Demo Thoughts: Combat is very stiff, the art style is not pleasant to the eyes. Either pick hyper realism or hyper stylization they are not meshing well. Why does everything have a super bold outline? Also the game drops frames super hard on base PS4 I can feel this system getting phased out more and more with each new release.
Full Game: I'm gonna put this on hold until I acquire a PS5 this game is fucking abysmal on base ps4.
8/5/2023: I have finally gotten around to playing it and holy shit this game fucking sucks. Imagine any action game mechanic in any slightly decent to great game in the genre and this game has it. At best the mechanic will just function and at worse it's just handled worse than the game it took it from. The game has like no sense of feedback in anything going on and the stiffness of everything does not help.
I should feel like a flowing goddess of the battlefield but I feel more like a runaway freight train because you cannot cancel any animation at all which is literally action game 101 so you have to commit to long recovery frames of every action you ever take. This feels like a mid-2000's action game from the ps2 era displaced by time.
This is also the ONLY game I've seen somehow fuck up the concept of the enemy flashing red and attacking you with a strong unblockable attack. The flash gets lost in the cacophony of the battles due to how the game will just become unintelligible non-sense between you, your Einherjar, and your enemies doing shit that when these attacks hit you it never feels like you fucked up. Probably because in literally every game i've played that has this in it (which is most fucking action games by the way) it's also accompanied by a loud ass distinctive sound cue to give you an even bigger warning but this game DOES NOT HAVE THAT. Accompanied with the fact this game commits the cardinal sin of enemies being able to attack you from off screen, this is maddeningly annoying combination to deal with. Enemies will just have no tells half the time because the animation work is so poor on everything going on. Either enemies will have a weirdly animated wind up attack that will suddenly get unrealistically fast, fucking up your defense, or so fast you have no time to react and they just get to combo you (this is what the wolves do all the time). Also ain't it grand that enemies get to combo you for free but if you try to attack them they can just spam a backstep/sidestep that is 100% invulnerable until they feel safe from you and just get to drop out of your combos and hit you because you can't cancel any of your animations? It's like fighting the shittier Tales of Vesperia bosses but it's literally EVERY enemy.
"Oh but Tuck why don't you have the arts bar to stun them like the game wants you to?"
BECAUSE I SPENT IT ON EVERY OTHER ENEMY SO NOW I HAVE TO SPAM MY SUMMONS TO GET IT BACK FAST WHICH ADDS TO THE CACOPHONY.
HOLY FUCK.
Another thing that pisses me off is that this game somehow also fucks up execution attacks, which is another thing that even the most shallow of spectacle action games get right. The game is super fucking finnicky about what criteria you need to execute it.
Is the enemy like a fucking centimeter off the ground? Can't do it.
Slightly higher on a hill even though you're right next to it? Eh try it maybe it'll work. Coin toss, really.
Standing perfectly still (which is the most consistent way to pull it off without the game having a stroke) eh maybe coin toss that one too.
Not a single soul working on this game knew what the fuck they were doing when making it.
This game is impressively bad.
Full Game: I'm gonna put this on hold until I acquire a PS5 this game is fucking abysmal on base ps4.
8/5/2023: I have finally gotten around to playing it and holy shit this game fucking sucks. Imagine any action game mechanic in any slightly decent to great game in the genre and this game has it. At best the mechanic will just function and at worse it's just handled worse than the game it took it from. The game has like no sense of feedback in anything going on and the stiffness of everything does not help.
I should feel like a flowing goddess of the battlefield but I feel more like a runaway freight train because you cannot cancel any animation at all which is literally action game 101 so you have to commit to long recovery frames of every action you ever take. This feels like a mid-2000's action game from the ps2 era displaced by time.
This is also the ONLY game I've seen somehow fuck up the concept of the enemy flashing red and attacking you with a strong unblockable attack. The flash gets lost in the cacophony of the battles due to how the game will just become unintelligible non-sense between you, your Einherjar, and your enemies doing shit that when these attacks hit you it never feels like you fucked up. Probably because in literally every game i've played that has this in it (which is most fucking action games by the way) it's also accompanied by a loud ass distinctive sound cue to give you an even bigger warning but this game DOES NOT HAVE THAT. Accompanied with the fact this game commits the cardinal sin of enemies being able to attack you from off screen, this is maddeningly annoying combination to deal with. Enemies will just have no tells half the time because the animation work is so poor on everything going on. Either enemies will have a weirdly animated wind up attack that will suddenly get unrealistically fast, fucking up your defense, or so fast you have no time to react and they just get to combo you (this is what the wolves do all the time). Also ain't it grand that enemies get to combo you for free but if you try to attack them they can just spam a backstep/sidestep that is 100% invulnerable until they feel safe from you and just get to drop out of your combos and hit you because you can't cancel any of your animations? It's like fighting the shittier Tales of Vesperia bosses but it's literally EVERY enemy.
"Oh but Tuck why don't you have the arts bar to stun them like the game wants you to?"
BECAUSE I SPENT IT ON EVERY OTHER ENEMY SO NOW I HAVE TO SPAM MY SUMMONS TO GET IT BACK FAST WHICH ADDS TO THE CACOPHONY.
HOLY FUCK.
Another thing that pisses me off is that this game somehow also fucks up execution attacks, which is another thing that even the most shallow of spectacle action games get right. The game is super fucking finnicky about what criteria you need to execute it.
Is the enemy like a fucking centimeter off the ground? Can't do it.
Slightly higher on a hill even though you're right next to it? Eh try it maybe it'll work. Coin toss, really.
Standing perfectly still (which is the most consistent way to pull it off without the game having a stroke) eh maybe coin toss that one too.
Not a single soul working on this game knew what the fuck they were doing when making it.
This game is impressively bad.