The game is absolutely fantastic, I plan to do a writeup here once I’ve progressed through a bit more of the game. I’m 14 hours in and partway through the 3rd of 7(?) main dungeons, largely because I’ve been picking every last scrap of meat off the bones. If I had to use one word to describe the game it would be dense. I didn’t play the demo, so I was a bit surprised to find it has less in common with Link’s Awakening and Castlevania than you might think, though it’s certainly wearing their skin. I’d call it Saturday morning cartoon Bloodborne with a heaping helping of adorable, furry characters and I mean that all 💯 positively.
Unlike Link’s Awakening, progression isn’t tied to finding items in dungeons. A lot of traversal is tied to subweapons you find unceremoniously strewn about the world that opens things up for you and you can really go most anywhere you want if you can figure it out. Instead of simply navigating each screen there are secrets and bones tucked in almost every corner encouraging you to observe, explore, and platform every inch. Dense.
There’s already discourse about the difficulty and if I give one concession, it’s that the early game is perhaps a bit “overtuned” like Silksong was, partially because the early game power curve is just rough when you don’t have a lot of stats or options to work with and part of it is maybe spending ~6 years in the oven. Stick with it, it’s worth it. Go slow, be deliberate, and I promise you losing your bones is not that big of a deal. Grinding is actually fairly easy and painless once you figure things out and if you decide to go that route (grinding is not necessary but you can absolutely do it if you want to accrue an early edge with a lot of items). Other than that, use the build in modifiers. They disable achievements, but also some of those achievements are just ass anyways and there’s no way I’m 100%ing this game (beat the game without ever entering the underlab, are you for serious?!)
Starter tips:
The game moves fast in the beginning and doesn’t run you through a tutorial but it WILL lead you into most things if you give it a chance, just pay attention and try everything on everything.
There’s a manual in the start menu! It’s cute and informative, read it, it actually contains helpful info
The game does a great job of pointing you down the optimal, beginner’s path if you read the newspapers, listen to the NPCs, and just pay attention to clues. Knowing where to go is half the battle, but you can always explore and push into other places early and get some nice treats for it. Be creative, you’ll be surprised the places you can go
Ultimately, this is a game for sickos. If you are a sicko, especially a Fromsoft sicko, then this is a no-brainer.
I didn’t play the demo, so I was a bit surprised to find it has less in common with Link’s Awakening and Castlevania than you might think
To me, the demo felt like it was setting up something resembling more of a Zelda game, even though the demo itself wasn’t very Zelda due to its length. Which kinda made it worse to me, I thought I would get Legend of Mouse: Oracle of Slightly Souls and unexpectedly got Mouse Souls for the Gameboy Color.
That is a game I could ultimately find enjoyment in, but at 5-ish hours into the game, I was incredibly frustrated by the difference in expectations vs what I just played. The Zelda influence does show up a bit more later in the game as dungeon/world design improves a bit, but it remains thinner than I would’ve preferred. The “Souls mechanics” can mostly be turned off via the modifiers menu, but that doesn’t really turn the game into what I would’ve preferred either.
For the right person, this is going to be a GotY candidate. I’m glad I did play it through to the end, but it’s too soulsy for me to truly appreciate it. I will say that the soundtrack very well might be my soundtrack of the year though; easily Jake Kaufman’s finest work (and the OST is pay-what-you-want on Bandcamp!).
Matches my experience so far to a tee. Fantastic game.
It’s concerning that “talk to NPCs and actually read the shit the game tells you” even needs to be said. How damn stupid are people getting that this isn’t just normal operating behavior?
It makes me skeptical about the complaints about difficulty, too. It took me a few tries to get the hang of it but once I got comfortable with the controls, how burrowing works, etc it felt smooth and very well tuned. It’s nice that they added custom difficulty options but I wonder if people aren’t just too prone to giving up when challenged.
This matches my thoughts as well, and I’m in the final dungeon of the game! Everything about the game is just brilliant. Dense is a good way of putting it, not only is the game as a whole really deep and full of secrets, the game is built to be INSANELY REPLAYABLE.
There’s New Game+, and there are modifiers that drastically change how the game works, including “weird” modifiers like one that lets you jump super high and break the game. A lot of these modifiers make you access areas you shouldn’t be able to early and that’s intentional. There’s also a built-in randomizer.
