is a must if you truly wish to enjoy every ounce of dialogue the story has offer. I don't wanna jump into spoiler territory so that's all I'll say.
Rest the game does have a few minor issues like the outfit screen display has immense frame flickers and sometimes the subs don't align with the dialogue being spoken and the obviously epic item rate. Not to add my data being erased (once again Idk if this is intentional by the creators or just an error) The game is a must play in the gacha genre and an absolute play in the mobile game genre as of now. I hope for a great launch considering the game during its CBT is in very good state.
P.S
Big thank you to the developers for creating something that is actually fun, tactical, relaxing and hard at the same time. Everyone should certainly give this game a go. Other than that I hope you found this review helpful or enjoyable at the least.