Hey, remember the guys who made Ori and The Blind Forest and sequel? Well, have they got something for you. Think of a Diablo game that takes parts of the roguelikes and soulslike games, as well as certain survival action elements, in isometric view, and you get this game.
It's not perfect, there's rough edges, quite more than it should. Currently in it's EA stage, things are looking surprising up due to how addictive the gameplay is, as well as the alluring visuals, and riveting music score. They went all the way, providing depth, and giving some sense of feeling something fresh and new to try out while trying to be subversive.
Actually no, this game might replace Diablo in its spot as a whole. I've never seen such amazingly animated cutscenes, near Pixar level of quality, especially with the dialogues and voice acting. Yet sadly much as I wanted to continue, I kept dealing with myriads of technical problems.
In what blazes does a game's prologue begins in a ship, with all kinds of bad omens surround about. From the tides, dark hour, storms, and this Lovecraftian vibe. Later on that one. Our protagonist, the Ceram is a holy warrior from the ruling church, sent to vanquish a pestilence.
Of course, a night sleep is all they needed. Until the ship gets attacked, leading to an encounter with a Risen rebel. A nice tutorial section, some characters you would have liked to know, dying quick, and just straight up chaotic situation resulting in our ship crashing.
Look, I know this sounds like Diablo in a way, but perchance you see something like this, and think maybe, just maybe, it actually plays better and even is ahead in certain aspects? Already off to a crazy start, with the most brutal hack'n'slash combat out there. Combat felt versatile, like fluidly playable. Dodge and parry, basic attack, hold for charge attack, and special moves.
Possible to hold a shield, or an arrow with a long sword. But I chose to dual wield instead, exploring the crash site on the beach and nearby areas, things are already looking bad. Bodies everywhere, fire burning, and of course, the Risen rebels. They don't play around.
It was Obvious by this point the Risen were scavenging the area, taking out any survivors. I also learned how to cook food, well mushroom soap for now. It does the job very well, but I have to scavenge a lot and heal during encounters. Low stamina didn't help though.
Learning what I could from the ship, I put it into fighting one or two of them in combat scenarios, but they kept stepping it up by bringing out bomb throwers. I didn't have much means of crowd control, so I have to do a lot of work with what I had. I was still trying to get the hang of the basics.
I did not even know that charged attacks exist, which would have helped break poise or shield guards. But dodging around, and attacking behind did the trick. But it's difficult with how fierce enemies are, special planning is required, and lots of food to heal too. Sustaining, in order to hit back, plus ah, the movement is a little fickle to work in that duration.
Now, if I die, I respawn in the Whisper points, enemies don't respawn, not unless there's a quest that would make them do so. Once an area is clear, it's free to explore around. This is another important facet, because loot. If you think going here and there is easy, think again.
Walking on top of planks needs steady thumbs, taking the risk of climbing over a rock wall after climbing that other rock wall with dead only a slip away is tricky. It pumps my adrenaline, but it drives me insane and made me want to abuse my controller. Which, please don't, am poor.
Loots from various gear, weapons, pickaxes for digging minerals, shovels for digging out treasure, fishing for, you get the point. You want to keep looting, you have to explore the tricky areas, that have levels on top of levels, and levels on top of mountains of levels. My brain hurts just conceptualizing this. You see my point now, it's how grand, ambitious, and hard it goes with it.
Fighting the Risen was one part of the treat, turns out the pestilence is turning humans into hybrid mutants of all forms. The enemies I would fight are insane and some stupidly big. Yet, the attacks can be parried. Good luck parrying the one that stomps his club 3 times.
I would have loved to experiment with the gear and weapons, but for some reason, they're too heavy, and at level 5 even. Every level up gives 3 points to spend on increasing attributes, still not even 3 extra points were enough to hold a sword and bow.
There's not much I can add, all I can say is that, holding the RB or LB button brings out skill. Which require Focus to use. Attacking enemies generate that. I never got around to having more powerful equipment to experiment more on stuff, and I'll explain later why, for now, this battle is something worth talking about. I mean, the dramatic introduction of him eating a human body, damn.
And he was also relentless, AoE to ones of him jumping high and landing hard blows. He wasn't difficult though, and that depended on how I distanced myself, and struck him at the right time. But he was the first boss, and encounters with the later ones will most likely be harder.
The other thing is, man, this sucks to say, but the serious technical performances issues I would face, it ruins the game. I've sought help, trying to fix this issue, but nothing really seemed to have worked. I would get stuttering, FPS drops around 40% of the time, especially during intense battles.
I understand this is an early access title, but there's no excuse for such horrible performance problems. And that's knowing this game is already demanding, pushing my 6700 XT. While running it with in-game AMD FSR enabled. Plus, I died a lot to platforming than I have in combat, again, attributed to the terrible stuttering problems. It was really bad.
Really wanted to push for longer hours, but from what I've gotten to so far, first impression was met with a lot of praise and amazement. The gameplay is fun, visuals are top notch detailed with some of the most amazing effects, and lighting. The platforming and exploration is on whole other level.
There are features that became available, like finally, fast traveling, weapons smithing, reading recipes for food and weapon types, abilities, and the need to learn how to parry. Trust me, parrying is the best way to play this, but precision and timing is tricky to get right.
If they can patch out the issues, I'll definitely join back in. I really want to continue with this one, but if you're expecting co-op and other online aspects, there's none. It's a poorly single-player made experience. Just like old Diablo was. It borrows the interesting aspects of various roguelikes and soulslike, put everything in high budget, add the visual finesse, and crazy enemies, you get this.
And oh yeah, maxing stamina and equipment load really helps. Stamina gets drained easily, and I am sometimes vulnerable to enemy attacks. Using potions, but they're limited to find.
I mean, instead of just fitting to a class, I can pick and choose whatever stuff I find. Including a magic staff, and bend it to my will. No worries, after am done trying out the sword and arrow, I'll try the staff. Could help my sanity with the constant dodging and blocking attacks.
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