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.

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.

I will put 3 on this because I made this game so giving this a huge score is cheating. Also, the game development is not finished and I'm not fully satisfied with this yet.

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2022-04-21
Gotta update half-star up, because this game is getting closer to my ideal with enough dev works.

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2023-02-20

Magenta is an uncertain color. It’s a color spectrum beyond the visible purple, and since our eyes can’t receive it, we just replaced it with the average of red and purple and call it that way. It’s a recent day I found out that my second favorite color (the first being deep blue) has that story behind it, but knowing the story made me think of a thread for the conceptual work; the land of uncertainty.

When I was making that concept work, I was miserable, as my main job wasn’t satisfying at all and my side projects were ruined by a chain of misfortunes and my terrible choices. Chaotic overthinking was devouring my life, and my failure as a game dev cast a shadow over my confidence.

One thing good about being an artist is that there’s a way to express negative emotions via mediums, and it can be a catalyst for personal growth or even a pride of conqueror.
At that moment, I wanted to express the feeling of navigating through the uncertainty, organizing the chaotic situations with improvised methods, and the frenetic flow of my train of thought.
And I had to do it all alone because only I can make this work to be true, only I would take the burden of work, and only I wanted to conquer it.

So that’s how the concept of Magenta Horizon was born and the world was set in the afterlife. It’s a good place to start the concept work as the purple spectrum has some connotation with death in many cultures, but also there is an excuse to draw tons of grotesque monstrosity -my go-to drawing subjects-.
Personally, I’m not spiritual at all, but the afterlife setting can be a canvas for the world of aimless chaos, especially if the world after death is only a purgatory full of demons, and no heaven or hell exists. It’s a story about a little reaper from a human-led soul sanctum, and she has to find the meaning of her existence in this barren land. Even though in a literal sense, I didn’t suffer as much as the protagonist of this scenario, I tried to reflect my own experience in the story about tidying up the uncertainty and overcoming the odds.

Also, I wanted this setting to be expressed via my favorite genre of video game - Combo-action games. Not many games can provide the feeling of conquering and mastering hectic situations like the Devil May Cry series or the 3D Ninja Gaiden series do. Enemies come from below to rip and tear you apart. At first, you will feel panic. The erratic movement of foes doesn’t make sense at all and your options are too broad and vague to fully utilize at first. But you get a grip one by one. Each erratic chess piece reveals its pattern one by one, and you start to punish them accordingly. And then, you start to play with them, making your own comfort zone in the most stressful situation. Failures will be there, but that’s okay. You still learn from it. And after all that, the mountain of enemies is no more, chaos is calmed down, and the game pats your back with a good score.
That’s the feeling of conquering Magenta I wanted to capture.

This work might not be the most intuitive thing you will ever find in the market.
The tutorials are rough, the visuals and music are both noisy, and the obstacles don’t wait for their turns and rush at you. It will be an intimidating experience for most people.
But if you are ready to accept and embrace the premise I’m pitching, I urge you to try it out.
"Soar over purgatory and reap all the foes."
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2023-05-31

4/5. I'm getting there.

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.

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.

[Pros]
-Aside from the slow intro, the game has no downtime. It surely is action-packed.

-The continue system of this game is not only conceptually intriguing but also shows the evolution of arcade games' continue system. It makes people WANT to master the older levels, but with their own phase.

-defensive options(dash, block, perfect parry, weaving&short-jumping) are varied and each has its own clear merits.

-perfect parry has a really short window, which means it's not easy to always rely on it. It also means that people won't likely go with one single method to deal with every problem.

-Environmental hazards (fall-death, stair-fall, wall-crash, throwable objects) are the true king of the grand game design. Every countermeasure and combo you will make is chosen, or amplified by these objects. You can engage in the fight against defensive enemies by kicking the bottle or chair to destroy their position and punish. You can throw the enemy off the ledge or stair by using throwing and sweep attacks. Since there are a lot of dangerous enemies coming toward you at the near-end level, this environment manipulation becomes the main ammunition of your gun. And I really love the chaotic situation I can pull off with that.

-Healing system is simple but very fitting to this game.

-There's a hidden spare-the-boss mechanic in this game, which is kinda gimmicky, but it also makes you have an additional goal that changes your strat. (you have to destroy their structure twice in their second phase before their health goes down to 0) Pretty neat I should say.

