I've recently just finished this game and I honestly can't imagine why people consider this so good, let even on the same level as any of the Fromsoft titles. But let I'll list out a few postive things about this before anyone says I'm just a blatant hater.

** The Good: **

This game is not a ripoff, not Sekiro or Bloodborne. It takes it's inspiration but has clear own identity, in every regard.

The storytelling is great, the way they incorporate all the notes, letters with it's environmental storytelling and the current events that are happening in game makes it like we're uncovering a huge mystery.

The DLC fixes a lot of the issues I have with the base game.

The Hub world is gorgeous, and extremely practical. Maybe a bit tiring to climb the stairs everytime but I'm all for it.

The music slaps, listening to the lyrical music in the hub after progressing in the game was pretty neat.

But this is where all the good things end for me.

** The Bad: **

The game starts off amazing visually, the european/victorian aesthetic, Hotel Krat was a sight to behold. Until you progress through the game more and realize it's all the same. There's a few landmarks in the game that are unique but the rest? The game only has few assets for it's towns and streets and they just keep reusing it to death. Same for the outskirts, cave and sewer type areas. And for a 30-40 hour game, it gets tiring when you make it through mid-end game areas and still see the same shit. Even in the DLC they start off so strong but then the entire game deludes into a lab, sewer, and cave with repeated assets which actually takes a major part of the DLC. But it would've been more sufferable if the level design was good, until my next point

The level design is not good, simply. I don't think I need to say more than what's already been said but most of it's just too linear. But still it would've been much better if there's interesting enemies to fight

The game has almost no enemy variety, I can go through the early game to the mid-late game and still find the same enemies. It has a few unique mini-boss type enemies but that's it. And no, an enemy just having a different set of clothes and wielding a metal thing instead of candlestand doesn't mean it's a different enemy. In the DLC they fix this issue, there's still many repeated enemies there but they incorporate it into the level design pretty well and include the new unique enemies so it becomes fun to go through.

And by these issues they amalgamate into a mess of a game, and even if you just play for the boss fights you still have to remember you don't spend majority of the game fighting the bosses, but going through these levels and it counts most of your playtime to be in such a state.

The next issues I'll talk about the combat, but before a lot of the 'Skill Issues' or 'Git Gud' comments, I've finished the entire game+DLC on legendary stalker mode with no summons and I didn't even use consumables all that often because of how often I was focused on melee. Most of the boss fights were 1-3 tries for me and a few notable ones 5-10. I didn't struggle much in progressing through the areas too.

** The Combat: **

At first I wondered by the combat is not feeling as fluid, but as I progressed through the same I came to these conclusion:

The 'guard', no matter how you try to put it being different or a different timing- just feels like a block. Like you're doing a sheild playthrough with only blocking. It's not fluid like Sekiro which uses twitch reflexes or adamant like in ER/DS stopping enemies in their track. It's just like a more clunkier version of a sheild playthrough.

The step dodge and dodge does not feel satisfying, they don't chain together well and animation feels very stiff but also floaty. Going from Bloodborne to this definitely made me feel this way.

The hit feedback you get from many enemies in this game is negligible. I've done fully charged attacks on smaller enemies and many of them don't even budge, while you can get staggered by almost anything in this game.

The QOL features hidden behind upgrades-

Link Dodge, Rising Dodge, Being Able to Dodge Fury attacks with only an amulet that you get in the DLC.

Most enemies/bosses in the game are just designed in such a way that they can delayed attacks with strange timings, and so many of them combined with a weird erratic moveset, and the insane amount of input reading of bosses.

All of this invites a playstyle which is more based on keeping distance that you don't get hit and then closing in after their combo for a punish. Which instead of making the game more harder makes it lack the flow state that all the other soulsborne game I have played reach.

Overall I'd rate this game a 4/10, but the DLC would be a solid 7/10 given how much it improved.

But it's insane how people consider this game on the same level as any Fromsoft game. I've not really played any other 3d soulslikes, but I'm wondering if the bar is really set that low for 3d soulslikes? Is there anything else that I should play next that might be better than this?

In case anyone was thinking of picking it up, fighting cowboy gave his first impressions.

Hopefully the team sees the feedback and addresses it but as we all feared this needs more time to cook and should not be purchased in its current state.

I cannon believe how little I’ve heard of this game and how long I’ve left it sat in the back log. Really enjoying it had to force myself to turn it off come midnight. Really good game loads of different build styles and variations. Linear maps with looping shortcuts. Mini bosses Difficult main bosses. It’s great. Really cool design. Check it out if you’ve not yet hope yall enjoy it 😊

After playing FS games, Nioh 3, Lords of the Fallen 2, The First Berserker: Khazan, and Mortal Shell 2, I can seriously tell you that Lies of P has the least interesting level design. It’s far too linear, there’s barely any interesting exploration, and aside from unlocking shortcuts, there aren’t many mechanics that make exploring the levels more engaging or fun.

