Darkwood

This is a well-imagined game with a great atmosphere and is set in an interesting world that would appeal to most people including me. The problem is that you shall end fighting game itself not things on the screen. I would be ready to pay another 10 eur for fixed character movement. You control the character with "WSAD" buttons, shift for a run but you also have to adjust the protagonist's heading with a mouse. This effectively brings you into a situation where you dodge a hostile attack but can't counterattack on time or where such controls together with stagger caused by hostile attack prevent you from regaining composure or run if a fight happens in cramped space because you shall end stuck in corners or against furniture or random junk which shall happen a lot. To swing a weapon you need to press and hold the right mouse button and to strike the left mouse button. If you get hit by an enemy swing resets and you need to do it again (and again to get hit by the enemy in meantime). Only the area in front of your character is fully visible so you need to spin constantly to figure out what's around you. Summa summarum, I have completed Forest, I am regularly in the top 3000 players in Mortal Kombat 11, and in 5 hours of Darkwood, I have killed maybe two enemies and died around 15 times. The game urges you to spend a night in a fortified shelter, however, one game day is slightly under 10 minutes in our world. This works well if you have foreknowledge of things ahead, but if you do not and you happen to get stuck somewhere or have a dilemma about what next or you can't find something things can quickly get ugly. The game advises you to "respect forest" which I would love to do but is nearly impossible with such a short time limit and clunky movement and combat. The map is not accurate and serves for orientation purposes only. This is a good game with some bad execution and probably won't be able to compete in the long term with other stuff in your library.

Ok, I just have to say It, I don't like this game. Not a single bit. I baught it, because of the wonderfull rating. I mean, five stars out of five? How many Games hav such a great rating? And as a horror/ survival fan I was shure do love this game. Well, I played over four days in the game, arround four hours real time. And so far it just feels awful. Apart from that one scene in the Prolog there where no moments, when this game gave me a scary moment, or even a shiver. For the most time I just felt bored. The control is clumsy and there are some real nasty bugs, like getting stucked in a bush. And after that four hours played, my safegame suddenly got lost and I lost three entire days ingame. That was the point when I finnaly made my mind to write this review. To get this straight, I respect your oppinions to like this game! And I ask you to respect mine too, before unleash a shitstorm over me, after i postet this XD

Frustrating and a complete nonsense. If you love extremely difficult games without a meaningful plot and that hide their flaws with “mistery”, then, buy it!

The top down view is diabolical, leaves you struggling to get any fill of where you are and what's available to use in a room. This is worsened by the movement controls which leave you spinning around and constantly walking in walls. These just ruined any other potential the game has.

I have absolutely no idea what I'm even supposed to do other than hide. Most of the time that doesn't even work. Your character doesn't seem to be able to attack, so every encounter is death or hope you can run. Stepping on poison mushrooms poisons you, unlike actual poison mushrooms that you have to eat or at least touch to skin for prolonged periods. Bear traps are everywhere. Wolves or dogs or whatever they are are everywhere, including three steps outside your starting position. It certainly does have a creepy atmosphere... but with absolutely ZERO instructions on how to do literally anything in the game, like access inventory, attack, etc. I can't possibly support this.