Immensely unsure how to record my feelings on this one. For one thing, I'm not sure whether "completed" or "abandoned" is the proper tag, as it seems to be one of those games that requires a ng+ cycle or two to really complete. I find a star rating equally elusive: it's usually a very bad sign when a stubborn ass like me actually drops a game out of frustration, but on analysis I think it would really only take one or two tweaks to take the combat from where it is to being genuinely fantastic.
As it stands, there's a lot to like about the combat. You can create your own (basic) combos by mapping weapons to light and heavy attack independently, and each weapon has a passive effect stapled to it that affects your overall handling. This plus the ranged weapons and badge system add up to a surprisingly engaging character-building system considering the simplicity of the combat. The fact that attacking and dodging feel as good as they do despite every attack animation being "an MSPaint scribble shows up for a frame" is wild, too. No idea how they did that one.
Unfortunately, the whole thing is sunk by some poor balancing decisions. The biggest flaw is a lack of protection against taking multiple hits simultaneously, which means that a single mistake is often enough to kill. This only gets amplified in the final boss and beyond into the NG+ cycles, where one-shots become so common that HP upgrades end up being functionally worthless (in fact, there's a particular upgrade that I'd argue makes them actively detrimental). Although the first playthrough is generally easy, the harsh punishment for death makes unlucky situations like this feel completely intolerable.
Said punishment is the Corruption meter, which is constantly ticking up and will forcibly end your playthrough if it hits 100%. This is a neat idea, although it disincentivizes exploration and on my first playthrough led me to miss a lot of tools (I also didn't know I had a map, which didn't help). I imagine it would feel awful to scrape your way to the final area only to have victory taken from you by this meter, but that didn't happen to me and it's a short enough game that it's probably not the worst thing in the world.
What is the worst thing in the world is ending up in NG+ underleveled, missing half the tools, having to repeat the bad end sequence (which includes its own boss fight!) every ten minutes thanks to the much harsher corruption penalty, effectively soft-locking the save file.
Much of what I've read about Lucah is focused on its raw and personal narrative, and I feel like a total jackass for spending my review on mechanical nitpicking in that light. I don't know much of the story myself, as it's sparsely told in the first playthrough and the connective tissue needed to make sense of it only starts showing up in NG+. From what I saw, I can believe there's some good stuff further in, but I think the story could have easily done more to hook me before asking so much investment and effort.
To the game's credit, there are a bevy of difficulty and accessibility options, so if you really want to see where the story's going and you don't have terminal gamer-brain like I do then there's really nothing stopping you from doing so. But by the time I'd gotten around to considering that option, the game's spell over me had broken. I was out, and I didn't feel like going back in - on those terms, or on any.
As it stands, there's a lot to like about the combat. You can create your own (basic) combos by mapping weapons to light and heavy attack independently, and each weapon has a passive effect stapled to it that affects your overall handling. This plus the ranged weapons and badge system add up to a surprisingly engaging character-building system considering the simplicity of the combat. The fact that attacking and dodging feel as good as they do despite every attack animation being "an MSPaint scribble shows up for a frame" is wild, too. No idea how they did that one.
Unfortunately, the whole thing is sunk by some poor balancing decisions. The biggest flaw is a lack of protection against taking multiple hits simultaneously, which means that a single mistake is often enough to kill. This only gets amplified in the final boss and beyond into the NG+ cycles, where one-shots become so common that HP upgrades end up being functionally worthless (in fact, there's a particular upgrade that I'd argue makes them actively detrimental). Although the first playthrough is generally easy, the harsh punishment for death makes unlucky situations like this feel completely intolerable.
Said punishment is the Corruption meter, which is constantly ticking up and will forcibly end your playthrough if it hits 100%. This is a neat idea, although it disincentivizes exploration and on my first playthrough led me to miss a lot of tools (I also didn't know I had a map, which didn't help). I imagine it would feel awful to scrape your way to the final area only to have victory taken from you by this meter, but that didn't happen to me and it's a short enough game that it's probably not the worst thing in the world.
What is the worst thing in the world is ending up in NG+ underleveled, missing half the tools, having to repeat the bad end sequence (which includes its own boss fight!) every ten minutes thanks to the much harsher corruption penalty, effectively soft-locking the save file.
Much of what I've read about Lucah is focused on its raw and personal narrative, and I feel like a total jackass for spending my review on mechanical nitpicking in that light. I don't know much of the story myself, as it's sparsely told in the first playthrough and the connective tissue needed to make sense of it only starts showing up in NG+. From what I saw, I can believe there's some good stuff further in, but I think the story could have easily done more to hook me before asking so much investment and effort.
To the game's credit, there are a bevy of difficulty and accessibility options, so if you really want to see where the story's going and you don't have terminal gamer-brain like I do then there's really nothing stopping you from doing so. But by the time I'd gotten around to considering that option, the game's spell over me had broken. I was out, and I didn't feel like going back in - on those terms, or on any.