This game is weird, very very weird. Up front I will say that I do not believe it is worth the 60$ price tag so far, but I don't think that many games are. The game does a couple things really badly, and a couple things really well.
First, the bad, explanation and direction.
The game's intro feels brief, rushed, and like a roller coaster of tutorials and your camera being dragged this way and that, with little setup or explanation as to why you're doing anything. This would normally be fine for a souls-like game, but because the camera is ripped this way and that, it feels like its supposed to be a narrative experience where you understand what is happening. This feeling of "I'm missing something" continues throughout the intro of the game, and the forced camera movement during action sequences is enough to make anyone nauseous.
The good, combat, gameplay feel, and soundtrack
If you work through the intro, get past the lacking explanations, and beat the tutorial boss (giant deer), you will find a game that has a wealth of complex progression systems with a variety of build options to let you play to your style. Combat is snappy, sekiro-like combat with a mix of rpg-style time-slowed activated abilities through Koo (the dog). While the first boss was a bit samey with its simple attack patterns, I'm hoping later ones improve on that. Mobility and movement tech allows you to easily explore the world, and the control of the character feels fairly smooth.
What needs work, a lot of work: Camera Direction/Distance, Settings, General Polish, Real Difficulty
Aside from the bad listed above, there is a lot of places that could use work. The third person camera is fairly tight, and I hope that options will be added to allow people to pull the camera back more, as the close distance makes multi-enemy combat difficult to parse at times. Additionally, the settings menu is lacking, and could include much much more. The game could also use another pass for general polish, and then maybe another one after that. Lots of things feel rough around the edges. Lastly, Hard difficulty feels like normal, but enemies hit harder. It would be nice to see hard difficulty have shorter parry and dodge windows, and unique attack patterns from bosses, to reward those wanting a true sekiro style challenge.
Overall, my recommendation is to wait for a sale. I'm enjoying the game but I don't think its worth the price.
