I finished the game in about 11 hours, and it had many design issues across the entire souls-like spectrum, I would not even say unpolished, sometimes I feel like these areas were never play tested, even if you can overlook the bugs, there are plenty of things to complain about. Now, I don't completely hate the game, if you want a generic answer I think the game is slightly below average, occasionally it has some nice looking zones but strangely, the quality of the level design is all over the place, sometimes the levels are boring for 2 hours, and sometimes they are pretty fun to navigate, with the exception of the insane enemy clusters. I do wonder what kind of play testing this game had because some of the areas are so absurd with tanky enemies, I would need to see video evidence of an actual human who experienced that and didn't say anything. The first area is also kinda boring and extremely repetitive visually, not to mention it's not that easy, but I guess most souls-like games are not, but still, kinda rough for a tutorial area.

The progression is based around the hub area, reminds me a little of Demon's Souls, after beating each zone you return to the hub using waypoints, and sometimes you can find new characters that will join the hub and perform various functions like rune infusion or unlocking new blessings which are the game's form of power progression. Some areas have small forks for hidden items, but they are not very creative with exploration. Unfortunately the level design in this game is very uneven, some areas are extremely dull, but there are some areas that are very beautiful as well, sadly the ugly areas tend to be at the start of the game. The item hunting in this game is not super rewarding, the loot mostly made of runes, weapons and consumables, which sounds fine, but in practice, I really don't feel like the variety of weapons here is capable of changing the playstyle.

The combat has some good ideas, not always good execution, depending on the enemy or the boss mechanics. Generally I like the meter burning gameplay, like you have to make the enemy run out of meter or parry the attack to deal significant damage, which is fine, lots of games do that, usually makes for a smarter game. Once you understand how it works the game becomes a lot more intuitive, with that said you will probably die many times before you get a good grasp on it, especially since the game expect you to learn while some enemies kill you in 2 hits. Probably the biggest problem with combat is that someone was very generous with the enemy placements, it's not uncommon to fight 3 or 4 very tanky dudes in small areas, if not more. The game also gets a bit confused when there are many enemies, can feel like there is too much happening and it's unclear when to parry.


(+) Now, the level design here is extremely uneven, I hate some zones, but there are some decent zones with interesting navigation. If I just ignore the enemy spam, like the factory zone and the tusk arena looked pretty cool. I also really like the chapel when you observe from the roof. There are some nice visuals and interesting exploration, but again, not consistently good. I thought the first zone was garbage for example, very boring, very repetitive.

(+) I think what you trying to do with the stagger system and the visual warnings on attacks is a great idea, I love games that do that, but depending on the enemy, it's not always clear even with the visual help. Some enemies have good telegraphing, others I have no idea what is happening.

(+) I like that you have some hub progression, finding characters that join your cause and expand the relevance of your base.

(+) There were a few decent boss fights, not all of them though. I liked the arena boss, the lich with the sword, and the last one was decent as well.


- I think you placed too many enemies around the zones to a point where it takes so long to kill everyone, it's just more logical to skip 80% of the game. The enemies are also unusually tanky, may not seem that way at first, but as you get deeper into the game, even with perfect parry spam you gona be slugging like a MF. So many trashy fight zones where you get ganked by several enemies that each need 20-30 seconds minimum, who tested these fights? There is barely any space to move in a lot of these, I can't even see sometimes.

- The looting in this game feels so unrewarding, the few hidden items I find are either low runes or consumables I don't care for, even the bosses generally just give EXP. Sure there are many weapons too, but WTF do they do, the same thing for the most part, some fast, some slow, but are they really unique? Can't you make each boss drop a better rune randomly, RPG 101, reward the player with some ***** loot that they want to pick up or find, is it so hard to do, make the hidden items better than your default +18% damage rune so you actually feel like you didn't waste your time for the last 5 hours. I found like 100 hidden stashes and they were all garbage.

- A bit on a brainy side. I think you went into reliance on gauge and parry a little too far. Once you get deep into the game, your attacks really don't matter if you want to move at a decent pace, you REALLY have to spam those mechanics consistently to a point where I feel like I am hitting enemies with a feather. It's fine to rely on mechanics, but the weapons attacks should still feel nice, not 1/60 of the regular enemy HP bar. Maybe tune it just a little bit, so you can still do some damage just attacking. 20% more maybe.

- Terrible progression system, the "blessings" I mean, I think you did it in the last game too. You know why it's terrible though? I like RPGs because I can shift my character toward a play style I like, but in this game you get your slots and options so slow, you will beat most of it before you get any relevant choice, where is RPG in the RPG. Maybe give the choices earlier, I don't know, I think players like choices.

- I don't care that game is "hard", but you think maybe don't teach the people to parry against an enemy that will kill them in 2 hits, before they can even use upgrades. The first zone is also so boring to navigate I feel, just terrible first impression. You also overuse the same enemy types so often.

- The game is um, pretty buggy. Map artifacts causing softlocks are not uncommon, had plenty of visual glitches too.

- Thematically I think the game suffers a lot, not because you take inspiration from Souls, but because you also imitating so much of it with lesser effort. I mean sure, everyone recycles ideas, but half of this game feels like a souls reference, you will do some of your own world-building at some point I assume.

Overall Thoughts: 6/10... Very unremarkable souls-like, with plenty of problems

The game is not awful, but it had a lot of frustration that didn't need to be there, maybe there is a world where with some balancing it could be a lot more reasonable. I can see that you guys are trying, there are glimpses of a good game in some areas, but overall experience is just so underwhelming. I think you should smooth out that curve a little, there are so many tanky enemies, even by souls standards, this game is a slugging nightmare. God, rework those hidden items, at least make the rune numbers a bit higher if the item is hidden well, all I am finding in this game is trash.

I was very loyal to this game because a small team made a good first part. But this is a disgusting and terribly lazy Souls-like, literally everything here is bad and secondary, the computer overheats much more than in Cyberpunk, and the first boss is killed only by a million parries in a row, just look at this:

1min https://clips.twitch.tv/CaringExcitedCatCurseLit-ig6OEq0SxvTETco4
Full https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2148372239

I hate parrying (A perfect block or attack perfectly at the moment the enemy's blow hits you) , but with pleasure I completed some Souls-like games in other ways (dodge, hit in timing, magic, exhaustion), I tried the same thing with this boss, but he is simply impenetrable until you stand up and start pressing one button to the rhythm. This is not normal, it is simply impossible to dodge, go around him, shoot him or hit him in any other way. Stop and parry. And how to do this with two buttons is generally unknown - only at the same time? Why then two buttons?

I understand that the game has a small budget, a small team, but I don’t feel in it any of the love inherent in indie games, inherent in the first part. Just an onslaught of cliche games of this genre with terrible character progression. Even all the ability icons and fonts look like this is a game for the first Xbox, where is the beauty and style of the first part?

A fun game, with some rough around the edges elements, like Combat. At points enemies felt or do feel in this cycle of patches a bit bugged out? I play defensively in the game as it suggests to do, but the repose does not work? Some messy elements that I think the devs can smooth over time. Otherwise a pretty charming triple i Indie game!