Tokyo Game Show 2024

Phantom Blade 0's Hard Mode Sounds Intriguing

At the Tokyo Game Show 2024, I got some hands-on time with the upcoming action game Phantom Blade 0. It was violent, bloody, and difficult enough that it wasn't a cakewalk. But it's the hard mode I'm most excited about.

The demo was comprised of a tutorial and three boss battles (plus a group of normal enemies before the first one). For each boss, I equipped a different weapon—a straight sword, a long sword, and a curved great sword respectively. (There were also other weapons I could have switched two, including dual short swords and a chakram, but I honestly forgot to try them in the heat of battle.)

Basic combat is rather straightforward; you use a mixture of light and strong attacks to perform various combos. Then, when enemies attack, you can block or dodge—and when the enemy attacks flash red or blue, you have a chance for a precise dodge or parry which ends with you behind the enemy to perform a full combo.

It's here that the stamina bar comes into play. While normal attacks don't take stamina to use, defensive actions do. Dodge takes a big chunk out of it with each use. Then, when blocking, the bar depletes slowly, even if you're not being attacked. When attacked while blocking, small chunks come off the bar after each hit. Of course, taking a direct hit without dodging or blocking takes an even bigger chunk off the stamina bar along with your HP.

Parrying, however, does not deplete the stamina bar (and parrying blue attacks and dodging red ones even restores it). So, I spent most of my time in the demo attempting to parry everything—with admittedly mixed results. The timing window for parries was rather tight and I found if I missed the first parry, I often missed the whole chain. By the time I fought boss number three, I had instead begun blocking all normal attacks and only parrying/dodging the colored flash attacks. This strategy worked rather well.

So you might be wondering, how hard this game is. Well, as you can see in my gameplay footage (which, due to an error on my part, unfortunately, lacks sound), I didn't waltz through the demo unscathed. I faced each boss twice. Each time, I got destroyed while learning its attack patterns on the first try and came out on top in the second.

I'd say this is on the easier end of the difficulty sweet spot regarding these types of games. I couldn't blindly slash my way through on the first try but I won't be spending hours bashing my head against a wall either.

However, for those who find the normal difficulty mode too easy, the booth attendants told me that the full game will also come with a hard mode that completely changes how the game is played. In hard mode, the bosses have no combo patterns to memorize. They don't attack wildly either but instead, react to where you are in proximity to them and what you are doing. I'm excited to play around with it when the game is released.

All in all, I enjoyed my time. The game is still relatively early in development but the core combat gameplay already felt rather solid. I am looking forward to seeing how it's fleshed out in the coming years.