Xuan Yuan 7 is the latest in the series of popular (in China) ARPG's from Taiwanese developers Softstar. Eastasiasoft are now bringing it to the West and launching it on PS4 and Xbox.
Set 2000 years ago in China near the end of Western Han rule, Xuan Yuan Sword 7 places players in the role of noble swordsman Taishi Zhao following clues found in the crypt of Marquis of Liu that promised prosperity, but only brought famine and misery in its wake.
To protect his family and seek out the truth of this calamity, Taishi Zhao embarks upon a journey through a mythological realm full of otherworldly beings bent on his destruction. Along the way, Taishi Zhao must master a host of fighting techniques. Armed with the Elysium Scroll, he can slow down time, absorb monsters, or alter the environment. Upgrade your armor and weapons, develop passive skills, and learn new techniques. Block, dodge, and riposte your foes as you journey through this haunted realm.
Sounds great, but is it?
Unfortunately the game is remarkably average. It obviously has high aspirations, drawing heavy inspiration from games like God of War and The Witcher, but ultimately falls very short of either.
There are some really nice touches to the game however. The voice acting (which is all in Chinese) is very well produced, as are the boss models and fights.
Everything else is just "fine" or sub par.
Graphically the game looks very inconsistent. Some areas of beautifully rendered in great detail, while other sections seem to look very flat with multiple reused assets and like they've just been phoned in. It's almost like completely separate studios were creating the game simultaneously and it was stitched together as some sort of Frankenstein's abomination.
It's worth noting that XuanYuan 7 was released on PC almost a year ago and was one of the first games to take advantage of ray tracing. There are no such graphical enhancements on the console versions.
I contacted the developers to see if there would be updates in the future for the Gen 9 consoles to include ray tracing or any graphic updates. They replied saying there were no plans, this will be a purely PS4/Xbox last generation only release.
While it would I have been a welcome addition to the game, it would have by no means been its saving grace. There are too many aspects of gameplay where XuanYuan falls flat.
Combat is very one dimensional, basic attacks are really all that's needed to defeat enemies and even bosses.
I started the game as it was probably intended to be played, cautiously exploring and applying updates to my skills, weapons and equipment. So many similar looking "Soulslike" games have taght me, death is only a mistimed "fat roll" away.
But it soon became apparent that I could simply dash through enemies and run to the end of a section, whereby the enemies would either disengage and I could exit, or a huge group of creatures would congregate and I could effortlessly cleave them all down.
Even without upgrading my abilities or equipment the game just plays more like a musou than an ARPG.
The environments are all very samey and it would be easy to get lost among repeatedly used landmarks, that is, if it were not for the quest markers. These are incredibly intrusive and completely ruined immersion for me. The main quest marker is always on screen, very large and high contrast bright red, I could find no option in the settings to turn this off.
XuanYuan does contain some light puzzle elements, but nothing even remotely verging on cerebral or cryptic. The most difficult part of any of the puzzles, is getting the character model to line up with the environment correctly so that the "interact" button becomes clickable.
I played through around 4 to 5 hours of the game before I decided to call it quits. The trivial nature of the combat challenge, coupled with boring and repetitive goals and environments just makes for a game that does not respect your time.
It's one of those games that looks far better in screenshots than it ever actually does to play. While no means a terrible game, I had hoped for a lot more and indeed, a lot more would be needed to introduce this franchise to Western gamers.
A wasted opportunity which unfortunately may negativity impact other regional titles making their way to mainstream console release, which would be a terrible shame.
XuanYuan 7 is a distinctly "OK" ARPG, but underwhelming combat and repetitive environments and quests do nothing to justify its $60 price point.
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