Hello devs!
I’ve just finished playing through all the available content on the latest patch and I will say I am very impressed with (and fairly addicted to) what you have crafted so far. This game oozes love and passion and it is really a great experience to play and, as surely you do to too, I want it to be as great as it can be. I was drawn to this game in the firsst place as I am a avid souls-like enjoyer and saw how this game blends this kind of combat with other ARPG elements in a very unique way. I don’t really have that much experience in the latter cathegory though, hence there won’t be comparisons to other ARPGs. I will structure the review in several bullet points, each covering a different topic, giving a score and detailed explanation of my experience. Here goes.
-
Level Design - 9.7/10
I think the level design of this game is exceptional and probably the strongest gameplay feature that you have in this game and one of the, if not the best I’ve ever seen. It is mesmerizing to go through the world and see how the different areas are connected through one another with shortcuts, bridges, underpasses etc. I love how there is plenty of stuff to do in each corner and how interactive the world you have created is. The verticality that you have implemented in each area makes them even larger than one expects and I find that very cool. -
Art Direction and Graphics - 9.5/10
I absolutely adore how the world looks and feels. Each character feels alive thanks to a stellar voice acting cast and the great graphics. Everything feels very unique and fresh and it is a pleasure to go from A to B. I’ll admit the character proportions, particularly when you are creating one, seem a bit odd, but nothing that actually bothers me. -
Combat - 9.3/10
The combat feels very raw, brutal, difficult and super satisfying when mastered. You can feel the weight of large weapons and the speed of small ones. The weapon attacks runes are great and beautifully animated. The enemy variety is great so far and I am sure many more will come. Parrying is quite difficult, but very rewarding when performed correctly. I love how you managed to make the heavy weight class viable with the ability to basically punch the hell out of enemies and staggering them. Really good stuff overall.
In the early game some enemies seem a bit unbalanced though, especially in terms of damage dealt and tankyness. For example I remember going off to get my first bounty kill in the orban glades (in the top area close to the entrance to the black trench) and having to kill an enemy with a wolf’s head and dying repeatedly to him because he basically 3-shotted me and it took me about 10 backstabs to deplete his HP. Parrying him was also something I tried but somehow he instantly recovered when getting staggered which was also quite odd and added to the frustration of the encounter. I had quite a similar experience in the nameless pass when fighting the pighead armored enemies and the plague infected monsters later in the jail area. Way too tanky and way too much damage dealt. I feel like the scaling should be adjusted a bit, especially in the early game since you are poor and dying repeatedly is very punishing if you are low on resources and cannot upgrade your gear if you need to repair it continuously. -
Story and Worldbuilding- 9.1/10
The story is very compelling and leaves you wanting for more and I am sure it will. The cutscenes are really beautifully animated and characters are interesting across the board. I just want more of it! -
Gear Upgrade System - 8.5/10
I love how you implemented gear upgrades through the collection of resources around the map. Gems, infusions, enhancement gambling, crafting, costumization, luck… All great things.
I believe in the early game this should be a bit more accessible to the player since you really need upgrades to survive and in my experience I lacked the gold and materials to do so. -
The Crucible - 8/10
I really like the idea of the crucible as a late game activity. I did quite a bit of runs and I find the levels enjoyable and the enemy placement and amounts adequate. The final boss is also very well done.
Unfortunately there have been quite a few tilting experiences throughout my runs: most of my deaths were due to gravity and purely because there is no fall protection when attacking and overestimating the range your character goes forward cost me my run multiple times and it really was not fun to experience. I totally get it that I should fall off if an enemy hits me or I jump out of a platform, but not when I am just attacking an enemy close to an edge. I would highly suggest to implement fall protection when attacking. In other runs my character got stuck into the environment for no apparent reason and I either died to enemies or was forced to quit out the game. One final point about the Echo Knight final boss: it is waaaay too tanky and does waaay too much damage (I play with an 800 armor character and I get 3-4 shotted by it) and if I don’t find a critical chance echo it takes way too long to deplete his 2 HP bars. Also it is a bit frustrating having to do the run again just to learn the final boss, I believe that after you encounter him for the first time you should be given the possibility to practice him, maybe in a separate room of the crucible. -
Controls and Interactions - 5.2/10
Here we start to talk about things I found a bit problematic and definitely need some work. The controls and interactions feel at times very wonky. Let’s start with the controls. Sometimes you want to climb some brambles and the character will do unexpected movements (even when holding the same buttons) and rarely even get stuck or randomly jump off and die. Sometimes you are walking across a branch and you are holding the same direction and the character will move at a seemingly different angle or jump off. There are plenty examples like this that I have encountered and we definitely need some tweaking in this department. About world interactions: sometimes it is frustratingly hard to open a chest or talk to an NPC when you are directly facing him and you will spend 3-5 seconds and adjust your heading and position to be able to interact. This is actually not the case for resource gathering, which usually happens without problems. -
Inventory Management - 3.5/10
Inventory management (especially in the early game) is my least favorite thing at the moment. It is clear that you need to gather as many resources as you can in order to progress through the game, get stronger and upgrade your gear. Hence it is vital to have more space for your things and no one wants to destroy items to make space in the inventory. Also, in the early game you are not really able to understand if something is garbadge or not and you definitely want to keep everything even if it is just to sell it. Housing and storage chests definitely help you doing so, however they are quite expensive and so you will inevitably find yourself in a loop of going back and forth to Sacrament just to store/sell stuff. This takes you out of the game loop and it is frustrating because you want to spend time into the magnificent world, not sorting things into chests. So my suggestions would be to increase the storage capabilites both of the inventory and the containers or at least have the option to “send to storage” directly from the outside world. I get it that you want people to return to Sacrament often, but I assure you I will do so even if you don’t remind me that my inventory is full all the time. On this topic, you should definitely have the option to pick up what you want from the ground, just as you do for chests. I know that there have been already improvements in this department (like the fact that you can pull items from storage when you are crafting things), but I firmly believe the system can still be vastly improved. One thing I might add: it would be really cool to be able to “label” chests because you inevitably end up with a bunch of them and remembering which one contains what can be a bit of a pain. -
Encountered Bugs and Miscellaneous
In this final section I will list a bunch of bugs, quality of life improvements suggestions and such.
- Multiple game crashes (about 10 or so in about 60h of gameplay).
- Hitboxes of quite a few enemies are quite off. Sometimes you get hit with huge delays, sometimes even when you are completely outranging the enemy, it is quite bizarre.
- When doing Sacrament building projects, you could maybe show on the map the location where the work is actually done, sometimes it wasn’t very clear to me.
- Please improve the repair menu at the blacksmith. You should be able to repair specific things and what does the “free” text mean?
- Make it possible to read item description of rewards of bounties and challenges.
- Eversol Knight Helmet does not fit the character’s head and it looks super funny.
- Turning materials in for challenges is slow and buggy, you have to press the button multiple times and only after a while something happens.
- Direction correction while doing rune attacks should be possible.
- Body of character is stutters when looking into a chest (in your house mainly).
- Animation of the elevator taking you to the rookery is buggy.