TLDR: Almost a pretty good game. Almost.

I'm still very mixed on recommending it or not, but I think at the end of the day the game fails to deliver most things you would want it to. It breaks my heart as I was very excited about it from the trailer, and I forgave the issues in the demo, but the game just did not work out.

The graphics are pretty good, walking around in rural Italy is genuinely breathtaking and you can see that the environment received a lot of love. My (very) limited knowledge of 1300's Italy tells me the areas, outfits and so on are relatively accurate, and the swordfighting is really good in terms of accuracy! Longswords don't feel like huge clubs to swing around and handle rather well. Unfortunately that's about where the positives end.

The negatives are a lot. Many have mentioned the mouth animations which are genuinely jarring and completely break your immersion - it feels like all of them have the tool the dentist puts in your mouth to push your lips away from your teeth. The combat is very clunky - sometimes it works very smoothly, and then the enemy will just react inhumanely fast and give you an undodgable attack. I get what the devs were going for, but I think the execution just doesn't land in the end - it's just "break their guard, hit 4 times, repeat" simulator. There are other ways - sometimes you can mix in heavy attacks and they work, but unfortunately since the enemies simply have computer reaction times most of the time you miss.

The whoe platforming part feels strange - I like it, it's good gameplay wise, but it is strange in terms of the actual game and the story its telling. Oh, the story. It's bad. Extremely predictable twist and plotline overall, and unfortunately the protagonist and everyone else just can't stop from literally describing and explaining everything to its fullest extent. The game is very "tell everything, show nothing". It is a shame since the environmental storytelling is genuinely amazing but it gets ruined by the protagonist going "OH LOOK THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELL".

The voice acting is good, but again the script is bad and things are overexplained. The game is also very short - it took me just under 6 hours to finish the game. Playtime isn't a metric I use in general to evaluate games like this, but it failed to deliver in so many aspects that I can't even say it's short but good.

I do genuinely think that had there been less comments from Aeta (no shade to the VA, she did amazing), if the game leaned in more on letting you put the pieces together through the environment, a different plot twist (or a different way that the story could go), and the combat was less clunky, add another couple hours of gameplay and it is a solid game for the price. Unfortunately, as it is, I cannot recommend it.

TLDR: Almost a pretty good game. Almost. I'm still very mixed on recommending it or not, but I think at the end of the day the game fails to deliver most things you would want it to. It breaks my heart as I was very excited about it from the trailer, and I forgave the issues in the demo, but the game just did not work out. The graphics are pretty good, walking around in rural Italy is genuinely breathtaking and you can see that the environment received a lot of love. My (very) limited knowledge of 1300's Italy tells me the areas, outfits and so on are relatively accurate, and the swordfighting is really good in terms of accuracy! Longswords don't feel like huge clubs to swing around and handle rather well. Unfortunately that's about where the positives end. The negatives are a lot. Many have mentioned the mouth animations which are genuinely jarring and completely break your immersion - it feels like all of them have the tool the dentist puts in your mouth to push your lips away from your teeth. The combat is very clunky - sometimes it works very smoothly, and then the enemy will just react inhumanely fast and give you an undodgable attack. I get what the devs were going for, but I think the execution just doesn't land in the end - it's just "break their guard, hit 4 times, repeat" simulator. There are other ways - sometimes you can mix in heavy attacks and they work, but unfortunately since the enemies simply have computer reaction times most of the time you miss. The whoe platforming part feels strange - I like it, it's good gameplay wise, but it is strange in terms of the actual game and the story its telling. Oh, the story. It's bad. Extremely predictable twist and plotline overall, and unfortunately the protagonist and everyone else just can't stop from literally describing and explaining everything to its fullest extent. The game is very "tell everything, show nothing". It is a shame since the environmental storytelling is genuinely amazing but it gets ruined by the protagonist going "OH LOOK THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELL". The voice acting is good, but again the script is bad and things are overexplained. The game is also very short - it took me just under 6 hours to finish the game. Playtime isn't a metric I use in general to evaluate games like this, but it failed to deliver in so many aspects that I can't even say it's short but good. I do genuinely think that had there been less comments from Aeta (no shade to the VA, she did amazing), if the game leaned in more on letting you put the pieces together through the environment, a different plot twist (or a different way that the story could go), and the combat was less clunky, add another couple hours of gameplay and it is a solid game for the price. Unfortunately, as it is, I cannot recommend it.