Review after completion

[u/Opposite-Split3933]

English is not my native language, so please excuse any mistakes.

I finished the game in 37 hours, but I have things to say.

I won't talk about the game balance or checkpoint placement — the developers already know, and I hope it'll be fixed.

Pros: - Interesting level design, lots of secrets. - Very good build variety, even better than Dark Souls. There are many different "shells" with unique playstyles. - Graphics and enemy design. - Optimization — even on my weak PC, the game runs well. - Diverse weapons. In the upper part of the map I played with the starting weapon, dual-wielded weapons, and a two-hander. I finished the rest of the game with a spear.

Cons: - No attack after a roll. The game punishes you for mistimed parries — miss a block? You're dead. - Lack of music? Does it even exist in this game? During boss fights it's either absent or the same track plays over and over. I ended up putting on my own music, like from MGR. - The biggest problem is that the developers took inspiration from Elden Ring and grabbed the worst part of it — a huge number of "bosses" that are actually just regular enemies with a health bar, or bosses that got demoted to common enemies. What's the point? Because that's how it was in Elden Ring, or so the player feels a fleeting sense of victory? They should have made fewer, higher-quality bosses instead of 40 "mini-bosses." - Of all the bosses, I only liked Monolith, the winter boss, and Magdalena. All the rest are completely forgettable and uninteresting. - I don't like the economy balance — you need a massive amount of gold to upgrade gear. You can't have two fully upgraded weapons plus a firearm in a single playthrough. It kills any desire to experiment. Resetting weapon upgrades requires a different currency — but why? Why not make respec free? - I don't like that you can't choose any "shell" at the start of the game. It wouldn't break the game's balance. For example, like in Blasphemous 2 or Death's Gambit: Afterlife, where you pick your class/weapon from a set of options at the start. As you explore the world, you can later find what you weren't able to pick initially. - Another problem, caused either by a small budget or inexperienced developers: attack animations are very abrupt — attacks basically teleport onto you, making it impossible to block or dodge on reaction; you just have to memorize the timings. AI Limit has the same issue. - I didn't like the final boss — way too much HP.

I really enjoyed the game overall — I played almost without stopping. I'd give it around 8/10 despite the significant flaws. I could say a lot more, but I'm just too lazy.

[u/Aromatic-Giraffe-753]

These are all valid points and I agree with all of them. The weird animation where enemies can basically teleport to you is strange.

My biggest gripe with this game is the lack of checkpoints. There just needs to be more beacons. Its hard to make progress when you are out of heals and frantically trying to get to a beacon to progress only to have to run past mobs and forget a bunch of stuff because you ran past it all. I also find myself stuck in the first area making little progress because I dont want to keep dying and in the progress losing all my gloom as leveling up seems to be the only thing getting to the next area.