Recent reviews by Yikes

Let me be clear: This is not a bad game at all. The gameplay loop is relatively satisfying, and it's Elden Ring combat with hero character type skills. Honestly very hard to go wrong with.

So why is this a not reccomended? Several reasons:
1. Really, *really* bad performance issues. I'm playing on a 4060 and quite a few times I've experienced some horrible framedrops. I can't imagine trying to play this on something even lower.
2. The variety in content is... lacking, a least for the moment. The returning DS bosses are nice, and the nightlords are honestly the coolest boss designs in fromsoft history (AC included), but for continuous play (Which a rogue-like game kind of needs) it's variety in content is noticeable very quickly. The map doesn't change a lot outside of 1/4th of the map being part of a shifting lands type thing, but the layout for each is the same each time, and enemy variety isn't too great either.
3. Horrendous balancing on the nightlords if you don't manage to find their weakness. It's straight up not worth it to even get to the nightlord if you don't manage to get their weakness on your run. And I'm no stranger to roguelikes requiring certain things to progress, but this feels an almost unfair level.

Overall, the game is really fun. Great fun even, especially if you have a couple (I mean a literal couple) of friends to play it with. But it's got some big kinks to workout in it's current state, and until that happens, I really can't reccomend it to people. Hopefully fromsoft takes some time to polish the game despite it being what's effectively a budget title.

Edit: DLC came out, I think I'm willing to put this as a decent game now. Seems like a lot of the little performance issues and general gameplay oddities have gotten better. Mantling is more consistent, there's a better variety of enemies, new DLC map, and the two new characters and bosses are loads of fun. I wish there was more relic variety, but honestly for what is right now a 55 dollar rouge-lite, it's... good.

With sony forcing the devs to get players to link their PSN accounts even on systems that *aren't* playstation, this locks out multiple countries out of being able to play their game if they bought it. This is simply unacceptable, and I'm glad steam is granting refunds to those affected, even if they've gone over 2 hours of gameplay.

Every review we give is one more the devs can show to Sony to say how bad this decision has affected their game, and rightly so. Corporations cannot be allowed to get away with needless greed any longer.

EDIT: Democracy has prevailed, and the people have spoken. We won.

I honestly couldn't keep playing it because the gameplay reminded me so much of Nier Replicant and somehow felt slower and clunkier than that, and to boot, the story feels... very basic. It's definitely not a bad game, but it's not doing anything to blow your socks off. Probably a good deal if you buy on sale, otherwise I'd just look for a better game.

Action is pretty basic, you can equip two different weapons and use them on and off, combos are pretty standard with some button-delay based moves being mixed in i.e DMC, but it's not really anything to write home about. Magic and skills are also decidedly basic, with having different elements and whatnot, but none of them seeming to have *that* much of an effect.

Story premise is also very, very standard RPG. It's the chosen one type trope, albeit with kind of a unique twist, in that you actively work to unravel fate rather than trying to realize it. Once again, not a bad thing, but it's something that's been done before and to much better effect.

Like I said earlier, it's a very standard RPG experience with not a ton to make it stand out. If that's what you're looking for, and it's on a decent sale, go for it. Otherwise, just keep looking.