My honest thoughts and full review.

[B_urdeNing]

It seems everyone is singing praises for this game, as if it's the second coming of Miyazaki. However, I cannot in good faith recommend it in its current state. Initially, I was enamored with it, but my appreciation quickly waned as I progressed. Mechanically and in terms of design, there are several issues with the game. Fans claim it’s a love letter to the Souls genre, but it lacks the essence of Souls games. Fromsoft's Soulsborne series, along with Sekiro and Elden Ring, offer challenging experiences that provide myriad ways to conquer challenges. This game does not really do that. So often in this game you feel like you are shoehorned into a situation and the game does not provide the means for you to solve it other than banging your head against the wall that the game built for you. I think some of the design are seriously flawed in this game, like Dark Souls 2, it's an immitation of the essence of Souls game but missed some major marks.

Mechanics - Firstly, I feel like the devs cannot decide if they want this game to be more Bloodborne/Sekiro or Dark Souls or both. The character P is neither agile enough nor strong enough for either playstyle. Enemies frequently outpace and overpower P, making encounters unbalanced. P's perfect parry window is exceedingly tight, and some of the bosses' combo has an interval of like 0.5 seconds. Unless you have perfectly memorized the bosses' movesets, I don't know how you are really supposed to perfect parry them. Enemies also do not react to being perfect parried, they do not cancel their combo, they do not get staggered, making this mechanic extremely unsatisfying and unrewarding. Often times in elite/boss fight, you feel like your character is no where as strong as the ginormous enemies but no where as fast either. P cannot raise up his weapon fast enough to parry a lot of the time due to recovery frames on so many of his action. What's worse is that P has no poise, or hyperarmor. Poise is simply not a stats in the game, no amount of gear or any weapon changes that. So P with no poise and cannot dodge/block fast enough resulting you just often get combo'd to death in a corner by a ramnpaging boss or stunlocked to death on the ground (more on this later).

Second of all, weapon design. I played through the game using a strength build, I started with heavy weapon and let me tell you, the heavy weapons in this game are pathetic and woefully ineffective. Heavy weapons in Dark Souls are some of the fan's favorite. They are slow and cumbersome but they have long ranges, very high damage, and very high poise damage, so as long as you know what you are doing, you can keep the enemies at bay by killing them at range or stagger/stun them. However, the heavy weapon's reach in this game is laughable and their attacks are so slow with super long recovery frames that stop you from dodging or guarding. What's worse is that for some reason the geniuses at NEOWIZ made it so even when you "stance break" an enemy, you have to do a fully charged heavy attack or fable attack(they are just as long to cast) to be able to do a fatal/visceral/execution attack. Enemies also does not react to being "stance broken" whatsoever, they will continue their relentless combo and overlong delayed attack combos. Perfect parry was hard enough already, this just makes it all the more unrewarding. Especially good luck doing it with the pipe wrench becase the charging heavy is a two-hit combo and the first hit doesn't count, only landing the second hit allows for the visceral attack. Well, it also wouldn't be so so bad if our ultra heavy and slow weapons have any amount of poise or hyperarmor so we can trade health for a visceral attack. No, your character has no poise or hyperarmor regardless of what weapon you use, so if you are almost done with your super long charging heavy attack and even the weakest of the trash mobs look at you the wrong way, you are ♥♥♥♥♥♥. I also don't understand why the game devs thinks that an vital information such as stance bar should be hidden, in Sekiro, the stance bar of both you and the enemies are clearly shown.

Third of all, enemy design in general. Every enemy in this game has an ungodly amount of delayed attacks; pretty much every elite and boss enemy uses overly long 6-7 hit combo, spinning attack, "drunken master" style delayed attack combo that is really really poorly telegraphed. Some of the grab and slam attack also look too similar. Almost every non-grunt enemies also have furious (perilous) attack that you cannot dodge (unless you want to wear a 21 weight late game amulet) but only perfect parry. Most of the regular elite enemies that you encounter throughout exploration are so so so tanky and do so much damage. When I think of an elite enemy I think of Black Knights or Chained Ogre. However, for the elite enemies in this game, if they had a little bit more health they might as well be regular bosses. Most of the enemies are also so very aggressive that they leave you with little window to punish. Like they would repeat their 5-hit combo three times immediately one after another. Coupled with the fact that even if you "stance break" them with perfect parry, you still cannot punish them because, again, you need to land a charged heavy. The camera angle is seriously awful a lot of the times too, a lot of the enemies are so much bigger than you and have so many overhead attacks, the overhead attacks already barely gives out any visual cues to begin with and coupled with the close-up camera angle it's just so hard to dodge/parry them.
For example(Late Game Boss Spoiler)

Bosses, I always look forward to fighting bosses in Dark Souls but I absolutely dread fighting bosses in this game. All bosses in this game bar two are either multi-healthbar bosses with multiple phases per healthbar or absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gank fights. It's not just difficult, it's "exhausting" and "annoying". Especially the gank fight, I'm not getting into the Dark Souls 2 debate again on why both design wise and mechanically Artorias and Gael are some fo the best bosses and are "what the game is vessel for". Combo'd with P's relatively slow movement, honestly half the boss fight reminds of Malenia, like my character is in the wrong game.

