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- EastAsiaSoft
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- EastAsiaSoft
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- EastAsiaSoft
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- EastAsiaSoft
Xuan-Yuan Sword 7
Released On: Sep 30, 2021
71
6.9
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
All Platforms
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
71
33% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
58% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
8% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
71
33% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
58% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
8% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
This game is excellent. It plays nicely, has solid cultural resonance, and actually respects the player's time, as it's only around 20 hours or so in length (while not compromising on the narrative quality). This is easily one of my favourite games of the year, which is why I wanted to do something a little special in reviewing it.
Between stunning performances, a sharp new script, gorgeous, cinematic presentation, and the fluid action that ties everything together, it tells that story beautifully. Xuan Yuan Sword may not be a well-known name in the west, but it should be—and Xuan Yuan Sword 7 is a wonderful demonstration of why.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 User Ratings
6.9
56% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
19% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
25% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 User Ratings
6.9
56% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
19% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
25% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
XUAN YUAN 7 REVIEW (Playstation 4)
I have never played a RPG made by a Chinese developer, and when I saw the graphics and combat of Xuan Yuan 7, I investigated some and realize that this series has been out there for PC since more than 30 years ago. Is like a Final Fantasy but from a Chinese developer, and it got my eye. The game is so good that it is one of my most beloved games for the Playstation4.
SETTING
Medieval China, you are an orphan who lives with your sister. Both escaped from death when you were little, as you hold a magical scroll that allows you to travel to Elysium and have magical abilities. The setting is nothing complex, but it is deep enough to get you engaged. You travel around some parts of ancient China, gathering allies and increasing your talents to topple the evil intentions of an empire bent on obtaining the power of the gods.
MECHANICS
• Exploration:
This is a semi-open world adventure, where areas are long passages with branching paths, seldom leading to the same location. However, the world is big and there are travel points. A good mechanic in this game is that there is no transition when yo9u get into a house, a cave, or a ruin; so, it is a seamless experience. In the world you can interact with people, attack foes, climb, rest at camps, buy and sell things. The controls are easy to master, and the characters move fluidly on the world map. I enjoyed my time exploring this game through and through.
• Combat:
An addictive experience. You attack with R1 and have a “talent” attached to R2. You have “Stamina” in here, but it is very well balanced. In higher difficulties the enemies hit hard, and I would have preferred that the healing items recovered more, and they have a cool down time. I recommend playing in the lower difficulty levels to get accustomed to the combat. You can block, and dash away incoming attacks, you can use items, and you can unleash special abilities. When you get all of your partners, although you cannot change your main character, you can control the other party members’ main skills, so it is very satisfying to wait for your skills to cool down whilst unleashing devastating attacks with your other characters. All in real time, the combat feels fresh and well crafted. My only complaint is that some bosses hit very hard, and are often too fast, but then again, by playing in the lower levels I have become more experienced in the combat. I have never had so much fun in combat since The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt.
• Crafting
You buy and sell items, but if you want to increase the power of your armor or increase the attack attributes of your sword as well as the cosmetics behind it, you need to craft. By using the magic scroll you can enter the Elysium menu, where you can opt to combine items to modify your equipment status and cosmetics, but also you can combine the souls of your defeated foes to create more powerful souls that you can use as relics. For instance, you can have a “Soul if Vitality” which increases your health, and the combinations are many. You can easily get lost combining souls here and there just to see the results. It is a system that encourages creativity and exploration, as when you run out of souls, you ought to slay additional foes.
• Chess
Zhuolo Chess is incredible. I have lost hours upon hours defeating very hard opponents. I seldom partake on side activities like mini games, but this thing is freaking awesome and addictive. Give it a try, as it is a nice way to do something different. The game is not boring at all but is refreshing to see such a well-crafted mini game as part of the gameplay.
VISUALS
I think that Ghost of Tsushima and God of War are the best-looking games in the PS4, but now, Xuan Yuan 7 has officially joined these as well. It is that good. The visuals are amazing, character expressions are well done, and movement is superb, especially in combat. Youn will not be disappointed when you look at this game, I often just stay there looking at the horizon, or watching people moving about in a tiny village.
SOUND AND MUSIC
Another area where the games excel. Using instruments from China, the soundtrack of this game is amazing. I can only say that the music in this game is pristine and magical. There are a couple of soundtracks that captivated me with their magic. Characters speak in Chinese, and you cannot use any other language, but to me that is not a problem. I often play games on different mythologies in their intended language, that is not a problem.
