My early review after just getting to the first boss:
To sum up my experience in a nutshell, it's that this game needs some TLC across the board, but (so far) there's a good game hidden underneath here once it's (hopefully) cleaned up. But there's definitely enough problems across most categories to frustrate players until they're addressed.
This game feels like a cross of Sekiro and Stellar Blade, but isn't quite measuring up to either (again, so far).
I really enjoy the vertical tools/traversal in the game. Some areas are able to be grappled to, some you can try to get to manually. What is maddening is the several times I've been prompted to grapple to a branch/platform and been pushed around by invisible walls when getting there lol.
The 'Death from Above' skill, in particular, is really fun to use when it works. But I've already had multiple instances where the prompt is on an enemy while high in the air, and then it goes away and pretends it never happened when I press it. Funny thing about this game is that there is no way to defend/attack in mid-air otherwise, as well as being mini-stunned upon landing. I'm sure you can imagine how this played out when this happened on an elite enemy...
There's a parry system that is ok to use when it works, and the game REALLY pushes you to use this, but it's wonky in practice. The timing seems to be forgiving when it works, and when it doesn't... Well, again, you can imagine how this plays out when the game revolves around waiting until the last split second to defend, and the defense doesn't activate lol.
I agree with a lot of comments that the graphics somehow are both really good and really bad, somehow at the same time on the same frame. Which is frustrating, because it really does look like a beautiful game when it visually doesn't drag me away from admiring it.
Finally, and this is the part that kills me to say as a dog lover, the dog's exploration mechanics are the most frustrating/annoying thing in the game so far. Anytime any item/enemy/objective of any importance is nearby, he will bark his head off to warn you. Then the main character needs to make a comment about it. Then you look around to try to figure out where these markers are, and they're color coded in order of importance. And this is for each specific item. Imagine the fun each time I come across a gathering of enemies and loot...
