Just finished The Surge on PS4. As the game is a Souls-like and I haven't played the Souls games that much (a lot of Demon's Souls, a tiny bit of Dark Souls 1) I probably won't be the best to comment on this game but here goes:
First off: it's the least stable PS4 game I've played yet. It's crashed a few dozen times on me, almost always when changing levels and it was never a big deal as the game saves often but hilariously it also crashed on me just after beating the final boss and I didn't get to see the credits or the extra cutscene that plays alongside them (just looked it up on YouTube). I'm also not sure if I got the trophy for finishing the game, lol. It may be because I've been using the PS4 Pro's "boost mode", though, which makes pre-Pro games run faster but is potentially unstable so I'm not sure the developers are to blame.
As for the game itself: I actually enjoyed it a whole lot. I was kinda captivated from the first moment on and it actually starts with a pretty amazing twist that I don't wanna spoil. The game just instantly felt right to me: I liked the graphics (even in "performance mode" the game looks great on PS4), the movement just felt nice to me (and is reminiscent of the Souls games) and it has an often melancholic atmosphere which I dig. I was instantly in love with the first location, this industrial complex in the desert that you see on all the screenshots. Admittedly later the game becomes pretty uneven in some regards and many of the locations are pretty generic sci-fi base stuff that looks like Doom, Prey, whatever, but still, I liked the world and atmosphere and there's some cool ideas in the story and setting.
As is typical of Souls-likes the game is tough as nails and most of the time several hits will kill you. I even read that the game is harder than the Souls games, due to enemies being less predictable, the animations a bit faster with shorter windups etc. - maybe it's true but frankly the only thing that seriously pissed me off and almost ragequit at times were the boss fights, which mostly feel unnecessarily sadistic. It's probably also because of two things: the only option you have in this game is melee, besides the occasional drone attack (which is kinda their spell system) but those are pretty weak and need to be charged up with melee first. You can't just go for a different more accessible playstyle involving ranged combat and such Also, there's no way to seriously farm in this game. Basically the only thing you improve here is your gear and gear is capped by by the area you're in and the enemies you currently encounter - you can and must upgrade your gear but it only goes to the current enemies' level. There's also "core power" that determines how much and how good gear and implants you can equip, but again, it will only really allow you to use the stuff you have already unlocked by finding or looting it.
Still, the game is not that hard: you get skills and various passive upgrades by equipping implants which you find by exploring and you can always respec them for free - some of those are pretty powerful, in particular ones that heal you by executing enemies or spending energy (which, as I mentioned, you build up by attacking in melee). Or you can always focus on equipping as many healing items as possible, which makes the game quite forgiving. Like in Souls you only drop "Tech Scrap" (the game's currency) on death but 1. it's not that valuable, 2. it's usually easy to recover it and 3. you can "bank" it at "Ops" (where you respawn, respec and craft) to keep it safe. The combat may be tough but all the meta mechanics aren't.
If I have a serious complaint it's that the levels are pretty convoluted and there's neither a map nor objective markers and I sometimes got lost. E.g. I completed the objective that I was told by an NPC and then had no idea where to go. Is there a new corner on the current map I have to visit? Can I access a new map from the hub level? It was pretty annoying and I googled the direction two or three times to save some time. Also, too many of the enemies are humanoids for my taste and are fought too similarly. There's some (usually meh) robotic enemies that differ a lot but it feels like throughout most of the game you fight the same enemy, just with different weapons (although those make quite a difference).
Also, I'm not that happy with the gear system. The gear is pretty evenly balanced and mostly differs in character rather than strength. Even the earliest armour makes sense if you just decide to stick with it and upgrade it all the way, it's kinda similar with weapons. Then there's the matter of armour set bonuses: these make armour really differ, e.g. by healing you on kills, making you impervious to gas and acid, make you regenerate stamina more quickly etc. but it also actively discourages mixing armour parts. And The Surge is like the one ARPG where mixing armour parts from different sets looks cool rather than stupid and would make major tactical sense if it weren't for missing set bonuses.
However, all of this didn't really harm the experience that much. Exploring this sci-fi world was pretty satisfying, I liked the story and also the game's USP is pretty fun: you can target different body parts of enemies which kinda reminded me of Dead Space (especially given the at times similar atmosphere). You deal more damage by attacking the unarmoured parts but you can get new gear by cutting off armoured ones - you do that with rather satisfying "execution moves" which cost energy and need you to have dealt most damage against the part you want. It's a fairly simple but surprisingly fun system with some risk & reward stuff going on.
So, I liked it and looking at reviews and user scores I feel like the game got a bit too much criticism just for not being Souls. I hope The Surge 2, to be released in September, will fare much better.
Oh yeah: the ending is a letdown (even if the game doesn't crash).
