someolddude

There are two parts to this game: -------Action: 10/10. It's the complete opposite of jank, 2B is ultra-responsive, there's a smooth animation from any action to any other action. There's perfect dodges, bullet hell, simultaneous projectile + melee attacks, seamless transition from 3d to "pseudo-2d". Best of all, I see parts of this game in some of the best games I've played: Returnal, Stellar Blade, Khazan, even PofPersia-TLC.-------------RPG/NPCs/etc. 3/10. Interactions in this game are with: *1* Robots: they blurt words like "scared", "ow" while you attack them, or 3y-old level phrases when you talk to them (literally "haPPy. FuN"). *2* NPCS: they are whiny caffeinated airhead teenagers with a high pitched voice. Every interaction is annoying AF. I can just feel getting more stupid every minute I play this game. And the worst part is that everyone thinks this is the game with the deepest story and subjects of all time. I just don't get it. And the action just can't compensate for how annoying the rest of this game is.

This could have been a 9/10 game, based on: the excellent combat, multiple "vocations"/classes, high quality hand-made map, good graphics, etc. ---------- But it also has: - An intentionally annoying and limited fast travel. Made worse by quests that make you go from A (get) to B (solve) then A (claim prize) again, and usually B (continue game) again, quickly draining your fast-travel consumables. And also worse by paths that have the same enemies in the same position. Repetitive = boring, waste of time. Solution: let player buy many portcrystals, bring back eternal ferrystone from DD:DA. I don't give a s*t about your attempts to force adventuring on the player.- Really boring *main* quests, with misleading instructions. Zero combat, confusing s*t, in which I kept interacting with dozens of useless NPCs and then inspected every pixel until something happened and a cutscene was triggered. They made fetch quests look good by comparison.- Really s*t upgrade material design. I would play for dozens of hours, killing every enemy large or small, day or night, cave or outdoor, anywhere in the map, grabbing everything, and when the time came for level 1 upgrading any gear for me or my pawn ... "you have 0/3 of x material". WTF! I wasted all of that time!.- Underwhelming exploration rewards. Almost no gear (weapons,armor). Low amounts of gold, considering prices on vendors. Lots of trash loot, i.e. curatives, useless spellbooks. -------- And that's not even counting quirks I already was used to from DD:DA, like the (so bad it's good) corny dialog, or how stupid the pathing is for pawns. This was another missed opportunity. Capcom thinks all of this crap is integral to Dragon's Dogma, and wouldn't fix it even on a 3rd, or 4th game. Buy it on a really good sale only and use guides to lessen the annoyance.

This review is for version 2.0. Never played earlier versions. TLDR: This is not in the same quality league as Lies Of P, DS3, Khazan. It requires a high tolerance for jank. Buy it only at 20$. ----- By tolerance I mean: * Combat that just feels weird, like a copy of DS2 (the worst in the series). It's not a "get used to" weird, it's a "simply bad" weird. * Trash camera, with sudden moves (even full 360s!) when you dodge. Or covers the entire screen (not exaggerating) with your head or a wall, you literally can't see anything * Dying to not being able to move/dodge, being stuck on some terrain irregularity that looks flat. * Hitbox mysteries. Sometimes you expect to get hit but don't and vice-versa* Having to repeatedly kill 100s of trash mobs that are there just to annoy you in umbral mode. * Some truly annoying enemies. i.e. one that puts exploding AoE orbs around you, while other enemies attack at the same time. * Ugly enemy animations that seem handmade, not mo-cap, unnatural, with "ice-skating" towards you. Hilarious bad parry animation. * More gank-fest than everything but DS2. Even some bosses are just gank-fests. * Sub-par bosses that look epic, but can't shine with the bad combat. ----- The previous issues combined make everything good in the game pretty much *pointless*. But I will still mention the good: * Lots of content, many locations with interesting exploration. Unlike most games, this one is about the levels, not the bosses. * Good build variety. * Great graphic design. * Umbral lamp mechanic gives it a "survival horror" vibe that separates it from others in the genre. ----- As a final note, this may be the easiest soulslike I've played, and this is *exactly* how it should be. With that weird combat, trash camera and jank, it would be incredibly frustrating if it were a demanding game.

