mom can we have bloodborne? no we have bloodborne at home
it's a new souls-like game and so, obviously, i will download it and i will win. have to say though, this game was a bitch for many reasons.
i love games with a parry mechanic, but man when you're up against a 10 move combo and you need to perfect parry everything to avoid -90% on your hp bar from missing just one of them, it stops being optional and almost becomes mandatory. the parry window feels smaller than it is in any other game i've played, and the payoff for successfully perfect parrying a boss just doesn't seem worth the hassle. usually a perfect parry will stagger a boss and, well, reward you for perfectly countering them! but here you can't really tell the payoff. i wish there was just a meter or some visual indication of their stagger state increasing so you could at least prepare or see what you gain by perfect parrying them as opposed to blocking or dodging.
once they're in their "pre-staggered" state, you still have to hit them with a follow up charged attack which, for many weapons, feels like as much of a challenge as the parry itself considering it takes multiple seconds to get off. it's borderline gambling with suicide; if you could cancel your charged attack and had more mobility (which you kinda get with some special weapons), this would be fine. but if the boss for some reason decides to change its attack pattern and throw in an extra attack or something while you're charging up with a large weapon, then you're basically fucked and are guaranteed -50% hp.
there was a lot of customization with the weapon combinations in a really cool way, but at the same time it kind of felt like your ability to play gets hard capped with some weapons. heavy weapons change the entire approach you have to take to the game. for most bosses i didn't have too much trouble, but a handful of them require near perfection from you for minutes straight; this is challenging which is fun, but can also get a bit irritating if your build isn't aligned with what the boss requires.
i played the entire game with the "i am monke, swing big sword, do big damage, fucking kill everything," approach which worked out, but sometimes i felt so slow despite never being overburdened. i teetered on the edge of being heavy the entire game, which would essentially require me to downgrade a lot of my equipment just so i could equip my weapon or waste an amulet slot just to increase my weight. there were some weapons that looked so cool and i really wanted to use them but i literally just could not put together a build to effectively use them without heavily nerfing myself.
the legion arm was interesting, but man the number of times i'd use it while being too low on energy only to immobilize myself and watch P stand there looking at his hand for 5 seconds while i get absolutely gaped by the boss was so dumb. it doesn't regen which is fine, but also the number of uses doesn't always equate to the full bar? feels like some of them (i.e. fulminis) should've been like the fable bar with a specific number of uses while others (i.e. flamberge) could remain the same.
it just feels like they tried to make a big melting pot of a game by taking mechanics from a bunch of fromsoft games but then failed to execute and polish it at the level they needed to for it to work. it's not inherently "bad," it's just the little things that on their own don't seem too bad, but once you add them all together it just becomes very noticeable. i beat the true ending which was very satisfying, but it's not one of those games like elden ring or sekiro that i'm itching to replay.
it's a new souls-like game and so, obviously, i will download it and i will win. have to say though, this game was a bitch for many reasons.
i love games with a parry mechanic, but man when you're up against a 10 move combo and you need to perfect parry everything to avoid -90% on your hp bar from missing just one of them, it stops being optional and almost becomes mandatory. the parry window feels smaller than it is in any other game i've played, and the payoff for successfully perfect parrying a boss just doesn't seem worth the hassle. usually a perfect parry will stagger a boss and, well, reward you for perfectly countering them! but here you can't really tell the payoff. i wish there was just a meter or some visual indication of their stagger state increasing so you could at least prepare or see what you gain by perfect parrying them as opposed to blocking or dodging.
once they're in their "pre-staggered" state, you still have to hit them with a follow up charged attack which, for many weapons, feels like as much of a challenge as the parry itself considering it takes multiple seconds to get off. it's borderline gambling with suicide; if you could cancel your charged attack and had more mobility (which you kinda get with some special weapons), this would be fine. but if the boss for some reason decides to change its attack pattern and throw in an extra attack or something while you're charging up with a large weapon, then you're basically fucked and are guaranteed -50% hp.
there was a lot of customization with the weapon combinations in a really cool way, but at the same time it kind of felt like your ability to play gets hard capped with some weapons. heavy weapons change the entire approach you have to take to the game. for most bosses i didn't have too much trouble, but a handful of them require near perfection from you for minutes straight; this is challenging which is fun, but can also get a bit irritating if your build isn't aligned with what the boss requires.
i played the entire game with the "i am monke, swing big sword, do big damage, fucking kill everything," approach which worked out, but sometimes i felt so slow despite never being overburdened. i teetered on the edge of being heavy the entire game, which would essentially require me to downgrade a lot of my equipment just so i could equip my weapon or waste an amulet slot just to increase my weight. there were some weapons that looked so cool and i really wanted to use them but i literally just could not put together a build to effectively use them without heavily nerfing myself.
the legion arm was interesting, but man the number of times i'd use it while being too low on energy only to immobilize myself and watch P stand there looking at his hand for 5 seconds while i get absolutely gaped by the boss was so dumb. it doesn't regen which is fine, but also the number of uses doesn't always equate to the full bar? feels like some of them (i.e. fulminis) should've been like the fable bar with a specific number of uses while others (i.e. flamberge) could remain the same.
it just feels like they tried to make a big melting pot of a game by taking mechanics from a bunch of fromsoft games but then failed to execute and polish it at the level they needed to for it to work. it's not inherently "bad," it's just the little things that on their own don't seem too bad, but once you add them all together it just becomes very noticeable. i beat the true ending which was very satisfying, but it's not one of those games like elden ring or sekiro that i'm itching to replay.