Xuan Yuan Sword VII is a very linear and story-driven action RPG. The gameplay, level design and overall structure of the game reminded me a lot of The Witcher 2, but in a Chinese high fantasy mythological setting.
This was an interesting experience for me because I have very limited knowledge of Chinese tropes so the story felt pretty interesting and fresh. The story follows our protagonist Taishi Zhao on a quest to restore his sister's soul to her body so Taishi goes on a massive adventure across a whole continent while getting tangled up into a war between two rival political factions among other things.
There weren't many characters, but the few characters there were are pretty solid with fairly realistic personalities and good backstories, but the translation was a bit dry and direct at times and I feel like I could've gotten more emotionally invested if it was a bit better. Also you just have to have a bit of suspension of disbelief due to all the characters being ridiculously powerful for no reason despite supposedly basically being normal humans.
The character animations aren't the best and feel very low budget, but the actual visuals and cut-scenes were great with some really cool Wuxia styled action and lots of really beautiful set pieces from snowy mountains to lush forests, plus I really liked the dungeon and monster design too.
The OST was great, it ranged from traditional Chinese folk to bombastic orchestral music and it always fit the tone and setting of the scene.
The voice work acting was honestly really well done despite sometimes being a bit overdramatic and the extensive dialogue and cut-scenes made me feel like I was watching a Chinese drama at times.
You might be asking, why is the game only solid? It sounds like you thought everything was great? Well if we were just talking story, characters, music, visual etc the game would get an 8 or an 8.5 for sure from me.
However here's the problem, the game's biggest negative is the gameplay which just wasn't the best. It either felt extremely easy and autopilot button mashy or insanely hard with bullshit artificial difficulty spikes. There was no in between. Some bosses would literally practically one-shot you and just didn't feel fair at all. Whenever I finally won, never felt rewarded like I actually got better, it was just a battle of endurance and luck. Also I have to mention the ridiculous amounts of technical difficulties, frame rate drops, lag and bugs. The game was just horribly optimized, at least on PS4 (I have a PS4 pro as well) and that definitely dampened my enjoyment some. Mainly what kept me going aside from the story and characters was I liked the exploration and Uncharted styled platforming/puzzle sections.
At the end of the day Xuan Yuan Sword VII is a great piece of Chinese Wuxia high fantasy with an interesting story and world, solid characters which are voiced well and great visual and audio presentation that is unfortunately brought down significantly by its poor optimization, gameplay balancing issues and slightly dry translation.
This was an interesting experience for me because I have very limited knowledge of Chinese tropes so the story felt pretty interesting and fresh. The story follows our protagonist Taishi Zhao on a quest to restore his sister's soul to her body so Taishi goes on a massive adventure across a whole continent while getting tangled up into a war between two rival political factions among other things.
There weren't many characters, but the few characters there were are pretty solid with fairly realistic personalities and good backstories, but the translation was a bit dry and direct at times and I feel like I could've gotten more emotionally invested if it was a bit better. Also you just have to have a bit of suspension of disbelief due to all the characters being ridiculously powerful for no reason despite supposedly basically being normal humans.
The character animations aren't the best and feel very low budget, but the actual visuals and cut-scenes were great with some really cool Wuxia styled action and lots of really beautiful set pieces from snowy mountains to lush forests, plus I really liked the dungeon and monster design too.
The OST was great, it ranged from traditional Chinese folk to bombastic orchestral music and it always fit the tone and setting of the scene.
The voice work acting was honestly really well done despite sometimes being a bit overdramatic and the extensive dialogue and cut-scenes made me feel like I was watching a Chinese drama at times.
You might be asking, why is the game only solid? It sounds like you thought everything was great? Well if we were just talking story, characters, music, visual etc the game would get an 8 or an 8.5 for sure from me.
However here's the problem, the game's biggest negative is the gameplay which just wasn't the best. It either felt extremely easy and autopilot button mashy or insanely hard with bullshit artificial difficulty spikes. There was no in between. Some bosses would literally practically one-shot you and just didn't feel fair at all. Whenever I finally won, never felt rewarded like I actually got better, it was just a battle of endurance and luck. Also I have to mention the ridiculous amounts of technical difficulties, frame rate drops, lag and bugs. The game was just horribly optimized, at least on PS4 (I have a PS4 pro as well) and that definitely dampened my enjoyment some. Mainly what kept me going aside from the story and characters was I liked the exploration and Uncharted styled platforming/puzzle sections.
At the end of the day Xuan Yuan Sword VII is a great piece of Chinese Wuxia high fantasy with an interesting story and world, solid characters which are voiced well and great visual and audio presentation that is unfortunately brought down significantly by its poor optimization, gameplay balancing issues and slightly dry translation.