-Not related to the mechanics, but the third and fourth levels are truly eye-festival. The art direction is fantastic.

[Middle ground]
-Yes, this game's combat system is entirely built upon automatic move assists like gliding enemies and kinda inconsistent tracking speed, but most of the time they can be negated by good positioning. I wish the vertical attacks didn't track the players tho.

-There aren't many enemy types, but the normal goons themselves can change their attack patterns by holding the weapons lying around(I know it's a classic AI behavior that has been made since the older beat-em-up games, but it's still fantastic), and some random super-saiyan mode can stir the arena in a fun way. (Imagine the devil transformation from God Hand, but much more lenient) So, yeah, even with the low amount of enemy variety, the arenas are pretty dynamic. Though I wish there were more champion enemy types.

-Bosses are pattern-heavy and very punishing when we interrupt their combo(which is why they seem kinda restrictive), but the defensive options and countermeasures alone can make some variations in the gameplay. For example, It is possible to destroy the structure meter of Botanist's 1st phase with the weave-punch-wall-throw combo since there are many walls in the boss arena. Surprisingly not many people didn't use that. Also, many people consider that the third boss is meant to be played with the waiting-game strat, but I realized that the structure damage she gives is quite low, so I dealt with the first phase with full-on perfect parry strat which is quite similar to Sekiro. I think some people can deal with her with constant weaving&short-jumping, which is kinda impressive in a sense. What I'm saying is, the bosses are not that DEEP in the whole action game spectrum, but they surely accept different playstyles.

[Cons]
-I think some enemy attack patterns are frustrating to deal with because of the lack of telegraphs. Note that I'm not a Fighting Game enthusiast tho.

-Yeah it is realistic that punching people irl doesn't make a bomb sound, but even considering that, the sound feedback should have been more explosive.

-The Second Boss is unnecessarily punishing considering that he is still an early game boss and the patterns themselves are quite simple.

-Honestly, The skill tree exists for the skill tree's sake. all the combat moves should have been opened from the start and only non-permanent-stat-boost from the dragon statue should have remained in this game.

-Camera collides with the wall, which can lead to some unmanageable stuff like the things in God of War Reboot.

-I hated the final boss for being too fast and hard-hitting while also providing only a small amount of window for us to express the offensive moves.

Overall, I can give this at least 4/5 for the pure enjoyment I got from this game. But I have to say, I could have loved it even more if they fixed the Cons.

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.

If you have played Dark Soul 1, you would have had this experience.
When you started the game, you could enter three or four dangerous places except for one "normal" route,
and after being beaten hard in these places, you would think, "How do I break through these reviving skeletons and pass through the graveyard?" or "Do I really have to go through that ghost-ridden path?" something like that.
Then, you'll play on a route along the path of weaker enemies, and as you proceed with the level,
player character's stat will grow, and at the same time, you will also acquire "knowledge" and "tools" that can handle skeletons and ghosts.
And later, it can be used to break through dangerous areas. This is the part I liked in Dark Soul 1.
Even though it seems kinda irresponsible to let players go to the dangerous places, but there was a sense of trust from the developers that players would avoid them, learn the game, and return on their own later,
And based on the bits of knowledge, it is possible for experienced players to create crazy builds or weird game progressions on their own.
This "opened" structure can create a form in which players can actively draw variables. Personally, I thought such an element was a unique value from FROM.
But after Dark Souls 1, this design method was hard to see again because the later games were somewhat linearized. And I'm really glad to say that Elden Ring reintroduced the design method. On a huge scale.

Elden Ring is full of roadblocks that motivate more explorations. The element stretches from Limgrave to the hidden levels that will come out at the end.
The most representative example is Margit, who is comparable to DLC bosses in the early souls-game in terms of difficulty. And for most normal players, he is the first proper main boss, since the grace checkpoints are leading to him.
It might be insane to think that FROM introduced Artorias on crack as a first main boss when most people don't even know how to use combat options properly early on, but if you search through other areas of Limgrave, not only your character's stats will grow up, but you can also find an item that is borderline-cheating for the boss fight, and a spirit summoning system that can be helpful for AI distractions.
You can even find a route that can bypass a whole Stormveil castle early on so that you can go to the later area early on. (Although it is recommendable to beat Stormveil castle early for the leveling and the great rune)
Exploration will always give multiple answers for the roadblocks, and that's why I can clearly say that it has a structure that is closer to traditional non-linear RPG compared to all souls-borne games.

