After completing all the story quests that have been released, I'm on the edge of my seat and I’m hungry for more!

The art style, cinematics, and environments are top notch originality. The characters are memorable and I felt pulled into the narrative pretty quickly.

I love the exploration in the game! The level design is fantastic - there are shortcuts to open everywhere and a wonderful sense of verticality. Chests and resources kind of have spawn points once you find them, which I feel kind of kills the feeling of novelty after you clear a zone. But it can be argued that you build familiarity with the locations this way - especially in the hub town. One wish I have is to be able to open a whisper in your home/base.

I did a heavy weapons and armor build, but I’m excited to try other specializations in future plays. The combat is awesome - hits feel impactful and visceral, and requires attention. I think the “souls” aspect is underscored by common mobs that can kill you if you’re not careful. But the death cycle is much more forgiving. No souls or runes drop, only your equipment takes durability damage and you can run back to where you were slain and pick exploration right back up. I felt like I could die about 6 or 7 times before I needed to repair my gear.

Boss battles were super exciting and challenging! I liked that there was usually a whisper nearby too. I generally don’t enjoy run-backs.

Rough spots:

Inventory management was a bit of a pain. I always go for backpack upgrades first in games where the loot rains heavy, but I eventually maxed out my regular gear slots and I never felt like it was enough. It did create a rhythm of needing to go back to town to sell and there is a utility rune that lets you TP from anywhere that I found very helpful. You get a resource that can transfer affixes, so I always felt the need to look at everything I picked up and keep most things “just in case.”

I would say character builds are a little too rigid right now. It’s not easy to unlock respec so you better not goof your stat allocation, you’re kind of locked in once you get in deep enough.

The resource gathering, especially for low tier materials feels unnecessarily padded. Example: You can chop a pine tree down in one perfect hit with the iron axe, but you’re only going to get 2 pine wood max so you basically have to chop down every tree in the forest still. Just doubling this when you have better tools would be a smoother experience. The ability to break down / recycle unwanted gear to yield mats would be nice in this regard as well.

I felt a little bit of friction with the bounty and challenge board being on a daily/weekly timer. I wish that they would just refresh after clearing a set rather than imposing a sort of artificial buffer on my play time. I guess to encourage my binge style of gaming because I didn’t want to put this one down.

Otherwise I love it! Can’t wait for the full release!

* I did get the 0x11CD error suddenly around 35 hours in. It was a little scary to disable SAC, but I really only install games and it was worth it to me to keep playing.

[h1]No Rest until this hits 1.0[/h1] After completing all the story quests that have been released, I'm on the edge of my seat and I’m hungry for more! The art style, cinematics, and environments are top notch originality. The characters are memorable and I felt pulled into the narrative pretty quickly. I love the exploration in the game! The level design is fantastic - there are shortcuts to open everywhere and a wonderful sense of verticality. Chests and resources kind of have spawn points once you find them, which I feel kind of kills the feeling of novelty after you clear a zone. But it can be argued that you build familiarity with the locations this way - especially in the hub town. One wish I have is to be able to open a whisper in your home/base. I did a heavy weapons and armor build, but I’m excited to try other specializations in future plays. The combat is awesome - hits feel impactful and visceral, and requires attention. I think the “souls” aspect is underscored by common mobs that can kill you if you’re not careful. But the death cycle is much more forgiving. No souls or runes drop, only your equipment takes durability damage and you can run back to where you were slain and pick exploration right back up. I felt like I could die about 6 or 7 times before I needed to repair my gear. Boss battles were super exciting and challenging! I liked that there was usually a whisper nearby too. I generally don’t enjoy run-backs. Rough spots: Inventory management was a bit of a pain. I always go for backpack upgrades first in games where the loot rains heavy, but I eventually maxed out my regular gear slots and I never felt like it was enough. It did create a rhythm of needing to go back to town to sell and there is a utility rune that lets you TP from anywhere that I found very helpful. You get a resource that can transfer affixes, so I always felt the need to look at everything I picked up and keep most things “just in case.” I would say character builds are a little too rigid right now. It’s not easy to unlock respec so you better not goof your stat allocation, you’re kind of locked in once you get in deep enough. The resource gathering, especially for low tier materials feels unnecessarily padded. Example: You can chop a pine tree down in one perfect hit with the iron axe, but you’re only going to get 2 pine wood max so you basically have to chop down every tree in the forest still. Just doubling this when you have better tools would be a smoother experience. The ability to break down / recycle unwanted gear to yield mats would be nice in this regard as well. I felt a little bit of friction with the bounty and challenge board being on a daily/weekly timer. I wish that they would just refresh after clearing a set rather than imposing a sort of artificial buffer on my play time. I guess to encourage my binge style of gaming because I didn’t want to put this one down. Otherwise I love it! Can’t wait for the full release! * I did get the 0x11CD error suddenly around 35 hours in. It was a little scary to disable SAC, but I really only install games and it was worth it to me to keep playing.