Eldest Souls is another in a long string of Souls-like games, looking to make its own spin on the formula. Unfortunately, while there are some cool bosses and nice pixel art to be found here, the game fails to provide the polished yet difficult experience expected from the subgenre.
I'll start with the positives. The pixel art is very well done here with some nice simple animation and effects that add to its already pleasing aesthetic. The soundtrack too is great, providing plenty of epic backdrops to the game's various bosses. The lore too, while not quite as fleshed out as one would hope, paints a haunting picture of a world ravaged by war. Really the presentation was very well done.
Some of the bosses too were very cool while also being fun to fight. Particular shoutouts go to Azikel, Hyem, Aryana, and Drakmur who all provided very unique and difficult fights.
That's where the positives end though. Unfortunately, for a game that expects you to maneuver difficult boss fights that can fling a multitude of attacks at you at the same time, it doesn't consistently provide functioning tools for you to do so. The overall design is very cool. You have your basic moves, and some neat specials that you can add onto with items you get from beating each boss. Added on to this are three skill trees of differing styles that you can very easily respec and switch between as needed. This was an excellent idea as I found many of the bosses needed different strategies to beat them.
However, it goes without saying that despite their simplicity, the controls feel particularly sluggish. You'll get used to them, but it can be frustrating at first. From there, you'll start to see the even finer gaps that'll piss you off further. Aiming with the absolutely essentially charge attack can be a pain sometimes.
The dash, provided with an extra bonus if you get perfect dodges, just sometimes doesn't work at all. My most frustrating defeats were when I hit the dash button well before an attack, and my little protagonist bro just stood there like an invalid. Other times, I'd get screwed because what usually gets counted as a perfect dodge just doesn't randomly, causing me to take damage when I otherwise wouldn't. If this were just at the beginning of the game, I'd chalk it up to me not being used to the timing yet, but this was a consistent problem up until the end. It doesn't help that some of the hitboxes can be quite questionable (if you're showing a big glowy circle where damage will happen, why am I taking damage when outside the circle).
The game also has a couple glaring bugs. A couple were purely visual glitches, but I ran across a few nasty ones. One of the abilities in the Counter tree just doesn't activate sometimes when you respec to it. I had to back out to the main menu every time this happened and then it would just work. The final boss particularly had a few. Without spoiling too much, the boss has two sub enemies that charge up at certain points. You must damage them enough to cancel them, but for one of them, it just sometimes doesn't take damage when charging up. This is usually paired with a visual glitch where the sub enemy's health bar will get separated from it. My character just also randomly froze during Phase 1 one time. That's a thing that can happen from an attack in Phase 2, but not Phase 1.
The inconsistent controls, questionable hitboxes, glitches, and other small problems such as poor or weird telegraphs and times when multiple attacks just unfairly blanketed the screen all added up to an experience that had me more frustrated than exhilirated. It's a shame because there are some really cool ideas and really cool bosses in here. Had it been much more polished, it may have been one of my top games of the year.
I'll start with the positives. The pixel art is very well done here with some nice simple animation and effects that add to its already pleasing aesthetic. The soundtrack too is great, providing plenty of epic backdrops to the game's various bosses. The lore too, while not quite as fleshed out as one would hope, paints a haunting picture of a world ravaged by war. Really the presentation was very well done.
Some of the bosses too were very cool while also being fun to fight. Particular shoutouts go to Azikel, Hyem, Aryana, and Drakmur who all provided very unique and difficult fights.
That's where the positives end though. Unfortunately, for a game that expects you to maneuver difficult boss fights that can fling a multitude of attacks at you at the same time, it doesn't consistently provide functioning tools for you to do so. The overall design is very cool. You have your basic moves, and some neat specials that you can add onto with items you get from beating each boss. Added on to this are three skill trees of differing styles that you can very easily respec and switch between as needed. This was an excellent idea as I found many of the bosses needed different strategies to beat them.
However, it goes without saying that despite their simplicity, the controls feel particularly sluggish. You'll get used to them, but it can be frustrating at first. From there, you'll start to see the even finer gaps that'll piss you off further. Aiming with the absolutely essentially charge attack can be a pain sometimes.
The dash, provided with an extra bonus if you get perfect dodges, just sometimes doesn't work at all. My most frustrating defeats were when I hit the dash button well before an attack, and my little protagonist bro just stood there like an invalid. Other times, I'd get screwed because what usually gets counted as a perfect dodge just doesn't randomly, causing me to take damage when I otherwise wouldn't. If this were just at the beginning of the game, I'd chalk it up to me not being used to the timing yet, but this was a consistent problem up until the end. It doesn't help that some of the hitboxes can be quite questionable (if you're showing a big glowy circle where damage will happen, why am I taking damage when outside the circle).
The game also has a couple glaring bugs. A couple were purely visual glitches, but I ran across a few nasty ones. One of the abilities in the Counter tree just doesn't activate sometimes when you respec to it. I had to back out to the main menu every time this happened and then it would just work. The final boss particularly had a few. Without spoiling too much, the boss has two sub enemies that charge up at certain points. You must damage them enough to cancel them, but for one of them, it just sometimes doesn't take damage when charging up. This is usually paired with a visual glitch where the sub enemy's health bar will get separated from it. My character just also randomly froze during Phase 1 one time. That's a thing that can happen from an attack in Phase 2, but not Phase 1.
The inconsistent controls, questionable hitboxes, glitches, and other small problems such as poor or weird telegraphs and times when multiple attacks just unfairly blanketed the screen all added up to an experience that had me more frustrated than exhilirated. It's a shame because there are some really cool ideas and really cool bosses in here. Had it been much more polished, it may have been one of my top games of the year.