The challenges you'll find during your explorations are greatly varied. In most recent action-focused titles such as Bloodborne, Dark souls 3, and Sekiro, while there were different types of enemies, most of the special encounters were grounded-combat-focused and didn't bring other game elements to spice up the adventure aspects, such as level hazards or puzzles.
(Except Forbidden Woods & Mensis Nightmare in Bloodborne, or the Archive in Dark souls 3. Those were memorable levels.)
Elden Ring introduces puzzles, platforming challenges, several types of traps that can bamboozle the players to change the phase of the game significantly.
Some might be easier to solve compared to the others, but you have to admit that your experience of Elden Ring can't be boiled down to combat after combat.
Even the special combat encounters are extremely varied in the open world.
Some groups of enemies are engaging in war with each other, so you can find an opportunity to deal with some sneaky attacks on the distracted AI.
Giant enemies can deal damages to their allies, so by utilizing positioning and baiting, you can make the grouped giants kill themselves.
Most field bosses are located on uneven terrain, so not only do you have to watch their movesets, but you also have to care about the levels surrounding you.
Do you see what I mean? This game is full of encounters that can break the mold of traditional action parts for your creative or perceptive gameplay, which is awesome.
Even though the early part provides only a handful of small mediocre dungeons, once you go to the other areas, the types of challenges will be varied significantly. So if you love risky adventures, I bet you'll lose nothing by playing this.

And there are main dungeons or so-called Legacy Dungeons. These are working like Dark souls 2 DLC levels where there's one clear path to a boss room,
but finding the path requires some perceptive skills and there are a large number of different paths that lead you to hidden items or special challenges.
Even though I prefer the loop-maze structure where you have to navigate through a maze-like level with one checkpoint, the legacy dungeons are still the best part of the game, thanks to the vertical structure, sadistic enemy placements, and traps.
They also made some areas impossible to run through without thinking, thanks to the narrow corridors, enemy placements, and level hazards.
Because of that, Stormveil Castle and Royal Capital have almost flawless level designs in terms of dungeon design perspective.
The only thing I can criticize about Legacy Dungeon is that, while the player's progression inside the dungeon can be non-linear, it's still contained in one dungeon, unlike Dark Souls 1 where the dungeons and other places are interconnected like webs.
Which is a lost opportunity, because I think there were enough rooms for that, thanks to the massive size of the dungeons.

However, if you look at this game with pure combat perspective, things can be messy.
Let's look at the good part first. Not only does this game bring back Power-Stance from Dark Souls 2, but Weapon Arts are also customizable in normal weapons.
This element alone can create depth that no other FROM games could have provided, and if FROM is actually caring about content updates about multiplay, it will have the best PVP scene in all souls-borne history.
But my gripes are coming from the enemy design. Especially the elite ones and the late-game bosses.

Souls game is on the passive, or reactive side if you compare them to other well-made action games, but this series always gave positive feedback about proactive positioning.
Some enemies could use tracking attacks or delayed attacks, but they didn't go full-magnet so you had opportunities to position yourself without heavily relying on timed-dodge movement, especially if you lock-off.
Dark souls 3 might have been criticized by some gamers for being a "dodge-roll festival", but there were bosses like Demon Prince, Sister Friede, and Midir where you can try out different positioning approaches for your own benefit thanks to their clear pattern chains, consistent damage area, and windows for clear weakness.
This series might incentivize passive actions, but as you learn the patterns, you could find more options to engage in the fight even as a monotonous melee build.
(Like back-stabing Sister Friede or charge-attacking Orphan of Kos)

