Avernus

Not good. Not sure what they think they are going for. Half ass souls'-like with out the charm. Doesn't do anything to make me care about the lore of the game or its world. Graphics as you can see in the video, are nice. Kinda dim though...just feels dismal somehow even when I turn up the brightness. Difficult for the sake of being difficult instead of fun and challenging. For example: You have three basic attacks. One uses energy (not stamina) that does not seem to recharge and its just a quick thrust attack not sure why it's energy dependent, you waste it before you even know you used it, the other two are your melee sword and your sling (ranged) attack. The sword attack is fine, boring but fine. No heavy and light attack, just the one button. Three swing combo with locked animations like a Dark souls game. However the dash move sucks. Maybe it gets upgraded as you progress, but as it is now, it's too short and it kills the flow, there is this little pause after the dash that just feels bad and is only there to penalize the player for using the mechanic that is supposed to make the game more fun and offer strategic options for defense. Also, you get two charges to begin with, but only one recharges, the other one you have to fight baddies to get your stamina back for... Weak system. Unnecessary flow killer. Also, the L1 bumper does nothing. No shield or parry. Nothing. Game is souls like with bullet hell aspects added, but no shield or parry mechanic. Feels unfinished and yet still feels snobby. But what really kills it, is when you use your sling for a ranged attack, it forces you to take two steps. TWO. The first is a BIG step, but then another...so your character is so dumb, they literally fall off ledges with no sense at all when just trying to shoot their sling. It's so stupid. Just another penalty mechanic to make the game less fun. Also, you fall off ledges way too easy...judging your dash to leap over is a hassle. Should not be a hassle. I should not be worried about easing right up to the edge so I can dash just far enough to make it, kills the flow...just dead. And as soon as I push my stick in the direction I want to dash, I fall off the ledge...it's poor design. Which is sad, because the game has a lot of potential. Just needs devs who are not so elitist and devoted to smelling their own farts. Full price $14.99 seems fair because it is well polished and has plenty of content, but it's not fun, it doesn't make you want to accomplish anything, doesn't feel rewarding just tedious. I would say if its 75% off, it might be worth checking out. I don't know if the devs are still working on new content or balancing, but if they add a sheild/parry mechanic, fix the dash lag, get rid of the forced TWO steps on the sling action, (everything does not have to have such an immersion wrecking penalty), and ease up on the falling off ledges and forced platforming aspect that doesn't add any quality to the game at all, I might change my recommend to yes. Even at the cheap price, why make a game that would only be appealing to a small niche of high skilled masochistic gamers? I fell of the same ledge 6 times in a row during the intro stage of the game. I do not have MS. I am not black out drunk. I just have a retarded avatar that ignores the reality in front of it and just steps off of ledges when trying to shoot its sling.... because souls-likes are hard...so lets just make things harder than necessary because we do not understand what made the Dark Souls genre so popular.... We are just elitist coder nerds with cheeto dust in our pubes, picking at our zits and yelling at mom to bring more hotpockets and Redbull while we laugh at newbs who don't want to go to through the hassle and time to "get gud". Tell your mom last night was fun, but I won't be calling.