ELDERBORN

Great hidden Gem in a few Years id say. In General if you like Skillbased Combat and are done with Dark Souls and similiar Games take a Look at this one. Gameplay is Fun and the Game itself heavily Athmospheric. I started on Elderborn Difficulty and had a blast with it. Years ago i always looked at the Gameplay Time,but nowadays i see that a short Game doesnt mean bad or not worth the Price. Its one of those Games you want more of after playing,and i think thats better than a really Long Game with that youre bored after finishing it (And btw,theres NG+) In Combination with what i wrote about and the Cheap Price in general its absolutely worth it. In addition i should mention that im a Huge Fan of Low Fantasy,everything Barbaric and for sure Robert E Howards storys. I always look for Games and think we live in Times where you can consider yourself Lucke when Modern Devs make a Game that leans towards a Setting like this. Its Artstyle isnt as Dirty or 80s as i like it,like lets say Artworks for the Dark Sun Games and Frazettas Artworks (Weaponlord anyone?) But its a nice Blend of some of the Themes around Stuff like this. It really feels like a Throwback to lighthearted low Fantasy of the 80s,i love it.

Game can make you feel like a musician of sword or axe (You will see, trying another and another jam seesions) ;) Try only hard diff lev, looking everywhere for secrets, playing on headphones(soundtrack!). Game is physically splitted in two parts. First (dungeons) is nearly perfected and mostly climatic and weighted fairly. Town, with visible everywhere shortcuts in developement, but still nice and juicy 90% of time. Only boss fights sucks, in half of the fight your fingers can refuse to cooperate, from tiring. 95% is worth reccomending.

Well this was a fun and sometimes challenging game. You really need to learn enemies attack pattern to deal with them the best way. On Hard AF difficulty I found parry to be your best way to deal with things. Using body parts as projectiles are very efficient on unsuspecting enemies close to edges or high places. There are many different type of weapons and I find only some to be really usefull on Hard AF difficulty. As others have mentioned it does have some similarities to Dark Messiah if you have played that. Kicking enemies to see them fall to their deaths. Visually it has the old style vibe and it was great. Sound and music is great. Wish there had been more music playing in the background. What took me a while to get used to was the reach of the weapons from both yourself and enemies at times thanks to the camera angle. Had a blast with the game overall.

This is the best first person perspective melee combat game, it is an improvement since Dark Messiah, Condemned and Elder Scrolls, so the last games feel dated in comparison to Elderborn. You can feel the "weight" of your weapons, enemies are responsive to your attacks, for example two handed hammer will throw away them with a strong hit. This is not an rpg, much less an immersive sim, this is just a short action adventure game. Hence, you have to use some weapons in certain situations. You can use your favourite in most of the game, but you will have to switch to others for some enemies and bosses.

This is a very well enjoyable and rewarding experience. The combat is quite fun, engaging and challenging. However, I can see why people who aren't fans of Dark Souls style tactical melee combat could become frustrated. My expectations were not super high and I was pleasantly suprised. When considering the price, studio size and overall length of the game I feel they did a excellent job. I enjoy a lot of things about this game but will list a couple things that could use improvment. First, the writing is well done but grammatically iffy in some spots. I think there may have been some translation issues (for the English version) or perhaps a little more proofreading needed. This issue with grammar occasionally made some of the weapon text confusing. The second issue is also involving the codex menus. When using a controller the tutorial does not list the specific buttons to do actions. These buttons are only listed in the tutorial when using keyboard and mouse. The third issue again is with menu write ups. When you go into keybinding they have all the controls listed but nothing saying what does what. I can see that LMB and RB are the same control but nothing lists what action they perform. This can lead to some confusion and unecessary frustration if you want to rebind things. With all that said I stil give this game 4 out of 5! If the devs iron out the menu stuff and some other glitches I have seen some people encounter I could easily give 5 out of 5.