I'm a little over half way (well maybe more than a little) and while the game is good I do have some criticisms that are shared elsewhere.
From least subjective to most subjective.
Weapon Durability:
Your weapon can actually break in combat against bosses even if at 100% beforehand. You have a built in repair as well as access to instant repair tools, but I don't know why this system was even implemented. Your weapon takes damage from blocking and dealing damage. You're already being punished when blocking by taking chip damage that you can't always get back with the Rally system (blocked damage and ONLY blocked damage can be restored by dealing damage in X number of seconds). It just seems like an additional way to punish the player that doesn't add any meaningful difficulty. Oh, and if your weapon breaks completely, you can't even repair it. The worst part is that there is a status effect that deals both damage and weapon durability damage and there is a boss that can inflict it in two hits. IIRC it goes through block.
Dodge mechanics are locked behind upgrades. These mechanics are baseline in every Fromsoftware game and Team Ninja (Nioh 2, Wo Long) game I've played. It seems like a form of artificial difficulty.
Enemies don't automatically stagger when 'poise broken'. They enter a 'groggy' state where a charged r2 can stagger them for a Critical/Riposte/Visceral type hit, but I've seen bosses not give openings for that multiple times. It feels really bad to do everything right and then be 'punished' by never getting a window.
There are some platforming sections that are worse than anything I've encountered in DS3, BB, ER, Sekiro, Nioh 2, Wo Long, and JFO. Obviously you can beat them, but they can be frustrating. The worst part is throwables completely negate them (or at least the ones I've seen), so they almost seem like an item check.
The perfect parry window is tighter than Sekiro's deflection window and this isn't terrible, but the enemy animations make it feel worse than it is because a lot of them are similar to the Erdtree Watchdog's delayed windup and almost instant swing.
There is no animation canceling which again, isn't terrible, but this forces defensive over offensive play or complete knowledge of the boss's moveset so you know exactly how big your punish window is at any given time. I really think melee focused games benefit from an attack cancel window in the first few frames of your attack and being able to cancel past the 25% point is what makes it broken.
You don't have 100% block, the blocked amount is tied to your blade. All non-boss weapons can be broken down into blade and hilt. The hilt determines the moveset (but not the Weapon Arts). This means it's better to throw a greatsword blade onto a rapier hilt for extra block than it is to use the actual rapier blade. It's just weird to me.
Further explanation:
Rapier absorbs 35%
Saw Blade absorbs 70%
If you take 4 swings at 1000 damage each
Perfect Parry 3 swings with Rapier and block the 4th = 650 damage taken
Perfect Parry 2 swings with Saw Blade and block the other = 600 damage taken
Even when attached to the rapier hilt the Saw Blade does more damage so you'll get more health back. It's weird to me that you're actually rewarded for playing WORSE based solely on your blade type.
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