This is a really good game. A 10/10 quality wise: excellent maps, enemies, bosses, weapons, music. My issue with it is the artificial difficulty. --------------------To start with, you are intentionally given **** controls: 1. The worst dash in any soulslike: you press and release the button, then there's a delay, then a starting animation, then a short hop with short i-frames. 2. The worst parry in any "sekiro-like": the parry window is tiny (as of Jun2025. Apparently, it was even worse before they patched it). I can consistently dash/roll and parry in games like Elden Ring, Sekiro (even charmless), Khazan. But in this game, even on a 3rd playthrough, I can't get consistence, and still miss the tiny i-frame windows, it just asks too much precision for a "normal" human. I would have happily traded **** controls for i.e. more boss health. (which is what Khazan did: absolutely perfect controls, tanky bosses, do yourself a favor and check out the underrated Khazan)--------------------There's also more boss BS than usual, such as: * "Romeo", who in the last half of his 2nd health bar, creates a fire aura and goes into a super-fast 10 hit combo, you can't see the swings because of the fire, also the swings have fake outs, unnatural mid swing pauses, etc. It's next to impossible to parry, and it's guaranteed death if you fail. Turns out it's a f*ing trap, normal humans are meant to stagger him before the combo, cheese with consumables/summons, or confuse the AI with some very weird running. Only the top 1% streamers actually parry the combo, and I was stuck hours trying to. This kind of idea plain ****. * "Laxasia", who goes into the air 2 miles from you, then among a bunch of lightning that covers her becomes 3 pixels toggling on/off, and crashes down in milliseconds and almost one shots you unless you parry her. The visual cues are basically non-existent, and there are no sound cues. You are expected to memorize a 50ms window with no cues. Or get a strange item that "auto-parries" for a few seconds. Trash idea.

I've platinumed every modern FromSoft game (and the DS remake), and I just gave up on AC6 and uninstalled on chapter 3. ---- The big issue is that I simply could not find a way to avoid damage. I jump, hover, boost (normal, quick, assault), use shields (or not), quickly move left and right, use cover, get close or far, change the build. Nothing worked for me. The lock modes soft/hard were also a detriment, instead of circling enemies I would always face them, as if trying to get hit on purpose. I can avoid maybe 70% of damage from bosses/elites, but the remaining 30% is enough to quickly eat all repair kits. ---- I resorted to doing massive damage to "kill enemies before they kill me". And this lousy gameplay got me to chapter 3 without that much trouble, which has ... shielded elites. They will basically negate all damage/stagger, if you try to melee them or kick their shields, they'll gladly shotgun you in the face with no visible animation or sound cues to warn you. Even worse, you must kill all 30 enemies in the level before reaching the elite, otherwise, doors won't open, yep, FS learned nothing from the most s*t on mechanic in history: DS2 boss runbacks. And that was the final straw, I never had fun with AC6 and this was the uninstall moment. ---- Before you assume I can only play "soulslike" games, I also beat returnal (way more bullet hell than AC6), ninja gaiden (crazy aggressive enemies), a bunch of FPS (borderlands, doom), some old spaceship games that are somewhat similar to AC6, etc. I can adapt to many games, but AC6 ... I could not.

For reference BG3 and X-COM2 are 10/10 games for me. I put >100h in DOS2 and regret it. It has several big issues: **** The dual (phys/magic) shield idea is just crap. It means the usual team: warrior, archer, 2 mages is *severely* nerfed. You have to split your damage among multiple enemies (each lives longer) or simply waste turns i.e. hitting a 3k phys shield on a boss whose magic shield is already broken, which is just stupid. My "usual team" playthrough was a **** on every battle. In contrast, in another playthrough with 2 lonewolf mages I was no-hitting boss fights and ending other fights in few turns, but that's not what I wanted to play. **** The random loot idea is crap. I got hundreds of useless items (i.e. finesse gear with +1 some magic school). Just checking if anything works, storing and selling them was a full time job, a *massive* waste of time. Leaving it on the ground is not an option either, as you will need the money. **** The scroll based skills idea is crap. Another *massive* waste of time. In a full playthrough I think I checked vendors for new skills/scrolls 40 times * 4 classes * 20 scrolls per class = 320 times. Plus the time it takes to physically walk to a vendor. And if you decide to re-spec, buying all the scrolls is as expensive as buying a new house IRL. **** (no spoilers) The final battle is just pure BS. This might be one in 3 games where I got that far and just said f-it, uninstalled. ---------- Quality-wise this game is up there with BG3: voice-acting, animations, etc. are great. But the gameplay decisions they made just ruined it for me.

They mashed ideas from the greats: Sekiro, Nioh2, DmC5, GoW2018. And the result is also great. * Each boss is unique and very well made. * Combat is addictive, with satisfying parries, powerful skills, and meaty sounds. There are 3 completely different playstyles, not just movesets, with: dual wield, spear, greatsword. * The QoL is near perfect, none of the BS of similar games: souls/lacrima are wating for you outside the boss arena on deaths, there is a bonfire next to each boss arena (no runbacks), there is a training room, skills can be re-specced infinitely, there is an easy mode, etc. ----- On the negatives: * The game mostly expects you to do no-damage boss fights. Bosses hit hard and take a lot of dmg. Your parries have to be on-point and you have to manage stamina so blocking does not get to your health. For reference, see FextraLife boss guides on YT, they are not incredible players and managed to do no-damage (not no-hit) fights that last ~5 mins, for every single boss in the game. * The levels are good, but not FromSoft-good. * The anime style is great, but it's intentionally so drab it lacks color. * They overdid the effects, sometimes it's hard to see the boss behind all the effects. ----- But overall one of the best Soulslikes/Action games I've played.

