When Chinese action game Phantom Blade Zero was first revealed to the world, it drew countless comparisons to FromSoftware’s Souls games, to the point its director (the appropriately-nicknamed “Soulframe” Liang) had to repeatedly downplay the influence. More recently, as more of Phantom Blade Zero has been shown, it’s been compared favourably to the Ninja Gaiden series for its combo-led combat. So where exactly does it sit on this spectrum?
According to the people making it, it’s both. I spoke with Liang and the S-Game team at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), where I was taken through Phantom Blade Zero’s three key influences. Firstly, the game has the combo-driven combat of Devil May Cry, though it’s more approachable with less complex inputs. Secondly, it has the level design of Dark Souls with its interconnected maps, though it omits the high cost of death. Thirdly, it takes the creepy, thick atmosphere of Resident Evil 4 or Alan Wake, but with a new aesthetic the team describes as kung fu punk.
“I don’t think that is a frustration, it’s just something to help the players to understand the game better,” said Liang, when I asked if the frequent Souslike comparison was frustrating. “Although there was a misunderstanding and now there are more people comparing us to Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry, which is the other way around. But maybe this is a way to help another group of players to understand or anticipate the game. There’s something for both sides.
“But for us, it’s hard to label our game as a pure Souls game, nor hack and slash. It’s just something in between. It’s a way to tell a story.”
Liang admitted simply borrowing from other games would make the game too generic; instead he wants to create a coherent game as a “whole piece of art”, based on two philosophies.
The first is the idea of a playable kung fu film. “We want to call back the golden age of Hong Kong kung fu movies from the 1970s, starting from Bruce Lee and then Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen,” he said. “The trend has faded out since the early 2000s so we want to go back to that and try to bring the trend back.”