If you are gonna try out pure-true-to-heart melee build -the "traditional" way- to deal with Elden Ring's enemies then be sure that you won't find a lot of windows to be proactive this time around.
(Of course, some people will find the exploits, but for most gamers, they won't likely find that, myself included.)
Most of Elden Ring's elite enemies and bosses have an off-beat combo that can rapidly change their chains depending on the player's position and 99% of their melee moves track horizontally like a magnet.
And as if those weren't enough, the jump attacks and even some simple melee attacks can shorten the distance between them and players with no fixed movement speed.
The worst-case was the final boss's first phase where he can position himself in front of you with simple melee attacks no matter how far you try to distance from him.
Not only does this look awful because it feels like the boss is riding skates rather than actually using his footsteps, but it also reduces the options for players to be safe from him.
There are only timed dodge and very passive poking left in this fight if you are playing this as a melee build. The only thing different from Sekiro's ultra-passive combat loop is that dodge direction matters, but that's all. (And I have to say, I would have prefered Sekiro's approach if they were gonna boil everything down to timing-game anyway. At least there were "fun" to have while obliterating bosses by chaining the consecutive deflections and using the prosthetic tools)
Another worst-case scenario is an infamous duo gargoyle battle. These bastards can use 360' degree windmill slash and poison AOE whenever they want no matter the position of players, and every normal attacks track you.
Because of this, only a frustrating waiting game remains in that battle.
And here's a thing. I wouldn't mind this kind of enemy behavior if this was Nioh2 or any stylish combo-based action game where you have much more proactive and reactive moves as a baseline.
But the thing is, the player character is -even with the inclusion of jump attack and swappable quick step - working like Dark Souls 3. It's a blatant unbalance when it comes to basic options on the player's part.

Though, This is a part where the character-build variety shines. Since the pure melee builds are designed to be rather frustrating, the bleed/frozen status effects are significantly more useful than before, and magic, ashes of war, and summonable spirits that you can acquire during the exploration are almost mandatory when you can't build specific melee build that can shred enemies to pieces.
And these additional options have their own gameplay depth too. Aside from the edge cases, many enemies have limited attack distances so the positioning matters when you are casting.
Some enemies can evade your spells so you can't always spam that. so there is a need for a timing check for using spells, unlike previous games.
Ashes of War aren't definitly monotonous or filler-ish like weapon arts in DS3. They can be a useful ranged option, but also be a great positioning tool, like Hound Step. With Hound Step, I could have a better time with this melee combat system thanks to it's large movement range and larger i-frames. I would have a better time with this game IF the main dodge system was as lenient as this skill, but it's a viable option at the end, and I'm glad with this inclusion.
Summonable spirits have clear pros and cons depending on the type, and this alone can incentivize using different spirits, thanks to the different types of enemy encounters I mentioned.
The best and the most interesting one is a mimic tear, where you can summon a direct copy of yourself.
If you have made a mage-knight build like me, you can summon them and let them use the spell casting from far while you are dealing with enemies with melee.
This alone shows that there are many possibilities in strategy perspective when you know how to utilize summoning.
However, considering that this is still an action game, you might feel less satisfied with using this method, since once they are summoned, they choose a random target, then choose a random position, and then choose a random attack string.
They are completely out of control, and even if the end was victorious, it wouldn't be as satisfying as soloing.
But you have to know that some later bosses are literally designed to be borderline impossible to solo with certain builds. (Like Malenia. I can't imagine consistently beating her solo unless you have a god-send parry skill, +10 great shield, or a min-maxed bleed weapon)
I would have much preferred if every boss in this game incentivized using players' base options for a proactive approach so that every build is "theoretically possible" to solo the bosses without being too defensive.
And spirit summoning could have stayed as a diegetic difficulty option instead of being a mandatory helper.

Now let's talk about some positive stuff. Even though combat can be messy, the legend bosses in this game are mostly highlights, even more so than late-FROM games. (Still, none of them are comparable to Ludwig, but that's my preference.)
This one includes most main bosses, so please skip this paragraph if you haven't played it till the end.
Margit and Godrick were great early bosses. Sure, they have some tracking attacks and long combos, but thanks to their slow movement, you can find good positioning options to deal more damages even as a pure melee.
I really loved Godrick fight, where the jump counter was actually viable for the quake attack patterns. They were both challenging but fair as 1v1.
Moon Queen is one of those "weird" boss fights in FROM's boss library, but the first phase's stage structure is much more interesting than the one from Deacons of The Deep, and the second phase really tested players' movement options (like running). I liked that fight.
Radahn is also a "weird" boss fight but in a different manner. He can be dealt with 1v1, but because of his massive size, health pool, and absolutely broken AOE patterns, only specific builds that can use fast-long-reach weapons can have a good time with this fight as 1v1.
For the others, they can utilize the gimmick of the boss field, -the ever-regenerating summonable NPCs conceptualized as a festival-. With that, you can find an opportunity to attack him behind the back.
In a sense, he is like Yhorm, but with more nuance in the combat options. It would have been a tedious boss without these options, but thanks to the level gimmick, and the theme surrounding Radahn's backstory, this fight still remains as one of the most memorable boss fights in Elden Ring.
Rykard is a classic FROM's "storm ruler" boss, but the power-fantasy value of this boss fight was extreme beyond measure. Come on, you are literally swinging a 70-meter giant spear in a god damn Souls game. Also, this fight isn't a joke like other "storm ruler" bosses.
You have to read the distance and the boss's animation to actually obliterate him. And the second phase, dear god. FROM's creature design really shined in this phase. And the chaotic bullet-hell pattern made me really panic about the situation, combined with the hellish OST and the visual.
The Ancestor Spirit was on the easier side, but this is supposed to be a "feel" boss like Sif. So I really liked that as a pure experience. I wish they didn't include this boss in the trailer so that it could have been more surprising.

