We tell you what our first impressions of this game have been.

Promotional image of Stray Blade.

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It’s quite curious how “souls” type video games have become fashionable in recent years, and that is that since the launch of Elden Ring, we have seen how many other studies enter the genre, although do not be fooled by the clamor momentary, because these titles probably began to develop before the last work of Hidetaka Miyazaki saw the light. This makes the situation even more curious, because if we look at the issue of dates, we can see that it was probably around the time of the release of Bloodborne, one of the best PS4 games, when the popularity of this type of video game rose.

The most curious thing is that most video games end up trying to be similar in all aspects, which is why in many cases they end up feeling more like a copy than a completely different title. Today we are going to talk about Stray Blade, a video game that does not seem to belong to this genre at first, but which shows its true references when you put yourself at the controls.

We have already been able to test it, so we will tell you about it below what have been our impressions of this titlewhich we already warned you that it has nothing to do with other similar things that we have seen.

All the essence of the genre

Yes, we have already made it clearer, and it is that yes, although it may not seem so at first glance, we are talking about a game that, at least at the base, bets on introduce all the bases that we already saw in the Dark Souls franchisealthough it leaves out some things, which we have not been able to miss in what we have played of the title.

Basically, and to review, in Stray Blade we will find a resistance bar, the classic bonfires (although they have another name here) and combat based on weak and strong attacks. Likewise, in this title we will find considerable interest in learning how to parry, which we can already warn you that it is not especially easy.

In addition, in what we have been able to test, we have already been able to notice, in addition to perfectly, that we are talking about a fairly challenging game, which will not forgive us for failures, forcing us to learn its mechanics. Many of you, after seeing its aesthetics, may have thought it would be a simple “soul”, or easier, and that is what we thought at first, but to tell the truth there is nothing simple about it, what’s more, it had been a game for a long time. It didn’t challenge us that much. The best thing about this is that we have only been able to test a portion, because you can imagine the great doses of challenge that we will find in the final product.

Likewise, it is necessary to mention that the progression system is similar to the one we see in games of this style, although in this case, instead of working with in-game coins, it works with an experience bar that increases little by little. . When you level up, you receive an experience point, and with that point you can improve the attribute you want. This seems very simple at its base, but the truth is that we believe that, to get familiar with this system you have to play many hours.

Stray Blade will implement, in its own way, all the elements of soul games.

The importance of parries

We have already talked about combat in general, but we wanted to delve a little into the subject of deflections, commonly known as “parrys”. In many video games of this type we can find an interesting implementation of this mechanic, which usually requires a lot of skill or practice on the part of the player.

In this case, and take this with a grain of salt because we’re not talking about endgame, we’ve had the feeling that it might ask more of the player than it should. Basically, when you can perform a deflection, a gray symbol will appear on the head of the enemy in question, while when they make an unblockable attack the same symbol appears but in red. This system is very similar to the one we saw in the Arkham franchise, and therefore we thought that the detour would be similar, but the truth is that it requires learning the patterns very well.

In this sense, the difficulty increases, because in addition, the dodges are also very difficult to hit, having a very small invulnerability sale. In this way, the safest way to play is the classic one of these games, that is, deal a blow and go back at the moment, and even so many times we have been damaged.

The parry will be very important in the Stray Blade combat.

A little color never hurt

You will have already noticed it, and we have commented on it superficially, but we are talking about a game of this type that abandons gray tones, and instead decides to bet on a much more colorful artistic style, which remember, in some moments, and only in their scenariosa Breath of the Wild.

This is a decision that seems very successful, at least initially, and as we have been able to see in already distributed images of the game, the variety of scenarios that we will find They will make this artistic design shine even more. In addition, we liked the design of the enemies a lot, which seem to be very diverse and unique.

Likewise, we can say that we have also noticed that, apparently, in addition to their designs, they also we will be able to notice the differences of each type of enemy in their way of fighting, since the movement sets turn out to be very diverse. This, again, has seemed very interesting to us, as well as another addition that helps us to be facing a game that, it seems, will be quite difficult to finish.

The artistic section is one of the ones that has surprised us the most within Stray Blade.

A very refreshing proposal within its genre

Undoubtedly, we are before an interesting proposal within its genre, to which we have been able to get several buts, which we hope to be able to remove when the game is released. Even so, in this small test we have been able to notice a wide variety of interesting ideas, which we hope to see developed in the final title.

If you like enjoy a different soulit looks like Stray Blade will be a solid proposition to consider when it releases this coming April.

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