I love that we finally have a soulsy action game that turns your defensive options alone into a whole new category of risk/reward system that I've never quite seen before like this. Choosing between parry, soul shield, dodging and avoidance through abilities for every enemy attack while managing the break meter is the most fun I had with defense in a game period. I also love that this game finally does away with the stamina paradigm of many of its contemporaries and introduces this different kind of active resource management that feels fresh and exciting. The combat as a whole doesn't have the depth of Nioh 2's combat, but it is satisfying for many hours all the same. You can make up so many fundamentally different strategies for every challenge this game throws at you, and while that does throw balancing out of the window for some of them I would much have this breadth of choices that I can mix and match through the job system to create my own depth rather than every boss having the "adequate" difficulty. You know you made a soulslike game fun when the magic casters are a) viable and b) make you think rather than just spamming spells. Speaking of, the MP system (getting more max MP through soul shield) is also very smart, because it plays into the aforementioned strong defensive options while giving casters a strong reason to move in.

The story is a cool subversion of the classic Final Fantasy tropes, the game is a heartfelt love letter to the series in its music and visual design.

Also, there are both a banger Dubstep and a DnB remix of FF5 music on this OST, so this is an instant 5/5 stars