First off: I'm a huge Soulslike fan. I've played all the From Software ones, except Elden Ring which is next. And from all Soulslikes Bloodborne is my all time favorite. So naturally after I heard that this game is really good I should really like this game, but somehow I don't.
The OK:
- The core gameplay feels OK
- The hitboxes seem to be OK. I didn't find any quirky stuff when fighting bosses etc.
- The bosses were all fun to fight with a good balance (a bit easy for my taste, I feel like the bosses in the demo were way harder somehow?)
- Having an infinite homeward bone is nice
- Several quality of life systems, like showing the amount of souls one can still fetch after having died
- The level design was OK. Nothing amazing but also nothing really bad
The bad:
- This is really really subjective but the general theme and setting is not my cup of tea. It all feels a bit silly to me, which is why I can't take it seriously
- The weapon variety feels bland to me. I have played for more than 8 hours and I am still using the beginner weapon, because it has better scaling, move set and fable arts than anything else I found
- There are lots of bloated progression/crafting systems. I am a fan of bare bones and I don't need the Quartz leveling system for example. It feels tacked on and doesn't add anything. Same with the weapon crafting system. The idea is nice, but it doesn't give me much when almost all handle fable arts suck and changing the scaling to what I would like to use (quality build) still gives me something worse than the beginner weapon
- The Legion arm combined with it's crafting system feels useless. I never once used the arm anywhere and I have been perfectly fine, never thinking that I'm missing out on much. Being able to wield a weapon 2 handed would have been way better in my opinion.
- Another useless system: summoning NPCs. Since NPCs make almost every boss fight trivial I would have liked the concept IF the game wouldn't throw like 20 summon items at you around every corner. It makes the whole system redundant. The Dark Souls Humanity system was way way better for this in my opinion
The ugly:
- Holy Shit why does this game borrow the worst thing from Bloodborne?Why the hell do I need to port to the base (Hotel Krat) everytime when I want to level up, especially when I can level up at the bonfires in the tutorial chapter. It makes absolutely no sense at all and just adds unnecessary load times.
Conclusion:
This is a game weighed down by unnecessary crafting/progression systems which don't add much. It would have been better if they instead focused more on the core gameplay, weapon variety and game systems which actually make a difference, see The Surge 2 for example.
If you like the theme, setting and atmosphere and have no problem with ignoring the bloat I'm sure this is a really nice game for you. If not I would pass until the game gets way cheaper.
Maybe I will pick this up again later and give it a second chance, but I doubt it.
The OK:
- The core gameplay feels OK
- The hitboxes seem to be OK. I didn't find any quirky stuff when fighting bosses etc.
- The bosses were all fun to fight with a good balance (a bit easy for my taste, I feel like the bosses in the demo were way harder somehow?)
- Having an infinite homeward bone is nice
- Several quality of life systems, like showing the amount of souls one can still fetch after having died
- The level design was OK. Nothing amazing but also nothing really bad
The bad:
- This is really really subjective but the general theme and setting is not my cup of tea. It all feels a bit silly to me, which is why I can't take it seriously
- The weapon variety feels bland to me. I have played for more than 8 hours and I am still using the beginner weapon, because it has better scaling, move set and fable arts than anything else I found
- There are lots of bloated progression/crafting systems. I am a fan of bare bones and I don't need the Quartz leveling system for example. It feels tacked on and doesn't add anything. Same with the weapon crafting system. The idea is nice, but it doesn't give me much when almost all handle fable arts suck and changing the scaling to what I would like to use (quality build) still gives me something worse than the beginner weapon
- The Legion arm combined with it's crafting system feels useless. I never once used the arm anywhere and I have been perfectly fine, never thinking that I'm missing out on much. Being able to wield a weapon 2 handed would have been way better in my opinion.
- Another useless system: summoning NPCs. Since NPCs make almost every boss fight trivial I would have liked the concept IF the game wouldn't throw like 20 summon items at you around every corner. It makes the whole system redundant. The Dark Souls Humanity system was way way better for this in my opinion
The ugly:
- Holy Shit why does this game borrow the worst thing from Bloodborne?Why the hell do I need to port to the base (Hotel Krat) everytime when I want to level up, especially when I can level up at the bonfires in the tutorial chapter. It makes absolutely no sense at all and just adds unnecessary load times.
Conclusion:
This is a game weighed down by unnecessary crafting/progression systems which don't add much. It would have been better if they instead focused more on the core gameplay, weapon variety and game systems which actually make a difference, see The Surge 2 for example.
If you like the theme, setting and atmosphere and have no problem with ignoring the bloat I'm sure this is a really nice game for you. If not I would pass until the game gets way cheaper.
Maybe I will pick this up again later and give it a second chance, but I doubt it.