So this game has the oomph.
The world, the aesthetics both beautiful.

What this game does not have is the juice. The gameplay is inconsistent at worst and confusing at best. This is one of those souls like games where about half the deaths feel like they aren't your fault. The bosses recover from parries just a little too fast and then they get a combo on you. It's hard to recommend unless you absolutely love the genre.
There's a cool thing that happens a few hours in which makes this a much more interesting game, but it just didn't quite do it for me. The frustrating combat ended up being the moment I simply said "games shouldn't be homework" and left.

I'll be back for the next thing that Redlock Studios makes, I feel like they might just have needed more time to finetune everything.

This game is a tough sell for me. It's fun enough, at times. I enjoyed the bosses I've fought so far -- not so much the enemies, as they feel mostly identical save for one different move in each of their repertoires.

First, you fight a sword guy. Then you fight a sword guy with a shield that doesn't use the shield to block. Then you fight a spear guy with a shield that doesn't use the shield to block.

Then you fight long range snipers, but it's easy to dodge their shots and when you get close, they become sword guys. They also like to swing at you if you jump up near them from below, which makes them walk right off the ledges they're guarding. Then you fight rocket snipers, but they do all the same things. Then you fight guys who look like sword guys but have the ability to use the beam from their swords and home in on you / go through you. You just roll like you normally do. Then you fight guys who are like the sword guys but can fire a purple wave at you that travels horizontally only. This is hilarious when different levels of terrain come into play.

The boundaries for where the game wants you to go are a little unclear at times, but not that big of a deal. The platforming is the real fault of this game, though. There's a lot of bugginess and a lot of ledges you can land on that are too far down to jump back up, so you have to kill yourself or use your bonfire-warp ability and go back and run through again. The side-scrolling platforming sections are extra weird and feel unnecessary, like they just wanted to try out some ideas and rolled with them.

The absolute offender of all offenders though is trick platforms that collapse under you over instadeath pits. No warning, no color differentiation or details to spot -- you land on/walk onto the platform, it drops, and you either reflex fast enough to not die or you die. My instinct to sudden changes in the game is usually to roll forward. This just makes you dash into what is usually the next safe platform at chest height and look up at it longingly as you plunge to your untimely death AGAIN.

That was the last current straw for me in my current run of the game, as I had beaten a boss and was looking for the next bonfire-type-thing and saw an item to collect, walked over carefully and right before I got there, platform drops and I die. Respawn a fair ways before the boss fight. No thanks. Maybe another time, I've got plenty of backlog to play without that garbage.

Also had a bug where the forge menu spazzed on me and just kept shifting between multiple weapons I had when I was trying to pick one to upgrade. Only notable bug I can think of outside of HUGE enemy AI goofs that is worth noting.

I am impressed what Redlock Studios were able to accomplish with a small dev team off a Kickstarter campaign. There are some really strong moments that feel very polished - the Ras Samrah and Malkhel fights are both highlights - and the game's design and aesthetic is gorgeous and consistent. The lore also is well written and interesting, albeit a bit scattered and underwhelming in discovery. I also loved the movement mechanics - the double jump and dash are so satisfying to use along with the portal systems and bike-like device you have for traversing the Ancient Lands. They have also included a couple of side quests that seemed interesting, though I didn't complete most of these.

However, in spite of all this good, there's definitely an inescapable feeling of unrealized potential. Some areas feel unfinished (props to anyone who knows what "The House" region is for), and most of the enemies have no poise and, as a result, are often a bit too easy aside from when they put 10 of them in the same room to make it challenging. Additionally, the item system felt lacking - although I did do a lot of exploring simply because I wanted to see the map (a testament to the game's art design), I didn't care much about the items I picked up because it seemed like it was the same 5-10, regardless of the area or the difficulty of obtaining the items. This also made interacting with the merchants a little underwhelming as they didn't sell anything unique. Similarly, the weapons weren't different enough to encourage me to switch from the one I started with.

There is definitely room for improvements, so ultimately, you feel a bit like you're playing a game in early access, though it's more polished than what you'd expect to get from a game in that status. I'd recommend it, and I'm excited to see what the studio will do next, but I'm also not sure I'd replay it unless they made some significant updates to it.