Recent reviews by soin

Spectacular so far, but I have one request which would improve the experience by a lot.
The menus and UI are untouched(?) from the original version which make them incredibly large on monitors and TVs and thus a bit hard and cumbersome to read and navigate.
If it would be possible to have an option to make them smaller, it'd make the already amazing experience so much better!

(and personal opinion, the font used for the menus is a bit plain, would make a big difference if it was a bit more embellished)

An absolutely awful looking "remaster" of one of the most striking games ever made. Avoid this and just emulate it, without upscaling more than 3x.

Reviews are HIGHLY overestimating how "bad" the game is.

First of all, there's no invincibility frames. That's why you're getting hit even though you "dodged". You need to actually dodge away from the attack, not just dodge through it. This made a boss that would be very easy in a normal souls-like game actually quite challenging and it made me have to think *where* to dodge and not just dodge wherever. Oh, and using the jump is a very great dodge option as well, even outside of the shockwave attacks where you have to use it.

Health potions are not renewable, you have to craft them and you can only have two (at least at the start) on you before you need to craft more. Enemies drop a lot of materials for them.

To jump and use heavy attack, you need to hold the modifier button (probably not the official term) down while pressing either the jump or attack button. I'm playing on controller, for me it's LT.

Attacks have a "combo" system. Not reeaally a combo system, but how it works is you can't just spam the attack button, if you want to do many attacks in a row, you have to properly commit to it and input the next attack at the start-mid animation of the previous one. I was skeptical about this at first, but soon when I got a greatsword weapon it clicked and became really satisfying. For example, doing a heavy attack-to-heavy attack combo makes the first attack stagger the enemy, then the next one deals critical(?) damage and usually sends the enemy's limb or head to fly, it feels great.

Also, THERE IS NO LEVELING UP. The only way to "level up" is by equipping different gear. Again, I was skeptical of this at first, but soon I realized how... free(?) it felt. If you die, you just die and go back to the last twitching digital corpse you interacted with. No stressing about and running back to your "souls". I haven't yet interacted a lot with the different skills, abilities, or whatever they're called, but I'm excited. Though I do hope they replace those AI "art" icons on them.

Honestly I have no idea why the devs decided the best place to start the game was on a narrow bridge, when the game's worst part, at least for me, is how for a lack of a better term, floaty the movement feels. I quickly learned that instead of fighting on a bridge you should just run back to a wider area.

Anyways, the main reason I bought this game was for the bleak sci-fi BLAME! megastructures and it definitely does not disappoint. Easily the high point of the game and probably the most gorgeous game I've seen come out in a while. Soundtrack is amazing too and just lifts the atmosphere even more.
If you're not scared of honestly pretty light jankiness all things considered, and a few minor bugs/glitches here and there, give it a go.

a religious experience

its ok