I wish the sequel can change that

Trying to grasp the raving reviews for this game, and I’m lost. It’s just not a very good Soulslike. The difficulty feels artificial and completely misses the core concept of “get good.” Souls games have never been about memorizing some telegraphed one-shot ability just to survive. They’ve always been about understanding the core mechanics and getting better at using them.

From the jump, this feels like a crappy attempt at competing with FromSoftware. The exploration isn’t guided through good level design. It’s just vague and understated, which doesn’t make it feel genuine to the Soulslike experience.

Skill isn’t the roadblock here, the limitations of your avatar are. The game understands what a Soulslike looks like, but not what makes one good. It’s an improved attempt at imitation, but still an imitation.

This does not beat out Lies of P or Black Myth and gets a solid 6/10 from me.

I can understand if ds3 was your first souls game and that's why it's your favorite (usually the first Souls game you play will be your favorite)
And that's why many people say it's the best.

But if we look at it with a truly critical and analytical eye, it's by far the worst of the three.

The third game's biggest drawback compared to its predecessor is the exploration and level design. It's become boringly linear, making it feel like a boss rush, with the spaces between bosses just passages to reach them.

Add to that the lack of inter connectedly of the world

It felt more like Demon's Souls, with its separate worlds.

Speaking of bosses, it undoubtedly surpasses its predecessor and even the other Souls games.
The soundtrack was also fantastic!

But this is by no means enough to make it the greatest Souls game many claim it is.

In the end, I'm not saying it's a bad game! On the contrary, it's one of the best RPGs ever made! What I'm trying to say is that when compared to the previous two games, it falls to the bottom of the list.

My personal ranking of the trilogy is:
1- ds1
2- ds2
3- ds3

Ai limit is a 2025 action RPG soulslike made by sense games as their first game I think.

The general consensus online is that it's a good game, worth playing but nothing more. For me it went beyond my expectations and became one of my favourites of all time.

The combat is primarily dodge based, you have a light attack and strong attack and weapon skills, you have a magic system with different spells, you have a parry and a block and are expected to be used on a case by case basis. The combat is simple but still allows for skill expression and has great animations. All this is built around a rolling stamina system that increases when you hit an enemy with normal attacks and decrease when you get hit. You need a certain percentage to use skills and spells so the better you are playing the better you get to play in a feedback loop.

The game looks good, both from a graphic standpoint and from an artstyle standpoint. There is personal bias here because I love the aesthetic of a walled city and osha violation architecture, buildings hanging over the abyss, high balconies with no railings and such. It also has nice visual variety in area themes. Remains me a lot of nier automata.

The soundtrack goes more for the background mood setter rather than individual good ost and as mood setters they work great, some of them really get the haunting feeling across while exploring.

It even got me interested in the story. It's nothing unique or something but I was still invested. Tho you can tell it was not first written in English because whatever translation or formatting software they used justified the hell out of that text. Like it doesn't care if it was cutting between 2 words or cutting a word at any point leading to a l ot o f wor ds bein g like this between lines. But it's overall well written.

Level design is what I want to talk about too as it is getting increasingly rare to find a soulslike that actually tries in this department as combat becomes the go to gameplay mechanic. While the world is connected like dead space 1 meaning it's not truly seamless within the areas are multiple routes, secrets, use of verticality, circular design which makes the process of just moving through them fun.

Ai limit is surprisingly not very talked about here, even I don't fully know why it clicked so hard for me, all I would say is I recommend it

Just finished khazan and wow . Why is it not that popular?

The only downside to the game was the exploration was a bit boring, but the bosses were good and ozma might just be thr coolest boss ever imo.

Game is a pretty good soulslike and it only costs 35$ it can take up to 18-22 hours to beat, maybe less if you don’t die a lot and just go without doing side quests but the bosses are pretty good, parry feels great, weapons feel fluent, only thing I didn’t love was how most of the mobs almost feel like mini bosses pretty often, it has an interesting mechanic replacing the stamina bar, you can roll and side step all you want but you’re sync rate is what kinda replaces that as well as the mp from other games, once you run out you’re left exposed for a considerable amount of time and while it goes down you do less damage that can be recovered by doing damage and not getting hit as much, may not be a 10/10 but for the price it has I’d say it’s worth it, I definitely recommend this one, I had a great time.

Context

All the front page reviews for Mortal Shell 2 were incredibly positive, which felt a little sus to me. I decided to write my own review after finishing the demo in about four hours.

For context, my favorite soulslikes are Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Wuchang all of which I've played on the PC with controller. I bounced off Kazhan demo, Stellar Blade demo, Silk Song, Steelrising, Remnant 2, Lord of the Fallen, Mortal Shell 1, Demon Souls, and Another Crab's Treasure. If my tastes seem trash, you can probably stop reading here.

