Recent reviews by BBC Transformer

Because it can't be a finished product. I played it for a few days, cleared it for most part minus final boss and the dragon, here's what I can say:
Is empty. I always argued against people who called the core game map empty because for most part it really wasn't - whenever you go there was something to do, be it a dungeon, evergaol, ruins or an item to pick up. Well, the dlc is not like that - map is full of dead ends, most ruins are very underwhelming and the biggest issue is how poorly connected everything is. You stuck with riding a horse for tens of minutes trying to find passages just to give up, look up the guide and realize it's in a place so insane you'd never guess it. Many areas are large for no reason at all, like those two finger zones or the abyss forest. Items you get are often garbage - hello, who tf needs a smithing stone 4 or even 8 when required dlc level is 120-150? I saw a lot of messages of people getting upset about going lengths to pickup a rare item only for it to be glovewort. But there's ONE ITEM that you are forced to look for everywhere, and that is...
Aka worst upgrade idea ever. Imagine making a separate "leveling" system just to scatter it across the map in places player can never discover (without guides). And while smithing stones have similar problem, at the very least you get enough per run by just harvesting random items on your way to get at least one weapon fully upgraded. So if you stuck on a boss because you're too weak - you have to ride a horse for another hour in futile attempts of finding more fragments (or use a guide, how immersive)
Wouldn't making a second rune-based leveling system work better? I don't get it.
It seriously feels like playing archtrones, just playing "guess where the assets came from" game. Some borrowed capra demon, pontif, gundyr's moves etc, the moveset of great katana is stolen from monster hunter. I'm not too offended by this though, as long as it makes sense. But that's the issue - it doesn't. Enemy placing has degraded a lot compared to the core game and reminds me a lot of lost izalith. And it's not like there aren't any masterfully created enemies - new crucible knight is really sick. But that's like one encounter per run and for most part it's just reused (and sometimes recolored) assets from anywhere else thrown to random spots on the map. Which leads me to the discussion of...
I like how they show all those cool AoW attacks player can do in the trailer but never actually performed them on a boss. Because you can't. At this point I think they should stop and ask themselves - what makes a core of souls combat? Most bosses in this dlc are big and unparryable, have very cinematic (I think this is what they actually pursue nowadays) AoE attacks that nuke the whole area and if you collected enough scadujunk to not get oneshot - good luck to land a hit. The intensity of bosses' attacks is approaching slasher genre area, yet YOU, a player, got stuck with input queues, input reads, two attacks and very slow and limited moveset. It went wrong way since dark souls 3 imo, because, as people say, you get a lot of bloodborne influence without any bloodborne benefits, but now it became even more apparent that something must be changed. At this point their cinematic approach is damaging gameplay as you can't see attacks from behind the endless nukes on your screen (Rellana or Messmer are good examples of it)
What for? Old souls games dlcs had clear messages, you always had clear understanding of what you're doing and why. What do I need to kill all those guys for? At least core game had Melina to tell you what you're doing story-wise. Here story feels nonexistent - friendly npcs you meet along your way barely say anything and then they go Gideon on you out of nowhere? I thought we're here for the same thing, what am I even doing then? Not the mention many quests are hard to complete EVEN WITH THE GUIDE, because some dialogues require quit-outs and other shenanigans to continue
And yes, I am going to say it - it's unreasonably difficult. I know there's a lot of clowns out there rage crying at first suggestion of making anything easier for the player... But this goes completely wrong direction. Bosses are too fat, do 50% more damage than they should and your only viable option is to maximize your defense. Tell me, do you have fun fighting huge enemy that nukes whole area (and drops your frames even on totl pc) most of the fight and your only option is to keep rolling? Where's parrying? Messmer and Rellana for half of the fight and that's probably it. Where's positioning? At this point every boss does Malenia-styled dashes around you or just flies above you, so you can't really dictate where you are related to the enemy. Hell, even stagger doesn't work all that much because of how scarce your attack windows are. And you are still bound by rules, your turn speed is linear while bosses literally snap mid-combo, so good luck aligning yourself for a parry
And you know, if some nolifers can nodamage every boss at level one etc it doesn't mean that everyone should. It shouldn't be harder than beating the core game.

Okay, so I participated in your alpha testing. What I think is necessary to do:

• Significantly cut bosses' damage
  
• Rework leveling system
  
• Add more points of interest/items to dead ends so the world doesn't feel so empty
  
• Work on enemy placement so it doesn't feel so random

And maybe ponder a thought on what is the future of the souls formula until it's completely broken

I feel like most people only like it because they haven't played it in a while. It is painfully slow, ganky and repetitive. On top of all that, the game is actively punishing you for being new (or even average for that matter) - be it enemy placing, where you have to know exactly where to wait or who to kill to not get stuck, or be it navigating the area without getting killed. And it may be easy for someone who already knows their way around the game, but not for any new player.

