Phantom Blade Zero is the best action RPG I've played all year. The staggering variety of imaginative weapons available to wuxia hero Soul, all painstakingly animated via authentic martial arts choreography, is what really sets the game apart. This is not a Soulslike. You lose nothing upon death, enemies never respawn, stamina is plentiful, there are no RPG stats, and you will restart at phase two of a boss if you clear phase one. Yet Phantom Blade Zero solves two of my biggest complaints with most Soulslikes, one of which still bothers me whenever I sit down to play Elden Ring on a new character.

Nothing bums me out faster than barely surviving a tough boss fight and then eagerly sprinting to the blacksmith to forge their weapon, only to learn it has almost the exact same move set as the longsword I found in a bin 40 hours ago. This instrument of death feared across the lands is, actually, a normal sword with better stats. If I'm lucky, it may have a special charged attack – often one so slow that I can only use it against most enemies by giving 14 days advance notice.

Weapons in Phantom Blade Zero – the main ones that you swing all the time, and the sub-weapons you break out for special occasions – all feel distinct, and almost every major boss drops one (there are a lot of bosses). There are a lot of swords in this game too, and it feels great to swing them, to hear steel clash like colliding icebergs.

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