1 person found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 5.6 hrs on record (3.5 hrs at review time)
Posted: 10 Jun, 2023 @ 11:58am
Product received for free

I don't have a lot of playtime yet but I do feel like I've formulated a pretty good idea of what the game is about after going in completely blind (I beat the first key holding boss as of this review). I also received this game as a birthday gift (thank you!!)

To keep things short up front, this game is a love letter to exploration games like zelda while making use of the fromsoft souls formula for a lot of the game's mechanics, in a stripped down way. There are pros and cons to this. The world keeps you wanting to explore for no reason other than "I wonder what lies ahead?" This will be very familiar to fans of souls games, and you may find yourself right at home.

Now, for the long part. A lot is subjective person-to-person so I'll lay out the more prominent things I experienced.

The game has an obscured language that slowly reveals itself as you discover pages of the lost instruction manual. It very much starts out feeling like you're playing a foreign untranslated game and you have to guess and experiment with how items work, and there are many hidden mechanics you'll have to puzzle out yourself. There have already been a few instances where I had to return to an area later because an obscure mechanic or puzzle solution was hidden and only hinted at in a page of the instruction manual found much later. And by obscure, I don't mean hints about a puzzle you could brute force, I mean arbitrarily obscure. As in, hold a random button for 5 seconds in a specific place so something will happen. Spoilers: You can tell the one that annoyed me the most is the prayer mechanic that moves the big pillars and allows fast travel on the golden plates. It is fine on its own but felt entirely random and came out of nowhere.

The combat is really tough and took some getting used to because it is clunky at times. Not DS1 clunky, but actual clunky. Enemies hit like a truck in the early game when you have nothing but a stick and no hp upgrades. Sometimes the lock on makes you strafe instead of rotate to face the enemy. There is little telegraphing in enemy attacks because of the basic art style, save for some of the sword enemies. The big problem though, is the enemies don't really scale up too much once you find the items that make it easier to fight them (getting the shield and wand makes fighting encounters WAY smoother, to the point of trivializing them). This is also not a souls game where dodge rolling is king; in fact I only use the dodging to reposition because of the poor iframes. It's more reliable to focus on positioning and blocking rather than actual dodging. None of this was bad enough to push me away, but it did come close until I found the sword and shield. I can very well see the early game dissuading others.

There are many hidden paths and rooms all over the place, which is neat and rewards a careful eye and exploration. That said, there is definitely a pattern of "if a corner of a room is obscured by the walls/camera angle, there is at least a 60% chance something is hidden there" which, again, is a little cheap but at least consistent. Illusory walls in souls games are pretty much an immersion breaking meme but at least this game integrates secrets a bit better into the game world itself.

Visually, the game looks great. No major comments here. I especially like the art style of the instruction booklet. Very nostalgic!

This game is a tough recommend unless you're used to the game language of souls games and don't require much direction to feel fulfilled. Exploration can feel rewarding despite knowing nothing about what you're doing or why you're doing it. You will have to want to play the game to enjoy it and uncover the mysteries held within it. I haven't even beaten the game and I have no idea if the ending will even be worth it, but its been fun so far. If this doesn't put you off, I would absolutely give this game a try.
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1 Comments
LéaMoreau 24 Dec, 2024 @ 9:50pm 
Just wanna say, your review rocks! It's so full of insights and cool stuff. You really nailed it