Enemies are placed in such a way they block your path and don't let you escape. And it may be fine for a relatively easy areas such as undeadburg, but then goes sens fortress, anor londo, lower londo, the catacombs and so on and you are slowly getting tired of fighting same hordes of generic enemies over and over again. Because...

Combat is awful. And it's not just game being slow in general - it's also the pacing - many enemies, instead of slowly chipping your health, have one chain attack that does a lot of damage. And here's the question - will you risk having a blow trade, knowing well that if you fail you have to run half of the map again? You'll probably play safe. That makes an already slow game feel even slower. And even if you did choose to engage, prepare for...

Controls. Artificial difficulty at its finest. As I said, the game requires high precision because each mistake can get you ganked, oneshot etc. Well, this game has input buffering - but only for certain things aka you can't press heal twice and actually heal twice. But you can roll when you don't want to. Or attack when you don't want to. And with rolls only having 8 directions, you easily roll into your own grave. Again, this is the game where you are supposed to be very precise at your rhythm and movement - placing such restrictions on a player creates artificial difficulty. Those who already played it will understand me -
Locations are probably the only thing this game does right. I won't be talking about rushed Izalith as I don't have much issues with this area. But sure enough, if there is anything to like about this game, it is its interconnected world with very memorable spots.

Weapons are okay, upgrade system is not. This stone, that stone, grind this here, grind that there, you need this ember then you need that ember. And I won't even talk about places where you're supposed to "find" those embers. Imo weapon scaling should be your only mean to upgrade weapon and you should be able to upgrade via level-ups

The conclusion
Sometimes I wish people could stop savoring each and every Michael Zaki's footcrumb and just admit this game blows. This whole "git gud" thing is nothing but "take it in the аss like a champ". This game's problem is not rushed development or somewhat archaic souls formula - it's artificial difficulty created by bad level design and broken pacing.

Dark souls reference

Everything is DLC and getting all of characters will cost as much as AAA game

Really annoying to read people saying how other parts are better. Try replaying them first.

• I like that it got faster compared to ds1, but the absolutely braindead stamina bar regen doesn't let you utilize your newly acquired mobility in combat. Honesty, this is my only major complaint
  
• Map design is by far superior to all other souls games. And I don't really talk about how levels look, because we can all agree some areas look like аss, I talk about interactions with your surroundings - a mechanic that got thrown away with castrated souls 3 and put on a wheelchair in elden ring.
  
• You. Can. Replay. Bosses.
  
• Best stance system
  
• Whoever says it is ganky - go replay ds3 and shut up in shame. People love bringing up smelter demon runback as probably the only example they have - an optional boss that you absolutely don't need to kill until dlc (if you're melee build the ring that goes after him may come handy)
  
  What I think this game needs is a little overhaul - speed up stamina recovery, add a few bonfires here and there (mostly that well known loyce dlc area), fix directions of rolling and maybe change a hue of fallen giants and shaded woods a bit. That's it. Alas, the stamina makes it really, REALLY bad and no amount of leveling can fix that

It's one problem that it requires you to know exactly what to do and where to go for this game to be somewhat playable...
It's the other problem that the story doesn't really make much sense. I won't be going deep into details, main issue I have is that none of those stories have any kind of conclusion. It's just an array of events. Are they related to the MC? Who knows. Even if they were, what did they try to convey? Who knows. And I get it, I may be a simpleton that doesn't understand all the symbolism here, but when you have a game that is too hard to play without looking up guides and a story that is too hard to get without looking up guides... Is that a good game? Not yet. It does have potential and a good approach on scariness, but it's too complex for anyone unfamiliar.

And while it gets along pretty well with dark souls philosophy, it is ruined at every possible aspect

• Castrated - whole game is just running through a long corridor and fight. No map interactions, no enemy interactions - nothing. Massive downgrade from dark souls 2. It feels like this game is a moneycow so they had to make it safe keeping the "only important" thing - the souls formula
  
  
• Map design - not only castrated in terms of features, but also visually. If you don't like color grey then you'll find this game pretty boring
  
  
• Leveling - it's like elden ring but instead of vigor you level stamina
  
  
• Enemies - I can't stress enough how much this game sucks balls here. Absolutely the gankiest souls game there is, everything is screaming at you and you can't even run away as many enemies now run faster than you do.
  
  
• Bosses - Gundyr, Nameless king and soul of cinder. Maybe dragonslayer armor. These are the only actual bossfights you will have. Leader by the number of gimmick bossfights and the rest is basically rng-based.
  
