Finished first story playthrough on Hard, around 30 hours.
Absolutely amazing Action RPG, even as a non-FF fan. The action system is incredibly interactive and consistent, the RPG elements are super varied and fun to experiment, music is great from start to finish, and the story, despite the memes and all, was a fun campy and sincere tale of an adventure, with terrific voice acting and all. Like all modern Team Ninja offerings, the game showers you with loot, but this game lets you completely ignore it with the "Optimize" option, even on Hard. Understanding and exploiting the action system mattered way more in my view, though I hear the DLCs are a different beast in that regard.
And boy, the action. While built on Team Ninja's Nioh format, there's so much [i]interaction[/i] happening that it was a completely different experience. This interactivity works on one hand in how you mix jobs and abilities, but more importantly how you interact with enemies, mobs and bosses a like. You can manipulate enemies from flinching to launching, or hard knockbacks resulting in wallslam, or triggering something in the environment. On top of that, you have 3 defensive options (guard, dodge, a "parry") at any given time, while good ol' positioning also works really well. Even though Jack has less moveset than William or Hide, the sense of expansive options and freedom was definitely there. This isn't a discount Nioh by any means.
Further expanding this interactiveness is how the Soul Shield - the "parry" - works. Blocking an attack with SS gives you MP, which are resources to use various active skills. There are some enemy attacks you can "steal" by doing SS and then turn it right back at them. It's not really a universal defense though, as SS will always cost Break Gauge, a stamina/posture resource. So the game never felt like a Simon Says simulator of pressing the universal defense button at the right timing, and it required a fair bit of quick, on-the-spot decision making.
What's amazing is that this action interactivity was incredibly consistent. Whether facing mobs, elites, or bosses, all of this basic architecture applied (well, minus the launching and knockbacks, but that's minor). The bosses honestly deserve a special shoutout, as they were consistently great to fight. A lot of the so-called Stylish Action or "CAG" titles have really elaborate combat system, but often have a hit-and-miss track record with bosses, whether Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden. The consistent quality of bosses here, and how they complement the combat system, definitely deserves praise.
The game isn't without fault (no game is), but SoP's faults are more obvious. First, it's clear this is a budget title in many ways: maps both in terms of visual and level design leaves a lot to be desired, enemies' visual variety is low (mechanically good though), gears visual variety is also low, and there's some finicky performance issues, like the fog/particles suddenly tanking my FPS.
The bigger fault is the loot - I essentially did not interact with it [i]at all[/i] in this playthrough. I'm not sure if I could have either, since the next mission will probably give loot that will automatically invalidate anything you tried to "build" anyway. Team Ninja really need to cut back on their lootosexual fetish, the spam email folder clearing gets old. Maybe cut down the amount of loot drop by 50% for the first playthrough or something?
All in all, a great Action RPG with very distinct identity, beyond the KILL CHAOS meme. Not sure if I'd recommend at full price, but do consider it at some degree of discount. You're in for a pretty wild ride!
