First of all, I gotta thank my local coffee shop for the clutch brew. Made me all focused and hyped up and stuff. With the power of caffeine, I just spent an incredibly fun 5 hours, tightening my gameplay skills and getting enough powerful abilities, in order to set up the one run that will be enough to carry me all the way to the end. Ended up beating the final boss at age 44. Lots of room to improve, but I'm happy with it for now. I just want to gush about this wonderful game for a bit.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the art direction of this game is kinda underrated. The soft painting-esque look of the game is pleasant enough on its own, but the game continuously impresses with the kinds of environments that it introduces as it goes on. Not to mention how surreal it can be sometimes. The game is not afraid to break reality and move beyond it to create absolutely stunning moments. The boss fight in the 3rd area is an absolute highlight in this regard.
Now let's move on to the juicy meat; this game's melee combat system is simply impeccable. There's definitely a lot of learning and practicing to do on your own before the system truly clicks, but once it does, it's so exhilarating. My personal favorite part of it is learning how the defensive mechanics work. Dodging, deflecting, parrying, and avoiding; all separate moves with their own use cases and benefits, but the game demands you to master them all, in that order. It's a highly rewarding feat, when you have studied the enemies' attack patterns enough, and you know exactly what to do in order to achieve the outcome you want. My favorite combo so far is avoiding or parrying an attack, pushing them with the palm strike, and pummeling them with chasing strikes; it's the kind of offensive manuever that I associate with Asian martial art movies the most, and it's so badass.
So, the fundamentals of the game are supremely solid. But what makes this game truly special is the intricacies of its accessory systems. You only can get new abilities from Shrines that are spread in all the levels, and they have certain requirements: being below a certain age, or requiring a set amount of score/XP. You can just use the level shortcuts to avoid fighting too many enemies, and just focus on the boss fights, while skipping some Shrines because of it. But you can do the opposite, and be rewarded for your efforts; I got enough abilities to make all the weapons in the game last much longer and hit much harder than normal, especially with bladed weapons, and it wouldn't happen if I don't take the scenic route. This meta aspect of the game is a big, fun puzzle that only strengthens the game's core qualities.
There's also some smaller quirks and features of the combat that I find really fun to learn. For example, learning that doing enough takedowns will randomly turn an enemy into a "fired up" state, and avoiding these mighty obstacles by resisting the extraordinarily strong urge to do a takedown in the first place; their animations are so fun to watch! It's so hard to resist sometimes. Not to mention the fact that they make you invincible for the duration of the animation, so you can do them to avoid getting hit by another enemy. Another example is abusing the environment to your advantage, like pushing an enemy from a ledge, or pushing them to hit a wall. It's far more situational, but still useful enough to give you the extra edge if you are aware enough to execute them.
The boss fights deserve a spotlight of their own too. All of them are challenging affairs that properly test your skills, while also pushing you to plan things out to make things easier. For example, finding a way to carry a weapon to the fight. The final boss fight is noticably harder than the rest, and is much more skill-based since one of your powers is completely handicapped, which was kinda annoying at first. But I realized that this design choice adds so much depth and replayability to the rest of the game, since the game asks you to optimize your gameplay in every other level leading up to it, to give you enough cushion and leeway to prevail in the final fight. In that way, this boss fight isn't just about mastering this one opponent, but also mastering the game itself.
Lastly, the presentation of this game is clean af. The camera moves during the takedowns, the sound effects of all the punches and kicks, the aforementioned art design, and so on: they all unite to form a beautiful, confident, and distinctive look and feel.
I want to give this a perfect score, but I'm holding out until I see more of the extra content. I do, however, have the confidence to say that this game is the absolute peak of melee combat gaming. Easily an all-timer game for me, too.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the art direction of this game is kinda underrated. The soft painting-esque look of the game is pleasant enough on its own, but the game continuously impresses with the kinds of environments that it introduces as it goes on. Not to mention how surreal it can be sometimes. The game is not afraid to break reality and move beyond it to create absolutely stunning moments. The boss fight in the 3rd area is an absolute highlight in this regard.
Now let's move on to the juicy meat; this game's melee combat system is simply impeccable. There's definitely a lot of learning and practicing to do on your own before the system truly clicks, but once it does, it's so exhilarating. My personal favorite part of it is learning how the defensive mechanics work. Dodging, deflecting, parrying, and avoiding; all separate moves with their own use cases and benefits, but the game demands you to master them all, in that order. It's a highly rewarding feat, when you have studied the enemies' attack patterns enough, and you know exactly what to do in order to achieve the outcome you want. My favorite combo so far is avoiding or parrying an attack, pushing them with the palm strike, and pummeling them with chasing strikes; it's the kind of offensive manuever that I associate with Asian martial art movies the most, and it's so badass.
So, the fundamentals of the game are supremely solid. But what makes this game truly special is the intricacies of its accessory systems. You only can get new abilities from Shrines that are spread in all the levels, and they have certain requirements: being below a certain age, or requiring a set amount of score/XP. You can just use the level shortcuts to avoid fighting too many enemies, and just focus on the boss fights, while skipping some Shrines because of it. But you can do the opposite, and be rewarded for your efforts; I got enough abilities to make all the weapons in the game last much longer and hit much harder than normal, especially with bladed weapons, and it wouldn't happen if I don't take the scenic route. This meta aspect of the game is a big, fun puzzle that only strengthens the game's core qualities.
There's also some smaller quirks and features of the combat that I find really fun to learn. For example, learning that doing enough takedowns will randomly turn an enemy into a "fired up" state, and avoiding these mighty obstacles by resisting the extraordinarily strong urge to do a takedown in the first place; their animations are so fun to watch! It's so hard to resist sometimes. Not to mention the fact that they make you invincible for the duration of the animation, so you can do them to avoid getting hit by another enemy. Another example is abusing the environment to your advantage, like pushing an enemy from a ledge, or pushing them to hit a wall. It's far more situational, but still useful enough to give you the extra edge if you are aware enough to execute them.
The boss fights deserve a spotlight of their own too. All of them are challenging affairs that properly test your skills, while also pushing you to plan things out to make things easier. For example, finding a way to carry a weapon to the fight. The final boss fight is noticably harder than the rest, and is much more skill-based since one of your powers is completely handicapped, which was kinda annoying at first. But I realized that this design choice adds so much depth and replayability to the rest of the game, since the game asks you to optimize your gameplay in every other level leading up to it, to give you enough cushion and leeway to prevail in the final fight. In that way, this boss fight isn't just about mastering this one opponent, but also mastering the game itself.
Lastly, the presentation of this game is clean af. The camera moves during the takedowns, the sound effects of all the punches and kicks, the aforementioned art design, and so on: they all unite to form a beautiful, confident, and distinctive look and feel.
I want to give this a perfect score, but I'm holding out until I see more of the extra content. I do, however, have the confidence to say that this game is the absolute peak of melee combat gaming. Easily an all-timer game for me, too.
judgerussell
1 month ago