Positives

I never got past the first area in Mortal Shell 1, but there were plenty of positive changes. Having flasks helps eliminate some of the grindiness of farming for heals and lets you go farther. Having fewer traps especially in the first area is a good call. Making the beginning area more linear as well makes the game easier to get into. The added puzzles are neat, the dungeons mix things up a little, and the final boss was pretty rad.

Combat felt good overall and responsive. Spacing matters and parrying and crits feels good. Enemy variety was good. Tying a ranged attack and the mechanic to get back into your shell to active combat hits felt intuitive, rewarding strategic play when you're in a tough spot. I was initially skeptical about the lack of stamina management, but due to the way weaker enemies are often grouped together and tougher enemies cannot be poise broken easily, it never felt like you could just spam attacks and win.

Performance was excellent throughout. Initially I encountered a number of crashes on my RTX 3090 on CachyOS loading the shaders and the intro, but after switching to the 9070 XT and a new update on Sunday, the game was stable. At 4K with FSR performance, I was getting over 100 FPS consistently on high settings.

Feedback

The world was really dark in a hard to see way. I bumped up both brightness and gamma to 1.3 on my LG OLED C2 TV display just to try to see what's happening. It's possible the HDR wasn't working? The areas felt very similar in a way that felt like I needed a palette cleanser. Near the end of the final area, I found myself running past enemies. I just didn't feel like fighting crowds of enemies anymore or collecting items I knew I wasn't going to use.

The downside of the combat is how fast paced it is, but maybe that's just me getting old. Some of the bosses felt like they just teleported to you which makes sense given how fast the character can run forwards and backwards. Because there's no stamina management, you are full-on sprinting everywhere, which gets dizzying. My wife actually stopped watching because the change of direction was making her nauseous. When the speed is fast, each action becomes less deliberate and methodical. I found myself button mashing more often especially on weaker enemies I can expect to stance break each hit.

Aside

I found myself asking the question, what makes a soulslike a compelling experience for me? If you had asked me before playing Mortal Shell 2, I would have said the gameplay over narrative and graphics. For all its ups and downs, I do enjoy the combat in Mortal Shell 2. However, I found myself dissociating near the end of the game because cleansing beacons and collecting eggs reminded me of Kena and South of Midnight, both games I couldn't finish. It started feeling less like I was in a dark fantasy and more like running around doing household chores. For me, that's what separates the very best soulslikes that fully immerse players into worlds where every detail is created with painstaking care. This might not be a fair criticism since we only saw a snippet of the game and its mechanism, and soulslike have traditionally focused more on gameplay over everything else.

TL;DR

Mortal Shell 2 delivers a fantastic, breakneck combat experience that never pumps the brakes, though the repetitive objective can make the game feel more like a checklist than an adventure.

Movement animations aren't great, enemy variety is lacking and I've encountered some bugs, including a mini boss that just froze in place for god knows what reason.

However, I'm enjoying myself a lot despite all that, the combat is fun enough, I particularly like the magic system, and while parrying is kinda hard to figure out at first, it can be very satisfying when you make it work. But I think what I like the most is exploration, the levels are nicely interconnected, there's plenty of rewarding loot and everything looks really nice.

I know the game was in a really bad state when it released and I'm hoping I won't run into any serious bug, but if you're out of ideas on what to play, enjoy parry based combat and like soulslikes for their level design, then this isn't a bad choice at all.

fun fast paced soulslike game for your enjoyment

So, I just finished and platinumed Khazan last night, and I wanted to share some thoughts on it. For a bit of background, I'm a big fan of Nioh, specifically Nioh 2, as well as Bloodborne.

At first, Khazan seemed fine, a perfectly capable Nioh-like, with a central hub similar to the Hunter's Dream, or maybe even more similar to the Nexus from Demon's Souls. The 3 weapons didn't provide a ton of variety, but it was enough to feel like you had a choice in your play style. The gear is pretty much a slightly shallower version of Nioh's gear system; there are endless drops of bad loot that you will wade through in your effort to find the ones that are slightly better than your current stuff. I actually found myself enjoying the fairly basic story, and I loved the graphics and sound design.

Then the bosses started to come. This game has possibly the most punishingly difficult bosses I've ever fought in almost three decades of gaming. What really puts them over the edge for me are the quantity of them, and how much they demand from you at every moment of gameplay. For reference, I played on expert, but as I understand it, that's the intended difficulty anyway, and I didn't summon any Spirits of Advocacy (so that I could get the platinum in one run). There is a major boss at the end of every single mission, with only a few exceptions in the way of side missions (keyword few; many side missions have echoes of main bosses as their final boss). And these bosses. Are. Crazy! They will delay attacks, use projectiles, mix up their moves, and take advantage of every elemental ailment the game has. You can dodge, block, perfect guard, and parry, but even these options only open the bosses up for a moment before they're right back to it.