Bottom line, Xuan Yuan 7 is a fine game that will entertain you. I am happy I bought this game as it is a 20-hour experience with a lot of replayability value. I am excited for the other Chines games being developed like Black Myth: Wukong or Where the Winds Meet.
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PlayStation 4
Man, I love this game, its everything the modern western gaming industry isn't and thats a good **** characters are lovable and compeling, the story keeps you invested and the combat and leveling is exactly enough to keep you ****'s not a bloated wokfest like the western games flooding the market, it's a game made with passion and pure skill. The best comparison would be the early Witcher games. I fell in love with the characters and story and enjoyed every second of the gameplay and exploration. There is some jenk and performance issues, but that is a small price for a game that feels like it has the passion and skill behind it that games from 10 20 30 years ago had. Before games were just **** by massive teams of sooky Californians more worried about twitter politics and only working a 25 hour week.
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PlayStation 4
As much as we enjoy our first
taste of Xuan-Yuan, it’s definitely
rough around the edges. We
experience framerate drops
whenever we go near rivers,
hitboxes not being where they
should be, and some oddly
endearing animation jank. But as
long as you’re fine with
that, you’ll have a good
time hacking through it. [Issue#8, p.84]
Xuan Yuan Sword 7 tells a compelling story with gorgeous scenery and loveable characters, but it’s difficult to recommend to just anybody. I’m usually not one to knock game length, but a linear 15 – 20 hour experience for $49.99 is a harder sale than most. If you prefer story and style over combat and gameplay, Xuan Yuan Sword 7 is a no-brainer, its focus on familial bonds between brother and sister absolutely heartwarming. If you’re looking for a little more action in your ARPGs, Xuan Yuan Sword 7 probably won’t give you the satisfaction you’re expecting.
I had plenty of fun with Xuan Yuan Sword 7. Though I wish the story would have been a little more engaging, the fun yet straightforward combat and exploration kept me going until the end, that said the game does suffer from some lousy difficulty spikes and forgotten mechanics that are introduced early on. It's the seventh core title in the franchise, and I'm hoping it's not the last one to make it to western shores.
Overall, Xuan Yuan Sword 7 is a completely mediocre game. That isn't to say it can't be fun or doesn't have strong moments, but somehow, none of what it does really stands out. It's interesting to see a long-running franchise finally get its chance to shine outside of its home country, but Xuan Yuan Sword 7 doesn't do enough to set it apart from the crowd. There are a lot of interesting ideas here, and I look forward to seeing what the next entry shows off.
This action RPG boasts a simple yet quite bearable combat system and beautiful environments. But the level design is nothing short of a tragedy and so are the preposterously long loading screens.
The seventh Xuan Yuan Sowrd. Touching story, beautiful music, and great game. A Eastern Han Dynasty Saga. (1st Century AD)
It doesn't look as good as modern 3A games, but unreal 4 engine makes it look better than many Japanese RPGs on PS4. This is not the best ARPG, as Taiwanese are still on their way of modernizing, but the story is beautiful, the music makes you drop tears, and the gameplay is good, if not great.
It is the story of a brother, a sister, and a childhood friend. Simple, pure, and beautiful. Interestingly, many Chinese don't like this story, because being educated in communist way, individual is nothing if he/she doesn't serve the ruler. They don't understand the right of one person is the right of whole nation. In the setting of this game, the early stage of Chinese civilization, not only people believe in personal freedom and importance of individuality, Taoism philosophers literally said "Harming one person to benefit the whole nation, is totally unacceptable".
Xuan Yuan Sword 7 is a true heritage of Chinese Culture and its belief in love, freedom, and personal value, and it is great for anyone who's interested in something worthy but barely covered in other games.
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PlayStation 4
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PlayStation 4
It brings me no pleasure to say that XYS7 is unfortunately average in all ways. The game has its charm from the Asian themes and context but ultimately is a very middle-of- the-road outing.
The graphics may be one of the best things about XYS7. The environments in particular I found to be beautiful, with the green foliage to the autumnal leaves in other areas. The downside of this is that it's counterbalanced by dungeons that are incredibly bland and grayscale affairs. The character models which look good are also plagued by wooden movements in cut-scenes. This is a consistent issue with XYS7 - everything is dragged down to average whilst showing great promise.
The gameplay lets XYS7 down a bit. The most consistently irritating thing I found was a lack of a sprint function, which is quite an issue in an adventure game. You have waypoints you can teleport with, but there isn't always one nearby, so sprinting would have been very helpful.