This is peak metroidvania. ---- Combat: weapon with an actual moveset, with some dark souls and devil may cry on it. Cool "super" attacks. Also can parry anything with the right timing. Couldn't ask for more. ---- Exploration: a lot of variety, always finding some interesting loot to get more powerful, great map, easy markings. ---- Bosses: each one completely different from the other, each one difficult and rewarding, with epic "super" attack animations. ---- Platforming: tough and rewarding, optional challenges are high level stuff. ---- Accessibility: difficulty can be customized on everything (combat, platforming), I only changed parry to "omnidirectional", but saw a ton of other config options ---- Graphics/sound: I always support indie games, but the AAA levels of polish shows here, it's Ubisoft, and it's great, believe it or not.

----- summary: I ignored this on my PS+ extra thinking it was a weird cheap game, I was wrong, it's one of the best metroidvanias I've played, and has enough new elements to not be "more of the same". ----- platforming: I'm not a fan of difficult platforming but they managed to make it a lot of fun with the traversal abilities, not much health lost on failure, and checkpoints. ----- combat: a lot of fun for dark souls fans, stamina is limited, you can't spam dash or attacks. It looks clunky, but I got used to it. It's not just attack/dash/jump, they added absorb, parry and pull, which makes it a lot more interesting. ----- bosses: great design, some are really difficult, but every attack is clearly telegraphed and patterns repeat. ----- exploration: fun enemies and minibosses with meaningful gear and powerups (i.e. recover stamina if you dash right before enemy attacks). Absolute genius idea of drawing a dotted line on the map with the history of where you've been, avoids loops and wasted time. ------ cons: they went too far with the squishiness of your character, quick deaths make learning bosses 2nd phase attacks annoying. The "fast travel" ability should be easier to find and even earlier in the game, I actually finished the game without ever finding it, saw it in a guide; a patch moved this in the right direction but more is needed IMO.

In this game: * Your character gets damaged, stunned, and pushed back whenever it touches an enemy, it does not matter if the enemy is *idle* or attacking. * The only way your character attacks is by summoning spirits. All enemies, and your spirits, use the *exact* same 3 tones of sepia color. That's "ok", until this happens: * The game locks you up in a room with 10 evenly spaced enemies. Any attempt to dash will result in you touching some *idle* enemy, getting damaged, stunned, and pushed back. So you try not to get cornered, repeat, and get damaged, etc. Parrying just delays the punishment. You clear the room, heal, move around, and get locked up in *another* room. * You get to a boss, attack by using all the spirits you can. Your spirits are drawn on top of the boss, share the exact same color, and obscure it. You can't tell WTF the boss is doing next. You dash left and get hit by an attack. You dash right and the boss dashes with you, he's idle, but you still get damaged, stunned, and pushed back. You try to parry, but can't get the timing because you can't see the boss. You can say it's a skill issue on my part, as tryhards no-hit this game. But my point is: these mechanics are trash. I did not want to get used to them or find counters to them. Another issue is the map. It intentionally shows up as only boxes with lines between them, not the actual shape of what's inside. As in any metroidvania, I found new movement abilities, and went backtracking to use them, but I *cannot* see old places in the map, just stupid boxes, so I travel there, realize the trip was a waste of time, and travel back. This "boxes" map idea is also trash. There are a bunch of good things I could say about this game, I get what they were going for, but with these cons, I gave up on it and uninstalled after ~5 hours.

This is a "git gud" game. In the beggining it's "how the !@# can I win this". And after enough hours into it you are toying with the bosses, letting them live longer just for fun (and a related achievement). Great controls, great maps and bosses. Cool animations. Very simplistic but effective story. Simplistic graphics but that's intentional. Great game. In all of those reviews saying "unresponsive", "parry doesn't work" I can only assume they had an old version, hw issues, or didn't figure out the right timing. I played on PlayStation and never had an issue. If you like games like Sekiro, this one is custom made for you.

Good mix of soulslike and metroidvaina. It has a lifesteal mechanic similar to bloodborne. Very good boss design, designed to destroy you on 1st encounter, then you figure out the patterns and strategy and it's 100% skill. This game gets a lot of hate from the "if you die game goes into hard mode" mechanic. The way to counter this is to get as many upgrades to power,health,ichor(mana/mp) as you can, they are scattered on the map, these make you a *lot* more powerful. After that, "hard mode" is manageable, and you don't even need the currency to go into "normal mode" anymore. Rating it as an 8 considering it's a cheap indie game. If it was AA or AAA rating would be lower.

This is the first DMC I played. For the first 10 hours I honestly didn't get it. It seemed like an easy button mashing game. Also, having to hold R1 felt stupid and finger cramping. But then I got the game: you are not meant to defeat enemies here, you are meant to *destroy* them like some black belt master ninja badass. Pulling off those crazy combos switching weapons/styles/moves leaving enemies like "wtf just happened?", and getting an "S" rank is tough, and very satisfying. The skill cap in these games is the highest I've ever seen. The graphics. sound and ost are among the best I've ever seen also. After multiple playthroughs of dmc5 I got dmc 1 and 3, and enjoyed those too, be warned that those are much older and somewhat janky.