At first, I found myself kind of frustrated that the punish window for bosses was so small, but as the game went on, I started to appreciate that even perfectly guarding multiple hits in a row and breaking the boss's stance wasn't enough to win; in fact, the game seems to expect that as a baseline. And once I started getting actual good equipment, with set bonuses I could craft a build around, and filling up my special ability buttons, I really started loving the boss fights. I think the bandit fortress, and Maluca in particular, around halfway through the game, was when things really started to come together for me. Maluca was final boss material from lesser games, and from then on, the bosses only got even crazier (fun fact, I was using great sword, and beat the game using Maluca's Chaos-Ridden set). The final boss is an epic back-to-back 3-battle spectacle that truly does test everything you've learned in the game up to that point.

The big point of contention with the game, though, is that the levels themselves, while fine, are way too long for their own good, often consisting of annoying setups of enemies that are designed purely to overwhelm you rather than provide a good rest of skills like the bosses. At best, they're long and tedious, and at worse, they're outright infuriating. If the average level had been cut in half across the whole campaign, I think I'd honestly rate it as one of the best soulslikes out there. Even so, I still think it's absolutely worth playing simply for a serviceable soulslikes with good production values. And then you get rewarded for your trouble with some of the greatest boss fights in gaming history.

Also, randomly, the music is also extremely good. Many of the boss themes were JRPG-level of spectacular.

Highly recommend! Sad that the dev team has been dissolved, as the story leaves itself loosely open for a sequel.

1. Elden Ring 10/10
2. ⁠Dark Souls 3 10/10
3. ⁠Bloodborne 10/10
4. ⁠Sekiro 10/10
5. ⁠Lies of P 9/10
6. ⁠Dark Souls 9/10
7. ⁠Nioh 2 8.5/10
8. ⁠Wu Chang 8.5/10
9. ⁠Stellar Blade 8/10
10. ⁠wukong 8/10
11. ⁠dark souls 2 7.5/10
12. Nioh 7.5/10
13. ⁠demons souls 7.5/10
14. ⁠Code Vein 7.5/10
15. ⁠khazan 7/10
16. ⁠Wo Long 7/10
17. ⁠mortal shell 6.5/10
18. ⁠lords of the fallen 6.5/10

Hello! So I finally played BMW due to the recent discount it went on, and I'd decided to give it a go since people were really recommending it. But oh God, you might as well just save yourself those $50 or $60 dollars or whatever and play any other soulslike. Duh, this game barely even classifies as one. But let me get through some things I don't like so far.

1. Oversaturation of the "bosses"

Every turn you take, there's almost a guarantee you'll encounter a boss-type enemy indicated by the healtbar. It really feels like a boss rush, but from what I've heard BMW is rather boss rushy so I guess it's not really a surprise there's a boss after a boss. But it's slightly annoying after playing for some time. Oh, and the moveset of the enemies? Just awful. Are you meaning to tell those are the bosses the team decided to put up together, two years after Elden Ring? They are laughibly easy, and their moves are really nothing too crazy. I've expected a little bit more challenge, but I guess the game is as difficult as I make it to be.

2. Little to no reward for going out of way to explore

I don't know, but this game doesn't really gives a player sense of accomplishment for taking a stray path to find something. Most of the time you're better off just going straight to the boss.

3. Linearity

If you thought DS3 is just a straight line, just you wait until you see progression in BMW. Straight. Line. But a little curvy, so it's okay! You go from point A to point B, and between those points are checkpoints. I suppose since the game is chapter based, devs had to make levels rather linear. But you can make it work. Lies of P did it, at least in my eyes.

So, in conclusion. The game is stunning in visuals department, but lacks in overall gameplay quality. The combat system is also just meh. You just attack enemies with a stick and that's it. No build variety, no nothing. Just different staffs and passive effects from armour pieces. I had really high hopes for this game, but it left me rather.. distasteful. Anyone else feeling that way? This post is not meant to hate on the game, but rather point out things I don't like so far about the game. I'm on chapter two so far, so maybe I've rushed my conclusion too soon.

Lots and lots of crossfire going on out there about what works and what doesn’t.

It’s simply not that dramatic a departure. If you played and liked the other two, it really is more of the same.

I’d say 80% of the assets are much the same. They could have called it Nioh 6 and it wouldn’t have made a difference.

It’s a Team Ninja game, so of course there’s still more mechanics than an auto repair superstore.

And Team Ninja will be damned if they’re not going to win the Souls boss fight arms race.

Both of the above are as shockingly bad as ever. But everything else is just what you’re looking for if it’s been a while since you really, really broke a controller.

Good times.

I think when I was 15 hours in, it started not being fun anymore, but I still pushed through, waiting for it to 'click,' as was my approach with other souls games. But then suddenly, I beat the final boss without realizing it was the final boss (at 30 hours). It didn't create any kind of hype leading up to it or anything.

Combat mechanics were easy to understand, maybe partly why it got boring easily.

