So finally they've translated Chinese Paladin 6: Sword and Fairy into English and released it on Steam after 2 years of waiting, with “C-RPGs (Chinese RPGs)” further discussed in the discussions. Honestly there are a number of minor flaws and bugs but it's still bearable. The translation for the 2D opening cinematic is a disaster but the rest of the game is coherent.

There are a large number of cutscenes at the beginning, which may seem boring. However, as I invested more time in the storyline, I found it fascinating and thought-provoking. Nobody is fighting for justice or something like that, and everybody has his or her own goal or ideal. In this version, I found the subtitles sometimes disappear too quickly and the words are just so small. Hope there’s a way to fix it.

The battle system is a little hard for me at the beginning. It’s even hard to beat Yue Jinzhao and Yue Qi in the first battle in the original version. Fortunately the devs did some adjustments in values and the battle experience became smoother than before. If you played FF13 before, you may find the battle system of CP6’s similar to it, but unfortunately, less friendly. Guess they would add controller support later. P.S.: the meridian system is a special system with mysterious Chinese characteristics.

Aesthetically, some environments are truly stunning such as Jincui River and Sky Beneath the Sea. However, when I first come to Yinghui Keep I felt there’s so filled with gray blocks which made my mood “grey” too. Generally the graphics are actually somewhat dated and the optimization is mediocre.

Overall I would highly recommend this game to anyone who's interested in a Chinese world and exploring it (btw the exploration system is great fun). This may not be a flawless game as a introduction of the series to westerners, but if you are looking for a C-RPG, this should be the one.

A sloppy, technically-challenged game that is ultimately redeemed by its quality story and the sheer uniqueness of being one of a very small number of English-translated Chinese RPGs. (Note that this is a preliminary review. I have spent six hours with Sword and Fairy 6 so far. I'll update the review to give my final thoughts when I finish it, or earlier if I hit major issues that are worth mentioning.)

Sword and Fairy 6 is a fairly conventional RPG, mechanically. It follows a typical town, exploration/dungeon, repeat structure. One thing I find interesting is the ability to freely jump. This makes town navigation a lot more interesting than most RPGs thanks to the ability to jump onto roofs and run pretty much anywhere. There are lookout points in difficult-to-reach locations scattered throughout each area that even reward that sort of experimentation. On the flip side, the freedom you have to move anywhere also means it's very easy to hit the edge of an area or even fall through the void at the bottom (which conveniently just resets you to nearby solid ground).

Combat involves controlling a single character while the rest do their own thing, which can be influenced with tactical options on the left and by the skills selected. Each character has two sets of skills, each generally useful for a different situation. For example, one character has one skillset that focuses on DPS and one that focuses on buffs. It feels fairly sloppy to me since you don't really have fine control over everything your characters do. The best tactic is seems to be to manually control the character whose abilities are the most important for that particular situation (like healing or drawing aggro) and hope that everyone else behaves competently. There are also bonuses for defeating all of the enemies within a specified amount of time. I am unsure whether it's simply impossible early in the game or if there's some aspect to the combat that I do not understand, but not once have I managed to get the bonus.

The story is interesting. It starts off with some convenient meetings between characters who are all working towards a fairly simple goal, but it quickly becomes apparent that there's much more going on. Everyone is plagued with their own problems, doubts, and secrets, and I am very much looking forward to seeing how it all plays out. I'm being fairly vague to avoid spoilers, but I do find it neat how some twists are immediately obvious yet others are carefully laid-out yet never telegraphed. The voice acting seems great, not that I can understand much of it.

The localization is mediocre. The introductory video is by far the worst of it - I'm pretty sure it was machine-translated. But the in-game dialogue, while definitely wooden and sloppy (incorrect tenses, odd sentence construction, stray markup tags) is understandable.

The tutorials fare worse by some explaining some aspects but never really divulging why they matter, leaving you to flounder until you realize things through trial and error. The boss of the first dungeon is definitely a wake-up call that demonstrates why provoke, an ability simply mentioned in passing in the tutorial, is a key tool. And lots of things are never explained at all. For instance, NPCs sometimes respond differently (or even not at all) to different characters. If you've clicked on one who has the talk icon but they turned and didn't say anything, it's because they will only respond to a different character. I still do not understand the way the quest board in each town works. Sometimes quests that I cannot take appear on it, yet other quests never appear. It's weird and, again, never explained.

Another problem is the performance. Sword and Fairy 6 simply does not run very well, and looks nowhere near as good as its requirements would suggest. I have a GTX 1080 and the game stutters regularly. Not constantly, but it hitches every minute or two. The art style is fairly nice but areas look quite blocky and are often monochromatic. Animations are extremely stiff and repetitive - I hope you like seeing Yue Jinzhao do a facepalm, because he's going to be doing it a lot and in the exact same way every time.

Ultimately, despite the technical issues and general feeling of sloppiness that pervades many aspects of the game, I am enjoying my time with it and do recommend it. Sword and Fairy 6 is far from the best RPG you can play on PC, but it's still a fascinating journey through a fairly foreign (to Western eyes) world.

"I do not believe in destiny, only the blade in my hand and the friends by my side."

Love that exists in the mortal realm can transcend the powers of the heavens. When was the first time you were moved to the core by a fictional work? I still remember encountering the Xianjian Qixia Zhuan series through its first game in my early days, and being shaken and stirred by the tale of Li Xiaoyao, Zhao Ling'er, Lin Yueru, and A'Nu, and their struggles for good in a world threatened by darkness yet filled with hope in every corner. Perhaps Xianjian 6 does not reach the heights achieved by some of its predecessors, but it provides a lovingly crafted narrative comprised of a memorable cast of characters and an intricately written world that evokes a sense of nostalgia of youthful dreams of heroism in longtime fans as well as appeals to new players looking for a fresh gaming experience with traditional storytelling.
While it resembles previous games of the series in most respects, Xianjian 6 also diverges greatly in some aspects.
The combat system of this game is drastically different from all other titles in the series, in that it is real-time rather than turn-based (the format the Chinese RPGs, including the Xianjian series, have followed for decades), and the transition is rough. The combat pacing feels off somehow and execution of actions seem disjointed and hectic, with a camera that is prone to display suboptimal angles (though the "camera" for story cutscenes is always expertly operated). I still prefer the individual speed-based combat system that has one character take action at a time that clearly displays move order on a bar and features casting times and knockback effects, which also involve strategic planning instead of a scramble to input commands before it's too late.
The absence of 2D character portraits during dialogues and cutscenes is also glaring, and follows the precedent set by Xuan-Yuan Sword 6 and the transition to the Unity Engine. I feel that the 3D facial expressions and character model animations are adequate, but not satisfactory replacements for the highly expressive and stylish character portrait art players of the series have gotten used to. Hopefully this will improve by the next game.
Speaking of 3D, the overall graphical quality of the game isn't ideal, and the aesthetics of the environments in-game often do not meet the potentials of their original designs. Certain textures can get gnarly up close, and the game looks slightly more dim than necessary. While the addition of the jumping function (this can use some better animations) expands the vertical exploration elements of the game, it also brings about funky physics and collision-related issues occasionally. Personally, I think that Softstar's strong suit is 2D art, and graphic styles such as those of games like Xianjian 2 and Xuan-Yuan Sword 3: The Scar of the Sky would still find popularity nowadays. The 2D animated cutscenes in place of prerendered 3D animations are also a dramatic departure from series norms, and have their positives and negatives that I won't comment on here. Hopefully, the developers can realize their artistic visions with more experience and skill with future releases.
Plot is where this game truly shines and delivers, with complex webs of relations and events all connecting to lead to a touching and fulfilling conclusion. From the cunning and devoted Yue Jinzhao, the repressed and innocent Yue Qi, the honorable and naive Luo Zhaoyan, the shrewd and laid-back Xianqing, and the conflicted and emotional Ming Xiu, to the meek and aspiring Ju Shifang, all of the main characters will connect with the player in one way or another by the end of the story, and the plethora of supporting characters and places to visit breathe life into the game's fictional setting. The voice acting is top notch for every voiced character, further enhancing the immersive nature of the game.
On the music front, the game does not disappoint, featuring a huge collection of original compositions for cutscenes, battles, explorations segments, etc, as well as four vocal pieces by four different artists. As is always the case with Xianjian games, the soundtrack is used well in the game to support its melancholic scenes and joyous occasions alike, and is superb even on its own. The music playback menu is a neat touch.
The English translation of this release is decent (barring the opening cinematic), but I have noticed that many lines were translated out of context and give off the wrong impressions to the player, which should be addressed.
For its current price, the game provides about 60 hours of content, plus free postgame story DLCs. I highly recommend this game to everyone, despite its flaws. This is not your typical instant gratification kind of game, but a piece of art to be savored at a leisurely pace. It is rare to see a Chinese game of this caliber getting a worldwide release in English, and the success of this game can lead to more to come.

One of my favorite rpgs of all time. And it is despite all the bugs, the limited gameplay, and the late Playstation 2 graphics. I think that says a lot about the wonderful story and the charm of the characters of this game.
For those who do not know Chinese Paladin is basically the chinese Final Fantasy. The first one is a very beautiful love story and the most important RPG in Chinese history.
The Steam edition of 6 is in English and solves some of the problems of the game when it was released, it also includes the six pieces of dlc released originally in China.
If you are willing to ignore its faults you will find a hundred of hours of classic roleplaying gaming in this hidden gem.

Nice game with nice story (sometimes feels strange because of the translation) ^^
Battle is simple and this time party member is useful.
Sidequest and title are missable but not a big deal, or player can safe often to be feel secure because there's 99 save slot.
Note when stuck while jumping around, select reset position on option menu (I just realized this like superrrr lateee in game XD)

Player can bring everything to new game+ yayy
(There's a reputation points per place when completing sidequest, on one place the sidequest is not enough to maxed reputation point)

I picked this game up on a whim (and the price) and was completely overwhelmed by the experience I got. I wasn't familiar at all with the Chinese Paladin: Sword and Fairy series before this, but now I'm hoping that the publishers release the other games in the series in English as well.

Overall the game is similar in format to many JRPGs, with the twist of being well rooted in a Chinese Heroic Fantasy / "Wuxia" setting. The systems in the game are adequate, and the combat took a little bit of getting used to, but it was servicable.

The graphics feel a little dated, and the animations repetitive in the many, many, many cutscenes in the game, but none of this really detracted from my enjoyment of the game.

What truly won me over was the music (the game has one of the best soundtracks I've had the pleasure to discover) and the storyline. Translation hiccups aside, the story was well written, and each of the game's 6 main characters were given enough time (and space) to discover themselves, undergo change and learn from their adventures.

There's plenty to enjoy in the game, and those who are tired of the usual fantasy tropes will find a very different story waiting for them here.

Given the sheer amount of enjoyment I've had, and at the price it was going for, I strongly recommend the game to people who are looking for something new for their RPG fix.

Not a fan, I feel like developers are trying to combine too many things into one game, and it falls short at the end. The gameplay is no longer click and go like the previous series, you utilize AWSD to move around, yet you have to constantly change the view of the camera with the right mouse button to avoid running into walls.

The combat system is very messy on the eye, a lot of things are happening at the same time, and you have to quickly select a skill to use on the target while the NPCs are attacking you continously.

The menu is a mess too, and the tutorial pages is too messy to understand. For the loots inside houses, you can't even tell if you can loot the item or not because there's no special indications like a glow to indicate what you can and cannot loot. You pretty much have to go into all the rooms, and try clicking on everything. Meanwhile, because the camera view is a mess, and you have to akwardly jump around and running into furnitures inside these small buildings, it's really a pain in the ass to even go inside the buildings.

The short animation in between scenes are very long, and you cannot speed it up. The slow dialogues is also the same for "...." team chat. Every once in awhile you can click on "...." and your teammates will have a conversation, and there's absolutely no way to speed it up, so it takes over a minutes to read one line. It's horrible. I also don't like how the animations are, there are no expressions on the characters, their mouth moves ever so slightly to indicate they are indeed talking/whispering, but that's it. It's uncomfortable to watch them talk, like you can hear the emotions from the voice actors, but the characters are absolutely emotionless. Seriously. I got really motion sick after trying it out for 20 minutes. The camera moves way too much, and it's not fun.

I don't recommend this game.

The time has come for me to check out the third big Chinese rpg franchise, Chinese Paladin, which is originally called The Legend of Sword and Fairy, and it seems the developers also started to prefer this name. The newest one got released last year, but I decided to go with the cheaper option, even though this game has some negative reputation, with some considering it the worst in the franchise. Nonetheless I decided to go with it, and I am glad I did.

It did take some to get used to, because there are some weird design decisions. First, even though movement is done via WASD, in order to control the camera, you have to hold down a mouse button, which means basically all the time when you’re moving to somewhere. Movement is also very slow, and there’s no sprint, which makes walking around the areas take a lot of time. We also have the ability to jump, but it’s very janky and devoid of any physics resembling reality. Needless to say, there are some platforming sections in the game, though I have to admit, I enjoyed finding certain optional collectibles hidden on rooftops and high places.

The combat resembles JRPGs. The battles are separate from the normal gameplay – when you run into an enemy, the game puts your characters and the enemies in an arena, and there you use various abilities and items during the fight. The system isn’t turn based though, instead everyone individually are on cooldown, and otherwise the battle happens in real time. It was confusing at first, and it didn’t help that the game doesn’t have a good tutorial system. You get a bunch of help screens (that you can’t even access during combat) that explains the basics, and that’s it. It takes trial and error to figure things out which makes the early game quite difficult. I started on Easy, and still got wiped a few times at the beginning. Later, when I got the hang of it I would’ve tried ramping up the difficulty, but sadly, you can’t change it during a playthrough.

The other major part of the game are cutscenes, of which there are a lot. I am not bothered by this, and seeing how the other Chinese games I played were similar in this regard, I pretty much expect it at this point. Same with the game being mostly linear. There are multiple areas, and you can fast travel between them, but the only reason to do so is to do sidequests. I didn’t see this, and the many cutscenes as a problem, because I think the story and writing are the main strengths of the game.

The world is mostly Wuxia (low fantasy) in style, with most of the main characters being martial artists, and martial art sects being an important part of the story, but there are many Xianxia (high fantasy) elements with nonhuman civilizations, demons, powerful spells, and a final threat that I can only describe as ’mythological in scale’. Cultivation is a concept that also comes up here, and referenced many time in the story. The idea is that characters build up their Qi (vital energy part of any living thing) with various meditative or mystical techniques to become more powerful. It’s not just humans who can do this, for example, demons can gain intelligence with cultivation, or the ability to take up human form.

The story begins with a seemingly accidental meeting between some of the protagonists. They team up to track down a cult that reportedly kidnaps people. It seems straightforward enough, but as we progress with the story, and meet up with the other characters, it becomes apparent that things are much more complicated. There are six main characters, and they are all interesting and well written, with great dynamic between them. They all have their own problems, goals, secrets, join the team for their own reasons, and get plenty of character development by the time we reach the end of this complex, emotional and epic story. The side characters are also memorable, interesting and help breathe life into the world.

The English text was allright, with the exception of the intro, which was a hilarious disaster. Some typos and missing lines here and there, and sometimes the subtitles disappeared too fast, but I had no problem following the story. We do have a journal, which helped too. The game has a few animated cutscenes for important moments in the story. These didn’t have subtitles, but they are mostly action scenes, so it wasn’t an issue.

Graphically the game basically looks like a late PS2 game. I don’t really care about fidelity if the style is good, and it is fine here. The locations look good and have nice atmosphere despite the low poly count. The dawn and dusk lighting looked particularly pretty. The character models are also decent and the costumes are nice. The only thing that’s really weak are the animations. They are fine during combat, but the dialogue animations are very rigid, minimal and repeat all the time. The facial animations are quite limited too, and in the case of random NPCs, are actually non-existent. What makes the talking scenes good despite this, is the voice acting, which is outstanding. The voice actors breathe life into the characters and basically hard carry the cutscenes.

Speaking of audio, the music is also excellent, full of catchy or emotional ambient pieces. I also appreciate that you can listen to any song from the main menu. I encountered a few bugs during the playthrough, like flashing textures and falling through the floor, but luckily only rarely. In the latter case, the game mercifully warps you back to the level.

Even though the game has its fair share of technological and design issues, it makes up for it with the fantastic story, great characters and writing. It was the kind of story that occupied my mind even when I wasn’t playing the game, and for days after finishing it. I can’t easily recommend this game because of its issues, but for me it was quite the experience.

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For reference, here’s an article about the history of Chinese rpgs https://felipepepe.medium.com/before-genshin-impact-a-brief-history-of-chinese-rpgs-bc962fc29908

Also, a fan writeup about the history of the two biggest rpg franchises in China, Chinese Paladin and GuJian https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2066944863

