Colossus - Eternal Blight

This is my first Steam game (and review), as I tend to play mostly console games. However, when I found this game originally on Kickstarter, it seemed to have all the things I like: Zelda-inspriation; puzzles; great music; and a nice art style - so I created a steam account, and played this on my son's computer. All in all - I'm in LOVE with this game and VERY excited for future updates! I'm not the best at combat in games, so I was a bit worried about the action combat and parrying emphasis (proably more of a me thing than anything), but I'm happy to say, with the equipment system and leveling - everything seems very manageable so far (the first boss took me a few attempts, but definitely a lot of fun!) There are so many interseting systems at play here - although the game may present itself as a simple top-down adventure - it really is quite ambitious in what it's going for. Action combat, skills and upgrade trees, equipment system, side quests, puzzles, secrets, and probably most unique of all is the 'Purification Quest' system. This initial build only introduces it, with the first of these Quests, but you can already see the direction they're going with it and I'm very happy to say it already feels like a fantastic mechanic, and the feeling of consequence I think adds a lot to the world. It's definitely quite dialogue heavy at the beginning - very reminiscent of old school JRPGs in that respect, but if you are a bit more patient and enjoy that anime-esque/JRPG writing, this is very well written and engaging so far! I am also pleasantly surprised at how polished the game feels thus far, when they announced Early Access, I was a bit worried on how the state of the game would be as i've heard some horror stories with regards to Early Access titles - but I'm pleasantly surprised that I didn't encounter any game breaking bugs yet, and the developers seem very responsive and active on their Discord server. There are some polish features, that I feel would help to fully polish the game: I think the menus (particularly the equipment menu) can be a bit awkward/uninuitive to navigate with controller at times, and sometimes the 'depth' of the character can seem a bit strange (where your character should be 'behind' an object but appears 'on top' of it). Similarly, the Quest Board UI could be a bit better to navigate (a highlight for when a quest is completed would be nice). But these are minor aspects that I am sure they can address over time. I am very excited to continue playing, and eagerly await future updates!! Great job!! Would love to play this on Switch one day, it would be the perfect handheld game!