Recent reviews by Balto

yes, indeed

tbf if u think this game is good ur opinion means absolutely nothing, and you should probably have ur rights revoked this instant

Review edit after sinking another 27 hours into the game, and after the major update.
tl;dr: I still do not recommend the game. The major update didn't solve the core issues that the game has (which I will not list again, as the devs just blatantly skipped over them), they just put a band-aid over this crack and called it a day.

The major update just rescaled hp, damage dealt and damage taken throughout the whole game and all difficulties, without addressing why those issues were talked about by reviewers. Some of the game breaking bugs were fixed so that's a good point for the devs.
Despite these changes the game still feels not interesting to play. It still feels like doing a chore rather than going through a challenge, and everytime I complete a major milestone I don't feel rewarded. I tried pointing out some of my concerns in a post in the discussion section but was ignored, wasn't expecting much to begin with, but completely ignored makes me feel like they don't even care about the game themselves. I'm currently at the fire temple, I've got more than 24k gold to spend after completing probably 4 side quests and constantly refelling everything at the store at each save point; some sections are still poorly designed, and story wise the game doesn't tell you that much, unless you collect stuff that is completely optional, and nobody in the game tells you what those things are and what purpose they serve. I will not continue my playthrough for the aforementioned reasons, but should anyone of you be interested in the game just buy it at a discounted price. That would be all

Original review:
I was really excited to play this game after trying out the demo.

The game felt challenging but seemed like had a nice take on the metroidvania experience, cool art and a not-so-bad (at least while playing the demo) gameplay experience. Honestly felt sad when I saw that the release date was going to be delayed, but it was just a week so whatever, right?

God I wish those were like 6 weeks. The game feels extremely unfinished and unpolished; the art is still good now that I'm well over 5 hours into the game, but the gameplay is just... bad. I have yet to realize how the game wants me to approach fights, wether or not I should man up and tank a couple hits, turtle all the way to the end or I don't know. Mobs deal WAY too much damage (they can even crit) and have WAY too much health at the early stages of the game. My save file states that I'm at 22% of the game completion, and I'm afraid it's gonna stay there: it is not fun to play or satisfying to overcome.

Spoiler-ish so read at your own risk (playing at the soldier difficulty):



I am currently at the pyramid thingy, and I kid you not it took me 30 full minutes to beat the scorpion. Issues aren't really within the gameplay, how the boss deals damage or how much damage it deals... you have to do the "intro" to the boss fight every single time you somehow lose to it. At least the minotaur and the arachnid were just "you die? cool try again".
The pyramid is also where my playthrough stops, as it's honestly not fun to go through. I genuinely cannot understand how the game wants me to engage in certain fights. I tried different ways to overcome either bosses or mobs, but none seems to be the correct way: blocking is completely out of the question, as it breaks in one or to hits, and takes a ♥♥♥♥ load of time before it's up again; dodging is somehow fine, combined with the jumps seemed to be the "safest" way to not get hit, while doing little to no damage. I wanted to upgrade my staff before journeying to the desert, but I lacked the money to do so. The orbs and the weakness mechanic is cool, but playing with a controller feels like it's to clanky, therefore not being a good experience to switch between elements (at the time of writing I am at 3 orbs, counting the standard one too). I should also mention that currently remapping keys and actions is bugged, and some buttons are shown inverted, even if when pressed perform the correct action.

The platforming part of the game also feels bad, as there is little to no movements that helps you journey between each screen, and this further translates into bad gameplay, as there are less ways to move around and play the game, effectively.

I don't intend on lowering the difficulty to make things easier, I enjoy challenges and I enjoy testing myself in tough environments to eventually overcome them and get a feeling of reward. Sadly Souldiers doesn't yield anything whatsoever, just frustration after completing tasks that should not be as challenging.

Genuinely upset that I cannot refund the game, now at 8 hours into the game. As for right now, stay away from it, or buy it at a discounted price, definitely not worth its full price.

I've played this game three times, this time around I decided to complete it 100%, with every labour and treasure map collected.

Gameplay wise it's nice, it's so different from the original saga, and I was scared to try it at first when I played it on Ps4, but in my opinion Santa Monica did a really good job with the combat system, it's got flaws but it's playable. Of course it's nothing compared to the old "smash some buttons until people die while occasionally parrying stuff".

Porting wise I have many doubts. It feels like they only cared about visuals and graphics than in the overall playablity of the game. Controls are so weird on mouse and keyboard, remapping them isn't even straight forward. For some reason there are two options that can help you do so: one tells you which button does which action, and the other allows you to remap them. The issue here is that with the remapping option you find out about a lot more commands and some of them aren't even present in the aforementioned setting. The camera control also suffers a lot from this porting, as it's quite literally ctrl + c ctrl + v from console. I played with mouse and keyboard and I regretted it for a good amount of my playtime. Aim assist actually makes the game unplayable if you wanna take advantage of axe throws. I would highly suggest to play this game with a controller, as Santa Monica clearly wants you to play it this way (it is a console "exclusive" after all).

I would say it's not a great porting, but the game is real good.

Pretty good game. I'm not entirely sure about its full price, cause it took me 5 hours to complete the story (bought it on sale), without running around and checking for secrets and stuff, but the gameplay is really fun and somehow feels rewarding, even if some sequences are a little too annoying. I would highly recommend it if it's on sale, 50/50 if it's full price.

Easily the best 4 euros you'll ever spend in your whole ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ life. I'd spend more if they asked.