The "campaign" is a true case of mustard-on-ice cream, but the arena mode is very solid and is really all that'll ever come to mind when I think about this game. For all intents and purposes, the arena is the main game or at least can be treated as such, and it's hard not to think of it that way with a combat system as rich as this one. The real killer for the system tho is how absurdly easy it is to rack up an infinite airborne combo that no enemy can knock you out of. This complaint is bigger than it sounds for people who aren't really into character action, and smaller than it sounds for people who are. On the one hand, it allows for basically any enemy to be effortlessly killed once you have them launched to a reasonable height (barring some that can break free), and it renders point/combo challenges essentially meaningless as the last enemy in an engagement can be infinitely juggled midair for the aforementioned points or combo score. On the other hand, the challenges are essentially meaningless outside of the board game mode, and there are a good few enemies that can break your midair combo, that is until you get out of their vertical range, at which point it can already have been called a reasonably interesting challenge. On the other other hand (that I keep in my back pocket in case of emergencies), this is super dependent on the engagement, and a good deal of encounters don't have such enemies. Outside of that, the gameplay is extremely solid, with a wonderful selection of ground and air moves that are satisfying and intuitive to master and chain together. Weapons are mostly balanced and distinct, some are arguably more satisfying than others but the fact remains that they, as all the best weapons do, bounce and combo off one another in interesting and varied ways. The enemy design is extremely tight as well, though some enemy variants look unfortunately similar in silhouette. A bit of a shame, as each enemy does have a defined and important role in a combat engagement which itself is great, though it would've been greater if you could more easily tell them apart. Regardless, certain enemies demand certain attack or evasion strategies, some force you off the ground, some force you out of the air, some should probably be parried and, well, yes good they're good I think I've made my point. Overall, if this game doubled down on the action bits and had a defined action campaign - rather than a bizarre rouguelite board game campaign - it could've been excellent, and it almost pains me a bit to say that it isn't. But at the same time I'm reasonably happy with what we got.