A preview of 505 Games’ most interesting game Stray Blade

Many publishers today focus on the niche market rather than directly tackling blockbusters. It’s a smart strategy: after all, it’s hard to compete with certain giants for resources, and it’s often more natural to get returns without investing excessive resources in smaller teams full of talent and high hopes. Therefore, when a new lineup has promotional events, there are usually a number of games that belong to the combined genres, with a few distinctive features and little more, designed primarily as solid products that can be appreciated by a consolidated fan base; Incredibly ambitious video game trailers with plans that could make even the largest modern open world pale are rare.

That was the case with the 505 presentation until Stray Blade, an open world action RPG developed by the Berliners, arrived. Dot Idle Games In addition to being very similar to Kingdoms of Amalur in terms of style, it seems to want to reintroduce some elements to much more complex outlines, a noticeably more advanced combat and development system, and even factions beyond Gothic. circle. Can it be done?

Let’s try to understand together in this process.Runaway Knife preview.

curse of the immortal

There storytelling perhaps the only element of Stray Knife that is not particularly rich and is “functional”, which uses the strange ruse of the protagonist’s death at the beginning of the adventure. In the role of an unknown adventurer, you will actually die as soon as you open a portal to the legendary land of Acrea, but will later be brought back to life by a hairy creature called the Boji and discover that you are one with it. A new continent full of magic and riches.

Connection with uncharted territory acre however, it also means being forever confined to its limits, unless you seize your intriguing immortality by revealing its origins. Fortunately, the good Boji seems very interested in unraveling the mysteries of these areas in your company, as long as you help him clear the obstacles in your path.

Everything is normal so far, but there is a central element that develops in the early stages of the story: Acrea is not just a place that explorers envy, and it is not a place where the protagonist opens the portal and gains free access to the main character. all the strongest groups to the world’s own land. This means that in your inevitable quest to break free from the curse that has imprisoned you there, you will face armies of various kinds, each with unique desires and motivations.

This is certainly no small thing, and although this item has not been fully explored in the game shown, it seems that the player’s actions will greatly affect the strength of these factions during the campaign, significantly changing the game world. Not easy to set up, a feature that most developers avoid without looking back to avoid complications.

Even the campaign’s progression isn’t one of the classics: the testament seems to offer one the map is almost freely exploreable, with no clear clues to progress except some advice from your furry friend. There are limitations on obtaining certain magical powers, without which certain areas are initially inaccessible, but it is clear how the developers wanted to maximize the player’s sense of exploration and almost free him.

Greed on the blade

Obviously, we’re talking about premisses that glorify us but also raise more than one doubt. A combined team would have already struggled to manage them in a much more limited open world, and Point Blank Games certainly doesn’t seem to have the resources of a software house used to build triple A’s. The beauty is when you go to analyze the game. , things get even more complicated because Stray Knife seems to want to marry a woman. highly technical action system.

The bases are very similar to an advanced version of those seen in the Amalur Kingdoms mentioned above: weapons with specific moves and abilities, spells with a wide variety of effects, and fairly classic defensive maneuvers with aiming and directional input to diversify hits. Weapon-related abilities look much more detailed here, but so much so that the system is designed to allow players not to fossilize on a single means of death.

After all, the development of skills depends only on the use of each weapon, and even after maximizing the capacity with this or that knife, it is always possible to take advantage of favorite combinations. The goal is to offer countless skills without “blocking” progress in a single class chosen at the start of the game: an idea we love, but hard to implement if you don’t have a great idea. combat designer.

Even the Bogie has offensive abilities on its side: it will attack certain opponents with random spells to create windows of vulnerability and can support you with various types of elemental powers. Oddly enough, your partner seems to be able to instantly bring you back to life with every death, which can make the experience much easier despite the presence of very aggressive enemies with a variety of patterns (and advanced maneuvers that require significant timing in movement and dodge). . However, it has been noted that deaths involve increased playtime, which can lead to major changes in the difficulty of combat and the strength of some factions, so we believe there is a lot more to analyze in this regard. field. That said, it’s not fair to expect a system comparable to Nemesis: it would be a seriously overkill tech mix, and we’d be starting to get to the science fiction of game design.

Also close to Amalur general view By Stray Blade, due to the slightly over-proportioning of the characters and rather cartoonish and stylized graphics. The look didn’t look bad to us, and the game also seems to boast multiple customization options that can greatly enhance the whole. In short, there is really a lot of meat on the fire, but can this German team really cook it all properly?