There were two hidden legend bosses I wanted to call "masterful works"
One was Dragonlord. Unlike the other fast ever-tracking bullshit bosses, This boss is built upon clear AOE patterns and players' positioning options. The lightning attack has a clear sound and dodge window, so you can handle the off-camera attacks even while attacking.
The fire AOE is large, but once again, thanks to his consistent actions, you can either run away with a fixed amount of distance or find the right place to hide and punish him.
And there were some weird patterns where you have to utilize camera movement. He can teleport away and dive bomb you from the off-screen, so you have to track him by rotating the camera manually.
I would be mad if this boss was a rampaging-beast type of boss, but since his off-screen attacks are fairly telegraphed with slow movement, I didn't mind that at all. It was a fun fight.
Another one was Mohg. This one is working similar to Margit -A rather slow giant humanoid boss with off-beat combos in his sleeves-.
The nice thing about this boss is that his attacks leave traces in the boss arena, so not only do you have to read the attack chains, you have to care about the field hazard so it's not just another roll-dodge game.
And here's a thing. His melee attacks are visually readable thanks to his wide and slow animation. And the field hazard is working as glass shards rather than a giant hammer that one-shots you, so there are interesting choices about damage-trading or safe-play.
Although the health drain gimmick in the phase transition seems a little bit bullshit, the rest part was fun so I didn't mind this fight as 1v1. Probably the best humanoid boss fight in this game.

Though, aside from the bosses I mentioned as positive, there were some bosses that went too far and came off as overkill rather than a fair game.
One is Malenia. Whoever designed the triple anime-slash combo attack in this boss fight should not join as an action-designer part in FROM's design department ever again. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea?
Another one is the final boss, or should I say, final BOSSES.
I mentioned the final boss as a worst-case about pure melee for a reason. If I could use a summon for the first phase, I wouldn't be that mad since that can be seen as a viable option to distract him.
But the fact that the second phase is an entirely different, conceptually disconnected boss fight that NOBODY would disagree to separate it as a different boss fight, and if you have used the summon in the first phase, your summons will die instantly thanks to their ABSOLUTELY nonsensical bullet patterns made me angry. Like, really angry.
Like, I didn't understand that design decision in Sekiro, but WHY DO THEY COMBINE THE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT BOSSES FOR ONE BATTLE?
This isn't like Ludwig or Sister Friede because, in those fights, they were conceptualized as the same entity from the beginning till the end.
This final boss feels like they connected them together because THEY FUCKING WANTED THE FIGHT TO HAVE "AcTHuallY-FOUR-PHASES".
FROM should remember that even a mono-phase boss fight can be interesting and challenging. You know, like fucking Artorias.
Oh yeah, the final-final boss is a trash fire.
The first final boss is an overkill that devalues the positioning options, but when you roll at the right time, you can negate the area damage(which is still stupid because even though they are CLEARLY ground-pound, you should roll through them because some AOE can catch your jump for some fucking reason), and it is possible to use fewer health potions than the other fast bosses thanks to his rather "readable" animations.
However, the second final boss is a camera-eating monstrosity, an unreadable-bullet-hell, and a run-away-boss at the same time.
Like, I actually liked the character design of them, but I don't know who thought it is okay to put ever-following missile and un-jumpable wave attack simultaneously while the boss is actively distancing from you.