This game is also trying too hard to be Dark Souls, and it's really unnecessary. It even copies the parts of Dark Souls that seriously no one likes. Sure, some of the item use animations are almost the same, even the status effect bars look the same. First of all, why do we have the old Dark Souls style ♥♥♥♥♥♥ jump other than trying to be Dark Souls? Even Fromsoft have abandoned that mechanic in Sekiro and Elden Ring. The A button in this game does nothing other than opening the pouch when being long-held. Why can't jump be a seperate action on the A botton? Second of all, why do we need poison swamp and curse/deathblight insta death status effect? We have not only one but multiple, multiple poison swamps and acid swamps in this game, it is just so so annoying but what gameplay/storytelling/art design purpose did they really serve? And nobody would have missed curse/deathblight effect if it wasn't in the game. At least in Dark Souls the basilisks are some of the weakeast mobs in the game, but enemies that deal disruption in this game are tanky as ♥♥♥♥.

Platforming, platforming is one of the weakest area in Dark Souls and a part of the game the general players are not fond of. Yet in this game, the devs decided to keep the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ jump mechanic and add a ton of platforming on wooden beams just for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles.
We even have a blight-town lite and smoldering lake ballista in this game, you can tell the game devs are really trying to be Dark Souls.

The "Dark Souls" 2 issue. This game is trying to be Dark Souls so much it even learns from Dark Souls 2. ADP - ADP is undoubtly one of the worst thing of DS2. Even the most die-hard fan cannot defend it so they just never bring it up and ignore its existence. Yet this game thinks it's a good idea to lock essential combat mechanic/stats behind upgrade. You get access to a "perk tree" about 1/4 of the way into the game and in there you need to unlock essential things like "chain a dodge in the middle of a dodge" or "being able to recover dodge from the ground" or "perfect parry interupts some attacks of some select enemies". P is already not agile or strong enough and the fact recover dodge from the ground is locked behind upgrade just make you get stunlocked to death on the ground so very often. The upgrade economy is also very bad, you really don't get to unlock these until you are 2/3 into the game, and I didn't unlock the perfect parry interupt until the last chapter of the game. Who thought this would be a good idea to gatekeep essential combat mechanics behind upgrade? How can the bosses even be properly designed and adjusted for diffulty when you can have varying level of dodges throughout the game?

The spambush problem, this game really like its ambush, even worse they are often poorly constructed, unlike in DS1 or DS3 where you can mostly easily spot the ambush. This game immitate DS2 where you walk into a gate, the gate shuts behind you and 6 mobs jumps out of the barrels and come right at you. This is good game design because uh?? why?

Insta-death trap, why? I don't remember a single insta-death trap in DS3. Maybe one that's very missable in Blighttown in DS1. Why are you trying to learn from DS2? Why is there so many insta-kill ground death traps? And even if you are smart and guessed it correctly, you still need to get over it using the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ jump mechanic. It would be somewhat fine if they are obvious except the trap wooden blank look exactly like the regular kind.

Weapon Durability - What's the point of this mechanic other than trying to be annoying? Like, what's there to manage? It is beyond annoying to stop mid boss fight to grind my weapon. Is it realistic and satisfying to sharpen my pipe wrench? So many of the enemies and area also gives decay acis effect that eats away your health and durability like crazy. Just why? Did any one like it in DS2? Durability became a non-issue in DS3 unless you are using Frayed Blade and ER straight up removed durability.

Enemy AI also tend to not work when you are traversing backword, just like DS2. They don't detect you if you are coming from behind them, enemies in this game don't patrol, they are not intelligent in anyway. The enemy setup feels inorganic and very DS2-esque. Also , sometimes when you lose aggro of an enemy and they walk back to their set spot, if you go in front and be on their route to the set spot they will ignore you.

Gank fights. Again, often times you are ganked by mobs, ganked by mob when you are fighting elite, or ♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss gank fights. A lot of them can't be drawn out one by one. Why anyone thinks gank fights should be in any sort of Souls-like is beyond me, let alone in such amount.

Some problems unique to this game.
Randomized damage. Randomized damage has no place in a souls-like game. Seriously. For example, most of the time an enemy take 3 hits to kill, but the one time you have a bad roll and it would have a sliver of health left and it just throws you off. But most importantly, why?

Unclear damage number, even though the stats menu shows you your damage. But it's wrong. Your weapon handle affects your damage, faster handles have lower damage, slower handle has more damage. But it isn't shown anywhere, making build-making and weapon testing extremely difficult.

Enemy naturally regains health. Why? Do you want me to play aggressively to punish and stop the regain? Because P is not agile enough to play aggressively!

P-organ (perk) build cannot be seen anywhere other than the stupid chair where you upgrade them. If I want to check or remind myself what perks I have selected, I cannot do it and have to teleport back to the central hub and get to the second floor and sit in that stupid chair. Not even the respec statue shows you what's your perk build before having you make the decision to respec.

