Before review I wanna mention that, I've played offline most of the time so Steam didn't count that. (Nearly 10 hours.)

"2D Dark Souls" idea seems interesting for me at the beginning actually. Even if I didn't like the difficulty balance of the game, first playthrough was fine enough. Getting used to controls, understanding storyline etc., you know that stuff. On my second playthrough, I realised that the reason I thought the first playthrough was fine was because of the magic veil offered by the first playthrough, and that was sad honestly. Because this game felt like it had potential and it does BUT not in 2D. Devs really tried hard for that but no, that doesn't work properly. At least by Souls standarts. Of course there are some reasons for I'm saying that. Game has interconnected world well, like metroid-vania. But it just doesn't work. Also one of the worst checkpoint system I've ever seen in my entire Souls experiences. That "creed" thing is just not suits well plus why not having a map? This is 2D, this is like metroid-vania. They literally tried to adapt 3D ideas into a 2D platformer game and that's what it's looks like. Doesn't work.

Combat, not the best not the worst. Just the right balance for a 2D game. But oh god, the other things just goes from worse to worse. Why rolls has iframes? That just ruins the entire defence thing. If you don't want a direct copy of Dark Souls and adding something new? DON'T ADD THIS ♥♥♥♥. What surprises me is that even the platforming is bad. Character building and sword upgrading is definitely not the best one. As I said, game hasn't well balanced. Bosses are boring and simple. That wouldn't be a so damn problem for a platforming game but yeah, this is a Souls game technically. But the main problem about bosses are that awful balance. And it gets even worse after half of game.

Despite what I wrote above, I can't say that this game sucks actually. Just 2D Souls game thing doesn't work properly. If this game was meant to be a metroidvania, I would definitely have a different approach. Because when I look at masterpieces like Dead Cells, Hollow Knight, I can see that this game also has potential in terms of metroidvania. But yeah, it's not.