Yeah, I'm back to the negative vibe. So let's talk about the negative aspects of the "lessor" bosses.
I bet there weren't many QA checks for these little bosses, since the mini-dungeon-bosses are either too easy or an-ever-tracking monstrosity that is somehow confined in a small room.
Even if there are some good bosses like Deathbird, Godskin, and Commander, the bosses get repeated in the other dungeons and lose their value as a unique entity.
And the multi-enemy bosses in this game are the worst in the whole series of souls-borne. It would be an insult to compare them to FROM's previous well-designed multi bosses such as O&S, Ruin Sentinels, Demon Prince, and Shadows of Yharnam.
Not only they don't have a clear role distribution or attack timing as a part of multi-bosses(maybe except Godskin duo), because of the melee combat issue I mentioned earlier, you either have to play it really defensively or use summons and DPS build to shred them to pieces.
These might work as solid roadblocks that can test your builds, but as an action game, they only left a sour taste in my mouth.

So yeah, I wrote really long review/critique about this game. It was a tiring journey, but it would be a blatant lie if I ONLY had a bad time with this game. If I didn't like it, I would have dropped the game during the playthrough and didn't even put a star on this (I only rate the games I finished)
The potential for the player-oriented story in this game is infinite, and the exploration, adventure aspects alone can make other souls-like games cry in shame. This game deserves to be loved by many, from casual players to hardcore souls veterans. 80 hours on this game aren't wasted to void.
But I have to say. For me, as an action game, It didn't jump over the Bloodborne's hurdle again.

I haven't played many shmups, so I can't properly say much interesting stuff by comparing this game with other shooting game references, but ZeroRanger is one of the few games that made me feel astounded by the developer’s vision, even though the game is quite small.
One thing I really liked about this game is that the show-sets, obstacles, level progression, and narrative bits are connected like a monstrous circus train, and it runs at you full-speed with no downtime.
Even though the game’s runtime is around 1 hour (for 1 cc), The game is dense with “interactable” spectacles that are comparable to other lengthy indie games like Celeste. I don’t know if that was the right comparison, but there were so many cases where I thought the game developers grind too much to make every moment explosive and memorable even though they took only 20 or so seconds to move on to the next scene. I can’t pick my favorite scene out of all the transitions and build-ups, but the seamless flow between round 1 and round 2 was noteworthy.
Every section has a different-looking enemy with bullet patterns that work differently, so you must change the positioning strategy and weapon constantly. Unlike Sol Cresta -which is the first shmup I played-, there is no slow-down for changing the weapons, so there are no delays in between bullet swaps, and fitting to this gameplay style, enemies come in horde from 360’ degree. The dynamic flow of shooting down the enemies with fitting weapons and finding the right position to shoot enemies and also dodge the upcoming attacks is almost comparable to Doom Eternal or Ultrakill’s dynamic combat flow which are also my favorite shooter games.
Another thing I want to mention is the unconventional level structure, Sometimes, the levels are working like moving mazes that you have to navigate through carefully. Sometimes you have to navigate horizontally alongside the level that moves in sideways, which is an unexpected thing from a shooting game that looks like a vertical scroller. And thanks to the multiple tools the player has, it was less awkward than I’d imagined but it also provided interesting challenges. In the game, there is a choice related to the secondary weapon option where you have to pick the bullet that goes backward or sideways. A backward shooter is a good generalist problem solver, but the sideway shooter is great for areas full of enemies stick at the side, which are usually located at those “unconventional” sections. That alone made me consider weapon choices because just like other arcade games, you have to try your best to blast through the risky sections to save up the chances for later.
The level design aspect shined in stage 1-4 where you have to go through super-speed vertical shmup sections, then slide through the horizontal gauntlets full of enemies that charge side by side, and then navigate the hive-like structure that is intertwined with non-linear diagonal hallways and awkward (in a good way) enemy placements. Also, the boss in that level somehow mixed the elements of Space Invader and Undertale, which are the things I would have never expected when I hear the term "shmup", and I was genuinely surprised. Even IF they reuse level concepts like the continuation of part 1 and part 2, there were so many changes in the contents that I thought the repetition is just justifiable. And I think “justifiable” is a weak word to describe the great surprises like the new colossus boss fight in 2-2 and the crab chase sequences in 2-3.
I’m still confused about the lore and narrative overall, but one thing I really liked about the theme is that they really dedicate themselves to the theme of repeating suffering and overcoming the suffering. The Buddhism imagery, the quote; “Even the sweetest treats get bitter with each bite”, and the way to see the true ending. Those components work in harmony to create the mindset of “a monk going through a constant ordeal”. It may sound pretentious, but not many punishingly difficult games make me think this way. It is something akin to Pathologic where the suffering in a video game is contextualized so beautifully that I couldn’t stop playing it, even though the punishment is rather harsh thanks to its arcade-like nature.
That said though, deleting the save file to see the conclusion is a little bit too much. Yes, it makes the stake really high, but to get to the past, the player has to beat the teeth-grindingly difficult final boss, and spend all the credits to life bar after the borderline-impossible-to-not-get-hit escape section. That alone is enough to make the situation spicy in my opinion. Not only that but there is also some stuff that seems counter-intuitive in the final section: I had to stand middle in the danger zone where it shoots out bullets. I was kinda salty about this because I failed two long runs because of this cursed section, but then again, that is just my taste, and I don’t want to condemn it like a massive design failure. It was true to the concept, and just like the other elements in this game, it made me feel good at the end. I hope this is a great kickstart for my journey through other shmup games, and I’m glad that I ate a great orange as an appetizer.