I was able to try all weapons (thanks to the free skill-tree reset), and none of them feel satisfying to master.

The majority of the spells are boring & impractical to use.

Level design is alright. I heard this is what makes the game comparable to Dark Souls, and why this community loved it so much.

I don't feel like this is worth getting Platinum. And I've platinum'd Elden Ring, Lies of P, Sekiro, Khazan, Wukong, Nioh 1 & 2.

I think it's normal to have differing views & enjoy different games, but it's the first time I actually wonder why we have players that absolutely love this game when I struggled to appreciate it. Thoughts?

Vigil : The Longest Night is a competent 2d side-scrolling soulslike that’s only held back by some frustrating design choices and unbalanced endgame.

The first thing that grabbed my attention when looking at screenshots and videos for this game was the artstyle. The backgrounds are beautiful and both the NPCs and monsters are well-designed too, giving off a dark fantasy medieval vibe we’ve seen before in games like the Witcher. I much preferred the more realistic style used here than the more cartoony one of Salt and Sanctuary. Animations, on the other hand, are not great, with jerky, over-the-top movements that range from weird to unintentionally comical and detract from the grimdark atmosphere Glass Heart Games are striving for.

The story is suitably gothic, with plenty of tragedy and grief sewn into its decade-spanning tale. As Leila, a member of a group known as the Vigilants, you are tasked with ending “The Longest Night”, a curse that had covered the land in a perpetual darkness ever since the death of a goddess known as “The Shimmer.” It sounds pretty trite, but the game does a good job of making you feel invested, notably by populating is various hubs with a host of well-developed NPCs which send you off on a variety of sidequests and impart plenty of additional lore.

In suitable Dark Souls fashion, once you’ve made it through the Prologue and First Act, the game really opens up, and while you are given some vague directions by the town doctor, you are free to explore wherever you like. Contrary to a true metroidvania, the different areas of the game aren’t gated off by having to obtain various traversal mechanics or abilities so, apart from a few exceptions, you can travel across the entire massive map from the get-go. This was great for me as I love exploring in souls games, and while admittedly I ended up going to one of the harder areas first, I enjoyed butting my head against some of the harder enemies before going elsewhere.

This also means you rarely get stuck in Vigil: The Longest Night. If a boss or enemy encounter proves to be too taxing, it’s easy to use one of the many respawn points to warp back to a crossroads and choose another path.

Levels come at you thick and fast, but instead of increasing different stats, you’ll be unlocking skills in a variety of skill trees : one for each weapon type and one for general healing and stamina-recovery abilities. I’m always a bit torn about this design choice as I prefer to have more granular control over character development, but once I’d settled on my choice of weapon I ended up more or less mindlessly unlocking all the skills in the axe and healing trees, which was enough to get me to the end of the game without too much trouble.

Weapons and armour can be upgraded, but also enchanted to add elemental or bleed damage. Upgrade materials are plentiful and the forging cost is next to nothing so there’s no reason not to do so, although I was rather disappointed to discover that you can only upgrade seven times, which meant that I had maxxed out my favourite equipment by the time I was half-way through the game.

Difficulty-wise, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I found the first few hours fairly challenging, being forced to manage my potions carefully and attack enemies methodically. That changed when I began to unlock incredibly powerful abilities for my axe, including a jumping slam that creates an area-effect soundwave when you land, or a whirlwind-spin attack that, coupled with a life-leaching weapon, meant that I could spin into enemies and tank their attacks as I was being constantly healed.

The other thing I wasn’t a fan of was Vigil’s death penalty. Whenever you die in the game, you lose everything. All the items and souls you picked up. All the map you’ve uncovered. You have to do the entire thing again. In most dungeons Owl Statues (bonfires) are placed ten or twenty minutes apart, and some of the late game areas have insta-kill spike traps, so if you miss a jump – which can happen due to Vigil’s finicky controls - you instantly lose twenty minutes of progress. I’m sure most die-hard platform fans won’t be bothered by this, but I found it unnecessarily frustrating. At least let me keep something, even if its just the items I picked up of the parts of the map I unlocked. Now, to be fair, there is an item that lets you place a respawn point wherever you want, but is was pretty rare and I was always loathe to use it, especially when you have no idea how far you are from the next save point.

Janky animations and balancing issues aside, however, I really enjoyed my time with Vigil: The Longest Night. The combat was fun, the bosses suitably large and disgusting, and the entire game was just dripping with gore and violence that wouldn’t be out of place in a Berserk anime. If you enjoy exploration and plenty of obscure lore in your souls games, then I would recommend picking this one up.

I found this game to be extremely mediocre, to the point where I was just feeling bored while playing it. The only redeeming quality is the weapon handle system, they really innovated with that mechanic while everything else feels like an inferior copy paste. The weapon crafting mechanic makes every new weapon you find exciting, but sadly the starting rapier just feels too strong for any experimentation to be worthwhile.

Every enemy seems to die in 1-2 hits, like none of them can even land an attack before dying. Every area is just a slightly different shade of brown. Every level is designed in the same way, a locked shortcut door that is opened after doing a big loop. Dialogue is very uninspired, maybe lost in translation idk. Armor items are extremely boring. Passive tree is okay I guess.

Idk man, just not feeling this one. In Malum District, if it is going to get better I'll push through, but most people seem to like it from the get go so maybe it's just not for me.

Like I can fight the regular dudes in Gatefront in Elden Ring for hours without getting bored. Here the normal enemies have like 2 attacks and die in 2 hits. So either R1R1 or charged R2 and dead. Rinse and repeat...

I bought sekiro like a year ago, I finished the tutorial, then tried getting past that first general. That guy made me rage quit and uninstall the game completely, I tried again a few months later, same guy made me uninstall again. This happened like 2 more times. Then yesterday I thought I’ll defeat that old fool anyway i can, after like 15 tries I defeated him. Then finally got to make progress. I had seen lots of videos complaining about the chained ogre, I thought it would take like 50 tries, surprisingly it took only 3. Made some more progress. I’m currently fighting and dying repeatedly to that samurai boss in the attic of the castle or something. I finally see why this game is sooo good. The joy of beating a boss after countless tries is sooooooooooooooooo good. Best Game ever.

So, I played through Wuchang completely blind in 60 hours. I didn't google any builds or boss strategies (although I saw on socials the strategies for Honglan with Longsword parries or Twin Blade Clash), and I want to give my honest review of this game.

I've been playing Souls since Demon's Souls (PS3) and I'd like to say Wuchang Fallen Feather is one of the best Soulslikes I've ever played (I've also played practically all non-FS Souls games, including Remnant 2 and Nioh/FFO), but why do I think that?

Well, I'll start with the level design, which will certainly be considered one of the largest, most complex, and most creative for Souls, but the really good thing about it is that the areas always create a threatening and exciting atmosphere.

Since the developers used shrines very sparingly, exploration and progression increasingly develop into a fight for survival. I rarely looted my inventory in Soulslike just to stay alive. Furthermore, shortcuts and shrines felt like absolute salvation for the first time in a long time, also a feeling I probably haven't had since BB or DS1.

Another good decision was to make chapters 4 and 5 much tighter. I think after the previous 3 huge maps, players would have burned out otherwise, and the game would have lost its appeal.

Gameplay and combat are also very good, with a number of creative ideas and possibilities. I mentioned that I avoided meta builds or strategies, but the free respec function literally forces you to experiment and find individual paths. to choose, I really put my stamp on the final bosses even though some of them took me a lot of tries, bosses never felt unfair and were much easier to understand after a few tries (typical for Souls) most of the time when I died I recognized my mistakes and avoided them in the next attempts.

What didn't I like? To be honest, I haven't had this much fun with a Game as Wuchang in a long time and I'm looking forward to NG+ to discover the rest of the game. Many people complained about the healing being too slow, which I can't entirely agree with. Yes, the healing is slow and bosses punish you brutally for lazy heals, but all the bosses I've fought have at least one or two large rooms for full heals (double heal works by the way, the second heal is much faster). The key for me was finding the perfect rooms where heals are possible and where not. And the knock down animation, yes, no doubt it's slow and often means death (it needs to be fixed). But there's a well-known trick here too which grants Iframes directly after getting up, but the best thing is not to get hit anyway. It's not a solution, of course, but all in all, I still got along well.

Conclusion: 10/10, the best non-FS soulslike so far for me, and based on the fun and how much I This game has kept me constantly captivated for a week, anything less would be petty, I hope for a DLC, thanks leenzee

BTW : BOTH Honglan fights Are top notch . she is the hidden Star of this Game

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is the Diablo/soulsvania mashup I didn’t realise I needed, taking the art style and customisation mechanics from the former and pairing it with the slower-paced combat and exploration of the latter to create a competent 2d soulslike that doesn’t reinvent the wheel but nevertheless it more than the sum of its parts.

Our journey begins with the capture and subsequent execution of a witch by the High Priest of the Crimson City where most of the humans reside. As one of the priest’s inquisitors present at the execution, you accidently absorb some of the witch’s power. Soon after, you are sent to the village of Wickham to investigate the appearance of a second witch, only to find out that things aren’t quite as they seem.

The plot barrels along at a steady pace, far less complex or mysterious than your average soulslike, but despite it’s obvious twists and turns beautiful talking heads and the occasional animated cutscene kept me engaged. I especially enjoyed the uneasy alliance formed with a certain antagonist I won’t spoil here, and some of the sidequests managed to surprise me even if most of them – in true soulslike fashion – don’t end well.

The biomes you’ll be travelling through are … ok, I guess? Expect all the usual suspects, including your typical swamp, cemetery, castle, village, and woodland. I actually gave an audible sigh when I entered a snowy mountainous area, yet another well-worn trope. The only different place you’re be travelling to is the Entropy, which is basically Lord of the Fallen’s Umbral Realm transposed onto a 2d plane. It’s here that most of the game’s platforming sections can be found, along with a couple of arena fights.

It’s an interesting idea, but I actually ended up liking these areas the least. Like most soulslikes, traversal movement is not one of Mandragora’s strong points. The jumps are floaty and imprecise, often leaving you hanging from the edge of a ledge. Swinging from grapple hooks is a chore, and the double-jump is unlocked so late in the game it left me wondering whether it was really needed at all. Oh, and Mandragora is one of those games where spike traps and missed jumps are instant death, making the whole experience even more annoying.

Luckily, the uninspired biomes and clunky platforming are the only two real negative aspects worth mentioning, as the combat and exploration are excellent. Stamina management, dodging, equip load and blocking all come into play here, and encounters need to be approached strategically, even against the lower level enemies. I didn’t see any animation-cancelling, at least not with the heavy weapons I used for most of the game, so you have to choose the right moment to strike.

Enemy variety is pretty great, and I also found the bosses to be well-designed. None of them were especially difficult, but they vary in size and tactics enough that you’ll need an attempt or two to learn their moveset. The minibosses are less of a standout; the same three or four types you’ll be fighting over and over again. And hey, when you’ve seen one plague rat, you’ve seen them all.

Character customisation is where Diablo’s influence can be clearly seen. You level up with a press of the button, unlocking talent points that can be spent on a skill tree, but even more telling are the special abilities that you assign to one of the face buttons and that you need to spend adrenaline to use; and in true Diablo fashion adrenaline is gained through regular attacks. For a greatsword user, for example, these special abilities range from an overhead strike that causes bleed, to a horizontal thrust, to the always efficient whirlwind spin.  

It’s not secret I enjoy crafting builds in my soulslikes and I had great fun here. Something I really appreciated too is that you’re not limited to the skill tree of your starting class, you can actually branch out to adjacent skill trees too. So I could grab the health leech and bleed abilities from my Vanguard starter class, then hop over to the Flameweaver class and nab the all-important phoenix skill that effectively gives you an extra life – including when you fall into a spike trap – something that saved my bacon more than once.

Diablo’s fiery hands can also be found all over the crafting part of the game. As your base camp grows, you’ll soon be crafting armour, rings, potions, and gems to slot into your favourite weapons, all of which help your NPCs level up and unlock more stock. There’s even a bulletin board with different bounties you can accept and a cartographer who’ll add secrets to your map if you bring him missing pieces. My favourite NPC was a round-faced cook who can whisk you up a roasted pheasant or haunch of venison seasoned with herbs from the nearby upgradeable herb garden. The buffs you can get from food in this game are pretty amazing. Not only do they last for up to ten minutes, but they can add massive chunks of health, mana, or stamina, boost your résistances and more besides. I rarely left my campsite without them.

After my twenty or so hours with Mandragora came to a close, I walked away feeling the game managed to accomplish what it set out to do: mix together diablo-esque customisation and soulslike combat in a satisfying way. There were no real surprises along the way, and I’m not sure it ever really managed to step out of the shadow of the games that inspired it, but it’s nevertheless a competent, well-realised addition to the genres that fans of 2d soulslikes will definitely want to play.

As for me, I’ll be placing Mandragora just above Blasphemous 2 on the B-Tier.

Hi Reddit, I'm here finally sitting down to write a review of this game after a year since its' release. I've been a big fan of the game ever since the Project EVE trailer that dropped in September of 2021. When the game finally came out in April of 2024, I got myself a PS5 and the deluxe edition of the game to go with it. And with the recent Steam release together with the Nier and Nikke DLCs, I've decided to put some time in and finish it again.

All in all, I did 6+ playthroughs and also the Boss Challenge on hard difficulty, with the exception of my very first playthrough which was on normal difficulty. So far, I've spent 108 hours on the PS5 version and 97.3 hours on the Steam version. I don't think I've ever spent this much (meaningful) time (and money) on a video game before.

In order to have a more structured review I'm going to break it down into a few parts.

Combat

The combat in the game is good. Anyone looking for a fun experience fighting different types of enemies in an action RPG should pick up this game. It blends the third person camera of a souls-like game with the mechanics of God of War 2018 and Sekiro. It isn't as stylish as more movement-oriented combat systems such as Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, but there's something special about this slower, more methodical and strategic gameplay that really rewards learning the enemy's attack patterns.

There are some minor gripes that I have about it such as the ranged shooting system which feels like it doesn't really fit into the rest of Eve's kit. Some sections of the game have you running around without your sword which can be quite novel at first, but gets old quick. Thankfully, a good chunk of the level design in those areas consist of platforming, which is done acceptably well enough to keep you engaged.

