A great idea, with pretty good realization, but disappointingly ruined with a few horribly implemented mechanics (made even worse after the latest update). Yet another oh-so-hardcore game that hides just plain bad balance behind 'git gud'. If you live under the misconception that you can be 'gud' at throwing digital dice, or if you have the time and patience to grind through uncountable 'nope, you just lose now' moments, and having your time wasted with random nonsense, good for you, you'll find a lot of fun in this game. I did until the point at the last level, where all semblance of reason just crumbles. Unfortunately, I have neither time nor patience for this.
Ok, this is a hard one. This game is gorgeous, evocative, emotional, beautiful, and mechanically, utterly, utterly broken. If you fall within the overlap of the Venn diagram between "love a Dark Souls-esque sense of environmental storytelling" and "has no problem with wasting time on technical player kills", buy this immediately. Most of the game flows smoothly once familirised with the slightly janky initial controlls, and there is not much to complain about for a majority of the game. The problem arises when you run into some of the worst boss design I've ever seen where the fight is, seemingly deliberately, built to randomise you into unwinnable positions. To artificially ramp up difficulty, the game starts to, for instance, throwing randomly spawning ghosts (Forgotten Kin), and randomly falling rocks (Failed Knight), that will put you in a place where escape is simply not mechanically possible. Others have spoken to the importance of learning foes' patterns, something I'm extremely on board with having clocked 200-300 hrs each into Demons Souls, and all of the Dark Souls games, but that is just not a factor when enemies repeatedly literally spawn in your location to health-tax you in the middle of a boss fight. Apart from this, every action has a superfluous end-lag. This combines to make the game seem to desperately try and wrest control of your character out of your hands to artificially inflate the difficulty. I'm about to call it quits, because I really don't have time for that anymore. This makes me sad, as apart from most late-game bosses, this game is fantastic. If you've got the patience and time for that, don't hesitate. Otherwise you might want to watch some videos or try it out before buying. As for the inevitable flood of "lern2ply" sub-morons, we are all very impressed at your "accomplishments" and your empty posturing is not pathetic at all, I promise.