To put it bluntly, I have zero experience with previous Final Fantasy games. I have no nostalgia about the series at all so the premise of the game came off to me as a Chaos-killing-meme-game and nothing more at first glance. But this game was made by Team Ninja, which is one of my favorite action game developer teams.
And Nioh 2 is -despite of its diablo-like loot system which I loathe- the greatest game I've ever played.
So, my hope was kinda high. The chaos-killing shenanigans in the trailer looked like God Hand-tier comedy and the combat system they have shown looked fun enough. It could have been 9/10 for its sheer entertainment value.

The core gameplay was, -as expected- amazing. This is not an exact copy-and-paste of Nioh formula.
Instead, they introduced an interesting form of the Sekiro-parry system, Soul Shield.
Soul Shield mechanic shows a cool compromise of reactive part and proactive part of this game. To use special skills or heavy attacks, you need some mana gauge. And how do you gain your mana? Well, you can gain some mana by hitting the enemies with normal attacks but parrying the enemies' attacks with Soul Shield is more beneficial. Soul Shield is tied to the player's "posture" meter, but unlike any other just-timed parry system, you can lengthen the parry window by spending the posture points. This is great because it makes the just-timed-parry system to be more than just "just-timed".
Not only that, but there is also other normal block function that supplements the Soul Shield.
It has high posture damage resistance (I used a shield, so the resistance rate can be different) but doesn’t give you mana when you block the attacks, which can be useful if the enemy attack timings are hard-to-judge so that you can’t safely parry the upcoming attacks.
Hopefully, you get the idea that this game’s fundamental defensive options are fantastic.

The job system and the "heavy attack" swap system are -maybe not the greatest thing ever- pretty solid.
Job is like Style in DMC in the sense that it can be swapped anytime for your own playstyle benefits, although there are only two slots.
Your weapon choice and the default heavy attack change depending on the job you "equipped".
Here's an interesting thing. As you grind a bit, your job level will grow up and you can unlock new types of "heavy attacks" that can be chained from normal attacks. For example, if the normal-normal-heavy combo ends with a down-slash in the default setting, as you unlock new moves, you can change the combo to end with a more powerful spinning slash. And you can unlock a new set of jobs by max-leveling multiple jobs. So, at least in terms of a customizable combo system, this game is a blast. Although it can be grindy if you want to try out different jobs.

Speaking of grinds, unfortunately, this game has so many downfalls to becoming the great experience I was hoping for.
I played this game on the Hard setting from the start to finish. I mostly stuck to the mage+melee-based jobs and actively used the team members.
I sometimes solo’d the bosses if the boss fight seemed reasonable to do 1v1, but it happened only three times (not including the final boss).
On the hard difficulty, Jack can die in a few hits and dangerous enemies always come in a pack. So, gear management is almost mandatory for your own safety and the team members. Here’s a thing though. I don’t know if this is a tradition of FF, but the loot drops and the item management are ridiculous.
A lot of enemy drops a shit ton of items when they die, so your inventory gets cluttered with garbage weapons and useless armors when you are not looking for the inventory for like two main stages. As a crutch, the game allows an auto-management button that automatically allocates the “best” armor and the “best” weapons for each character. Here’s another issue for this though. It is only optimal in the numbers. Since there are heavy attack skills that can be allocated depending on the weapons you have, there is a chance that the auto-management button can mess with the current skill set.
This means I have to change the weapon again for my skill set. A waste of time at best.
It’s better to have the button, but I still don’t get the point of this loot/management system when you can just have none so that I don’t have to click the damn button and fix the micro-error every time.

