PSA: Hello, It has been awhile. I caught a bad case of bronchitis, dealing with strong coughs, sore throat, fever, body pain, and so on. For the past two weeks, I have not been able to post around, and hoping to catch up a lot more later on
Ahh, Korean Soulslikes, who doesn't like em? From the advent of Lies of P, and Stellar Blade, comes another ball busting intense action game where you kill and survive through creeps of enemies, exploring nebulous areas just to farm up souls and find a resting point.
While it may be linear by nature, Khazan offers plenty to do by sheer amounts of loot to grind for, crazy bosses to beat, combat mastering, collectibles, and much more. It punishes you before encouraging to play better, learn its tricks before going in the battle and then pounding in some. I heard of how difficult of a game it is, playing it didn't seem too intimidating.
It's not perfect either, there are notable issues here and there, it can also feel a little derivative, like I can tell some of the layouts and enemy traps, positions aren't hard to notice either. Also, first time will be absolutely brutal, but the long journey will make it worth it.
Disgraced, your nerves cut off, left to die by the emperor, with your closest friend down with the guillotines. Khazan's strength reawakens when an evil spirit of immense power heals him, and lets him wreck carnage once more. Through the blistering cold forest.
Surrounded by dangerous wildlifes, kingsguards, and well, overfed giant bears, the game wastes little time and already plunges me into the frantic combat, with hard hitting attacks, learning how to time blocks, and brink dodging. It's very familiar with Nioh 2, where dodging needs good timing, and relies on Sekiro's mastery of parrying attacks. Also based on the DFO universe.
Dodging has something called Brink Dodge, like stepping split second from getting hit, if I have some skill traits unlocked, I can retaliate with strong attacks. Big drawback though, my stamina meter kind of depletes, since I'm also dodging crazy attacks left and right.
Enemies give you little breathing room, before they lunge at with a series of attacks, I have a hard time visually anticipating the attacks to parry, so relying on audio really does help. Successful attacks make them easier to kill, but doing that, and time blocking attacks, build up spirit gauge. It's how I throw stuff at enemies, and use my slotted skills.
Beating enemies till their posture is down, makes them vulnerable for a few seconds for a QT finisher. Taking a big chunk of health. Now, surviving not just one but multiple of them is challenging. If I lose stamina, and get hit, I'll be stunned for a good two seconds. And when that happens, death is much closer. Often times I would space out the enemies or rely on aggressive wave attacks to easily take them out before keeping my distance. That doesn't have to be the case if combat is mastered.
Anything can be parried, even power attacks, like there's an insignia warning me before it happens. Pressing the interact button on the right time cancels it out, allowing me a window to heavily punish them back. Learning the combat alone is super rewarding.
Especially using different kinds of weapons. I have a dual weapon now, but I've used both a heavy greatsword and spear too. Each works in their own ways, like the greatsword consumes high stamina, but can easily damage, stunlock and exhaust enemies. Spear is good for distance and attacking in fast succession. One more important thing is using the skills.
Some are passive, a few unlocks new attack types along with base attack combos, and then there are the ones consuming spirit gauges when activated. Oh, also farming for Lacrima is like super easy, enemy A.I. are easy to exploit and hence farm to increase stats. I had put so much on strength, I was steamrolling even the abominable snowmans.
I like how it doesn't stop introducing various mechanics, RPG elements like choosing gears, including set types that have good bonuses. Even collectibles, like finding crystal shards and breaking them around the map, has their use cases for much later on.
Alright, I learned how the trade works, now what was left? Well, detours taking me to fight crazier and bigger foes, but of course, the intense, action pumping part of the game, that makes all the grinding worth it, are the freaking boss battles. First one was an even bigger Snowman with spikes.
But, I had to talk to some witch doctor later on. She told me the evil spirit is taking possession, and I had to fight back by going through the mountain trials. Some flashbacks, testing out new and different weapons sorts later, I had to figure out how the skills worked. Finally, the end result was a tougher boss battle. One that took me 30 tries to beat. I'm not kidding.
This dude switched weapons too, I mean he's me but mirrored by the Blade Phantom spirit. And he is crazy, his attacks are harder to block, time for advantages are few inbetween, and after half his health is gone, he gets even worse with each attack. So I switched up to a greatsword, picked specifics skills to use, stunlocked him, and exhausted his stamina enough to QT finish him thrice.
This is where I felt in love with the game, sure some things like the level design has its up and downs. Not a fan of exploration either, but they serve their purpose, mainly to make the enemies imposing, hard to reach, and often times surprise me in obscene ways.
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Experimenting is sort of important, I can farm Lacrima and increase stat all day, but I've also realized finding the sweet spot for stronger equipment, skills to use, and mastering the parry and dodging does a lot. It's actually overwhelming, so much so, I forgot I could throw stones and kill archers even.
Enemy variety is a whole other thing. I fought with undead skeletons where I have to break their bones before they revive. The bigger ones throw their weight around big swords and are hard to stun, unless back attacks sustained could stun them. Then there are the lizard people, dear god, solving puzzles, and now I find out I'm duelling Revenants, and they can be summoned everywhere.
I think I had a lot of fun, I couldn't stop playing without feeling this rush going through me. Dopamine feed everytime I fight something, practicing new skill types, outmaneuvering enemies, and then finding out that crystals, doing side missions allow me to unlock bonuses for stats. Like adding stun damage, reducing stamina, multiplying attacks and so on.
Those collectibles aren't for nothing. In fact, it's super useful since the final boss for the second area, Embar Ruins is a freaking dragon, that has a second stage. I can summon help, but even my help died in that second stage, and just like the first final boss, I was getting my butt whooped. The fights are intense, exploration helps despite the mixed level designing. Enough to put 50hrs in.
