Too difficult. I played Hollow Knight a few years back, spent much time "beating" the game, say 98% (because the rest was too difficult). Now, this one is one or two levels more difficult. Or three. Not only combat, also platforming (after Craw lake) is way more punishing. So I have the same feeling as for the Dark Souls series - Try, die, die, die die, repeat 20-30 times and beat the mini-boss. There are so many of them that I don't feel to spend 100 or more hours to get to the bad ending. Or maybe 200 hours to get to 90%. This is no fun. G. PS: two stars for the art and the hope that you can finish the game.
Clunky at best. Learning how to play is a nightmare in itself. Three clicks at least for a QUICK save. You must click on a specific zone of a button (not the full button). How to use a Healing powder ? Could not find how... there is a 3' video on youtube (that I did not care to look at). No "highlight items" button. That's all after 10' of gameplay. There are good games from that era (Geneforge 1-2) that have a much better interface.
Clunky: your character is a 150kg beast (fine) his every move is like an elephant trying to turn around itself. You can't interrupt a move, including an attack ; you can't smoothly chain your moves (seems like the animations can't be interrupted, except by an attack of your opponent). "Unfair": of course, it is a souls-like, and Dark Souls IS unfair by design. This one is even more unfair because many things can happen in you back that you are not aware of (including focus NOT switching to another opponent after killing one, even though you have check the corresponding option). Unfairness is also due to the bad camera and >very strong< focus on your selected opponent (I mean, you have to unfocus, manage your camera for seeing what goes behind your back, focus so that you attack in the correct direction or even in front of the character rather than on the side). Add all that to "clunky" Bad graphics programming: I own a Dell XPS 9570, I could run at High such games as Horizon Zero Dawn. For this one, I had to choose Low setup, with every option turned off to get a reasonable frame rate. And the games messes up all my other window' size and position. After three bosses, I decided to hide the game.
I bought the game based on a high score and reading a few (positive reviews). I will not finish the game. I went through may be 10-15% before confirming the overall concept, while good, is very much flawed. + Nice beginning of a story + Nice art The rest is much less enjoyable +- You can insta-kill a non swimming monster (and I assume non-swimming enemies wearing chainmails?) by pushing them in water BUT you can't push them in a bottomless pit on the map. - "Cutscenes" are really slow. You can skip them but won't have the story - elevation is meaningless with respect to range: no range bonus is your character in elevated (I tried at + 5 or +6 height), or even positioning: no damage bonus if you strike from above. - there is no "control" on the tiles around the location of a character or enemy. You can go around anyone without any penalty or damage. Hence, this makes tactical positioning of a character or group irrelevant. This goes both ways, of course, but is very detrimental of the gameplay - Complexity of classes and their relationships: I am not sure to understand their usefulness (but maybe I have not seen enough). - Managing your roster's equipment is a mess (equipment slots are not even named) - Some enemies can spam you with poison (zombies are so smart, their AI detect that your healer has just removed poison from the character).
The say "Adventure - Action - Sci-fi", but it 80% a visual novel. The good: somehow innovative narrative approach, very nice art. The bad: very short (3-4 hours), story is OK but bland; gameplay is repetitive (same kind of enemies, each encounter is not a surprise), AI ranges between OK and lame ; buggy (see below), no choice or little, QTE at the wrong time, they tell you can hide but there is 0 (zero) stealth. You are forced into using this or that weapon, you may no carry even two of them. Conclusion: 20$/€ is way too much. I bought it for 10€ and was angry at me not to have tried the demo. May be 5 ? I stopped at the end of the story (4 chapters) and do not plan to read the DLCs. Bugs: controller as no dead zone - I had to use Joy2Key just for that. Animation is OK, but the character continues to run when you make it stop (really, it walks/run on place). Every move has a un-interruptible time, so you may not change your current action.
