Codex Lost

Codex Lost is Dark Souls 1 'on steroids'. This game is a 'tour de force'. It is the only 'souls like' game in recent years that has given me the same feelings of suspense, apprehension, entering an unknown world and 'what is around the next corner' that I got when I first played Darks Souls 1 in 2012. I am amazed the game is not known or recognised much by the 'souls like' gamer community. It is a 'flawed masterpiece'. (Perhaps it is because the game is massive, very complex and very difficult and it is easy to get lost in and at times very hard to make progress - you need plenty of patience and resilience to progress in this unforgiving game.) At times it is absolutely brilliant and at other times the difficulty is quite unbalanced and you are dead before you know it - killed by many archers before you even saw them !!! Very frustrating. So sometimes how you progress in the game in certain areas / levels can be a bit of a 'trial and error' process which may put some gamers off. Also, when you move to a different level / area and then return to it all the enemies reset and you have fight your way through them again - which can be very frustrating at times. (Quite a few of the areas / levels are fairly small and interlinked and you need, sometimes, to frequently go through them.) The world is massive, complex and unforgiving and it is easy to stray into an area where you can die almost immediately. As the world is very big, diverse and complex, you really need to map it out - which is not an easy. This game is definitely not linear !!! You play as a mage. It is single character game. Combat is completely dominated by spells and magical items - there is no 'melee combat' or real swords to fight with. However, the spells have other uses besides combat which is important in the game. Combat in the game can be quite tactical and you need to make use of the environment / game world to your advantage. You go through your magic (mana) very fast fighting numerous enemies. However, mana regeneration is quite slow, so I would find a safe place in the world and then go a make a cup of coffee and then come back to the game a bit later when my mana had regenerated ! The story, like the world is quite intricate and complex. I played about 36 hours and I feel I am only about half way through the game. Exploration of the world is superb, possibly the best part of the game but can also be frustrating if you enter an area where you character is not strong enough to survive in ! You need to do plenty of 'grinding up' / 'levelling up' to progress in the game. Even then it is still a very, very difficult game. However, the early game boss battles are not too hard. The graphics are very good. The music and sound effects are fairly basic but OK. I have had no computer crashes but twice got 'stuck' in the 'game furniture' and had to reload a saved game. I understand this game was apparently made by one person ? That is totally amazing, if true.