
This was one of the most refreshing gaming experiences I've had in a long time. I will preface to say that I never got into a Souls game, (rage quit like 15 minutes into bloodborne). I had no real intention of playing this game, but the reviews, the enemy designs, and world itself drew me in. Started off not really enjoying my time, kept getting fucked up, chose the wrong build for my play style which is more casual. Went with Confessor and it just wasn't for me. So I switched to Astrologer for a more n00b friendly play through. Another massive issue was the frame rate... I went like 10 hours not even realizing that my VRR was turned off. If you have VRR, turn it on.. it's a game changer.
Once I started leveling up a little more and understanding the mechanics. I could slowly see myself getting better, SLOWLY.. and by all means I'm not a pro. Instead of spamming dodge which I still sometimes did after 100 hours in. I was way more patient with how I avoided attacks. First boss before the castle was a good test of how I would go about handling bosses. Go in the first time, not expecting to beat it, but to see the patterns, see the attacks, and plan ahead.
The legacy dungeons I thought were really well created. Definitely a lot more trolling though.. my god, you have so many enemies hiding and attacking as soon as you walk into a door. If you get ganged up it's so hard to survive, making almost every encounter intense and purposeful. I have to say these are some of the best bosses and enemy designs I've ever seen in a video game. The world itself is one of the best open worlds I've played. So much variety and verticality. Walking on chains across huge environments (won't spoil anything else). Everything feels so varied and seamless. I loved going into dungeons and exploring off the beaten track and seeing what was at the end. Game does a fantastic job at rewarding players for doing their own thing. While some of them did blend in with similar themes, nothing really got too samesy overall. Reminds me a lot of Skyrim in that regards.
Traversal is fantastic as well, although the gap between fall damage and death is very little and could have used more jump winds or whatever they are called. At first I was not sure what to do in terms of progression. First real game I've played that was open world and did not have a cluttered UI, or lack of quest log. At first I did not like that, but I got used to it actually.
Some of the big sidequests do feel very meaningful as well, but I did have to look up where to find things and where to go next on some of them I have to admit. As well as doing a little bit of grinding as well. Especially towards that real final boss...
In terms of negatives, I really did not understand the story at all. I don't think I'm the only one, I'm guessing these games are played more for the gameplay and the world itself though. Some of the bosses I did feel were extremely cheap. The mountain big boi with the incredible reach, some massive bosses in closed areas with sweeping attacks, and that last boss... Literally had to rebuild my character to win that fight after like 2 hours. Bleed is pretty broken tbh. Oh and F whomever designed that frenzy sewer shit, my lord that was hard to navigate. Also big desert boi was not easy, but pretty rewarding once beaten.
Overall, one of the best games I've played in recent memory and I think you owe it to yourself to at least try it. If someone as bad as me at games can beat it, I'm sure most of you can as well. I now see why people say you don't need an easy mode as you can pretty much make it yourself; youtube gives rune farming videos, best equipment for late games, boss tips.
Playthrough one was about 16 hours before I quit. Second playthrough was about 99, so the hours are about right. Explored most of the map and did the majority of the optional bosses too. Maybe missed a few overall, but did the absolute hardest one. Tried using the cloud trick and messed up the first time, so I had to play the game again on NG+ which apparently is harder.. Only really felt the difficulty by the 3rd last boss. Level was around 167 I believe as well, mostly for the ho bag at the end. You really can skip a lot if you only want to do the main stuff.
I'll definitely remember the combat and how it really made me think about positioning, movements, dodging, openings, and patterns. The world itself sets the bar for so many open worlds going forward that I hope more devs take into consideration going forward.
9.5/10