This game is really balanced when it comes to whats great about it and what bugs you the entire way while playing it, so I'll be going in depth about the two sides. In summary, I highly recommend.

The great:

Getting the obvious out of the way, I love the gothic and vampiric style and the combination of all kinds of different technologies into one era. Style points also for the decent amount of customization available to make your vampire look nice (or like an absolute abomination, there's always people that like it this way XD)

This game has base building, which is the biggest thing making it shine through the things it lacks. Its really fun due to the vast options you have available, you can make some very sick builds, tons of options for interior and amazing architecture for exterior. Also tons of crafting options and an epic workshop to be built along the way!

The boss system is really neat and there are tons of bosses to go through. Progressing fight by fight was very fun; trying my hand on which boss I was able to defeat and which one's I had trouble with, strategizing over what the next most important gear unlock that I was able to get was, to defeat the bosses I had trouble with and the next bosses over.

Skill system was fun too, many different combinations possible by the end of the game and throughout the game I would say you are guaranteed to find something that suits you, as I found the perfect style for me, slow and steady, yet a bunch of damage.

The unsatisfactory:

The game has no story and has a very controlled and progression-strict loot system, very little room for randomness and not many different tiers to equipment. There are also no dungeons to go into, which was a bit of a shame, especially since then you would have a lot more to do while the sun is out. By default, the game has many settings and options that bring the experience down, it is highly advised to change these settings upon creating a private server or to search for a public server with good settings as that will make the gameplay experience many times better.

The movement is terrible. By default, as a character, you are just far too slow. With different transformation options you'll gain quite a bit of speed, but even then you are too slow, should be faster. Using a mount is the only way you'll have actual speed, but even then due to the nature of the map, you often get stuck if you don't perfectly enter stairways, or stuck in places where you can't phase through using spacebar, so you'll be turning around a lot and finding different paths a lot, which adds to the time spent simply from travelling.

The teleportation system is just pure annoyance. For roughly 90% of the loot, you can not teleport while carrying it. That means every time you have a significant amount of loot, you will have to either ride the entire way home from your current location or alternatively find a cave that is near you, that might bring you closer to your base. Additionally, I though it to be very obvious that if you link same color castle portals between 2 different bases you have, you'd be able to teleport between your bases, allowing you to transfer items from one base to another, but nope, you can't, which completely baffled me. I just don't know how that was not an option, because again, you can't use Vampire Waycates while carrying loot, meaning you can't transfer loot between 2 bases using Caste Waycates.

Now I see a lot of people complaining about the Militia Longbows and uh idk... I never had an issue with their fire arrows. I died only a few times to them. However the sun, don't get me started on the sun. The damage multiplier of the sun is far too high, lemme tell you... no boss in the entire game does as much damage as the sun in the case you don't find shade for a while. So you might wanna change that if its possible, I didn't check cause when you play for the first time, you create a private server and don't understand the settings all that well, and later on you can't change them, which is also a big hit to the experience, because if you wanna build more bases, more floors and tiles than the default amounts, you can't, meaning you'd have to start all over again with your progress and your builds, every time you wanted to change a setting. Also do NOT forget to change the castle decay multiplier as it'll just become a huge pain. You don't want your magnificent structures and hours of hard work to literally decay out of hunger for blood.

When it comes to boss fights, as I mentioned above, vast majority are very fun. However there are a few that are simply a pain in the ass, not for the sole fact of being difficult, because difficult is fun, really fun, but for being difficult only because of minion summoning or self-duplication abilities. I am very sorry, but I do not want to be taking on multiple common mobs additionally to said boss or two of the same boss simultaneously. Worst of course is when common mobs decide they want in on the fun while I'm taking on a free-roam boss with no minion summoning abilities and think I care about them. The grief is more Immaculate than Solarus himself.

More of a discussion, rather than critique:

This might be because the game has updates still yet to come, with a whole greyed out area that's been there since day one, it seems, but the conclusion of the game even after the Gloomrot update seems a bit lacklustre. In the Blood of Luminance quest to unlock the Blood Key recipe, it says "The key to a forgotten realm... The key to unimaginable power... When the time is right...", but when you obtain the recipe you realise its not actually a key, its just the highest level necklace and there is no cool realm, a cool part of the map (the greyed out area for example) that you can unlock with it, a realm of Vampires that you can redeem and bring to its former glory. However the terms "when the time is right..." and "for now..." is used more than once in the game, so we might still see something epic for an conclusion with a future update. That is certainly what I hope. There is also an area of ruins roughly in the middle of the map that confused me, as I later found out that you can't, as of right now, actually get there the way you could get to the Dreaded Peak. That brings up another question; will that be an accessible area in the future, I for one, do not know, however I will be researching this at a later date.

