On the first day of christmas my true love gave to me...........Banban...........

I'm so tired dude.

(Edit- I just realized this was my 1000th review........................god I just.......fuck my life dude honestly.)

i shoulda never smoked that shit, now i'm in anor londo

for a game that's centered around suffering, despair, and defeat, it sure as hell makes you feel that. this game is just sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill, only to fall all the way back down once you reach the top.

the entire game is a gauntlet. i hope ornstein and smough get strapped to a missile that's aimed directly for sen's fortress. i hope the four kings get four bullets put in each of their heads. i did not ask for a side of fucking tinnitus with my video game so tell me why the fuck kalameet is screaming in my headphones. blighttown can just fuck off. why the fuck do i need 4000 souls to buy an item to attack some ghosts please fucking explain fromsoft. CAN SOMEBODY TURN THE LIGHTS ON IN THE TOMB OF THE GIANTS I CANNOT SEE A FUCKING THING.

the absolute torture of having to backtrack your steps across multiple parts of the map for the first ~50% of the game is already enough to make you want to give up, but ironically this is actually the better half of the game. this isn't even accounting for the tediousness of running for minutes back to a boss encounter after you inevitably fail time after time. i shit you not i could probably run from the 2nd anor londo bonfire to the ornstein/smough fight with my eyes closed due to pure muscle memory.

this game is so unforgiving in so many different ways. if you get hit and knocked down, just take your hands off the controller/keyboard because you are fucked buddy. trying to find an opening in the chaos of some of these boss fights just to get a single heal off feels like just as much of an insurmountable task as the boss itself. i could take a shit and even wipe before i am finally able to move again after using an estus flask in this game.

some boss fights you could do on your first try, but others are genuinely some of the most unfair experiences i've encountered in any video game in my entire life. this is where you say "git gud" and i tell you to go fuck yourself. some of these fights are artificially difficult through either being programmed like shit (you know exactly what i'm talking about) or having attacks that have probably 5 frames between when it starts and when it hits you for 70% of your hp.

the second half of the game kind of just felt like it was scraps they tossed in. they must have made lost izalith barred off xanax 48 hours before the production date or something cause that area was so pointless and the boss was the dumbest gimmick fight i’ve ever fucking seen.

i'm too stubborn to give up, but that doesn't mean i didn't want to at multiple points throughout my playthrough. the game makes me hate myself even more, but despite the absolute fucking anguish that is experiencing this game, i hate that i still appreciate it; i appreciate it's existence for the sole reason that it led to some of my favorite games, even if this isn't one of them.

the movement really is good. when i learned how to do that really big backflip after doing a slide jump? damn, that truly opened up a lot of opportunities to cheese my way into rooms i was not prepared to be in

on the flipside the combat just kind of exists. with only.. what, 6 different enemy types in the game you really only need the basic attack to deal with them, and yet there's a bunch of other moves you can carry out which are cool but pretty much pointless. Sure, the fact you can kick the sword in mid-air after you've thrown it is awesome but there's no point where i would ever bother to do that. then again, what was the point in having the ability to throw the sword anyway? maybe there was something i missed? i just pressed the button on accident every so often and lost it

I'm glad I've been able to play the game with the map but it is about as basic an implemention you can get other than just showing a jpeg. I was desperate for some sort of icon to show where i am on the map as opposed to just highlighting the room i'm in. i spent way too long cross-referencing the angles of walls to get my bearings. also some of the maps were too big for the screen and got cut off which is just kinda funny

however with the character design alone i retract all my grievances immediately 10/10 game thanks bye bye

Recent update added the long awaited map, and wow that did so much to make traversal more snappy and less meandering. And I now appreciate this game a lot more to not include fast traveling as I see just how interconnected this map is, with each area connecting to at least three other locations, but often times more.
And movement is still sublime and fun to experiment. New time trials are a nice distraction as they reward you with new costumes and most require multiple attempts to get a good route going.
Much higher recommendation now. And it turns out that tossing your tonfa does have a interesting gameplay mechanic that, while more of a novelty then useful, is still interesting to mess around with.

The dev also updated the Steam pages artwork, which is nice since they didn't like their old one.