I was a backer of this project and have play-tested the early builds before the developer has announced that this game is going to be published by Neowiz. If you really want to see the game that pushes the limitation of stamina-action game mechanics (AKA souls-like), You guys need to play this game. Imagine someone mixed Hyper Light Drifter, Sekiro, 3D Ninja Gaiden, and Tekken in an iron pot and condensed it into a 5~8 hour game. Definitely one of the best action games in 2021, even without the context that this game was developed by one person for five years. Sure, there are some issues like kinda dull pixel graphics and the bosses(Especially the hidden ones and the final boss) becoming REALLY bullshitty with their unpreventable combos, but hey, the dev guy is a Tekken fan so it is understandable.

The only reason I gave it 4.5 stars is because the development is not finished yet.
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2023-03-17

After beating P-2, I concluded that this game can get an exception card and get 5 stars even in the unfinished state.

As much as I appreciate that this is one of those triple-A games that at least try to emphasize gameplay mechanics with a good amount of options while maintaining the triple-A production value, There are still plenty amounts of cons I can nitpick such as the static contextual movements that hinders fast explorations, the damage reduction and parry-possibility tied with the whole leveling mechanic, the wall-colliding camera that doesn't work well with multiple enemies, bad fast traveling system contextualized by the god damn single-camera cinematics, lack of champion enemy variety, inconsistent Valkyrie movesets, and most of all, movement correction for all the characters in the battlefield. I'm still hopeful about the sequel though, as my time spent on this game doesn't feel like it is wasted for absolute nothing.

This is a review after I played Act 1 on Drunk difficulty. It's a pseudo-build-engine-FPS (which is made with unreal) that focuses on player mobility. The level designs are good. Generally reminds me of the levels from Blood where the dungeon-like elements and realistic area design get crossed. Enemy variation is alrighty. At first, there are only melee thugs and average bullet shooter enemies but after the midpoint, the roaster widens enough to make several types of enemy encounters and arenas, which is great! I really liked that every projectile is avoidable with careful movements since they aren't hit scanners. I do wish the melee enemies had better tracking ability though. The shield chargers are really easy to punish just by sidestepping because of that. The weapons are varied enough to deal with several types of encounters but I do think the shotgun is a little bit underwhelming because of its small scope size. It's so easy to miss an enemy even on point-blank distance. Also, the weapon swapping is a little bit clunky. Don't expect it to be Ultrakill or Doom Eternal where you can swap the weapons to make a devastating chain of combo. For the game that is trying to recreate the build engine FPS experience, I think the weapons are working as they are meant to be, and Sisu mode is a nice twist on the formula, but I do wish it was less rigid than that. Overall it's a solid game and I hope Act 2 will be better than Act 1.

It's surely a good game. The core mechanic is well-built, The dungeon design is pretty "classic" and it's bold that they actually have an actual time limit that will end your progress -which is quite manageable, but still gives you a mindset of "I need to play this really efficiently and swiftly as possible". But the combat can be easily broken by the generous parry system, especially against the end-game enemies which were shown as the "unbeatable foe" at the tutorial. It's quite sad because there are many other combat options that make you move a lot, which can make some interesting movement-based combat situations. (Yes, there were plenty of encounters that forces you to move a lot. The semi-final boss comes to my mind. But there should have been more IMO)Then again, I played it only on Action-girl difficulty, which is the "normal" difficulty for this game. Maybe the encounters can be changed on a higher difficulty? So, please take this review with a grain of salt.

Ironically, this shows a similar issue from Alice: Madenss Reurns which was also a dark fantasy fairy tale action game published by EA 10 years ago. There is a promising foundation of combat loop, but the lack of enemy variety and combat option (in this case, the deck variation) hinders the quality of this game as a whole. And aside from the combat features, this game lacks interesting non-combat elements (considering that this game is technically an "adventure" genre, this is kinda alarming). At least the visual style was fascinating though.