This is a unique action rpg about a a young boy trying to find some kind of salvation from the nightmares that represent your inner demons.

The first thing that caught my eye for this game is the aesthetic. The best way to describe it is that it is like the emotional scribbles of a teen where you can make out what they're trying to depict but its pretty abstract.

In motion, it makes the world feel alien and hostile despite actually being rather familiar. It makes the enemies a little unsettling due being able to make out just enough to make out their attacks/enemy type/etc. but not enough to understand what they really look like.

This distillation also extends to how it helps the game's combat. Well...for the most part. Combat is visceral, difficult (if you want it to be. More in a second), and VERY satisfying imo. You are able to customize your lights, heavies, familiar (nier automata robot thing), and the virtues (perks basically) that you get.

Light attacks and heavy attacks (left click and right click on PC) can be very versetile. You can have a light attack that primarily breaks guards (breaks are also more likely to happen with a strong attack during an enemy attack), or a projectile that does ranged dmg, and so on. Familiars can literally just be a heal, maybe rapid fire shots, a shot that has a chance to break guard, an AOE attack, etc.

Combined with the virtues and the stat distribution the options become pretty interesting. My current build for the hardest dungeon (The descent) and the New Game+ (In that order for me, do not do what I did just do new game plus after first run lmao) is Thanatos for high strength (light), Gaea (heavy) for high break chance, and a beam that goes through defense.

I also have another set (gained post Descent) that's an AOE on left click, and a fire heavy as a get off me move I guess that is pretty likely to break guards. And the familiar is a glorified healing bot.

My playstyle eventually got really focused on parrying so I got virtues that were more geared towards high parry damage, high perfect dodge damage, a perk that makes enemies do more damage to me while I do more damage.

This combined with my attack stat being high led to me doing a ton of damage especially if you can land a parry. Which can get pretty tough especially on the higher levels.

And these are just one of the options! I watched a video that i managed to find (this game is criminally underrated so there's not too much on it) of someone doing the hardest dungeon and the build was almost completely different. The amount of customization in the gameplay and style is its greatest achievement imo and it seems like its sequel (Death of a Wish) gets even better in this aspect.

Ok so as for the story, well I can kinda understand what's going on in the story. The full context and the true ending of the story can only be achieved through NG+. I'm not sure if I agree with the decision to lock that through a NG+ run but the main game run is not that hard and is pretty forgiving for the most part.

This is also where another mechanic, the corruption meter, starts mattering more. In the main game, its not so bad I think it just leads to a reset or something, in NG+ I'm pretty sure it leads to a bad ending. You can fight it by achieving high ranks in each combat encounter (S, A, B, etc ranks) and in NG+ you can replay entire sections to bring it down even further from one level.

After doing the descent, corruption was sorta a non issue in this game since I was pretty proficient in the combat system by that point. But it will certainly be a learning curve. It just so happened that the Descent was my learning curve lol.

Anyway, the story...I think whether you like it or not is up to the person. There is a lot of christian imagery and to keep things simpleIt seems like the story is about the inner trauma of a group of people and how they try to escape from that/find solace. I'd say more but a good amount of it is sort of a spoiler and very interpretive regardless.

The most I will say is that I did enjoy the story overall and it was actually a rather personal story in some places (especially after looking into the people who made the game and their inspirations). I will say that if you are triggered by religious trauma, deadnaming, dysphoria, violence towards children, etc. (the game has an entire list of triggers in the store page) maybe be cautious on the game and, although I haven't played this yet, be cautious of the sequel as well

I do think that the story making more sense in NG+ is a bit of a flaw since I felt like they could have just started with the initial context in the first place. Though I'm guessing the feeling of confusion was intentional on their part so I guess YMMV in that respect.

Some other flaws is that there is some issues with clarity in some places. Imo this was egregious in some places in The Descent challenge mode. So much red and so many enemies on screen and so many flashing lights it was just a lot to keep in.

Also the shaky cam every time you get hit makes it pretty rough imo. I understand that its the hit effect but it gets pretty questionable when you end up in some hit chain that you potentially can't even see due to the camera going all the way left to the screen for a split moment.

Also the rewind mechanic (a mechanic that lets you rewind time to retry a portion of an area if you don't like how it went) is...questionably designed. There were multiple moments where I used rewind to go back in time, and I got instantly hit by an enemy. I...don't really understand why rewind does not have I frames for a few seconds but eh.

Overall, this game is a pretty amazing indie. Sadly underrated though probably due to aesthetic but it gets a high recommendation from me. Its a game that I plan to 100% (along with death of a wish)which i only really consider for games that I really enjoy (especially gameplay wise)

You'll probably get a lot of out of it whether for its deep combat, its interpretive but deep exploration of religious trauma, and so on.

Oh also as a side note the ost is pretty good and perfectly fits the game. Not much to say other than "I like it" lol. I'll probably post some of the tracks here and there

Also if the game is too hard there are several accessibility options to make it easier. Like infinite stamina, infinite health, etc. The base game is difficult but it's really up to you if you want to keep it that way

Tldr: I highly highly recommend this game for its great combat, ost, cryptic but impactful storytelling, and the amount of replayability in it!

PLAY THIS GAME