Edit 3: The developers, clearly butthurt that I left a negative review and called out their “build issue” excuse, have now edited their response, again, to do further damage control. This time they claim: “It seems the user either has a very neurodivergent understanding of conversations, or this is a blatant troll post... his reviews are all negative, long, and an attempt at some form of humor. He also removed comments from this review once he was criticized.”
This is what they do: insult anyone who disagrees with them, discredit critics by calling them trolls, and now they're outright accusing me of deleting comments to undermine me. Really? I am touched they read my other reviews, but bear with me… maybe I only review games bad enough to merit warning people away? Maybe the jokes are there to keep readers awake while reading a wall of text about how broken the game really is? Nah… I’m just a troll. I do like to think I’m funny, though.
What’s funnier than me, though, is that they still think they’re entitled to more of my time, demanding I join their Discord and provide a save file from a game I uninstalled months ago. Apparently, my refusal somehow validates them. They’re even linking unrelated posts as “evidence” that they don’t use the build excuse everywhere. But hey... anything to keep the cash flowing, right?
Can’t say I’m not starting to enjoy this.
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Edit 2: My original week one review is below this, but I have to add something after watching how the developers have responded to criticism over the past few months.
They do not handle feedback well. Instead of addressing any of the issues players bring up, they shield themselves behind the same blanket excuse: “It’s a character build issue.”
But if everything is a build issue, then why is the game designed with such rigid, narrow stat demands that only a tiny handful of builds are actually viable? That isn’t meaningful customization. And if your answer to every flaw is to blame player builds instead of improving your own design, then what’s the point of having stat and item customization at all? At that stage, you might as well remove the system entirely and just admit there’s only one “correct” way to play.
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At first glance, the game shows promise, but the longer I played, the more disappointed I became, and, unfortunately, I can't recommend it, even at its current price.
To put it bluntly, the developers seem to have forgotten that games are supposed to be fun.
Combat is fast-paced and simple, and that’s not inherently a bad thing, plenty of games make basic mechanics feel satisfying. The problem is how poorly that simplicity holds up against the game’s design choices. No boss requires more than backpedaling while lazily strafing and swinging your sword. That kind of combat could work, but instead of embracing its straightforward nature, the developers padded enemy health bars to artificially extend encounters. Even basic enemies are damage sponges, turning what should be quick, punchy fights into long, boring slogs.
Melee combat is serviceable due to its infinite usage, and ranged weapons, while underwhelming, are at least manageable due to abundant ammunition. Magic, however, is where the game completely stumbles. Even with full investment into Intelligence, spells deal underwhelming damage. While mana potions are not scarce (you get a set number restored each time you rest at a bonfire) the problem is how little damage you get per point of mana. The tradeoff simply isn’t worth it. Willpower does improve mana regeneration, but it’s far too slow to be useful in combat. You’ll often find yourself standing around for several minutes to recharge a bar that only gives you a handful of weak casts. Faith increases your mana pool, but all that does is stretch out the downtime without solving the core issue: magic feels like a waste of time and stats.
Movement also suffers. There’s no sprinting, only a brief dash on a cooldown, intended as a dodge mechanic. But such a dodge is unnecessary in such basic combat, and the lack of consistent mobility makes traversal painfully slow. A simple fix would be allowing a sprint to chain off the initial dash.
Jumping is another design misstep. The default jump height is laughably low, and improving it requires heavy investment in Dexterity. The tradeoff? You lose points that could be spent on combat stats, just to barely clear shin-high obstacles. Worse, this severely hampers exploration, as even minor terrain features can block your path or force awkward detours. It feels less like a limitation to overcome and more like an artificial wall to punish players who didn’t spec "correctly."
In short, this game could be fun, but the balance decisions drag it down into a frustrating slog.
If the Developers happen to read this, I'd like to make a few suggestions:
1. Improve stat scaling across the board or reduce enemy health to cut down on tedium.
2. Rework magic. Significantly increase damage scaling with Intelligence and reduce mana costs.
3. Make mana regeneration viable. Drastically boost the speed and volume of regen from Willpower and Faith. Triple it if you must, it’s currently useless in combat.
4. Double the base jump height. No one wants to dump points into Dexterity just to hop over ankle-height objects.
5. Give us some kind of a sprint function.
Edit: After the developer responded and pointed out that you can sprint with your weapon sheathed, I went back to test it, again. And yes, technically, it does “sprint.” So slowly, in fact, that when I first tried it, before I even posted the review, I genuinely thought there was no difference at all. Turns out, the “sprint” is only noticeable if you have head bob enabled. GOTY
