Really polished Action RPG with Monster Hunter-like quest structure. The main story doesn't overstay its welcome & quest system keeps things refreshingly focused compared to your typical big budget ARPG. I think this game could be god tier depending on the quality of challenging endgame content added post-release.
As it is it has all the makings of one but the 'optional' content is very easy and takes a long time to build up (especially if you touch multiplayer) while player side mechanics are really strong.
Combat definitely feels very platinum games-like. A bit simple but each character is very unique from the other. The skill ceiling is still higher than you might think and some characters are more technical than others.
The amount of quality of life features is kind of incredible, from training modes to wishlists etc. As a comparison both of those features are pulled off better than monster hunter. The downtime / busywork you need to do between quests is extremely minimal.
Enemy attacks & AoEs have the cleanest visual indicators i've seen in a 3D action game like this from memory. They can definitely up the difficulty without visibility being an issue.
Misc. gripes:
The disparity between multiplayer and single player difficulty is too big. It's not good if multiplayer feels like an easy/cheat mode. This is a bit like if monhun didn't scale quests to be harder based on player count.
Guard seems nonsensically strong. Many bosses have attack patterns where you can't do anything but dodge until it times out. But guess what. You can just stand in place and hold the guard button. If you got hit it's because you assumed you need to do something. There are very few fights with unblockable attacks, and it's usually some mid-tier monster instead of an endgame boss.
There are many bosses where the only challenging part of the fight is a DPS check. This is pretty cringe & even if the rest of fight was fun in a challenge run (say playing 1 character only) that limitation might make the dps check part impossible. Struggling through a difficult fight with a lowish power party isn't rewarded, rather you kinda get punished for good gameplay through the rest of the fight.
Lock-on and targeting behavior is strange with your character very likely trying to hit something on the other side of the map, if the movement direction matches more.
The auto tracking on your moves is really strong even without locking. If manual aim could be more of its own thing ala monster hunter this could make some characters with slower attacks more fun to play.
Launch version specific:
The endgame quests aren't very interesting for multiplayer play. Only 1-2 quests are challenging for survival if played with random people (main one having multiple bosses at once, one with many unblockables). For others if you are playing multiplayer you can assume there's no chance of quest failure and it's just a speedrun to get to your loot drop gacha. Getting hit also barely costs you time or resources unless it kills you, unlike monhun. Tanking hits is the way to go if you are specced above the quest level. The 'final' farmable quest is more of a setpiece & dps check fest than actual combat which is pretty meh.
As it is it has all the makings of one but the 'optional' content is very easy and takes a long time to build up (especially if you touch multiplayer) while player side mechanics are really strong.
Combat definitely feels very platinum games-like. A bit simple but each character is very unique from the other. The skill ceiling is still higher than you might think and some characters are more technical than others.
The amount of quality of life features is kind of incredible, from training modes to wishlists etc. As a comparison both of those features are pulled off better than monster hunter. The downtime / busywork you need to do between quests is extremely minimal.
Enemy attacks & AoEs have the cleanest visual indicators i've seen in a 3D action game like this from memory. They can definitely up the difficulty without visibility being an issue.
Misc. gripes:
The disparity between multiplayer and single player difficulty is too big. It's not good if multiplayer feels like an easy/cheat mode. This is a bit like if monhun didn't scale quests to be harder based on player count.
Guard seems nonsensically strong. Many bosses have attack patterns where you can't do anything but dodge until it times out. But guess what. You can just stand in place and hold the guard button. If you got hit it's because you assumed you need to do something. There are very few fights with unblockable attacks, and it's usually some mid-tier monster instead of an endgame boss.
There are many bosses where the only challenging part of the fight is a DPS check. This is pretty cringe & even if the rest of fight was fun in a challenge run (say playing 1 character only) that limitation might make the dps check part impossible. Struggling through a difficult fight with a lowish power party isn't rewarded, rather you kinda get punished for good gameplay through the rest of the fight.
Lock-on and targeting behavior is strange with your character very likely trying to hit something on the other side of the map, if the movement direction matches more.
The auto tracking on your moves is really strong even without locking. If manual aim could be more of its own thing ala monster hunter this could make some characters with slower attacks more fun to play.
Launch version specific:
The endgame quests aren't very interesting for multiplayer play. Only 1-2 quests are challenging for survival if played with random people (main one having multiple bosses at once, one with many unblockables). For others if you are playing multiplayer you can assume there's no chance of quest failure and it's just a speedrun to get to your loot drop gacha. Getting hit also barely costs you time or resources unless it kills you, unlike monhun. Tanking hits is the way to go if you are specced above the quest level. The 'final' farmable quest is more of a setpiece & dps check fest than actual combat which is pretty meh.