Unsouled

A good looking gaym with some really decent combat features, but an absolutely terrible camera. The camera seems to move at a fixed or limited speed, thus it cannot keep up with me and I end up playing a large part of the gaym with my character offscreen. The character moves really fast and the camera should keep up. Even when you hit the enemy into the water to open the gate, the camera pans back so rediculously slowly that I got hit by two arrows BEFORE the camera even reached me again. No man. This ruins an otherwise decent looking gaym.

Some of the reviews had me wary, but I enjoyed my time with Unsouled and don't feel like the current top review is indicative of where the game is post early access. What I will agree with is that the intro sets up different expectations. It suggests the game will be difficult, require precise timings you need to learn and will need to keep a rhythm and flow going, which, at least on the default normal difficulty, is only half true. So long as you have at least some situational awareness, you can pretty comfortably mash through just about everything, especially once you acquire certain skills and upgrades, which are by no means useless. The sense of progression with passive souls, skills, and upgrades was nice and kept me going as I went back and got through the true route. Unfortunately though, the game does end on a cliffhanger and I'm not sure we'll ever see that resolved.

Instantly taken out of the vibe with how much is thrown at you in just the little tutorial area all at once

The game is good, but needs more than one playthrough with a guide to be worth the money if not on sale. A lot of the game's content is locked behind a secret 2nd path.

Top-down 2D Ninja Gaiden with Onimusha's Issen counter In other words, a fast-paced technical action game with emphasis on aggressive crowd-control, with a risky but satisfying counter mechanic on top. There's a lot of contextual interactions that adds another layer of complexity to combat encounters as well. Maras, a prince of a fallen kingdom you control, comes with a lot of mechanics. He has a standard string, a charged attack, a number of command attacks (like dash attack etc.), a number of special attacks ("abilities"), and a number of super attacks. That's just for offense, he also has a guard, a "just" guard which links to a counter, the Issen counter (attacking at the exact moment an enemy attack hits) which could be followed up, dashes for repositioning, and a way to get out of hitstun. These actions are governed by three different resources: "Stamina (yellow bar)," "Soul Orbs (blue resource for Abilities)," and "Ghost Orbs (purple resource for get-out-of-hitstun)." The problem, as many reviews also note, is that the game tries to teach all of these in the first 10 minutes. But alas, Infodump just doesn't work. My advice is to learn as you go, and look up the tutorials (the "Abyss," easily accessible) whenever you want to remind yourself of a cool trick you saw earlier. Because, and I want to emphasize this, this game's action is absolutely brilliant in its execution. Juggling all those choices and resources to control Maras to be "stylish" is incredibly rewarding. Taking advantage of the environment, whether wall slamming of ringouts, is so much fun. The fact that enemies are damn aggressive and fast makes all this even better - overcoming hectic encounters, beating punishing bosses, are really fun and rewarding experiences. The resources are balanced in a way that feel less like restrictions to what I can do, and more like fuel for me to create my improvised pixelated slaughterhouse - in short, mad fun! And I think a special shoutout is warranted on the bosses. They are not just cool and hard (duh!), but they are governed by the exact same combat architecture mentioned above. They spend blue and purple resources to do the same thing as we do (use stronger abilities, getting out of combos), they can be wallslammed for extra damage and downtime, etc. That they do (partially) operate on the same rule as me made them [i]feel[/i] really fair. A lot of times, action game bosses appear to be playing on a different game. Unsouled, in my view, succeeds in the opposite direction: it made bosses that feel like they are actually part of the same "game." When they come with really expressive pixel art and awesome BGM? Game on, baby (the hidden bosses kick my rear side HARD). I also want to give special shoutout to the difficulty/accessibility options, what's usually held in contempt by "hardcore gamers." They are really thoughtfully designed, in my opinion, adjusting input tightness, slightly reducing enemy aggression and speed, auto combos, and certain auto-adjustments to controls. They feel like adjustments made by someone who is a really good action game player, designing something that would "help" when they weren't [i]that[/i] good at action games, without infantilizing the player, and still nudging them to see the "fun" of action games. It's stuff I would call "industry standard" without exaggeration, to be honest. In conclusion, strong recommendation for anyone who likes fast-paced action game, and the Ninja Gaiden lovers in particular. I can't believe I slept on this game for so long!

В целом хорошая игра, только есть побочные эффекты, после получения всех комбо в голове остался звук метронома и пальцы на руках продолжают жить своей жизнью)))

*After reading a few reviews, if you're having camera problems / trouble with the boulder section, you'll need to drop your screen's refresh rate to 60Hz and you're good to go! This game has a really unique combat system. It's fair to compare this to Hyper Light Drifter and Sekiro, even some Hades thrown in with the dash, but I think it deserves a bit more credit for standing out with it's own mechanics. You have a few more options than a typical souls game, and you can link dashes, parries, counters and attacks into combos. That's where this game really shines and it gives you solid feedback to see and learn the timing windows. The gameplay is incredibly fluid and fair, but you can adjust multiple difficulty settings whenever you need. It also gives you a practice room with plenty of guidance for chaining attacks. It took a few stages for everything to start clicking, there's definitely a learning curve but nothing too intense or obnoxious. You won't need to pour over wiki's but you will die and figure out how to avoid it next time. The practice room is really helpful all around. I highly recommend this gem that does not get talked about nearly enough! This is a really creative action game and I was surprised to learn it was built by a single developer. They deserve massive credit and support!