The achievements are also insanely deep if you are a psycho. There’s an achievement for beating the game with 3 hard modifiers, one for beating with 3 weird modifiers, one for beating it without ever entering the underlab, one for beating at -1% completion (not sure what that means yet but I’m guessing beating the game without picking up anything), one for beating the game in under 4 hours… And so on…
Most people won’t bother but it’s wild how much they thought about longevity. I’m excited to start my 2nd playthrough after 100%ing my current one.
The game is absolutely fantastic, I plan to do a writeup here once I’ve progressed through a bit more of the game. I’m 14 hours in and partway through the 3rd of 7(?) main dungeons, largely because I’ve been picking every last scrap of meat off the bones. If I had to use one word to describe the game it would be dense. I didn’t play the demo, so I was a bit surprised to find it has less in common with Link’s Awakening and Castlevania than you might think, though it’s certainly wearing their skin. I’d call it Saturday morning cartoon Bloodborne with a heaping helping of adorable, furry characters and I mean that all 💯 positively.
Unlike Link’s Awakening, progression isn’t tied to finding items in dungeons. A lot of traversal is tied to subweapons you find unceremoniously strewn about the world that opens things up for you and you can really go most anywhere you want if you can figure it out. Instead of simply navigating each screen there are secrets and bones tucked in almost every corner encouraging you to observe, explore, and platform every inch. Dense.
There’s already discourse about the difficulty and if I give one concession, it’s that the early game is perhaps a bit “overtuned” like Silksong was, partially because the early game power curve is just rough when you don’t have a lot of stats or options to work with and part of it is maybe spending ~6 years in the oven. Stick with it, it’s worth it. Go slow, be deliberate, and I promise you losing your bones is not that big of a deal. Grinding is actually fairly easy and painless once you figure things out and if you decide to go that route (grinding is not necessary but you can absolutely do it if you want to accrue an early edge with a lot of items). Other than that, use the build in modifiers. They disable achievements, but also some of those achievements are just ass anyways and there’s no way I’m 100%ing this game (beat the game without ever entering the underlab, are you for serious?!)
Starter tips:
Ultimately, this is a game for sickos. If you are a sicko, especially a Fromsoft sicko, then this is a no-brainer.
To me, the demo felt like it was setting up something resembling more of a Zelda game, even though the demo itself wasn’t very Zelda due to its length. Which kinda made it worse to me, I thought I would get Legend of Mouse: Oracle of Slightly Souls and unexpectedly got Mouse Souls for the Gameboy Color.
That is a game I could ultimately find enjoyment in, but at 5-ish hours into the game, I was incredibly frustrated by the difference in expectations vs what I just played. The Zelda influence does show up a bit more later in the game as dungeon/world design improves a bit, but it remains thinner than I would’ve preferred. The “Souls mechanics” can mostly be turned off via the modifiers menu, but that doesn’t really turn the game into what I would’ve preferred either.
For the right person, this is going to be a GotY candidate. I’m glad I did play it through to the end, but it’s too soulsy for me to truly appreciate it. I will say that the soundtrack very well might be my soundtrack of the year though; easily Jake Kaufman’s finest work (and the OST is pay-what-you-want on Bandcamp!).
Matches my experience so far to a tee. Fantastic game.
It’s concerning that “talk to NPCs and actually read the shit the game tells you” even needs to be said. How damn stupid are people getting that this isn’t just normal operating behavior?
It makes me skeptical about the complaints about difficulty, too. It took me a few tries to get the hang of it but once I got comfortable with the controls, how burrowing works, etc it felt smooth and very well tuned. It’s nice that they added custom difficulty options but I wonder if people aren’t just too prone to giving up when challenged.
This matches my thoughts as well, and I’m in the final dungeon of the game! Everything about the game is just brilliant. Dense is a good way of putting it, not only is the game as a whole really deep and full of secrets, the game is built to be INSANELY REPLAYABLE.
There’s New Game+, and there are modifiers that drastically change how the game works, including “weird” modifiers like one that lets you jump super high and break the game. A lot of these modifiers make you access areas you shouldn’t be able to early and that’s intentional. There’s also a built-in randomizer.
The achievements are also insanely deep if you are a psycho. There’s an achievement for beating the game with 3 hard modifiers, one for beating with 3 weird modifiers, one for beating it without ever entering the underlab, one for beating at -1% completion (not sure what that means yet but I’m guessing beating the game without picking up anything), one for beating the game in under 4 hours… And so on…
Most people won’t bother but it’s wild how much they thought about longevity. I’m excited to start my 2nd playthrough after 100%ing my current one.