Recent reviews by Feng

If something happens to Diana I am doing unspeakable things to the developers

Winched my friend, winched myself, ran around trees and bricked the whole RV.

9/10, can't pick up bears

I was skeptical after seeing all the negative comments on performance, but I gave it a shot nonetheless since Steam has awesome refund policy, and I am glad I did.

I have a 1080p monitor(external), 3070 Laptop gpu, i7-11800 cpu - a rather old laptop. You can set the in-game settings to "high", then turn some of the more demanding settings lower(shadows and reflections, etc.), select DLSS, and the result should get you a nice 60fps no stutter game. Don't forget to do the NVIDIA driver update too.

I haven't tested on ultra with 4k resolution or something, but in the configurations I mentioned above, the game ran perfectly for 5h straight until some stutters made it tough to play, which I assume can be fixed after a simple restart of the game.

So, for those on the verge of buying but aren't sure, I'd at least recommend you give the game a shot for ~1h. It's also on game pass, so maybe try it out there first before buying, if that's your thing.

As for the gameplay, it's not revolutionary, nor is it bad. It most likely appeals greatly to some niche subdemographic of the souls player base, but strictly from a more general point of view, solid 8/10 but nothing more. I personally prefer most of the other soulslike titles over this.

Here are some pros and cons in my opinion:

Pros:
- Gotta start with this, nice jiggle physics and animations
- A lot of really nice outfits
- Multiple weapon types, whose playstyles have distinct differences
- "Level ups" are done through the skill tree, where you can spend your skill points on some stats or on some other perks and actions
- For the FOMO or 100% lovers out there, game is mostly linear and braindead to navigate. It starts branching out around the 3-4 hour mark into possibly multiple paths to cover, but they seem to be converging to the same area boss in the end anyways.
- Dodging is VERY forgiving, wasn't sure if this was good or bad but decided to put it here due to the weirdly absurd damage anything seems to be doing to you.
- Overall the combat feels refreshing, and makes me look forward to going around on other playthroughs to test various other builds.

Cons:
- God awful explanations and naming sense(or translation) of various mechanics. Some things aren't even discussed until you are like 2-3 hours into the game, or longer, despite encountering them earlier on.
- Bosses are quite easy. Being patient and low aggro until you learn the moves as usual works, but it feels like so far the bosses only have like, 5 moves maximum or something. You die once or twice due to the absurd damage they do(still takes me by surprise sometimes), but then you get used to it and it becomes a breeze. Doesn't give you the challenge some may hope to get.
- The "mana"(or rather, the resource that allows you to do certain stuff) feels like a nice mechanic at first but quickly gets boring to manage when running across the map instead of fighting a boss.
- The story really doesn't do the gameplay justice, at least it did a terrible job hooking me in. I was not expecing Lies of P levels of story, but still, apart from "you are sick, go find cure" I got no clue what's going on.

Keep in mind please, that I played and wrote this review on really low sleep. Who knows, maybe it'll stop being fun when my brain gets to work, or the opposite, and it'll be better than what I wrote here.

In any case, it's the type of game that you may want to give a shot to if you are fine with lower graphics for some fun time. Seriously, refund it if the performance on your end truly sucks. But otherwise, I advise you stick around.

Great

Amazing game. Not done yet of course but so far I am in love with it.

Adding onto this after my NG clear:

My opinion of the game still stands, it is amazing. There are a few things I would like to point out, however:

Some of the late game bosses feel too deliberate in forcing the player into a specific playstyle. Given how different the three main categories of playstyles you have are in this game, it is almost to the point of being pushed out of my class characteristics simply to beat the boss. Of course this can be alleviated simply by learning the boss patterns before trying to apply what you have learned so far, but even then, the way to apply your equipment-specific knowledge is at times limited.

Human bosses(those with white bars of stamina) are interesting. Depending on the decision of the AI, they can be outright infuriating when they start walking back for 15 seconds to regain posture, or absolutely easy if they keep spamming you with punishable moves. A great example of the 'done right' boss in terms of stamina in my opinion is Trokka. If your aggression is kept mid to high, she will eventually fold her umbrella, and given enough damage is put there, will try a burst attack. This is a very reliable way to break her posture, and to be rewarded for your aggressiveness. Meanwhile a very bad example is the princess. Her ability to gain distance from you combined with a really absurd amount of stamina and regen she has makes it so that throughout the whole fight, you could be simply 5-10% away from brutal attacks multiple times, but maybe get one of them if lucky.

Both the issues above can be alleviated by learning the boss moves of course, but that argument skips over whether that learning process is a good experience to the player, both in terms of learning the game as well as, simply, having fun. The feeling of accomplishment I got when beating some bosses was amazing, meanwhile some fights simply made me think "finally, it's over."

However despite these, I still loved and enjoyed the game. It is polished to the point where I don't particularly think negatively of my concerns, and see them as a way to make the game more challenging, as well as not-so-straightforward.

Good

Top tier

Great

With Sony defeated, game is good

Quite good