This review contains spoilers
The first couple hours of this game are absolutely brutal. This was my third attempt at playing this game and it finally clicked, but yeah, getting used to the new combat mechanics and unlearning your Dark Souls muscle memory is a steep hill to climb.
Once it clicks though, the game is a blast. Bosses are super satisfying to take down, sneaking around and killing weaker enemies is really fun, and the areas are enjoyable to explore without being so big that you don't know where to go. Learning new skills, powering up your health/posture/attack, finding new prosthetic tools, slowly getting better at the game's combat in general, it's all great.
Then you get about 75% through the game and it stops being interesting at all. You start fighting reused miniboss after reused miniboss, sometimes almost right next to each other. Sometimes you fight a reused MAIN boss. And every time there is either no change, or an extremely obnoxious change. Fight this guy again but now he calls dogs to fight with him the entire time. Fight this guy again but now he's in a poison swamp with 7 other enemies you have to stealth kill first. Fight this guy again but now he's underwater. It turns what was a super satisfying and exciting adventure into a tedious chore really fast. The second memory world is by far the worst offender, and I'll fully admit I didn't even bother finishing that. I doubt the second fight against Owl and his 2 new moves are cool enough to be worth fighting a drunkard miniboss for like the 5th time.
Thankfully the final two areas really pull things back (for the most part, Ashina Castle v.3 is still flooded with reused minibosses but Demon of Hatred and of course the final boss are fantastic) and remind me why I was enjoying the game so much before. If it wasn't for this already shorter than usual game reusing sooo much of its content, it'd be one of FromSoft's best. As it stands, it's pretty good.
Once it clicks though, the game is a blast. Bosses are super satisfying to take down, sneaking around and killing weaker enemies is really fun, and the areas are enjoyable to explore without being so big that you don't know where to go. Learning new skills, powering up your health/posture/attack, finding new prosthetic tools, slowly getting better at the game's combat in general, it's all great.
Then you get about 75% through the game and it stops being interesting at all. You start fighting reused miniboss after reused miniboss, sometimes almost right next to each other. Sometimes you fight a reused MAIN boss. And every time there is either no change, or an extremely obnoxious change. Fight this guy again but now he calls dogs to fight with him the entire time. Fight this guy again but now he's in a poison swamp with 7 other enemies you have to stealth kill first. Fight this guy again but now he's underwater. It turns what was a super satisfying and exciting adventure into a tedious chore really fast. The second memory world is by far the worst offender, and I'll fully admit I didn't even bother finishing that. I doubt the second fight against Owl and his 2 new moves are cool enough to be worth fighting a drunkard miniboss for like the 5th time.
Thankfully the final two areas really pull things back (for the most part, Ashina Castle v.3 is still flooded with reused minibosses but Demon of Hatred and of course the final boss are fantastic) and remind me why I was enjoying the game so much before. If it wasn't for this already shorter than usual game reusing sooo much of its content, it'd be one of FromSoft's best. As it stands, it's pretty good.