door wall closing in puzzle sucks rest of the game is goated

COOL.

Truthfully I so desperately wanted to really enjoy this game, and to a degree I did. But ♥♥♥♥ me this game is plagued with so many issues that really harm the experience.

Combat is clunky, granted typically a staple of survival horror, but it's to a frustratingly degree here. The game utilizes a similar tank control aiming system to old school REs and silent hills but unlike those titles where as long as your aiming in the general direction you can be sure it'll hit, here there's a full on 360 degrees so an enemy can barely move a pixel from where you were aiming and it'll miss. Sure there's a little icon on the bottom right of the screen that lights up if you have them in sights, which is barely a band aid with how unhelpful it really is.

Ontop of this the vast majority of weapons just don't feel worth their cost, especially the later weapons and even more so for the boss rewards. In fact, arguably the best weapon in the game is the sword you can buy right at the start of the game after you've acquired a couple of pennies. Even after supposdely being buffed, the rest of the melee weapons feel weak as hell outside of maybe the lance if used in a certain way. The shield is great for being lazy with blocking but loses the parry damage bonus the saber has and the hammer is disgustingly crap for how much you'd expect it to deal some nice damage.

But you'll likely find yourself resorting to melee weapons cause at least then you'll actually hit the enemy instead of wrestling with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ aim system. But then you run into the biggest gripe I have with this title, enemies can stunlock the ever loving ♥♥♥♥ out of you. For whatever reason the developer (and any playtester they apparently had) thought it was okay that an enemy can say, knock you to the ground and then be able to repeat their attack animation before you've even stood back up. This often leads to losing far more health than what feels fair and just leads to frustrating moments where you're stuck due to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ design (not helped by how buggy the game can get in these states, I had a boss hit me during a stair walk animation which caused Alisa to start just floating to the sky once I finally got control back).

Then there's the puzzles, don't get me wrong some of them are some nice brain teasers, but I could be doing without ones that are one a very strict timer, with no explanation, that lead to instant game overs, that also happen to be very far from save points (which are located at the game's few merchant spots and cost 1 cog, the games currency).

But ultimately ontop of this, the game's atmosphere is doing A LOT of heavy lifting.
The aesthetic of creepy dollhouse of mechanical creatures to the off base piano keys hit all the right notes, if only they were utilized in a better game cause they aren't enough to carry this game.

And truthfully, the story is such a nothing burger?
Things kinda just happen, there's next to no real solid explanation for why or how things are the way they are, no real revelations, one or two neat "twists" annnnnd then the game feels like it's bored of itself and rushes out a swift and sudden ending where you're still pretty much left in the dark.

If you're really needing to itch that classic survival horror itch and have a LOT of patcience for ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game mechanics then it could be worth the few hours worth it offers, otherwise I can't wholeheartedly recommend, even if I plan to 100% out of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ spite.