I like the aesthetic and the ideas they are pulling from. Overall it is a promising direction and they didn’t try to phone it in, but doesn’t completely nail it.
It seems like they didn’t change much from the original demo that people got to play for a preview.
They’re obviously trying to emulate From games so I’ll obviously compare it to that.
Steam Deck runs well out the gate without changing any settings, and defaulting to full 800p resolution too. The devs are taking this platform into account. 👍
The game was better than expected in some areas and worse than I thought in others.
There are some glitches, like speeding down a latter and then switching to going back up midway kept a sound effect + sparks going for no reason. Sometimes if you backtrack through the level, they will give you hints that were intended for when you came from the other direction and might confuse people.
There are few objects with physics compared to Bloodborne.
Detail in the architecture is a lot less compared to Bloodborne. There are some nice thoughtful touches that the artists did in some areas, but overall it feels a lot lower budget. Maybe it is, and maybe they did good with what they were given, but I see less nuance overall from the beginning areas than Bloodborne.
Someone from Fextralife played the Lies of P demo a while back, and it is cringe going back, because they say “This looks built for next gen, there is not going to be a last gen version, you can see it’s dripping with detail everywhere” - that person must have been in a daze or something because it looks very flat and, well, there is a last gen version now.
Level design is no where near as good as Bloodborne so far, but I am curious to see the final game and later areas. They don’t seem to account for backtracking. If you want easy XP, just do some backtracking when all the enemies are facing the other way. This is a big disappointment, so far, for me. In Bloodborne, the situations and enemy placement are approachable from multiple angles and still demand strategy and tactics.
There are a lot of LOD issues and pop-in, even of items and stuff you would want to see far away. This happens on every version. Maybe an Unreal Engine thing because I see no real reason for it, but it’s far from meticulous like in From games.
They make the level design very obvious, such as pointing a spotlight to where you should go next, obviously blocking off certain areas, highlighting where you should open shortcuts, etc. Exploration doesn’t feel as satisfying or rewarding due to this, but maybe it will change in later areas.
Some of the hitboxes seem odd to me.
I’m also noticing now that timing is very forgiving, and enemies won’t use ladders and won’t follow you in certain situations, so it is very easy to escape without enemies chasing you.
I also noticed the oil/blood on your shirt disappears very quickly. In Bloodborne you could get completely soaked in blood, but not in this game. That makes me sad.
The auto follow-up attacks sometimes throw me off, I’m trying to adjust to that, but maybe I would want more control over it.
They also seem to reward button mashing sometimes.
I’m not sure if I like how the dodging/rolling feel, even after playing for a while.
I like the setting and theme a lot, but I’m not sure how I feel about the NPC dialog.
The default settings for the game are maybe geared towards new players, such as auto target and some other things, but the way they are executed might feel frustrating and I don’t know if it would help the new players.
When you are approaching a boss, in Bloodborne you can just run for it. You can do that in this game too, but then you won’t build up your special ability meter. This means you’re encouraged to make it a long slog back to the boss, and that might be annoying to people who need to make multiple attempts.
They drop the XP outside of the boss door if you die in the boss’s area, which is very forgiving. Some may like, some may not. NPCs also tell you everything that’s about to happen, which some may like, some may not. I personally don’t like the foreshadowing because it takes away from the surprise and discovery.
Some of the items seem a bit convoluted like “attribute purification ampoule”, but OK.
Not sure why some stargazers let you level up and others don’t, you just have to teleport to the right one, it seems kind of dumb. Maybe there’s something I have to figure out.
I’m surprised that they have an option like “adjust attack direction”, this is like giving you heat seeking bullets out the gate.
After I finished the demo, I feel interested in seeing reviews and learning more about the final game to see how it is overall.
From what I played now, I feel like if it were to remain consistent, this would be a game that I would consider a B game, but I might play through it depending on the reviews. I would probably just want to put more time into Elden Ring, especially with the DLC coming.
They made some good choices for today’s gamers, by picking some creepypasta take on familiar folklore with some mechanical creatures FNaF fans will relate to, there’s a mysterious and somewhat androgynous main character that seems in the style of characters such as Raiden in MGS or Cloud/Vincent in FF instead of a gigachad. Sorry beardos, no beards to collect...
From me all this is a compliment compared to other titles that try to rip off the From formula, but there is still a long long way to go to hitting the mark.
GirlUSoCrazy's comments