I'm sorry to say that Enotria doesn't quite nail the landing.
There's a lot here that isn't bad, good even at times. Like the graphics in general are relatively pleasing, at least one boss was kinda fun to look at, the game is - for once - bright instead of dreary. It's colorful, full of music, and dance ... And the core combat works alright. It's not some bad indie game that is barely held together by duct tape and wishful thinking, it's a relatively solid AA game. That would work if you made a "normal" action game (and this game does have a more forgiving "story" mode now, but I haven't tried it yet, I imagine it's going to be relatively boring, though, since the Souls mode already isn't super challenging so far), but since everyone and their mother wants to make a Souls-like, they inevitably have to be compared to Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring ... and even some Sekiro, because they take things from all of them, it's more copying than "being inspired by", to be honest.
So, let's get into it.
First of all, there is some weird fuzzy motion blur going on at all times, despite disabling the motion blur specifically. It might be another post processing effect, but OF COURSE you cannot change the graphics mid-game, only from the menu, so there's no good way of testing this. Moving the camera around just causes some kind of motion sickness. Maybe it's the FOV, maybe some effect, dunno, it's not the framerate, because the game runs fine for me.
However, and that's the next part, I had to limit the game to 60 FPS to stop it from completely artifacting and tearing up with every other camera movement. Unacceptable, to be honest.
Moving on to the gameplay. Look, if you want to be Dark Souls but with Venetian Masks, be my guest, but I'm just tired of playing Dark Souls with a skin when it comes to the core combat and items. Speaking of items, why is it that I find some COMMON Greatsword that scales with all 4 damage stats and is better than anything else around? There's some serious imbalance here I feel like. Also, greatswords again win the game (not the ultra variant right now), because they have high damage, high reach, wide swings (AOE potential), aren't too slow, deal good poise damage, AND flinch most enemies. I really wanted to give regular swords a go, but no way ... they seem useless. There are other kinds of weapons, but I'm sticking with the "Claymore" for now. I even found a RARE greatsword just now, which is a straight-up downgrade in almost every way, and where it IS better it's only by a small margin for some status nobody cares about.
Speaking of statuses, this is where the game "innovates". Instead of your typical Fire, Poison, Lightning, etc. this game has ... whatever they're called, Vis, Gratia, etc. Weird names that fit in the lore, yes, but they are headscratchers for sure. The game introduces these in some pop-up tutorial, but has no in-game guidebook to ever look them up again. No, Dark Souls doesn't have that, either, but in Dark Souls I know that Fire causes ouch, and Poison makes enemies poop themselves! However, I have no idea what Vis does without being able to look it up. Every status effect has upsides and downsides, so inflicting an enemy with one might make them take more damage, but also dish out more damage. Or it might heal them, until you can "pop" the effect again for big damage. This is ... interesting ... but like I said, badly explained, especially, since there's also a rock, paper, scissors mechanic involved when it comes to resistances ... or even immunities, meaning you simply cannot damage enemies with some statuses ... and by extention the elemental weapon damage, which every weapon has. Unlike in DS where a sword might have lightning damage, here EVERY weapon is elemental, only the amount varies, meaning you could theoretically just encounter enemies you cannot damage.
This is where the "spells" or "abilities" come in. You can have 4 of them at any time, and they have to be charged up by hitting things. Nothing new here. Many inflict some kind of elemental damage.
The third major system is some kind of passive card system that can be unlocked with some kind of currency you get for doing ... something, I dunno. You can equip 6 of those and unlocking the higher ones is very expensive, but maybe not very useful. I have 2 that imbue my weapon with elemental status effects if I use the 1st and 3rd skill in my repertoire. Cool ... If I knew what I was doing? It boils down again to ... what are the effects, how do I actually benefit from them ... and do I WANT to have them? In other souls likes games it's a simple decision. Boss is weak to lightning? Imbue weapon with lightning to deal more damage. Want to play a DOT build? Get some kind of burn, poison, rot setup going. Here it's a lot more complicated, but not necessarily complex.
Especially since you cannot switch loadouts mid-game. You have to rest for that. And since skills have to be charged first, there is no real experimentation, no ... well, let me just switch out this for that and try it out (yes, you have to attune your spells in DS as well, but then you can immediately use them, here you attune them, then have to kill like 5 enemies, THEN you get to maybe use them).
The story is ... well, it's there somehow. Let's not talk about it more than we need to. Nobody plays these games for the story anyway, but ... ugh. Unskippable cutscenes is all I'm saying ... Especially the intro, which you cannot skip if you exited out of the game afterwards, because the main menu doesn't let you back out of your choice of game mode (Story or Souls), you can only choose whether you want to play the Tutorial or not ... great choice. So, I watched the 5 minute intro again ... Fun. This isn't the only time.
Where the Sekiro element comes in is with the parrying. While you can dodge, the game clearly wants you to parry. And it's some sort of instant parry, and I kinda hate these. It worked in Sekiro, since the animations were so fluid, and since it was kind of a dance...parry parry parry, attack attack, parry, attack, parry parry, posture break! No other game has ever achieved this. Sekiro was hard, and I yelled a lot, but it was also fun. The parry here isn't fun. While it's almost instant, and can partially block damage, it's just annoying to use against enemies with all the fun ♥♥♥♥ out of the ♥♥♥♥ box: delayed attacks, feints (more like animation bugs or intentionally stupid animations), unseen attacks, particles in your face everywhere, camera issues, huge enemies you can't see on screen, etc.
I have beaten the first 3 bosses now. I dunno, guess, like 25% of the game from what I can gather. Maybe. Judging by the achievements, about half the players have already given up at this point. I can't really blame them. Exploring the world is fine, most enemies are boring, though. They either pose no threat or kill you outright in an ambush. Dark Souls has enemy placement down to a T (not DS 2), where even basic enemies are dangerous, and you get ambushed at times, but every fight is pretty much fair, especially since you have ranged options. You don't have those here, unless you count the very limited usability of skills. My "flask" is already at +3, but heals like a QUARTER of my health bar. It's not quite useless, but at this point in the game I have to chug like 3 at once to make a difference. Bosses are basically parry or die. One just bugged out.
It's a miss. Maybe for a very hefty discount if you're desperate, but there's nothing really here that can be considered "new and exciting". Also, no "fashion souls" *gasp*!
