Stray Blade is an action-adventure game developed by Point Blank Games. In this game, you play as a rogue adventurer who embarks on a journey to discover the true story of Acrea and its ancient legacy. You will not be alone in your adventures as you will be accompanied by the cute master craftsman, Boji. Stray Blade features a hyper-responsive combat system that rewards precise attacks and quick reactions. While this may look good on paper, the game's combat leaves much to be desired.
You see, the game is plagued by two glaring issues. First, the camera is quite problematic because it forces itself to focus on the center. In other words, the in-game camera "fights" you whenever you try fiddling with it.
The second issue is the clunky combat; to put it bluntly, it's too slow. It doesn't have that freedom of movement that you find in Dark Souls or other similar titles.
Fortunately, the company rectified these two in Patch 1.7, which also featured the much-needed combat rework. Some of the notable changes are increased dodge ranges to improve mobility, reduced slow motion effect when getting hit, and of course, camera adjustments to ensure a more pleasurable experience!
You can find the changes below:
Combat Adjustments
- Attack indicators were removed with associated limitations on defensive actions (except for certain powerful and boss attacks that will still be unparryable, marked by a red glow).
- Reduced the camera stutters.
- Camera adjustments to make for a more pleasant experience (a.k.a the combat camera doesn't fight your camera input anymore).
- Increased weapon mastery speed.
- Reduced Irakka hitbox sizes, as well as general adjustments (less hp, less charge attack damage).
- Fixed target switch not working on Training Dummies in the tutorial.
- Increased damage of Rotten Longsword heavy attack and reduced HP of tutorial enemies for smoother first encounters.
- Increased radius for perfect dodges slightly again.
- Increased poise regens delays of enemies across the board.
- Equalized backstab damage to create consistency (with some higher damage exceptions)
- Adjusted hitboxes of some creatures (Irakka, Broodmother, Gwar).
- Adjusted difficulty presets slightly.
- Fixed possibility to cancel knockback death animation with jump.
- Fixed Xhinnon general hitboxes, various timing adjustments on attacks and stagger.
Collectibles and Exploration
- The Story Note "Creature Studies 3" is not missable anymore.
- Corrected subregion display of the Arcane Forge within the Tamed Peaks from "Chilling Passage" to "The Ascent."
- Ensured that all Acrean Legacies are not missable.
- Added chests containing bone dust within the first half of the Everforest.
- Added more crafting stations in the Everforest.
- Increased drop rates of crafting resources.
- Changed miscellaneous flavor voice lines throughout the game.
If you still encounter issues, especially pertaining to the combat system, be sure to report them immediately to the dev team.
Stray Blade Patch 1.7 is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