Quarts economy and upgrade material economy. Quarts are so important since the perk upgrade are vital but we get so little of it mid to early game? Then all of a sudden the game throws like 6-7 of them in your face in chapter 8/9. Why? Also the game allows you to buy the tier one regular weapon upgrade material infinitely pretty early on but not tier two? I got tier two and three unlocked together by a single supply box at the end of chapter 9 ish? And the special/boss weapon upgrade, I got my normal weapon to +9 by chapter 7 i think, but my boss weapon was stuck at +3 because for some reason the +4 material is the same as the +5 material and the game doesn't give you any until chapter 10.

[Oats Lore]

k can i get a tldr?

[potato]

Originally posted by Loser:

k can i get a tldr?

tl;dr

[Oro]

tl;dr

[Diabolical Taco]

I glazed over this wall-o-text rant and got "skill issue" out of it.

[MachineGod]

But you beat the game…?

[Rubyeyed]

You really hate DS2 don't you OP?

Aside from that, I haven't seen that much (didn't buy EA) but I agree with parry window being too small and random damage being annoying and durability just being there to add a filler problem for the player.

Hopefully it won't get that bad further down the road.

[Knavery]

Originally posted by Diabolical Taco:

I glazed over this wall-o-text rant and got "skill issue" out of it.

Really? That's all you got out of it? Do you know how to read by any chance? He offered a lot of great feedback in his review. Much of it I learned from watching other reviews on Youtube. So, he's not wrong. It sounds like the combat is just horrible overall.

[madman3500]

another case of they copied souls without understanding souls

[NewYears1978]

Originally posted by Elate:

Originally posted by Knavery:

Really? That's all you got out of it? Do you know how to read by any chance? He offered a lot of great feedback in his review. Much of it I learned from watching other reviews on Youtube. So, he's not wrong. It sounds like the combat is just horrible overall.

Game currently has a 91% rating bud, I doubt it's horrible.

Gotta concur. I haven't seen a single review on YouTube claiming the combat was bad..in fact all the ones I watched said it was good. Maybe not perfect or as tight as a Fromsoft game..but still good.

[Kitsunegari]

First three bosses literally don't have multiple health bars. I don't know what he's going on about.

[Haruspex]

Just you mentioning ADP from DS2 just drives me into a mindless rage. Fk that mechanic pisses me off the more I remember it. If you don't specifically research why the f you're getting hit in the middle of rolls and only to find out I frames is locked to a stat which explains the BS.

[Leziropav]

git gud

[TheAnti]

It's a damn video game. It's not that serious. Play it, or don't. I'm not reading that nonsense.

[Knavery]

Originally posted by Elate:

Originally posted by Knavery:

Really? That's all you got out of it? Do you know how to read by any chance? He offered a lot of great feedback in his review. Much of it I learned from watching other reviews on Youtube. So, he's not wrong. It sounds like the combat is just horrible overall.

Game currently has a 91% rating bud, I doubt it's horrible.

Where? It's 81 on Metacritic and that's just critic reviews. Look, all I'm saying is that from what I've seen, the reviewer here is correct in his synopsis. I would love for it to have great combat mechanics as I planned on buying it. I still may. But I want to hear more feedback from actual players--not journalist hacks.

[Olrok]

Gamepass scrub here. But I agree with a lot of the points where I am at so far. I agree one of the more frustrating things is if you manage to 'stance break' the enemy you still need to charge up a full heavy attack to take advantage of it while the enemy is just as dangerous as it was all along, if not more so because you might be trying to shoehorn in a charged heavy attack when you really don't have business doing so. And too many enemies having the fury attack and basically make it 'parry this or eat damage'. I know you can run away from the hitbox on some, but I think I would have rather them have been unblockable (except for the perfect timings), but dodge-able. Lots of the enemies in general feel very oppressive (I know git gud solves all problems, but still). Less 'opportunities for damage windows' and more trying to find an opening the size of the eye of a needle sometimes.

I think they should have either committed more to the agile bloodborne combat, or the flexible Souls/Elden Ring style, where you can change your block strength based off equipment. The game doesn't really feel like it 'clicks' for a sort of 'we tried to do both' approach. I'm not far enough in the game to see if any handles make your standard blocks more useful, so maybe that one might get outdated later into the game. Being forced to rely on health steal/rally to regain lost block damage doesn't feel good in the way that rallying lost health in Bloodborne feels good.

It is missing a lot of the core soul that makes Bloodborne and Souls so special. I really want to say I remember super early on in the game's announcement they said the game was less Bloodborne and more standard action/adventure, I'm having a hard time finding that now, so maybe I just fever dreamed it. But I think the obvious Bloodborne comparisons sort of paved the road for them for better or for worse. They may have been better off leaning toward a more Character Action style, like Devil May Cry. But since it is too late for that, I hope they are willing to listen to some feedback and make P a bit more agile and dodgy to facilitate a closer Bloodborne feeling.

I think the environments and art are doing a LOT of the lifting for keeping interest in the game. I might have been willing to be less critical of this game had I not have just been mainlining FromSoft greatness in Armored Core.

PS: Also usually as a first run Strength build player, some of my issues may be less of issues in non-strength weapons, I am just going off my experience so far.