Phantom Blade Zero won me over with its combat. The swordplay felt responsive from my first session, and the best bosses kept me thinking about my timing long after I put the game down. I reached the true ending on Hellwalker on PC. The story took longer to click, and I noticed stutter in a few areas, but I still wanted one more fight by the time I was done.
I finished with 111 deaths. Most of them came from falling, which probably says more about how I explore than how I fight.
Hellwalker taught me to respect every fight
Peng Meng, the Axemaster, killed me several times because I kept giving myself credit for openings I hadn’t earned. I was enjoying the speed of the combat and getting away with being aggressive. Then I’d try to sneak in one more hit and pay for it. The Hunt and the Chief Disciple of the Seven-Stars Formation gave me different fights to work through, but that same lesson stuck. Even regular enemies could punish me when I stopped paying attention.
Hellwalker felt right for my run, with one caveat. I used an accessory that gave me a wider window for parries and perfect dodges. That extra room made a difference, so my experience with the difficulty also reflects the build I was using.
I also appreciated that a retry could start at the second phase of a boss fight I’d already reached. It let me work on the part that was beating me. Later on, the fight with Flame in Pangzhen went down more easily than I expected. Getting to use fireworks during a boss fight made it memorable anyway.
Exploration changed how I played
By the time I reached Meigu Lake, the game felt much bigger than I’d expected. There were side quests, optional bosses, and accessories worth looking for. I could usually find a direction to head in, and when something like Hua, Deadly Betrothed gave me trouble, I was happy to leave it for later.
Leveling felt straightforward, and reforging made it easy to change my mind about a weapon. I could reclaim upgrade materials and put them into a different one. By the time I fought the Gold-Masked One at Meigu Lake, I felt strong enough that the encounter went by quickly. Some of the difficulty came down to how much exploring I’d done and what I brought into the fight.
My favorite main weapons were the Wild Oriole Sword and the Baishan Stormswords. For my Phantom Edges, I kept coming back to the Thunder Spear for its damage and the Flying Guillotine for its ranged execution. Finishing an enemy from a distance was especially satisfying. Sanguine, Soul’s signature sword, still didn’t click for me after Soul Tempering.
The story clicked late
S-Game’s dark wuxia action RPG follows Soul, a warrior with 66 days left to live. I was hooked on the fighting early, but the story took its time. By the third area I was more curious about where it was going, and some of the later stretches still dragged for me.
The written collectibles made the difference. I already liked reading them for the lore. Toward the end, they helped me piece together what was happening and gave the world more context. I came away liking the story more than I expected to, even if the boss fights are what I’ll remember first.
Phantom Blade Zero PC performance on an RTX 5070 Ti
On my Ryzen 7 9800X3D and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti PC, I saw roughly 50 fps with graphics maxed out and path tracing enabled. With 2× Frame Generation enabled, the displayed frame rate averaged around 90 fps.
Those figures are rough observations from my playthrough. I still noticed frame-rate drops and stutter in larger areas, including Crimson Forest. The higher displayed frame rate made motion look smoother overall, and the occasional hitch was still easy to notice.
Frame Generation is NVIDIA’s DLSS feature. If you are on AMD, see which Radeon cards get FSR 4. Shopping for a new card? Our RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 Philippine launch guide covers prices and where to buy.
The PC version is available on Steam and the Epic Games Store. PlayStation Philippines also lists the PS5 version.
Verdict
If you like action games that reward learning a boss and give you room to experiment with your build, Phantom Blade Zero is easy to recommend. Hellwalker gave me a reason to pay attention even after I’d settled on my favorite weapons, and the side trips often gave me something worth bringing back to the next fight.
The slow stretches in the story and the occasional PC performance drops pulled me out of it. I was still thinking about the fights after the credits. That’s what made the game worth finishing for me.
