The Amazing:
- The opening sequence of the game where you get play with max powers is both thrilling as a fight and has phenomenal visuals
- The secret ending 4 Heavenly Kings fight is one of the most fun I’ve had in a game, getting to fight Vader in Jedi 1 still ranks higher (because of the surprise element)
- The game gives you weapons and skill upgrades in a balanced way
- The animations for the Immobilize spell are some of the best visuals I’ve seen in a game
- The linearity of the game is a big plus
- Variability of the bosses themselves was interesting in a good way, from the tigers to the scorpions and frogs, and other characters (Black Loong is a creative boss)
- The boss-rush mode in the final chapter was fantastic!
- Every PSN trophy is a perfect action shot! (Unlike in Spider-Man 2)
- Great combat cutscenes
Here are the videos, absolutely gorgeous visuals:
The Bad in Platform:
- This game is not optimized for the PS5
- I had several game crashes
- There were fights that were skipping frames and I had to switch to performance mode
- Many fights had glitches where a supporting NPC would not show up in every run
- Visuals in the sky are very pixelated on the PS5
- Even a 4090 cannot run this game at max settings
- One can argue that this game is pushing graphics boundaries, but no one is saying that; the game is shit at being optimized for even the most powerful PCs (This game is no Cyberpunk.)
The Bad in Gameplay:
- There’s no map
- Visuals: The natural environment / colors of a region are too monotone that not only is it boring and everything just looks the same, but it also makes finding secret areas more difficult, more annoying
- Visuals: Invisible walls suck, you never know if you’re at the edge of the map or not
- Combat: The combat gets boring by the end of chapter 2. It feels repetitive with staff + dodge being the primary mechanics
- Combat: Animation lock lasts longer than it should, this is extremely frustrating when in a fight and you press L1 to drink a health potion, but the game does nothing because you were caught in animation lock
- The animation locks are also worse in this game compared to Souls / souls-like because the motion is smooth; you can’t clearly tell that the animation is over
- Combat / Boss Design: The boss design is extremely frustrating and annoying, the devs had 1 trick bosses: attack spam from the boss and you keep getting caught in animation locks if you miss a dodge; the lack of a blocking / parrying made combat very frustrating
- Combat: The game has no stand-out combat mechanic
- Transforms are janky and barely work
- Pluck Monkey is not effective unless you have all the upgrades which doesn’t happen till the end of the game
- A combination of spells, spirits, transforms and vessel rarely happens; but when it does, boy it’s glorious like in this video below:
Overall: This game had a great start, a very boring middle, and a good secret ending.
Here are some game screenshots:
And here’s my gameplay playlist: