The Carriage Battle: Phantom Blade Zero's Opening Tutorial Explained

The high-speed carriage fight that opens Phantom Blade Zero is not just spectacle — it is the game's tutorial stage, with on-screen prompts walking you through every core verb before the story proper begins.

The mechanics it teaches

• Gauges and slow motion: when an enemy's yellow gauge empties, time dips into slow motion — and you can also trigger slow-mo deliberately by holding block. Both windows exist to help you land perfect inputs under pressure
• White-light attacks: a white flash means the enemy is in your perfect-dodge window. Dodge on the flash and you get a counter opportunity — one of your main damage sources
• Red-light attacks: red means unblockable. Nothing to read here: dodge or eat it. Successful dodges leave the attacker badly exposed
• Executions: empty an enemy's gauge and they stagger into recovery; deal enough damage in that state and the execution prompt appears — one press, one kill

Why it works as a tutorial

Every mechanic the campaign demands — parry reads, Ghoststep timing, gauge pressure, execution finishers — is introduced inside one continuous set piece, so by the time the game hands you the open path, the combat loop is already muscle memory. The setting also does double duty for the story: Soul begins his 66 days already in motion, hunted mid-escape.

The one caveat

Criticism of this sequence has been consistent too: the chase's four-plus minutes play flat compared to the rest of the game — repetitive enemy waves, static camera beats — and comparison pieces ranked it below genre peers like God of War Ragnarok's chase set pieces. It is the prologue, not the peak: the combat system page covers where the depth actually lives.