The boss fight is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but the rest of the game isn't bad.

[vizthex]

The damn controls *never* respond during the fight, and the thing has *way* too much health & deals too much damage. Seems like it moves way too fast too, which is *infuriating* given how unresponsive the controls are during that section. Didn't have an issue with them before.

I got all 2 skill points that you can get before the fight, so I had 20% extra HP and Stamina - and I *still* couldn't even get it to 75% health ffs.

That boss needs to be removed, *vastly* nerfed, or pushed further back - because it totally killed my enjoyment of the demo.

Other than that, the game's not bad so far. Creature designs are neat, the different weapons you can get are cool, etc.

I gathered some other feedback too:

- The bug scanning bit before the boss is absolutely dreadful. I had to spent like 5 straight minutes on it cuz the damn prompt wouldn't show up, scoured the discussions and finally found a video guiding you through it. Fix those prompts ASAP.
- You can't close the datapad. I eventually figured out that you had to grab something off the back, but the game should hint towards this. I thought I was softlocked for a minute.

- The game should save more often. It's irritating to have to repeat an *entire* section just because you had to use your singular healing item.

- It seems like there's motion blur, at least when investigating crates & such. Let me disable that.

- Locked skills should be more clearly locked. The tree starts at the bottom and works upwards, but it's not very clear.
- Getting knowledge is slow af, and you should get some from enemies. If they respawn, it'd give less or none at all - but that boss fight is utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ without like half the skills unlocked.
- You should be able to open the log with J or L, it's annoying to have to navigate through a menu tab on top just to mark the latest entry I don't care about as "read".

- Ammo is kinda easy to get. Really only struggled during the lead-up to the bug scanning since so many of those damn water-borne ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ spawned. You also can't even carry 3 full magazines of it. Why?

- Not being able to jump makes me sad.

- There's invisible walls everywhere, which is quite annoying when trying to navigate the place.

- The subtitles being on by default is amazing, especially since so many demos just fail to do that. Makes it easy to read something I missed. (though the alien hologram at the start shouldn't have readable subtitles imo. Kinda ruins the mystery. Should either be subtitled in the alien language, or have an explanation as to why Kate can understand it).

As I said at the start, the game itself is pretty good - but that first boss fight completely killed it for me.

[kekplexis]

Boss is much more easier (beat him on the 3rd try) than the two tanky enemies at a single time, which are in the section right after the boss. Playing on hard difficulty, mouse+keyboard.

[vizthex]

Originally posted by n2o_dark:

Boss is much more easier (beat him on the 3rd try) than the two tanky enemies at a single time, which are in the section right after the boss. Playing on hard difficulty, mouse+keyboard.

ha, opposite for me. Used the exploding plant near the second one to take out both of them.

[Valaska]

Originally posted by n2o_dark:

Boss is much more easier (beat him on the 3rd try) than the two tanky enemies at a single time, which are in the section right after the boss. Playing on hard difficulty, mouse+keyboard.

The last boss is more annoying/cheap than hard for sure. The flamethrower makes it more annoying than it has to be, and my first 2 losses were due to me trying to freeze the water alla round him. It worked well until Iran out of ice ammo.

Eventually I just froze 2 patches around the tiny strip of land you are given and basically stood still firing at him and the fight just... was boring at that point lol. Shoot dodge, shoot dodge, freeze ground, shoot dodge.

The 2 tanky at once was pretty easy though one I ignored the flamethrower and just froze the crap out of them and then use the shock gun to hit them both at the same time.

[kekplexis]

The last boss felt kinda easy too, just beat him on the 3rd try. The need to freeze the water is annoying, but using a shield helps a lot.
And yeah, I realized that flamethrower is useless when the enemies are wet - should be obvious, but the game teaches you to shot these glowing parts with fire, so I did exactly that And then just used ice + electric rifle, which was way more effective.

[H'Sishi]

Sorry, if the game has alot of fights like the one vs. "The Alpha" in the demo, it's a "no thanks" candidate for me.
The exploration part, the beauty of the surroundings and the puzzles, yes even the number of small annoying critters, won't make it against the boss fight if 99% of the game are behind the first imbalanced boss.

[H'Sishi]

Sry, too frustrating and my mouse is in danger of getting smashed.

/uninstall

[vizthex]

Originally posted by H'Sishi:

Sorry, if the game has alot of fights like the one vs. "The Alpha" in the demo, it's a "no thanks" candidate for me.
The exploration part, the beauty of the surroundings and the puzzles, yes even the number of small annoying critters, won't make it against the boss fight if 99% of the game are behind the first imbalanced boss.

same here. I hate it when games have one section that's just so awful you can't progress, really kills my enjoyment.

