First and foremost: don't expect Souls, because while the combat is passable, its nowhere near From's sublime efforts. There's decent enough hit-reaction and shield reeling etc, but it lacks that visceral edge.
The graphics look a little vaseliney to me. Isn't it meant to be 1080p on PS4? The framerate leaves a lot to be desired. A bumpf would've made a huge difference to the melee stuff, especially the timing of rolls and counterattacks which seem off at the mo'. Either that or I'm doing it all wrong.
Way too many sword & board enemies whose shields seem to protect them even when you side-roll and hit the exposed bits. Backstabs only seem to work on stealth approaches too, which is odd. Magic seems utterly useless. I've only unlocked the first tier but they're all lacking in imagination. The ranged glove pew-pew thingy seems overpowered as it damages shielded enemies, but it has zero satisfaction attached. I hope its not a win button when you feel like spamming, running off, waiting for MP to regen, then rinse-repeat.
Cut-scenes, voice acting, characters etc are woeful. Like, really bad!
So yeah. First impressions aren't great. Its kinda like: Dungeon Siege x Darksiders x Hunted: Demons Forge.
I'm slowly getting the hang of the combat. Late last night i did a few runs of one of the optional portal arena battles - trying out different weapons and techniques - and I kinda know what to do for the early enemies now.
I then went to the next area, to be greeted by a cheeky trophy named 'The real Lords starts here'. Had a quick sprint about, grabbing any loot I could, saw loads of new nasty enemies I'll have to study, then hastily retreated back to a safe shard point.
I'll give it another lengthy session today and see if I warm to its clunkiness. If not, plenty of other games to be played.
So yeah, not a total disaster, just nowhere near greatness.
Okay, I'm actually enjoying this now. Just wipe your brain of everything you've learnt by playing Souls, and approach it in a slow and methodical manner (his turn, your turn etc). Some enemies are literally a wall of shield so that's where your magic comes into play - cheesey but effective. It helps I finally found a high damage weapon that doesn't take forever-and-a-day to warm up, and some decent low weight armour, even though rolling isn't essential for regular fights.
So yeah, 8 hours in and its growing on me. lol! Slow burner.
That's another 7 hours under the belt. Its actually pretty good once you get the hang of it. It's very 'one-note', or at least I'm playing it that way, but if its effective at trouncing enemies, why mess with it.
Only frustrating part is the lack of clear direction to your next objective (no map or marker etc). You really have to scour every inch of areas you've already been through looking for summat you missed, because the objective description is vague at best. The layout is quite convoluted and Souls-like with the amount of shortcuts/full-circles you eventually open up.
Not nearly as bad as I made out in yesterday's comments.
Yeah Curtis let us know how long it takes to finish too if it's just a 15-20 hour deal with not much replay value I'll just play through a souls game again instead rather than shell out on this.
It's been a bit of a farce, this release date confusion. With nobody willing to clarify it until now, it feels like a kneejerk reaction to something - reviews, closeness to COD, who knows?
Despite my interest in the game, I can see it being a total flop, sales wise. Zero marketing, confused release date and, well, nobody really has any idea what it is! It won't do well.
That's surely going to piss off online retailers. Amazon seem to think it's released on Wednesday. They're surely at risk of losing sales from folk cancelling and hitting the shops.
Probably due to the monumental cock-up by Square Enix, plus it's not exactly being lauded as a big release. Shame really, as it has always had potential, especially in a time when Dark Souls II sold very well and Bloodborne is getting all kinds of attention.