Beautiful game in so many ways. Rich with exploration, satisfying combat and some great puzzles. Personally, I am not a fan of the uber-obtuse puzzles and don't have the facilities to ever decode a language so at a certain point, puzzles become an obstacle that is not worth even approaching. Is this going to be a "fun" puzzle to solve, or is it going to require me to spend hours to days of my time deciphering something? I guess the difficulty spikes in this game are full of that: it can be difficult to gauge how radically this game will change in a moment-to-moment. Gameplay-wise, that didn't bother me. I found most of the encounters difficult but fair. I think they screwed up parrying, which was a mistake, but I don't really parry often in games anyway so I just ignored it.

The biggest thing here is that this is a GAME, first and foremost. You are thrust into the world and left to figure it out through your own exploration. You are playing immediately. The art style and the music are so amazing, the world is extremely soothing, despite being so hostile. It feels very good to unlock a new area or discover a shortcut cleverly disguised by the game's design. The manual mechanic was lovely, and the amazing detail in how they rendered the printed pages felt so real and detailed especially as you zoom in. So well done.

Knowing it's made by a very small team it's understandable this is so short, but I will say for a "soulslike" game, it was pretty disappointing there were only really 3-4 bosses in the whole thing. Still, a game of great polish.