This game is really balanced when it comes to whats great about it and what bugs you the entire way while playing it, so I'll be going in depth about the two sides. In summary, I highly recommend. [b]The great:[/b] Getting the obvious out of the way, I love the gothic and vampiric style and the combination of all kinds of different technologies into one era. Style points also for the decent amount of customization available to make your vampire look nice (or like an absolute abomination, there's always people that like it this way XD) This game has base building, which is the biggest thing making it shine through the things it lacks. Its really fun due to the vast options you have available, you can make some very sick builds, tons of options for interior and amazing architecture for exterior. Also tons of crafting options and an epic workshop to be built along the way! The boss system is really neat and there are tons of bosses to go through. Progressing fight by fight was very fun; trying my hand on which boss I was able to defeat and which one's I had trouble with, strategizing over what the next most important gear unlock that I was able to get was, to defeat the bosses I had trouble with and the next bosses over. Skill system was fun too, many different combinations possible by the end of the game and throughout the game I would say you are guaranteed to find something that suits you, as I found the perfect style for me, slow and steady, yet a bunch of damage. [b]The unsatisfactory:[/b] The game has no story and has a very controlled and progression-strict loot system, very little room for randomness and not many different tiers to equipment. There are also no dungeons to go into, which was a bit of a shame, especially since then you would have a lot more to do while the sun is out. [b]By default, the game has many settings and options that bring the experience down, it is highly advised to change these settings upon creating a private server or to search for a public server with good settings as that will make the gameplay experience many times better.[/b] The movement is terrible. By default, as a character, you are just far too slow. With different transformation options you'll gain quite a bit of speed, but even then you are too slow, should be faster. Using a mount is the only way you'll have actual speed, but even then due to the nature of the map, you often get stuck if you don't perfectly enter stairways, or stuck in places where you can't phase through using spacebar, so you'll be turning around a lot and finding different paths a lot, which adds to the time spent simply from travelling. The teleportation system is just pure annoyance. For roughly 90% of the loot, you can not teleport while carrying it. That means every time you have a significant amount of loot, you will have to either ride the entire way home from your current location or alternatively find a cave that is near you, that might bring you closer to your base. Additionally, I though it to be very obvious that if you link same color castle portals between 2 different bases you have, you'd be able to teleport between your bases, allowing you to transfer items from one base to another, but nope, you can't, which completely baffled me. I just don't know how that was not an option, because again, you can't use Vampire Waycates while carrying loot, meaning you can't transfer loot between 2 bases using Caste Waycates. Now I see a lot of people complaining about the Militia Longbows and uh idk... I never had an issue with their fire arrows. I died only a few times to them. However the sun, don't get me started on the sun. The damage multiplier of the sun is far too high, lemme tell you... no boss in the entire game does as much damage as the sun in the case you don't find shade for a while. So you might wanna change that if its possible, I didn't check cause when you play for the first time, you create a private server and don't understand the settings all that well, and later on you can't change them, which is also a big hit to the experience, because if you wanna build more bases, more floors and tiles than the default amounts, you can't, meaning you'd have to start all over again with your progress and your builds, every time you wanted to change a setting. [b]Also do NOT forget to change the castle decay multiplier as it'll just become a huge pain. You don't want your magnificent structures and hours of hard work to literally decay out of hunger for blood.[/b] When it comes to boss fights, as I mentioned above, vast majority are very fun. However there are a few that are simply a pain in the ass, not for the sole fact of being difficult, because difficult is fun, really fun, but for being difficult only because of minion summoning or self-duplication abilities. I am very sorry, but I do not want to be taking on multiple common mobs additionally to said boss or two of the same boss simultaneously. Worst of course is when common mobs decide they want in on the fun while I'm taking on a free-roam boss with no minion summoning abilities and think I care about them. The grief is more Immaculate than Solarus himself. [b]More of a discussion, rather than critique:[/b] This might be because the game has updates still yet to come, with a whole greyed out area that's been there since day one, it seems, but the conclusion of the game even after the Gloomrot update seems a bit lacklustre. In the Blood of Luminance quest to unlock the Blood Key recipe, it says "The key to a forgotten realm... The key to unimaginable power... When the time is right...", but when you obtain the recipe you realise its not actually a key, its just the highest level necklace and there is no cool realm, a cool part of the map (the greyed out area for example) that you can unlock with it, a realm of Vampires that you can redeem and bring to its former glory. However the terms "when the time is right..." and "for now..." is used more than once in the game, so we might still see something epic for an conclusion with a future update. That is certainly what I hope. There is also an area of ruins roughly in the middle of the map that confused me, as I later found out that you can't, as of right now, actually get there the way you could get to the Dreaded Peak. That brings up another question; will that be an accessible area in the future, I for one, do not know, however I will be researching this at a later date.