The combat is fun, if a bit basic. One thing that could have really boosted the experience would have been to be able to switch characters and play as your companions, rather than the single instruction you are restricted to giving them. By the end of the game I was fed up of encountering enemies rather than excited for a battle. I also don't understand the imprison concept - it would have been far better if your skill bar for this just built up with each kill rather than having to execute a separate strategy mid-battle. A final note on combat - boss difficulty spikes were very odd, especially with the final boss who barely damaged me except for one fire attack that one-shotted me multiple times.
Exploration in the game could also get a bit stale and irritating. Quite a few obstacles could be traversed with a simple jump, yet for some reason our protagonist cannot jump at all. I didn't appreciate having to take the scenic route.
The story of XYS7 is a plot involving political warfare mixed with supernatural elements in trying to save your sister's life. One of my biggest issues with the plot was the amount of unnecessary cut-scenes where little happens. The game could really benefit from a smoother transition into cut-scenes also, instead of the outdated fade-to-black, as this adds to the length of cut-scenes and ruins any fluidity. Whoever's idea it was to use a bird-like voice for one of the characters portrayed by a talking bird made a very bad choice, as I found it such a grating voice, whereas none others bothered me at all. Overall, the plot of XYS7 is fairly unremarkable, and I heavily criticise the end-game section that made me traverse from area-to-area just for cut-scenes before sending me into New Game+.
In summary, XYS7 isn't a bad game, but it's also fairly unmemorable too. Having glossed over the Wiki page after finishing the game, it appears this series has been going since 1990. This makes me even more critical, as a budget may be lacking but innovation and creativity should be flourishing much more than is evidenced here. XYS7 plays more like an early PS4 title rather than a 2020 title. It still makes me interested in seeing the next game, but much less likely to buy it.
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PlayStation 4
+ Story and characters is the number one reason to play this game.
+ The graphics are pretty good.
+ Music is good.
- Isn't dubbed, so it's easy to miss dialogue during gameplay.
- Animation is very stiff.
- Many locations look the same.
- The combat is horrible and becomes worse as the difficulty goes up.
- Enemies do charge attacks that teleport to you.
- Hit detection is horrible.
- Enemies can't be read and so it is very hit and hope.
- It's a shame a great story is packaged within bad game play.
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PlayStation 4
When I first started playing this game I was actually enjoying it, however as time went on, my opinion drastically changed. I give this game a 3/10 and here’s why:
What I liked:
- I like the martial art concept they added as the “heavy attack” in the fighting mechanics. It was definitely needed due to the regular “light attack” being so boring a monotonous. - The graphics looked decent. I played this game on my PS5 and the environment and character detail looked pretty good. What I didn’t like:
- The fast traveling in this game was extremely inconvenient and annoying. The totems weren’t always placed in the villages, and fast traveling almost felt pointless which meant a lot of walking/running. - Combat gameplay wasn’t fun at all. The only thing that made it even remotely interesting was the different martial arts abilities. - Sometimes the characters would have dialogue while you’re moving from village to village and due to the game not being in English it was different to try and traverse the environment and read the subtitles. - I don’t think the story was all that good. I wasn’t attached to any of the characters and it felt boring
- The difficulty spikes between regular enemies and boss fights, between the different areas were ridiculous. I played on Normal and I remember fighting a boss at least 5-10 time before beating them, and the very next boss without upgrading any gear, I was able to crushed convincingly. It just didn’t make any sense to me and was extremely frustrating. - After the final boss fight, you have to travel to various points of the map to trigger a part of the “lady in the green dress’s” story. Honestly this could’ve been explain in a cutscene instead of extending the game an additional 10-15mins All in all I don’t recommend this game. There are FAR BETTER JRPG’s out there to play. I’m happy very happy that I waited to catch this game on sale on the PS Store for $12, because it wouldn’t have been worth anymore than that.
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PlayStation 4
Summary Xuan-Yuan Sword VII is an ARPG rooted in Chinese history and mythology. Players take on the role of Taishi Zhao, a calm and reliable swordsman who was accidentally involved in a tragic fate. To protect his beloved family, he starts a journey in this chaotic realm to find the truth.
Rated T
for Teen
Platforms:
- PlayStation 4
- Xbox One
- Nintendo Switch
- Xbox Series X
- PC
Initial Release Date: Sep 30, 2021
Developer:
- SOFTSTAR Entertainment
Publisher: EastAsiaSoft
Genres:
