The Xuan-Yuan Sword series from Taiwan’s DOMO Studio has been around for over 30 years and is one of the oldest on the market. But it so happened that Asian games based on traditional Chinese mythology (not to be confused with Japanese ones) began to gain some popularity only relatively recently, finally reaching the European audience.
At the moment, Xuan-Yuan Sword VII has appeared in Asia on the PlayStation 4 version and throughout the rest of the world on the PC . However, until the beginning of 2021, the game still lacked support for the Russian language and notable bugs were fixed. Only now, after a series of patches, you can safely get acquainted with the brainchild of DOMO Studio on PC or wait a little longer for the European PS4 release.
The history of Xuan-Yuan Sword VII begins at the end of the Han Dynasty, when a minister succeeded a weakened emperor and founded his Xin Dynasty. Along with the arrival of a new ruler, strange signs began to occur in the world: people turn to stone and monsters appear. Simultaneously with these events, the court astrologer became the owner of the mysterious and powerful scroll of Elysium. Soon the cruel and power hungry Moists broke into the astrologer’s house and burned it to the ground, but they did not manage to find the scroll and two children who miraculously escaped in the mountains. Years later, the matured Taishi Zhao and his sister Li Xiang, who fell under the care of a hunter, by chance meet a detachment of Lijun moists, who have long been looking for the missing scroll, and here begins a story full of betrayal, friendship and dangerous adventures.
Like most oriental RPGs, Xuan-Yuan Sword VII relies on history, offering players a large yet linear world divided into sections by war and hordes of monsters and monsters. The main characters visit destroyed villages, ruins and mountain passes in search of answers to their questions. It takes a long time to get to some points.
As the main storyline progresses, you can take on side quests that offer quite simple tasks, such as “following a villager” or “finding the missing parents of a single child.” You will not receive any special revelations in these side missions, except for experience points or valuable resources. If you wish, you are free to return to them a little later, using the teleportation points scattered along the way.
Quite often you will encounter numerous opponents that you can run around or attack. In the second case, the heroes enter the battle. Taishi Zhao uses normal and empowered sword strikes, as well as special abilities that take time to recharge. Dealing with normal attacks consumes stamina, gradually replenishing. The hero knows how to counterattack or dodge, avoiding damage. Its companions also have special moves that can be set in a separate menu window and applied at any time, and they also take time to recharge. In addition, the main character is able to create a ring of captivity of souls, which will allow him to capture the spirits of opponents after defeating them and then use them in the Elysium leveling menu. The final ability is to summon the spirit of the demon, causing maximum damage to enemies.
Naturally, in addition to the correct use of the abilities of the entire squad, you will have to select the right equipment. Some of the items you can find in chests, buy from merchants or get on the battlefield, but the strongest are easier to get in the world of Elysium. This is a special section in the menu where you can create amulets, pumped spiritual improvements and much more. Everything happens by analogy with the unification of persons in the Persona series: you simply connect several components and see what comes out of it. However, it is possible to pass the game, completely ignoring the Elysium section altogether. The battles themselves periodically become monotonous.
Otherwise, Xuan-Yuan Sword VII is a completely traditional role-playing game with a well-developed plot and interesting characters. At some moments, the authors do not squeeze out the drama or destroy the plot intrigue early, but on the whole the story looks more than organic. True, the lack of non-linearity and choice at key moments is somewhat disappointing against the background of the general fashion for the uniqueness of each playthrough. The puzzles present in the game are not difficult, but they do not cause boredom either – they are more than enough for 10-12 hours of playing.
Graphically, Xuan-Yuan Sword VII cannot boast of anything revolutionary. The characters look very decent, the environment uses RTX to a limited extent, but there are no incredible effects or destruction in this project. However, you shouldn’t expect anything else from an exclusively niche release.
Xuan-Yuan Sword VII is an RPG game that offers an intricate and dramatic story based on Chinese mythology. Of course, the monotony of battles and the long road to some goals can be tiresome at the end of the journey, but in general, Xuan-Yuan Sword VII deserves attention during this period of stagnation and lack of bright hits
