Recent reviews by TuecerPrime

I realized about 30 hours in that this is just a "darker" Stardew Valley.

Highly addictive once you figure out the gameplay loops (not sure if this is a pro or a con lol). Don't feel bad about looking things up, there are some things that just aren't explained well or called out.

They absolutely were right when they said this was more than a remaster.

The upgraded graphics and addition of voice acting to ALL scenes is great. Better still are the improvements to the combat system to bring it into the current gen of ARPGs. It's as smooth as a Kingdom Hearts game and the use of hotkeys for techniques and spells is HUGE.

The only low points for me are a lack of an option for an always on-screen mini-map, not as much control customization as I would have liked, and some of the voices are only "okay". Rick Gomez, I think, is the superior Zack Fair from the original PSP release, though the rest of the voices are acceptable (Aerith's VA being the same as the one from Remake is perfect though IMO).

All in all, there is absolutely a lot of love being shown to the game with this updated release and I wish Square put this much effort into ALL of their remasters.

Still not super deep into the game (at my third boss), but I'm having a ton of fun with it.

The Good:
I really enjoy the visuals and the enemy designs (though some of the base human type enemies could use some more variation in look). They look crisp and the bosses look REALLY cool and have some unique looking moves. The environments are well made and the draw distance is quite impressive in the sections where you can look out and down on the playable area.

The number of mechanical systems involved in character development is awesome too, not only do you have a standard "Soulslike" stat level and weapon upgrade systems, but there's ALSO a proficiency style system for each specific weapon that unlocks a variety of passive and active abilities for that weapon. Best feature of the upgrade mechanics is the fact that you can MOVE the + upgrades from weapon to weapons as they're tied to an attachment instead of the weapon itself (no more farming tons of Titanite Slabs!)

Combat feels crisp and responsive. It'll a bit of time to get used to the flow, which seems to place a lot of emphasis on mobility over turtling, but it's enjoyable to spring forward for an attack like a tiger before popping back out of harms way.

The Bad:
I feel like the music was a miss. There's not really much playing (or if there is, it's real quiet), and I think it would have been a good opportunity to help build ambiance.

Some weapon move sets don't feel great. I've been experimenting but keep coming back to a sword I found fairly early on because it has a good mix of power, speed and range.

There's still some bugs in place, but nothing egregious like before. Occasional cut outs of audio are the worst I've seen since patches, though I think the shield slam is still broken as the note telling you how to do it in game doesn't work.

Death also seems to be punished a bit more harshly than I'd like. After a death a "ghost" is spawned that wanders the zone and is effectively an NPC copy of you. Their AI seems significantly better than most enemies, and they tend to be both stronger and tankier than you, making combat to defeat them rather daunting.

The Other:
It has co-op, but I haven't been able to test since I don't have a second controller for local play, and the online always has the world show as "full" when I try to join someone.

The Verdict:
Initially I couldn't recommend this on release due to bugs with hit detection among other things, but they've been releasing updates like CRAZY since release and the game feels much nicer now. Definitely worth a look if you like the Souls genre.

Atmosphere is great, deeply enjoyed this game so far, though have some issues with it that I hope are addressed.

Pros:
Visuals look nice
Sanity/light mechanic is neat
Lights being turned off/destroyed is a cute way to mess with you.

Cons:
Puzzles/Objectives are difficult to follow at times (I needed my stream chat to tell me how to get the camera spawn to trigger as it refused to appear for me ). It doesn't need to be EASY, but it should be straight forward enough that you stumble across it without much trouble ( cage room is a good example of this not being the case, I'm still stuck in it).
The music gets a bit repetitive over time, and it can lead to LESS tension once you get used to it.
Some physics glitches are present. Some doors wouldn't allow me to open them unless I was able to "bump" them from specific angels to open. One of these blocked a key item.

Overall I think it's a good start. Got a few hours out of it and haven't finished. It does what it's supposed to do, which is spoop you like crazy. Want to see more as it progresses.

My hope is that rather than get on to new content, that they spend time polishing up what is out there to make it really shine. This might be a good candidate for an episodic release schedule.

This game had an interesting premise, Old West setting with demons, but the "story" if you can even call it that is completely non-sensical. Am I dead and trying to get my life back from the devil? Is this town under siege? Who knows.

The mechanics work, but it's extremely basic. You get a few different weapons to work with, a revolver, a shotgun a rifle and a machete. Everything dies in one hit except for "bosses" which take only a few more shots. This is a wave shooter format, but there's only one wave per stage followed by a boss. There's only 5 stages in the campaign though so it's over fast.

Co-op could be interesting as a game to just horse around in, but there's so little content, I cleared the game and tested out the survival mode in about 30 minutes.

I haven't even mentioned the voice acting cutting out randomly and the typos in dialogue...

Almost all of this I could have excused if the game was early access, but this is a fully released game.

TL:DR This game is shovelware. I woulda refunded if I'd paid for it.

Keep in mind, this is a VERY early access game since it was only released on 12/15....

Combat is currently a chore as opposed to something that feels fun. Sword swinging is super sluggish (almost like you're moving through water) and the tracking is horrendous even with locked on. It makes it difficult to combo anything consistently. It also felt as if enemies should have a lot less health than hey do. The game also has a weird addition of being able to pause combat to use items and spells which kinda breaks the ARPG flow I feel.

Sounds effects feel satisfying, the thwacks of hitting an enemy for instance. They feel like you're actually hitting a body.

The music is nicely made, but feels out of place from what I heard. The same music present on the character creation screen was used in the Undercrypt which should give vastly different feels atmosphere wise.

Graphics also look nice, though I would like to see them more polished as the game gets closer to release.

Biggest pet peeve? The game doesn't seem to understand when you're in a dialogue screen of some sort. Each time I entered a save point or interacted with an object, the game would still react when I moved/clicked with the mouse. This even led to a death as an attack caused me to walk off the edge of a cliff to a pit (https://clips.twitch.tv/InnocentTacitWeaselItsBoshyTime). Please make it so that the game no longer takes combat or other inputs when in dialogue with an object.

Overall, I would say don't get this yet. It needs more time to be ready, but keep your eyes on it.

This is such a neat game. I'm absolutely terrible at it so far, but it evokes a lot of really fond memories for similar, though decidedly less complex games like Castle of the Winds.

Anyone who enjoys dungeon crawls should play this.

Absolutly phenomenal game. Glad I took a chance on it. If you like the generes its listed as, then get it. Only thing missing IMO is a multiplayer mode.