I only really started this game as a joke with a friend and told myself I didn't see myself playing this one because I really fucking hated Dark Souls 1. I heard this game was a bit different but I figured if people that loved Dark Souls 1 even often say this game is terrible there was no chance I'd like it! I was surprised to find out it was completely fine! Didn't love it or anything, the world was much less connected and interesting as a world than Dark Souls 1, it makes up for it, to me at least, by being much less obnoxious and designed to make you miserable. I heard problems with I frames and stuff being a stat, which is kind of stupid don't get me wrong, but I was surprised at much I didn't care about this. This game gives you levels like candy so I just got my stat to the average Dark Souls I frame level and moved on. I also found this game to to be like really fucking easy compared to the others though, you do so much damage and bosses are so bad at understanding if you're behind them. The Pursuer was pretty cool though, I generally liked the more Duel esque fights, like the Dragonrider or the Old Dragonslayer. Most of the big monsters were too slow/stupid to really be interesting or fun though unfortunately. They did do another shitty gargoyle fight and fights with 2 or more bosses are still as poorly designed and unfun as always but even the dumber bosses like that were just so much easier to handle and felt much less stupid and overwhelming compared to DS1.

To be fair, there's a very solid chance I'm just much more used to the bullshit of this series so I had a bit of a tolerance here but I do think DS1 is still by far the most frustrating and annoyingly designed of all the Fromsoft games I've played. I understand finding a charm in that, I like plenty of insane bullshit, I'm a Sonic fan! I just think every other soulsbourne (not counting demon souls which I haven't beaten) does everything so much better and doesn't make me miserable the entire way through. That being said I'm glad this game surprised me like it did, and after playing all of these games I have a much larger appreciation for what these games are. I'm still not as in love with them as a lot of people are, and a lot of that is an unwillingness to care about the lore of it all and get as invested in the world and I just wanna play silly game and kill big bosses, but I've evolved from thinking Souls games were dogshit 5 years ago to thinking only Dark Souls 1 is dogshit and the rest are actually pretty fun worthwhile experiences! Yay for growth!

i don't really want to give this game a star rating quite yet because I feel like there is genuinely an absurd amount of potential here.

unfortunately, this game just doesn't live up to that potential right now. i was so excited to see the trailer for this game, it had a lot of promise but man the issues show themselves instantly. the tutorial is anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour long and it is an absolute overload of information. i think there's a ton wrong with this tutorial, it's way too long, throws way too many things at you, and it's all just presented in such an overwhelming and confusing way man. there's so many text boxes while you're in the process of racing/learning the mechanics and it's so hard to take in most of the information. even if the tutorial itself was better and conveyed the information clearly, unfortunately, I just think there is WAY too much for a kart racer. there are so many mechanics and they can feel so overwhelming. that combined with the fact that this game weirdly locks online and addons/mods behind single-player grinding for some reason. it makes for such a terrible and overwhelming first time experience, especially for newcomers to sonic robo kart or even just people that aren't such big nerds about sonic and kart racers. i play with a little consistent group of friends in srb2k and it was already a bit of a hassle getting that setup with everyone, pushing them to do an hour long tutorial + single player grand prix content just to get into a game with an infinitely higher skill ceiling that won't be as fun to play because of a larger skill gap is a pretty fuckin tough ask.

i don't know man, this game has so much potential like I said at the start of this and it's clear SO much love and effort went into it. i was really excited for the single player content at the very least but even that feels a bit stilted because of too many unnecessary and overwhelming mechanics. i really hope in a year this becomes this beautiful 5 star game that i boot up with my friends here and there and have a great time with but for now it just feels like it should be great, but it's a pretty huge let down.