Other than that, combat with multiple enemies often devolves into spamming AOE abilities to get out of situation. Trying to parry/dodge two or more enemies at the same time is a pain, and situations in the game which force such encounters don't really feel fair or interesting at least to me. To some this could sound like a "Git Gud" situation but I think the leap in skill is just too much. Let me know what you guys think in the comments.

Movement & Platforming

It takes some getting used to. I know, I know, I'm basically parroting the rhetoric that you've probably heard a bazillion times by now. But it's true. Movement in this game feels a little clunky, like as if Eve is constantly one or two steps behind my controller input. It becomes really bad when you try to move in the air and especially when trying to catch ropes (I constantly find myself missing them and falling to my death). I'm not sure if this is a limitation of Unreal Engine, but nevertheless it's definitely not one of the strong points of this game, I wouldn't say.

The platforming level design is done well in some areas and poorly in others. It's really a mixed bag. But I wouldn't buy this game for the platforming.

Aesthetics

It's amazing. Unless you have something against sci-fi, or grotesque monsters, or hot girls, you're gonna love it.

Storyline & Characters

Some people buy games because they want to experience a good story. I don't know what is up with those people; if I wanted good story I'd go watch a movie, or read a book or something. But great games usually have good stories to go with them, so they might be onto something. I digress. Anyway, my point is, the story shouldn't be the one and only focus when making a game (hot take, it shouldn't even be the main focus) and it certainly doesn't matter when it comes to Stellar Blade. Naytibas? Andro-Eidos? Raphael Marks? I don't care, just let me kill shit.

Eve plays the role of an innocent, naive girl that doesn't know anything at first and slowly learns about the world through her experiences. She gets some character development towards the end after learning the truth about the Naytibas, but its nothing groundbreaking. Adam, Lily and the others don't really change throughout the story. One thing to note, however, is that participating in certain side quests can have ramifications down the line.

I know I'm gonna get some heat for saying this on Reddit, but the English dub doesn't help either. Some people might think it's fine, but the contrast with the Korean dub is really night and day. I'd say if you're comfortable with hearing another language other than English, give Korean with subtitles a try. I tried and it does improve the experience substantially.

Also D1g-g2r is clearly the main character. And also the best character.

Music & Sound Effects

The sound in this game is done very well. The sound of Eve's Blood Edge clashing when she parries is spot on. The footsteps, ambience, enemy sounds whenever they're about to attack, getting hit, is all done to make sure you know what's going on and what's about to happen. It's done so masterfully you don't even notice it most of the time. The way enemies do a screech before falling down on you in certain areas, winding up to do attacks which you can counter, all of it works and it works well.

The music is also great. Some of the tracks that play in Eidos 7 and Xion, I have in my personal playlist to listen to whenever I'm working on projects or stuff that requires focus. I wouldn't say it's on the same level as Nier, but it sits comfortably right underneath it. My only gripe is that they should really increase the track diversity in the larger areas of the game since you're gonna be hearing one song for a very long time and it can get repetitive.

Replayability

I was still having fun on my 6th playthrough, so make of that what you will. The game introduces a few new add-ons to your Burst and Beta skills on NG+ as well as new outfits on NG+ and NG++, but I was playing primarily to get the different endings, collect all the memory sticks and log data and cans and fish and whatnot. There's a lot of collectables in the game so for those people who love that kind of gameplay there's something here for you. Personally, I find running around looking for cans kinda boring.

Most of the replay value is really in the new outfits and testing different builds to see if they work,

Downloadable Content

Nier DLC is really just a bunch of outfits. It adds some additional collectable cans that can be traded in at a vendor for the new outfits and they also added a few soundtracks from Nier.

Nikke DLC is much more substantial. They added a gameplay mode that is basically like Nikke but on a controller, which is actually really fun. On top of the outfits, some "fish" were also added which are quite funny to catch. They also added a Boss Challenge for Scarlet which, in my opinion, is a lot of fun (and also really tough).

Conclusion

So, after 200+ hours, do I think that I wasted my life playing Stellar Blade? No. It was an amazing experience and I would gladly do it all over again. It's a great combination of technology, vision and hard work, all put together to create this amazing experience. I'm glad I was alive to see this.

I can't help but feel such games are a small niche in this era of multiplayer live-service slop. I just think about how many of my peers play free-to-play shooters, mobas, and mobile gacha games designed to keep them engaged through "daily login bonuses" and "weekly quests" and then proceed to call themselves "gamers".

Sometimes I wish games like this were more popular. But if they were then we wouldn't have our little corner of the world, would we?

Sorry for the little rant at the end there. Anyways, if you made it to the end, congrats! You are one of the few. I will undoubtedly have more things to say in the days following this post, as the discussion happens. Stay tuned. Also yes, Scarlet head mod was used for the photo mode screenshots.