[H'Sishi]

I really enjoy games with a storyline, even if it's a linear story. I don't mind excessive shootings when you make progress. I'm ok with an occasional a**hole, one per big section. But if a game offers difficulty options (e.g. "Easy" for non-Souls cracks) the bosses should behave like a bigger annoyance on "Easy", not as 2m x 2m doorguard at a night club (you know, the "No entry for you. Period." type).

For Alpha, I managed to hit ONE well-placed fire hit in several attempts (not even in all ...); from that no chance to hit it again into the weak spot.
In some attempts Alpha even managed to HEAL a bit up, enough to negate several "50" hits. And you don't even have the time to re-damage it with all the running (after a few steps the character put her gun away ... inmidst of a fight - wtf?).
Targeting with the fire gun requires a second to charge it - enough time for Alpha to close its heart opening for the shot.

It makes me sad - this game has such a promising story in nice surroundings which I would like to explore, but I won't put my hardware into danger. In the past years several mice and even a monitor were fatally damaged out of frustration.
If even the demo piles up that much frustration, then sorry.

[vizthex]

Originally posted by H'Sishi:

I really enjoy games with a storyline, even if it's a linear story. I don't mind excessive shootings when you make progress. I'm ok with an occasional a**hole, one per big section. But if a game offers difficulty options (e.g. "Easy" for non-Souls cracks) the bosses should behave like a bigger annoyance on "Easy", not as 2m x 2m doorguard at a night club (you know, the "No entry for you. Period." type).

For Alpha, I managed to hit ONE well-placed fire hit in several attempts (not even in all ...); from that no chance to hit it again into the weak spot.
In some attempts Alpha even managed to HEAL a bit up, enough to negate several "50" hits. And you don't even have the time to re-damage it with all the running (after a few steps the character put her gun away ... inmidst of a fight - wtf?).
Targeting with the fire gun requires a second to charge it - enough time for Alpha to close its heart opening for the shot.

It makes me sad - this game has such a promising story in nice surroundings which I would like to explore, but I won't put my hardware into danger. In the past years several mice and even a monitor were fatally damaged out of frustration.
If even the demo piles up that much frustration, then sorry.

i'm sure the final game will fix it (hopefully), and if not someone might mod it in or something.

[Doomtear]

+1 ,boss fight is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up

[Katana DK]

Originally posted by H'Sishi:

my mouse is in danger of getting smashed.

I am sooo happy I'm not alone in this. Even on easy I only managed to get The Alpha down to about 75%. This may be fun/tolerable with a controller and auto-aim, but with mouse & keyboard it's infuriating. And I saw in a video that the demo ends with an even more effed up boss scenario. Big yikes!

My review of (basically the first half of) the demo:
It looks gorgeous, runs well, has good graphical options, and the basic gameplay loop and environments are interesting. Story seems pretty formulaic, but that's hard to judge from what is basically just exposition so far.

I've played a bit of Mass Effect: Andromeda, and it behaves A LOT like that game. However I was not expecting the souls-like aspect of 5 minutes of boss fight dodge-rolling, and the VERY console-y aesthetic with regards to controls, menus, always-on in-the-middle-of-the-screen-like-you're-a-blind-idiot questmarkers, invisible walls and so on.

it's gonna be a no from me, dawg.

[Katana DK]

I also want to add: THANK YOU, developers and publisher for going through the effort of even releasing a demo! It's such a rare sight these days.

[H'Sishi]

Luckily I don't play with a controller ... it would have impacted already into my monitor.

[Dramion]

Mechanics are a must in this game. Can't cheese your way through. Timed fire shots to chest on the ape boss then lighting to the face +500 damage.

[MiSTiK]

Start is a bit too slow (almost lost my will to play b4 even something interesting showed up). Fire weapon not always shoots when i mean to, checkpoints placed weird (you should never go again in cinematics or slow stages like storm because checkpoing is bad placed). Also overall quality of animations on enemies specially that shoot poison is really low budget. Not great not bad, more like 6/10 game if you would ask. Final boss is decent in terms of idea, but realization could be better (maybe one more special attack, bit bigger area + clearer save spots from poison water). If you ask me what things done right, it would be elements combination mechanics, collectibles was placed ok, and the last boss. Oh, also some unexpected encounters like that enemy is from frozen water and cocoons All other is just mediocre, not something original i haven't seen or to be exited about.