This here is a game that tries to do everything - stealth and combat - but ends up struggling to find its footing. Within just 15 minutes of being introduced to stealth, the game hands you a weapon and throws enemies at you who attack on sight for the next 30 minutes. It's like the game can't decide whether to focus on stealth or combat, and in the end, it feels like it chooses combat but fails to deliver. Combat is basically just spamming the attack button and backing up, hoping you don't die before the enemies do. There are no mechanics for mitigating damage, so it's not much fun either.

I've fought two bosses so far, and the lack of consequences for dying in combat makes it easy to just respawn and continue. Both bosses seemed entirely unnecessary and felt outside the boundaries of the rest of the experience. Sometimes, the Ink Demon appears, and you have only a few seconds to find a hiding spot. If you fail to do so, there are no respawns - you're sent straight back to your last manual or auto-save. If your playing and your trying to figure out why theres so many hiding spots all over the place, this is it. Sometimes the ink demon appears so you look around and quickly realize your basically just screwed. Is this supposed to be stealth or calculated frustration?

Its keeping my attention with the story and theme of the world but the gameplay leaves much to be desired. It really does seem like it doesn't know what it wants to be so it tried to be everything and ended up being a big blob of meh. Fully intend to finish my playthrough but those are my thoughts on it so far.

This here is a game that tries to do everything - stealth and combat - but ends up struggling to find its footing. Within just 15 minutes of being introduced to stealth, the game hands you a weapon and throws enemies at you who attack on sight for the next 30 minutes. It's like the game can't decide whether to focus on stealth or combat, and in the end, it feels like it chooses combat but fails to deliver. Combat is basically just spamming the attack button and backing up, hoping you don't die before the enemies do. There are no mechanics for mitigating damage, so it's not much fun either. I've fought two bosses so far, and the lack of consequences for dying in combat makes it easy to just respawn and continue. Both bosses seemed entirely unnecessary and felt outside the boundaries of the rest of the experience. Sometimes, the Ink Demon appears, and you have only a few seconds to find a hiding spot. If you fail to do so, there are no respawns - you're sent straight back to your last manual or auto-save. If your playing and your trying to figure out why theres so many hiding spots all over the place, this is it. Sometimes the ink demon appears so you look around and quickly realize your basically just screwed. Is this supposed to be stealth or calculated frustration? Its keeping my attention with the story and theme of the world but the gameplay leaves much to be desired. It really does seem like it doesn't know what it wants to be so it tried to be everything and ended up being a big blob of meh. Fully intend to finish my playthrough but those are my thoughts on it so far.