Just finished the demo on Steam.
Not really feeling it - which doesn't mean much, couldn't get into Nioh at first for example, then really liked it later. But so far, from the very short demo:
- Visuals aren't great, muddy textures stick out.
- Atmosphere in general is ok but nothing special.
- Running in combination with the camera position/movement feels kinda weird like on rails, hard to describe.
- Good animations.
- Seems to be very linear.
- A LOT of stuff is just copied, with a minimal twist. Like, jeez. A giant tree! Oh a plague! The same kind of text when you die! Come on. Be more creative you fuckers.
- Art design is mediocre.
Most importantly though, combat:
- No stamina management.
- Focus is on the parry, not on the dodging. Dodging works well once, but the delay until you can do the second dodge is long enough to limit its effectiveness. So no wild dodging or rolling like in Souls/Nioh.
- You die very fast.
- You have to learn to parry.
- There are two health bars. You need to deplete one with your normal attacks, to then attack the second, green bar with you green special attack.
- You need to pressure your enemy and cant play too safe, because otherwise the enemy will regenerate.
- The game tries to be fast but methodical, feels like a mix of Sekiro and Bloodborne
- Hit boxes can be weird, especially when dodging. I got hit despite being out of the way multiple times.
- Enemy attacks are readable enough.
A game and its combat often get significantly better once stuff has been unlocked, so I'll wait for the reviews and impressions. So far I'm not impressed.
Edit:
Here you can see the extremely detailed and sharp texture work. The ground, his sword, the armor. No bueno.
www.gematsu.com
