I highly recommend this game, if only for the sense of whiplash the combat brings compared to most modern titles. Post-Dark Souls games seem to really focus on enemies which have these long windups and they all make you fight from the backpedal, but Dark Messiah is fast, frantic and chaotic, while still working well enough. It's a bit buggy and there's some annoying stuff to be sure, but there is joy to be found in working within the chaos, being proactive and working with what's given to you in any fight.
The combat is a bit clunky, I think the issue is that some attacks hurt you on every frame of the attack animation, meaning the beginning the swing does damage before even hitting you, which can be frustrating at times. Even then, this is still one of the better combat systems out there even today, if purely because overcoming these issues rarely makes you feel overpowered. You have a lot of tools that are quite strong, but on any but the lowest difficulties, one slip up can mean doing an encounter all over again. Quick planning, constant repositioning: it just feels good.
There's also still enough Arkane-iness too, the secrets may not be as clever but they often use the mechanics which were at your disposal this whole time: bows, jumping, climbing, looking around in the dark. There's also rewards for attentiveness, as the big levels have you revisit certain locations, and as you obtain keys, you are able to unlock doors which were previously locked. This often means obtaining stronger gear earlier than usual.
While some might not fit your build, it might also be an incentive to put some points into a different part of the skill tree and explore the possibilities that provides. This happened to me with magic, as the first piece of armor I found required Magic Affinity. This helped me TREMENDOUSLY when I had to deal with spiders which are vulnerable to fire.
Due to a certain level of annoyance with somewhat unreliable systems, I wouldn't say the game holds up as well as I remembered, but having finished it, I am struggling to think of a first-person melee-focused game that feels like Dark Messiah. It feels like it implements a lot of FPS ideas into the melee systems, there's no dashes or any other moves to get you out of trouble there's just running and weaving between the best positions and thinking of ways to deal with individual threats as fast as possible. There's a lot of fun to be found there, in feeling like you can't ever make a mistake during these tense moments.
The combat is a bit clunky, I think the issue is that some attacks hurt you on every frame of the attack animation, meaning the beginning the swing does damage before even hitting you, which can be frustrating at times. Even then, this is still one of the better combat systems out there even today, if purely because overcoming these issues rarely makes you feel overpowered. You have a lot of tools that are quite strong, but on any but the lowest difficulties, one slip up can mean doing an encounter all over again. Quick planning, constant repositioning: it just feels good.
There's also still enough Arkane-iness too, the secrets may not be as clever but they often use the mechanics which were at your disposal this whole time: bows, jumping, climbing, looking around in the dark. There's also rewards for attentiveness, as the big levels have you revisit certain locations, and as you obtain keys, you are able to unlock doors which were previously locked. This often means obtaining stronger gear earlier than usual.
While some might not fit your build, it might also be an incentive to put some points into a different part of the skill tree and explore the possibilities that provides. This happened to me with magic, as the first piece of armor I found required Magic Affinity. This helped me TREMENDOUSLY when I had to deal with spiders which are vulnerable to fire.
Due to a certain level of annoyance with somewhat unreliable systems, I wouldn't say the game holds up as well as I remembered, but having finished it, I am struggling to think of a first-person melee-focused game that feels like Dark Messiah. It feels like it implements a lot of FPS ideas into the melee systems, there's no dashes or any other moves to get you out of trouble there's just running and weaving between the best positions and thinking of ways to deal with individual threats as fast as possible. There's a lot of fun to be found there, in feeling like you can't ever make a mistake during these tense moments.