Big Surprise! The game was a huge surprise for me. I bought it very cheap on sale. I thought it can be some C grade product. Was very surprised its not! The game has its flaws, mainly the battle system which seems abit wooden and also overall navigating in the game like walking. I advise to play this game on easy difficulty. The main reason is story and characters. The game is very strong story-driven. Game took me over 40 hours to finish. I done some side quests. Gearing chars is important and easy. Game gives you meridian to further buff chars with additional points. Skill are learned automatically. Characters combat wise are very diverse. Locations are half amazing and half mediocre. Still with all its flaws, this game is great for me for one reason. The story starts slowly, we meet our party characters. And here all becomes interesting. In most rpg game you have protagonist and side characters. Here we have two protagonists - Jinchao and Qui, and side characters, but one thing differs alot - side characters are very well written, they are not bland, they have their points, objectives, can take sacrifices. The game show emotional development of all characters, their weaknesses, what they desire and what they are able to sacrifice for greater goal. As story goes on we will be exploring Sword and Fairy world with not full party but also taking some of the leave for periods of time. I played many rpg's western and also asian. This game was one of the few which surprised me with goals and real agenda beyond actions of characters. Not only our mains and side chars in party. Got surprised also by ending, which is not typical all happy end story. The game shows really good emotional relations between characters, and that not walls can be just broke and happiness occur. I highly advise to play on easy difficulty, cause game is not good if you focus on combat or action aspects. This game should be played abit like reading book. Dialogues are well written, story goes slow but steady, and player need really to slowly think about what chars are telling us. Is it worth buying and playing? If you like hack and slash quick games for action - NO, but if you want to discover great story set in chinese environment, with good music, dialogues and emotions and be surprised by it - then YES. I am very happy that i played this. If this game had battle system like FF XV and such graphics it would be perfect product. Still very worth and good job devs!

A Very Disappointing Entry of the Franchise :( Even if you are a fan of Xianjian, you can skip this one (for your own good).

I am a long-term and hardcore fan of the Xianjian/Chinese Paladin franchise, so I really tried to like this game, but I did not. Sadly, this game is disappointing in many aspects, espeically comparing to its predecessors.

Graphics and Art Direction:
A lot of the (large) ingame environments looks boring, and they do not reflect or capture the atmosphere of the concept arts. Becuase of this cons, exploration can feel very redundant.

- There are some technical imporvements in Xianjian 6 such as improved environmental and character lighting, simluated cloth effect,more diverse textures, but most environments look boring. This seems to be a problem with the 3D art direction.
- Particulary, larger environments in this game looks very bland and vacant, which also makes exploring feel very redundant and tiresome.
- Although this game was made with a newer engine (Unity) than the engine of Xianjian 5 Prequel (Renderware), the latter actually looks much better than this game. If you've played Xianjian 5 Prequel, the enviroments in that game were beautifully crafted and very atmospheric, which is something the Xianjian 6's environment design team had missed.

Gameplay:
It feels redudnat very quickly. There were no highlights in gameplay in this game, and many elements were borrowed from Xianjian 5 and its prequel, but with reduced gameplay values or entertainment.

- The battle system is particularly boring. Although the spells and skills are visually beautiful, there were not much strategic planning or action involved. Most battles just feel like a long duration of time of clicking the same buttons over and over again.
- I've heard some complains about the AI of allies in battle before I played the game. I actually think the AI system is moderate, and I do not have much problem with it.
- I find the jumping function a nice touch, but since there were no way to control jumping distance, jumping around can be a pain. There were also not much to do with jumping, besides finding a few chests and completing one type of sidequest.
- The costuming system feels lazy and some of the clothing designs are visually unpleasant. I do want to bring this up because other Chinese RPG games that were released at the same time have amazing costuming designs, which make colleting costumes more fun.
- One of the fun part about Xianjian was the ability to collect items from the ingmae environments, but it was not well executed in Xinajian 6 because there were not much to be collected in the first place
- Side quests are also redundant, too simple, and very linear, such as simply running around without any bonus plots or varieties.

Story (pros)
The best parts about this game are the characters and voice acting. Good job to the writer/script team.
- I apprecitate the dynamic and complexity of certain characters, and this dynamic character development make them feel realistic, and helps to give the story more depth.
- The story is interesting and it overall has a logical flow and an engaging story arc.

Music- good as usual.
- I think some of the older entires (the original, Xianjian 3, Xianjian 4) have more iconic and mesmerizing music but this feedback is very subjective.

PS. I actually bought two copies of this game: I ordered a physical copy from China for collecting the two little toys of my favourite ingame characters. I later bought this Steam version since my laptop does not come with a dvd drive. I have to rant about it because I really wanted this franchise to go back to its former glory. Softstar, please listen to the fans and avoid these mistakes in the next entry, aka Xianjian 7.