Playtime:
3321 minutes
[h3]A little bit mixed on this [/h3]
I would feel bad giving this a thumbs down, but i'd also be lying if i said i had an amazing time playing it.
I want to do alot of prefaceing, by saying that overall i think that this, as a soulslike, feels great to play and has a healthy amount of different enemies and unique bosses!
It's simplistic with the things you can skill when leveling, laying it clear what stats to skill depending on your weapon, the variety of comsumables and items is also fairly small and doesn't distract you from your gameplay.
It also has interesting skilltrees that give you abilities that feel great, and also a great variety of armor sets that can give you some neat extra abilities.
I enjoyed trying out the 3 different weapons with their respective skill trees and some of the abilities you can get.
The story is pretty linear and doesn't have alot of twists and turns, but is made enjoyable to watch with the cutscenes.
[h3] Comparing to other games [/h3]
If i had to compare it to other games, i'd compare it to Sekiro with how it the attack rythm of bosses (and some enemies) feel like they're ment to be brink guarded in a certain rythm, and with the skill trees of the different weapons and how the counterable red attacks work.
My other comparison would be Nioh, because of the linear level design, the quest structure, sidequest being repeats of previous zones and bosses (or elite enemies), and they even made the storytelling structure very similar to Nioh, where you frequently get little story cutscenes at the end of levels.
The fact that you have armor sets is also very akin to Nioh, also "Phantom mode" being basically Niohs "Living Weapon"/"Yokai Shift" form, and even most of the keybinds being the same Nioh uses, but most annoyingly it has collectables that are just as, if not more annoying than in Nioh.
Granted, Khazan does some things better than Nioh, like less trash equipment bloating your inventory, and sets being a whole lot less annoying to craft, because you don't have to grind bosses for the smithing text or the item itself to randomly drop in Nioh.
Instead you can just beat old bosses rather quickly to get the material, or even buy a limited number of them, to craft them, at your current level.
And the materials even specify from which levels boss they drop, if you even need boss materials to craft that set.
You can find most recipes by exploring, which i believe can potentially be easy to miss, if you don't take the time to explore levels, while some recipes are "hidden" behind rewards from killing some of the special enemies in a certain way (which in itself i think is also a cool reward system).
[h3]What it does badly[/h3]
In my opinion the collectables, aka Soulstones and Jarlings (and Khazans Memories*), are jarring.
Especially because Jarlings are tied to player power, by allowing you to buy head pieces that give extra stats while not taking up set slots, and Soulstones making your healing stronger (cause i didn't care for the Lacrima) and increasing your max spirit.
There were also some grievances that i had with backtracking explained further down.
*
(I don't have too much of an opinion on the Khazan Memories, because i always managed to find them without going back, but i could see people being annoyed by having to backtrack for them too, since they were also sometimes hidden behind breakable/illusary walls, and also tied to player power.)
[h3]How collectables affect exploration[/h3]
I felt the need to have a guide open at all times when going through levels, because missing them was extremely annoying, since once i beat the boss, i had to run through portions of the level again.
And sometimes running through the level got very Jarring, because on my way there i had to kill pretty much all the enemies, because of how far they would chase me, unlock elevators again (which are also made so you can't access them during combat, so they actively discourage from speeding through levels again), find the one hidden illusary/breakable wall that i missed, just to get to where i needed to go.
Just seeing levels with 5 Soulstones and a Jarling (i was about to write Kodama, cause they are basically the same thing), made me groan in my head, because i knew i had to go through the level more carefully, to not miss these random walls again.
I have nothing against backtracking, but it's annoying when you have places you can't backtrack to, or when its unnecessarily tedious.
There are very few instances of that happening, but it was annoying whenever it did happen.
One example i have is in "First Act of Revenge" where i chose the last Blade Nexus to teleport to, after having already finished the level.
I was blocked from backtracking downhill, because of a boulder, that is supposed to roll down, as you normally enter the area from other side, allowing you to go uphill.
But because he boulder "reset" and neither you nor the enemies could kick it down, i was basically "locked" in the later portion of the level.
Another example is in the same level, where it has nothing to do with the level resetting, but after you go past the boar and jump down, you can't get back up.
And then, even if you reach the next Blade Nexus, you first have to teleport back to The Crevice, rather than being able to just teleport to an earlier Blade Nexus, from another Blade Nexus.
Every time you have to teleport back to The Crevice, making you sit through an extra loading screen, and then you go back and select the Blade Nexus you want.
I was more excited to play through the side missions, simply because they were shorter and usually easy to backtrack, and because they only had 0-2 Soulstones, so even if i missed one, i can run back quickly and search for it.
I felt the same way about Nioh and the Kodama, but at some point i felt they're not very impactful, so while it was annoying to not have collected all in a level, i just kept going and never repeated these 5-8 Kodama levels again (plus Nioh levels don't let you teleport to any checkpoints, only the start of the level.
Honestly, i believe if these things were implemented differently, exploration and backtracking would feel alot better.
I loved how some Soulstones were hidden in the environment for example,where i just had to chuck a spear at them.
That also made me look around more and into the distance, and appreciate the environmental design, but the "hidden" ones, in some close quarter areas, are just so easy to miss, and they made me feel like i have to look at every wall.
And yes, at some point i realized that the Jarling jars always have a little "effect" on them, so they can be spotted more easily, but these collectables just made me feel like i had to pay attention to every single jar, the ground, and every wall. Constantly.
To me, that does not feel great, and it soured my experience, of how i felt i had to traverse the levels, to not re-explore these levels, rather than actually "exploring" levels more freely.
[h3]Another tiny negative [/h3]
One other small gripe i had was 2-3 specific bosses spending alot of time out of your reach very frequently. [spoiler] Princess Ilyna, Reese and especially Ozma [/spoiler]
While on 2 of them it felt alright most of the time and not as drawn out, it felt really annoying on 3rd one mentioned in spoilers, especially with the amount of attacks that boss inflicts status on you with and the amount of phases the boss has, making it an extremely drawn out fight.
[h3]Closing thoughts[/h3]
If the devs were to reduce the tediousness of backtracking and if they made breakable/illusary walls a little more prominent if they wanna have that many of them in their game, then i'd be a bit more excited if they were to announce a DLC or a sequel.
But as of now, all i can say is that i enjoyed it a bit more than my recent playthrough of Nioh 2, but i believe that's mainly due to Khazan being a shorter game with less side missions overall, making it less bloating
👍 : 6 |
😃 : 0