Withering Realms

After playing the first game which was also a banger, I could not wait to play this Game. My experience playing through this game was super rad and it is probably one of the harder and unique "soulslikes" out there. I played this first day of early access release, and I personally Didnt really get many bugs playing through the entire game, Zero crashes. The main issue I was having with the game is the difficulty\balancing (it was hard but really really fun). Other than that it was unfairly getting pushed into the corner of a room by getting attacked by 10 things that arent even visible. The boss fights were awsome, and the sense of progression is unmatched in this game, it really feels great to level up and get stronger. Overall very fun occult flavored game, would highly reccomend. Also the first game is mentioned here n' there which is really cool. I would suggest playing Withering Rooms first as they dont really explain much in terms of lore, and you only really kinda get what is going on from the lore in the first game, otherwise from eye level if you havnt played the first one, it just looks like the theme of the game is: witches, zombies, and eldritch, waddling around some crappy old buildings with very little context. Gameplay wise it is very exciting to fight using 2 hards that are upgraded independantly with a 3rd hand available as the ghost girls items. the combat is quite clunky but I feel like that is the point as you are controlling a puppet. The clunky combat is what makes it very exciting, im starting to be convinced it was a design choice as some of the fights are stellar to be a part of. Some of the enemies feel borderline unfair, especially at night time in the game with a slow effect being applied to you every 30 seconds with a seemingly infinate number of enemies respawning to hunt you down seems a bit unbalanced lol. otherwise the enemy design is really cool, and it feels like i havnt seen enemies like these before as some of them are pretty terrifying looking. The cosmetics in the game are fun and exciting and there are lots to change out on your character. I feel like alot of builds can be made in this game based on the items that give you perks, and the sheer variety of weapons and clothings available. Visually this game is quite striking, there are not alot of games out there that do it this well. The artistic direction is very tasteful and there are lots of bright colours paired with a drab colour palette which really pops. Also during night time, the shilouettes laid up against the night sky never gets old TLDR: Overall I think for 20$ CAD or whatever, this game is extremely good value, and is quite a treat to look at, as the environments are very unique and feel hand crafted. as far as the gameplay goes, I sweat really hard. This game just isnt for the feignt of heart as they get you fighting nasty looking creatures in the dark with very little lighting paired up with some clunky ass controls on keyboard and mouse. which really does give the effect of a ghost girl piloting a puppet mech. The story was fun and exciting and I cannot wait for the devs to add more content to this game. I beat it in around 20 hours and there is still more to do!