  
• Weapons - while I really want to say this game made progress at least here - no, fuсk me, all those special weapons with cool alt attacks do dogsh*t damage and you'll spam R2 R1 anyway.
  
  I don't know what people like about it. It maybe got faster, but at expense of every feature that previous games had.

While I do like this game, I don't feel that I can recommend it to anyone.
- First of all, it is poorly optimized. Or rather, very cpu-hungry. Graphics settings won't help you much, I have to play in 720p on 2k monitor for the game to stay alive because it may start crashing otherwise (this is the first time I encounter something like this and this game isn't even all that impressive graphically)
- Second thing - input reads. This is laziest and ugliest way to make enemies react to your attacks. Isn't much for a melee build, a deal breaker for archer/mage build. Especially when it comes to human (aka tarnished) kind of enemies. They roll EXACTLY the moment you shoot and so bows/knives/spells are unusable which is EXTREMELY poor design for a 2022 year game. I'm okay when it is punishment for drinking flasks/performing certain attacks, but this just makes range combat obsolete in many cases (which is a shame since bow is a pretty valid weapon choice)
- Leveling. There are softcaps you must be aware of to not waste your runes. Question is - why? Is this, possibly, because of the meta pvp level? Well then, at least let players know where these softcaps are as there is NO way a new player would know that. But that's not the worst part. Worst part will be constant grinding - all sorts of smithing stones, gloveworts and other stuff. It quickly becomes a chore. And the way you obtain them, you can get almost endgame-leveled weapon relatively early, but it can only be one thing. Decided to re-spec and try something else? Well, too bad. You have to level your weapon accordingly. Or play further with your old weapon until you get all the bell bearings needed.
- Crafting. Who was that genius who thought it's a good idea to make items limited? Trina's lilies, aeonian butterflies and many other things do not respawn and can only be found in limited amount. I'll dare to say that NOBODY will rely on items that you at some point will not be able to restock. It is one hell of a chore to collect crafting materials, but when you can't do even that...
- Questlines. It's a good thing when you don't have a giant arrow that is guiding you through the entirety of the story. It's a bad thing when you can't solve the quest without wiki. I spent a lot of time "jump-starting" quests that require resting on a certain grace, teleporting somewhere else, doing some absolutely unrelated to questline action. Good example is Nepheli's quest when she refused to spawn next to the throne in Stormveil until I rested on a grace behind the castle. Again, it's just poorly made script. We aren't in 00s anymore, things should be bit more advanced at this point.
- Achievements in steam don't work sometimes, if you're that kind of person - be ready to do them twice.

Don't get me wrong - it's a good game. But several of my friends didn't like it at all and I myself don't feel like I could recommend something like this. The atmosphere is beautiful and that's probably the main reason that keeps me going. Otherwise it's a very unpolished and old-fashioned game for something that has been released in 2022

DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME UNLESS YOU ARE HARDCORE TALES FAN

If you had experience with other tales, you would know that it's not about great graphics and/or exciting gameplay.
Story is the main aspect of the game. You ONLY play it for the story. Which is fine, it has always been like that...

Except it was better...
I have no idea how, but it now feels worse than Berseria or even Zestiria...
Screenshots they show at store page are very deceiving, the game hardly has better visuals than its 6-7 years old predecessors. Yeah, you won't be playing this game for graphics, but advertising it like that is awfully wrong.

Combat
Combat is my main source of disappointment. Berseria, in my opinion, has best combat of all Tales I've played. Zestiria was more repetitive and not as varied, but still relatively fun to engage. Now Arise is like dark souls... except worse. Attacks are short and repetitive, combo making is hard and impractical: your most valid option for avoiding damage is dodging which can't be activated until the attack animation is over.

Levelling system
Level imbalance is insane, the game forces you to either play with the lowest difficulty possible or mindlessly grind levels through the same routine just to finally be able to proceed forward at some point. The moment you reach your very first boss, it will likely have double your level. Which means oneshot, each attack, every time. I had similar problem in Zestiria, had to grind levels a lot to slowly progress through the game, but dying to a single hit was never an issue. Now it is.

Story and MC
Not a fan of the story so far, looking at MC, you would expect Eizen kind of personality, but nah, he's more like Sorey on steroids.
The whole setting is rather silly, but these are nothing more than my initial impressions as I haven't progressed much through the game yet.

In short: this is literally same game it was in previous iterations, even worse in some places, I don't see the reason behind AAA pricing and overall hype. Just keep that in mind - you get it if you want another Tale, not a 2021 game, because it ain't one.

No ammo