Recent reviews by Karkarov

So the first big question here is have you played Remnant: From the Ashes, or the lesser known prequel Chronos: Before the Ashes? If you did, and you liked those games, then this is an easy recommend.

New worlds to explore, bosses for the most part improved, new and interesting puzzles to figure out, more hidden areas than the previous games, and a crazy amount of build diversity thanks to a class system that is massively expanded and more relevant.

This game is even better if you have a friend group playing, and the most wonky thing about the multiplayer is just that you might end up paired with someone out of your "rank" bracket (this only happened to me once) or someone not in your region resulting in horrid latency and ping (unfortunately happens regularly) in a random game. Still if it is a bad time just drop out and join a new one.

Gameplay wise it is great, performance is fine on pc, don't believe the snobs who can't get over their pc spec elitism and just use DLSS or FSR (every non indie game expects you to these days) and it will be ok, and just enjoy some crazy rpg shooter fun. This is really the only series doing this type of game, and it does it well.

This is a strange game. I could write pages of review for this thing, but it's a steam review so I am keeping it short.

What's good?
The open world is interesting, fun to explore, detailed, there is always just one more thing to see it feels like. You can play this game for 80+ hours easily and never enter a legacy dungeon.

All of the new mechanics are great and make combat more interesting and diverse. I especially like block counters and how weapon arts are now actually meaningful.

The game is much more approachable to new players than any action rpg From Software has ever made, and yes, this is a great thing. For the first probably 80% of the game you have very little stopping you from going wherever you want which makes the difficulty fairly manageable and rewards exploration.

I like that they have actual music everywhere, it legitimately helps the atmosphere, especially in creepy dungeons or areas like the divine towers.

The build support is insane and better than it has ever been in any "Souls" game, you have to try really hard to have a bad build, or intentionally use things that suck for the build you do have.

I can go on all day about the good, there is a metric ton of it, consider this list to be highlights only.

What's bad?
Unfortunately while the game is very approachable at first and easy to get into for new players, with real but not insane difficulty.... eventually it loses it's balance and turns into a very cheap not really fun to play late game. I won't go into details, but it is pretty much that last 20% that has the problem.

Torrent. Enemies dismount you far too easily (I see you mook pointing a torch vaguely in my direction), when dismounted you are prone for a ludicrous time frame, and Torrent's hp doesn't even recover on character death. Fighting on the horse can be so punishing and finicky I won't even do it for half the fights the game WANTS you to fight from horseback.

To be kind to some pc players I know who hate controllers, the mouse and keyboard support for this game sucks and needs improvement. I expect this from From (lol), but surely Bandai Namco can do something on this? Just allowing rebinding would be a big step.

For the PvP lovers... unfortunately I don't think this game is ever going to be good for "Souls" brand pvp. The new mechanics just change the dynamic too much. The way stats work damage potential just outpaces hp and defensive options dramatically. It will devolve into a meta of who hits first and builds centered on killing anything with only 1-2 hits.

Conclusion?
In the end there is a lot more good than bad.

There are times I am playing I feel more like I am playing an Elder Scrolls game just with much better combat. I think that's a good thing. I even felt like I was almost playing a King's Field game again for the first time at points, and From Software has not hit that level of immersion in a very long time.

If you like open world games, solid combat systems, the ability to create the character you want, nice crunchy math based rpg mechanics, and don't mind a sometimes cheap level of challenge you are going to find a lot to like here.

I just wish the end game was significantly better and the challenge curve stayed were it was for the first 50 hours for the whole game.

TLDR? - I have put 200+ hours in the game, beaten it, gotten almost all achievements, and plan to keep going. I think it's pretty good despite having a poor late game. Nuff said.

Hollow Knight, Hollow Knight, how great a game you were until you forgot what game you were.

So why am I giving this a negative review? Because Team Cherry doesn't know what this game is. At first it seemed like a solid Metroidvania that was plauged by being too open, and not giving many hints if any where to go, or what to do. This is not a good thing, but it isn't really had either.

But then you progress further. You get to the arena, you get to "optional" bosses, and suddenly it isn't just the atmosphere of the game that feels like dark souls, but the actual punishing enemies that don't forgive even small mistakes. Well you know what? Get gud. Practice, learn patterns, try different charm load outs, it is rough but you can play through it.

Then you get to the end, and the "optional" areas. Suddenly Team Cherry thinks this game is Super Meat Boy and you are expected to go through room, after room, after room, of no room for error, extremely hard, pixel perfect at time jump puzzles. This isn't get good anymore. There were jump puzzles before, but not one, after another, after another, that required wall jumping to hit an enemy, double jumping in the same jump to the other wall, bouncing off an enemy, wall jumping to an oposing wall, then dashing over another enemy to bounce again, all while timing your dash stop perfectly or overshooting to hit spikes, or undershooting to land on a saw.

It gets stupid. Yes, that's right word for it. Stupid. It isn't fun to play, it feels totally out of place with everything else in the game. It took a game that hard flaws, but made up for it in atmosphere and fun factor, and removed the fun factor.

Atmosphere alone isn't good enough.

So here is my advice. Don't be like me. Don't play these "optional" content area's (read: required to see the real ending, so not optional at all), beat the game without them. Then just go watch the real ending on youtube. At least then you can still like the game instead of hating it like I do now.