I'm a hard sell on games with extreme retro graphics, so I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about with this game. It's true, though, I got pulled into the fun puzzles in each room. I thought the final boss was maybe a touch too difficult and was completely baffled by what was next. I often had to look things up online to figure out the main meat of the game is the egg hunt that follows. I ended up getting 42 of the 64 eggs. Since everything about this game is shrouded in so much mystery (the game itself tells you absolutely nothing) I wasn't sure if there was another fast travel system other than those animal faces. There's still tons of objects and locations in the game I have no idea what their purpose is. I found traversal in the game to get tedious after awhile and so I stopped playing. Maybe I'll get back to it someday. It's a fantastically designed game.

I thought Tunic was a huge disappointment. I love Zelda games. I loved the remake of Link's Awakening. This took the Zelda formula, scrambled it up and confused "fun challenge" for "bad game design frustrating." The central gimmick of recovering instruction book pages is fine, but putting everything in a nonsense language is a ridiculous extra step that only makes things frustrating. I missed out on core mechanics of the game until late game because I didn't decipher things correctly. This is akin to putting together a shelf wrong because you only speak English and the instructions were in Chinese. Is that fun? No. Also, the game looks cool in that isometric view, but since you can't move the camera around corners (unless the game does it automatically), it would be silly to make so much of the game's main paths take you through areas the camera doesn't see. Yet this is exactly what the game frequently does! Lastly, the leveling system made sections of the game manageable, yet the final section of the game (about 20% of it) takes those leveled stats away from you, makes you go through an insane enemy gauntlet, THEN makes you reclaim the leveled stats one by one by revisiting most of the map of the full game. Oh, and the enemy AI is a hoot as well. So many enemies strike you and then run away, making you have to chase them around to get a hit in. Also, they follow you forever, so if you need to get through a section for the Xth time and want to just run through it - you'll have like 20 enemies on your tail by the time they finally chase you to a dead end and kill you. I'm surprised this game is so well-received. It's not souls-like hard. It's just bad. The fox is cute though.

I find Spiders to be an interesting developer. They have yet to make a game I think is great, but they have potential. Both Steelrising and Greedfall have great moments, but end so roughly as to tarnish my overall impressions. Steelrising also starts rough which definitely will stop many Soulsborne players initially, especially since Lies of P showed that it can be done so smoothly and flawlessly. Aegis is ganky. But after awhile I did get used to her (the breaking mechanic with her endurance grated on my nerves near the end). The game overall can be considered pretty fun. There's lots to like about it. The weapon diversity can be a lot of fun with lots of different special attack. It starts with the combat being difficult and the level design being linear, but ends with the combat being easy but the level design being confounding. I feel like they confused From Software's clever level design with confusing where there's only one way out of a section and it's frequently not apparent. The story is hit-or-miss with using real characters from the French Revolution but mixing in robots. It gets way too talky (like with Greedfall) with too many powdered wig dudes that I got pretty bored. If you are well read on the French Revolution will you find this story interesting. As mentioned before, like with Greedfall, the last act is irritating. The Versailles level is too long with too many twists and turns with too many enemies (I ran past most of them) to land with a final boss that had too much HP and felt unfairly difficult after beating many of the previous bosses on my first try. I have lots of other nitpicks after being a big soulsborne fan. While I think this game is very playable, there's several things that just don't cut it in a soulsborne game. I feel like these people have a good game in them, but they still don't seem to be learning from their mistakes. C'est la vie!

Definitely the red-headed stepchild of the Soulsbornes. That said, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. At first I thought it was novel that areas would be filled with too many enemies - like in The Lost Bastille when you open a door and there's like 12 knights waiting for you that come rushing out. It wasn't until several hours later that I realized this was the game's main move- to gank you with mobs. Overall not nearly as clever as the other games, but definitely can stand in the company of them. The main game's bosses were all disappointingly easy, and the DLCs are all insanely frustrating and hard. Still, I had fun.

An incredible achievement in gaming. I loved nearly every second of this game until the very very end. Despite beating Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Demon's Souls, and DS3 just prior to this, I am pretty unskilled. I generally take every opportunity the game gives you to beat bosses, so I have no problem using summons. The summons made 90% of the mandatory boss battles in this game incredibly easy! So, it was to my extreme surprise that the Radagon/Elden Beast fight was maybe the most frustrating experience I've had to date in a From Software game. That was absolutely the most I've ever seen a From Software game "cheat" to give the player a challenge - or absolutely require a co-op summon - something I did have to take advantage of. I'm not used to that old school feeling of tedium like that back-to-back fight- I got so tired of fighting Radagon just to get to the real challenge that was the Elden Beast that I had to stop playing the game for a few months. Other than that, I put 180 hours into my first playthrough and I still haven't seen all the insanely well designed areas and dungeons that were created. This game is a masterpiece and definitely stands close to Dark Souls and Bloodborne if not exactly on their same level.

Four From Soft games down now for me since getting sucked into Soulsborne this year (Demon's Souls, DS1, Bloodborne, and this). Yeah, it's great. I did miss the non-linear world of DS1, although I did like how intricate and non-linear each area of this game was. Yeah, the bosses are the big draw that elevate this game. The Twin Princes fight is hands down one of the most challenging boss fights I have ever played in any game ever and one I won't ever forget. I did grow impatient with the Nameless King fight (having to deal with the long first phase to get to the real meat of the fight in the 2nd phase) and ended up bailing. I'm sure I'll be back to face him really soon.

So great. My 3rd From Software game. I'm not sure if I'm getting better, but this one was easier for me. Maybe I grinded a little too much or really leveled up my main weapon but the last 5-6 hours (and the DLC) were a cakewalk, not to mention much easier bosses overall. Still, I waited so long, afraid to try this game in fear of extreme frustration, but instead it was just a great time from beginning to end (granted I had to do a fair amount of looking things up.) I don't care that these games all have strong similarities between them, the level design and the fun twists around every corner make me a devout Soulsborne fan now.

Yeah, ok, this was one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played. I needed help from the internet to figure most things out. I didn't really fully grasp the story. There were tons of items I picked up that I never once used. That said the combat, the level design, the secrets, the bosses, the tough but fair challenge.. it was all fantastic. This is only my second From Software game I've played. I had been intimidated by them for the longest time. Now I'm kicking myself for not getting into Soulsborne games sooner.