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.
Grinding is fine, but grinding in a boring environment is painful... In this game you explore almost empty dungeons (=ships), each movement needing some energy. You can scan around your position but this does not guaranty you will identify interesting rooms. Some will nevertheless have some loot in there. The difficulty levels seems fine, until you hit some wall, and probably need to backtrack and explore some other dungeons to grind (I have not experienced backtracking to a fully explored ship. There might be opportunity for leveling through random encounters but have not tried it (remember, bored). The combat system and cards seem fine, at least I was interested enough to try it for a longer time. However, you have to guess much of it. Hence the 2 stars. Now for the really blocking and game killing aspect: the interface looks like it was built for a touch screen with no keyboard. EVERY INTERACTION needs to click. Going to the inventory == click on the PDA button on the top right, then click on the Inventory button. Hey, Devs, do you know the 'I' key on a keyboard? Or 'M' by the way, or ESC to get the Menu system, or 1-9 to choose action, etc. The game is very expensive for that kind of execution; I have got it with a 66% discount but this does not make a better game. Please devs.... make an update with a proper PC interface.
The art, level design, uncertainties with maps, tons of weapons, tons of passive or active support [but not clear quantitatively], Dark souls like in 2.9D (levels are 3D, each section is in 2.5 D, looking at the background gives you very good hints), difficult but fair (meaning some grinding but not too much). All that and more. Now for why I do not recommend this game for non-hardcore gamers : there is a level cap (at 30). So even though you can level up to compensate your high reaction time (low reaction speed if you like), you are screwed in the end. I was stuck at the final battle (pre-final boss) where **SPOILERS** you have to fight 3 time 4 high level badies ; most of the time, you had to fight 3 at the same time, now it is 4, they are not in sync so whatever your good skills and weapons, you have to rely on reacting in the optimal way. Even good players end this game with little health. Hence I ended up frustrated by not ending the game **END-OF-SPOILERS**
I received the game for free, but could not play for more than 10 minutes. Trying to hack and slash in first person mode made me quite dizzy: headbob was OK (I believe minimal or none), but the first combats were very messy., and made me feel seasick in 2'. This game looks good in general, also appears to be well done, but I am not recommending it at all if you are subject to such dizziness. Definitively needed to have a third person mode. Gilbert
Nice little gem of a game. Casual gameplay most of the time, except for bosses who have interesting patterns. Also, 100% needs some work - a couple of upgrades are difficult to find/guess. Caveat: Xbox controller is nicely recognized, mapping is OK for most of the game, but not very convenient (a jump, x shoot, b missile) when you need/want to run and gun and missile (and phase). I used joy2key to have an alternate shoot (LT) and missile (LB). Control remapping for controllers would be nice.
The story is very good - mixing the West with a horror setup. The gameplay consists in a number of "scenarios" (chapters of the campaign), following a number of interrelated of characters/events. Phases of these scenarios are (1) simulation of combats in a squad-based western type combat, (2) exploration of a map with events and choices, sometime management (food or money). The combat phases are very well done, with a very good luck/"MP" system (if the RNG decides you evade an attack, then you lose some luck. Luck is also the basis of some very powerful abilities.). The cover system is also very well thought (see also the negatives below). The exploration phases are OK, choices are simple (this is very good for me). They tell the story while avoiding the map-after-map syndrome. Replayability is low unless you wait the time to forget the elements of the story. I played in "normal" difficulty, I recommend going "hard" from the beginning. I suspect Hard+game modifiers is extremely difficult, needing you to constantly optimize your weapons, buffs and modifiers. Finally: I have not encountered any game breaking bug. I wanted to give a 4.5 rating, so 5 it will be. Negatives: - the cover systems works almost always, but not always: more than once, one of the enemies would benefit from a full or half cover while being attacked from behind. - enemies benefits from an automatic over-watch zone, based on proximity - if one of your character enters the zone, he/she can be automatically attack. This is a very good mechanism... but your characters don't benefit from it: they don't have it, not even as an ability (e.g., in some game, you can use some AP to go in overwatch mode).
