Definitely recommend this Game for anyone looking to get a new Game in the more Loot-based/RPG Soulslike Genre like Nioh, Strangers of Paradise or Wo Long. The Combat is fast, fluid and rewards an aggressive playstyle and has a few options for Customization in the Skill Tree, Armor Set Boni and the Weapons. The Weapons themselves are limited to 3 Types (Dual Wielding Sword/Axe, Great Sword and Spear) so there is a slight lack of variety.
This Games Areas are Mission based, meaning you dont have an interconnected World like in Dark Souls or Elden Ring, but you have a smaller self contained Area to fully explore and find shortcuts and secrets. The Design of the Missions themselves is pretty neat, as you will frequently find vistas at the start and end of a level, where you can truly see the path you took throughout the level, giving you a nice sense of progression. There are also Sidequests, located in the same Mission as the Main Quest that will have a slightly changed tileset. Those who played Nioh are familiar with this. They are mainly used to follow NPC stories or unlock additional features or Armors.
As for the Aesthethics of the Areas, well there is the first bit of disappointment, its mostly ruined Castles and destroyed Villages with a few outliers like an Icy Forest Area or some Sewers. Enemy Variety is similarly lacking. This is not a problem until you get to the last few Missions where you will frequently find the same type of Enemies placed in a different set of Castle Tileset (Cathedral, Church, Palace etc.)
The story itself, as cliche and tropey as it is, is not bad at all and it works for the most part in giving you an emotional connection to Khazan and the World you explore. However it could´ve been way better if they just gave you a bit more time with the NPCs you meet along the way, or the people that Khazan was close to. The most you get is a Cutscene at the End of a Mission that will tell you who that character was and why they were important to Khazan or his friends and comrades, feels like a bit of wasted potential.
Now on to the most important part in Soulslike Games:
[u] The Bosses [/u]
Now, many Reviews will say that the Bosses have too much HP and are HP Sponges and honestly I can only partially agree with this. Once you understand the level of aggression that the Game expects you to have, the Boss HP Bar is perfectly fine and I found myself hoping that some of the latter Bosses could have had just a tad more HP to really appreciate the Fights more. Personally, I think the real problem with the Bosses is their abundance of Status Effects. Every Boss has a some Moves(most of the time AoE too) that will inflict a massive amount of Status Damage and if you´re not timing your Guards or Dodges well, you can get inflicted with a status in 1-2 Hits, as just normal Guarding will still give you like 70-80% of the Status Gauge (and Perfect Guarding also gives you like 10-15% so thats not a good option either). This leads to you losing a lot of HP to either Burning, Plague and Chaos Affliction or being slowed by Freeze and Electrocution, which brings me to my next point of why Enemies might feel like HP Sponges, [b] your own Healing [/b]. As soon as you get a decent amount of Healing either through Armor Set Effects or just having more "Estus", Bosses start feeling like well paced Fights and are actually starting to get decently simpler, leading to the Game feeling a bit front-loaded, as the early Bosses will just give you 2-3 Hits and a Status Move and your entire Healing will be gone, while the Endgame Bosses can be somewhat mitigated by passively healing from a Brutal Attack or getting a Regen from Perfect Guarding combined with a bigger Health Pool and more active Heals. Overall, after a certain Midgame Boss [spoiler] Dual Greatword Dude that becomes a Vergil Wannabe [/spoiler] the Game started getting way easier again and outside of the occasional Death to annoying Status Effect or the random attacks that block the entire screen, the Bosses were actually very fair and fun (they would be a lot more fun without the status Effects tho). The Endgame Bosses were slightly disappointing though as the last 3 had one with very bad camera Movement and then 2 somewhat similar Fights with many Status AoE Moves flying around but it was still not very difficult sadly.
Overall still a very solid Game, not bad by any means just slightly annoying for the wrong reasons. Would give it an 8,5/10 could´ve been a 9 but the over reliance on Status Effects to make the otherwise very cool Bosses way too annoying drags it down a bit. Can definitely see myself returning to the Game every now and then if only for the Bossfight Mode you unlock after beating the Story. Took me around 40 hours on Expert to get every collectible and achievment the Game had to offer, wouldn´t say it was very difficult as long as you keep looking around in the Missions. The True Ending was hinting at a sequel but after reading that the Dev Team behind this Game has been dissolved due to poor Sales, probably not gonna get one. Sad times.