Another problem is the general enemy design.
There are some new elements I like, such as the chain execution: You can chain the execution if the nearby enemies also have zero posture. And there are unblockable attacks that force you to move and absorbable attacks that can be absorbed with Soul Shield and become your arsenal.
Not only that, but some bosses are also really good, like Fused Elemental which provides a good multi-boss challenge that ties two enemies creatively into one battle. Behemoth and Tiamat were good too.
But on the negative side, we have enemies that are so small that you can’t actually tell the attack distance (Tonberry), A tiny bat that spawns tornado out of sight, A beholder-like creature that spams explosive magic out of sight, bosses that spin like a cheap Beyblade even though they are clearly made of a chunk of iron(Iron Giant and Cray Claw), A boss so big and yet moves so erratically that makes my head spin(Marilith), A fast humanoid boss that has good patterns and yet has the worst SFX feedback you can imagine (You’ll see him near the end part), and the god-fucking-damn mindflayer.
Now, I know that weighty animations and clear attack tells aren’t the Team Ninja’s strongest toolset, but I remember that in Nioh2, they really improved the quality of the enemy design with the clear sound telegraphs (Remember the BOOM sound when the enemy does the red aura attacks?) and reasonable animations that are redactable for most people in that combat situations.
Compared to Nioh2, FFO’s enemies’ qualities are downgraded. These are some Ninja Gaiden 1 era janks if I have to exaggerate.
I’m guessing there is a reason why the attacks feel cheap. Since the enemy attacks are mostly told by a literal signal board, the devs must have thought that the signal would do enough tells for each attack. However, I would have preferred if they didn’t include the skill board at all. Instead, they should have provided a clearer colored aura on their attacks and better animation/SFX feedback. As a simple-minded action gamer, I want to read the animation, not a skill name.

Also, it is not related to the enemy design, but for a 30~40-hour game, the enemy variety isn’t that great. Yes, the bosses are varied, but the common enemies aren’t. After the midpoint, they spam the color-swapped enemies that are more annoying to deal with than the vanilla ones. This reminded me of Nioh 1’s problem, but Nioh 1’s humanoid enemies worked dynamically with their own stamina system, much more expansive movesets, and different kinds of encounters so the issue wasn’t that glaring. This game is screaming for more enemy types, but I’m doubting that adding new enemies would fix the issue since the general enemy qualities are kinda mess.

Since I mentioned the Nioh series, let’s talk about the levels because this game is also sharing similar issues to Nioh. Or maybe even worse.
The art "style" isn't bad, but there are no noticeable landmarks in most of the dungeons, and the lighting in this game doesn’t help you at all when you are fighting enemies in the darker area. The place is clearly having sunlight and yet the shadowy places are so dark that you CAN’T see the enemy’s animation, which is not a good idea if the game’s foundation is built upon the fast action.
The gameplay element in the level design department is quite underwhelming because the level structures aren't as convoluted as any Dark Souls, or even Nioh's main levels. Even though there are some shortcuts, I wouldn't say there were many branches to explore around ignoring the obvious main path.
Enemy placements are also monotonous. From what I've experienced, there are no ambushes using the blind spots, or showing interesting behaviors. They are standing right in the arena, visibly, standing still.
Also, the level gimmicks are either half-baked or don't provide interesting exploration elements.
Maybe it is because there weren't many contents to incentivize the explorations like the hidden Kodamas, but even considering that I felt like the dungeons in this game are working like arena after corridor after arena. It's serviceable as stages for action games, but I wouldn't call this an interesting "adventure".

The story was fun, but we have to admit that as an outsider of the FF series, the “chaos killing” mumbo jumbo got old at the end. Yes, Jack was charming in the Doom Slayer way, but his merit faded away at the end when the half of the end game cutscenes were full of anime drama that stimulates my emotion like a wet fart. At the end of the day, this game is the best form of 3/5 games. There are glaring issues here and there, and yet there are hidden charms that cannot be overlooked. Some people will love this game if they are a diehard fan of combat-experiment or an old final fantasy fan. (Since many people have pointed out that this game is full of old and new FF references) But for me, It just made me wish to see Team Ninja and FROM working together and making an absolute banger game by supplementing their weaknesses.