I’ve played a lot of souls-likes and that was my baseline coming into this game. After 30 hours, I felt it necessary to share all of my feedback and ask questions.
Comparing this to a souls game was a disservice. It’s so much more graphically detailed, some of the backdrops deserve their own praise. It’s beautiful, everything from the character design, cinematics, animations, it’s all so pretty.
Combat is amazing, it FEELS like I’m swinging a 50 pound axe into the frail body of a half rotted enemy when I cut them in half. Weapons feel as weighty as they should, heavy weapons have the heft that they feel they should have. My first play-through was as a mage and, while I feel the magic is a little overpowered, nothing in a game has been more satisfying than blasting an enemy with ice and watching their shattered remains splinter across the room due to the obvious force of my attack. THAT got an audible noise of happiness that spooked my wife. It was here that I hard-pivoted to two handed great-axe, happy to see that the ragdoll effects were even MORE enjoyable.
Enemy difficulty feels good, the addition of enemies that fire from range and are actually not half bad at staying the hell away from you WHILE ALSO shooting at you? As creative as it is infuriating, I hate to say it but they shouldn’t change. Dispatching them was easy as a mage if I could avoid the damage. With my axe, they are still easy to kill and the damage becomes laughable, but dammit I can’t catch ‘em sometimes! This is annoying, but in a good way that I wouldn’t want to see changed, it’s hard to get ranged enemies right but I think it was done well here.
I’ll add what suggestions I have below:
More varied housing options, or at least greater ability to decorate. I enjoy settling in “the knot” and making a comfy meal before going out to murder my foes, but the atmosphere can be a little bland at times, I feel. That, or more decorative items. I also see a giant farm area to the south within sacrament, being able to buy and work a farm plot for extra resources sounds incredible.
I want to say the stagger values for some enemies could be reworked, but that might just be me not optimizing my build the way I should. this is an arbitrary concern, if it can even be considered a concern at all.
More money from bounties/challenges, even if only doubling it. I farm and butcher my way through zones, but it feels as though I am constantly TOO short on money. I am a hoarder who has to pawn off their wares for cash. I would have liked to salvage some runes but had no money to do so. This could just be me, but money always feels exceptionally tight.
IN CONCLUSION… amazing game, it quickly became a favorite of mine. I didn’t even NEED multiplayer but was excited to hear about it, sounds like the devs are listening to their community with open ears and an open mind. Keep up the good work, thanks for this.