CI shoving Deck 13 (the only developer so far who has understood how to actually make a soulslike) off to create a generic action-RPG and handing this over to some new studio is one of the most baffling decisions possible.
This has some interesting ideas, at least, which puts it above copy-pasted "I saw a thing from Bloodborne and I clapped" slop like Lies of Peepee Poopoo, but the actual gameplay is worse. The dual worlds gimmick is cool, but tedious in practice (as it almost always is), and that's true of many of its innovations. The ability to place your own "bonfires" with limited resources is interesting, but often feels mandatory as otherwise there are very long stretches with no rest points. Fromsoft eventually figured out that boss runs are annoying as hell, and fixed that in Elden Ring, but they're in full effect here.
Bosses are fairly underwhelming, too. Most of the challenge here actually comes from the huge amounts of enemies ganking you while others fire ranged attacks at your dumb ass. Bosses are relatively slow, with attacks that are easy to parry. Speaking of, what the hell's up with this whole "blocking causes chip damage that's recovered by damaging the enemy" thing? It was in Lies of Penis too, which is a strange coincidence.
By the way, add this to the pile of console games that look terrible due to temporal anti-aliasing. I swear to christ, whoever invented this awful shit that turns every game into a blurry, smeary mess is going in the Contraption when I'm in power. Performance was adequate, about the same as Elden Ring was on PS5.
Anyway, one of the default classes is a "warwolf" which gives this an extra half star.
Please come back, Deck 13. We desperately need a Surge 3.
4/10
This has some interesting ideas, at least, which puts it above copy-pasted "I saw a thing from Bloodborne and I clapped" slop like Lies of Peepee Poopoo, but the actual gameplay is worse. The dual worlds gimmick is cool, but tedious in practice (as it almost always is), and that's true of many of its innovations. The ability to place your own "bonfires" with limited resources is interesting, but often feels mandatory as otherwise there are very long stretches with no rest points. Fromsoft eventually figured out that boss runs are annoying as hell, and fixed that in Elden Ring, but they're in full effect here.
Bosses are fairly underwhelming, too. Most of the challenge here actually comes from the huge amounts of enemies ganking you while others fire ranged attacks at your dumb ass. Bosses are relatively slow, with attacks that are easy to parry. Speaking of, what the hell's up with this whole "blocking causes chip damage that's recovered by damaging the enemy" thing? It was in Lies of Penis too, which is a strange coincidence.
By the way, add this to the pile of console games that look terrible due to temporal anti-aliasing. I swear to christ, whoever invented this awful shit that turns every game into a blurry, smeary mess is going in the Contraption when I'm in power. Performance was adequate, about the same as Elden Ring was on PS5.
Anyway, one of the default classes is a "warwolf" which gives this an extra half star.
Please come back, Deck 13. We desperately need a Surge 3.
4/10
2 Comments
"Lies of Peepee PooPoo" got a chuckle out of me. Nice burn haha
Weatherby
8 months ago