FOUNTAINS

If there was a mixed option, that would have been more appropriate. But since there is not, I'm slightly leaning positive. The game started off incredibly strong. The metroidvania elements really shine in the top down/isometric viewpoint of the game. Lots of areas that you very obviously have to come back to once you unlock more traversal options. The map has a level of interconnected-ness that is found in very few games in the genre. You get these traversal upgrade very quickly into the game and you can probably explore 80% of the map in the first 20% of the game. Dare I say Fountains does it better than a majority of metroidvanias? As with the progression in traversal abilities, the character progression is quite front loaded. There are no stat points of any sort to allocate - your HP can be upgraded by finding life shards and you have other permanent upgrades that can be purchased with currency. You very quickly cap out on weapon damage. The maximum weapon attack in the game is 37, and you find a 36 attack weapon quite early into the game. Armor upgrades are incremental at best as well. The combat feels nice. Attacks feel weighty and dashing is smooth. You gain mana by attacking enemies, which can be used to heal or for your traversal abilities, which doubles as offensive abilities. Healing is very slow and clunky. Not only does it take a while to heal, there is also a period afterwards where you can't dash. With enemy bosses attacking as fast as they do - this dashing delay definitely needed to be lowered considerably. On the topic of bosses... They start off very fair and telegraphed (and if not telegraphed, at least have you some time in between their attacks) but quickly become overwhelming. Krus took me about 35 attempts and Vela took me two days of on and off attempts. I honestly lost count. The problem is how frequently they start a new attack string after ending their current attack string. There are some back to back attack string combinations that just straight up don't allow you to heal. So you get into this dice roll where if they use one specific attack string, you'll get hit and if they don't, then your heal will go off. Coupled that with the bosses large HP pool and it's not a great time. I know boss difficulty is subjective, but there is a certain feeling of the difficulty that this game presents that just isn't rewarding. For instance, the final DLC boss in Lies of P took me 56 attempts but I loved every minute of it. Vela and Krus on the other hand, was a drag. They just didn't feel fair. I only ended up finishing the game due to sheer gamer pride. Would I recommend the game? A hesitant yes. But with a caveat that it won't be for everybody. It won't even be for soulslike enjoyers. Fountains has FromSoft beat in the difficulty department... And it's not particularly close nor in an enjoyable way. But the exploration, vibe, music, art, and general gameplay outside of some particularly difficult boss encounters are great.