Phantom Blade

Phantom Blade  (ファントムブレイド, Fantomu Bureido), known as Ghost Slayer ( ゴーストスレイヤー, Gōsuto Sureiyā) in Japan is a 2008 action-adventure hack and slash video game developed and published by Fusion Terminal for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was the first entry in the Phantom Blade series. The story follows Riku, a mysterious girl behind the declared "Phantom Sword" searching for the truth.

Gameplay
The main gameplay requires players to explore large, vast areas and defeat groups of enemies to obtain experience points (EXP) using combinations of different attacks. Leveling up will improve Riku’s health and stamina. Riku is granted a unique upgrade every 25 levels. Players can gain gold and crystals by completing goals, which can be used to upgrade weapons and/or buy new skills.

Plot
Riku is a naive girl with unusual abilities that go beyond a human being. She wields a weapon known as the Ghost Slayer, passed down from generation to generation as a legendary sword. No clear explanation was given as to why Riku was picked to be the next user of this weapon, so she set out to find the truth behind it.

Development
Originally, Phantom Blade was supposed to be a 2D weapon-based battle game similar to SNK's Samurai Shodown series for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox before the production was moved as a hack-and-slash game to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2006. The game was first unveiled in a teaser trailer at the 2008 E3 event, and the first trailer of gameplay footage was shown at the Tokyo Game Show in 2008.

Reception
Phantom Blade recieved “favorable“ reviews according to the review aggregator website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave the game a score of 28 out of 40.