COULD have been a 9.5/10 or even a 10
Since there's no option to post something that's both positive and negative, I'm putting it into the negative section so people can be more informed, and potentially the devs will see it.

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About me: I played Darksouls 2 and 3 all the way through, and I'm a huge fan of the "one" difficulty game - like Elden Ring. It's a great way to have a shared experience, both in triumph and tribulation. I love COOP games, and I love a challenge.

PROS, CONS, and SUGGESTIONS below.

• Perfect music. Great ambience.
  
• Insane lore. Magical environment. Incredible story.
  
• Stunning amounts of content. I've been playing over 100 hours, and I still have endless amounts of mystery to explore. Haven't felt the ability to beat the main story yet, or even where to go.
  
• Visual fidelity is remarkable
  
• Game runs very well, but reminder it is indeed 60fps capped.
  
• MOST MAIN boss fights are challenging, but not impossible. Mechanics are well thought out. Radahn is the exception, and he ruins the game for most people. Really lazy design.
  
• Plenty of items to go around.
  
• COOP took a huge step in the right direction with this game, but it's still really flawed. I'll explain more in the cons.

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• 60 FPS cap in 2022
  
• PVP was never balanced, and to make things worse - continues to be a horribly laggy experience somehow over peer to peer. This is largely due to the fact that initial testing for this game took place within a single week period, and the testers were limited to the first two zones of the game.
  
• Magic is incredibly broken, even post update. Lost 1.5 points alone for how unbalanced this part of the game is.
  
• Katana's are incredibly broken, and constantly stun + apply bleed. Something is glitched with them.
  
• Bleed mechanic continues to be incredibly broken.
  
• Second half of this game was meant to be played exclusively with magic, faith, or katanas if you're lucky. WORST BALANCED SOULS LIKE GAME EVER RELEASED. Period.
  
• Intro to the real game is weird and clunky at best. The intro itself is fine, you die and appear in the world. But the first world boss you encounter in the real world should not be located right outside of spawn, that's just needlessly cruel for a cruel game - considering how controversial horse mechanics are, especially to the new. Add this with no clear direction, and a lot of players will feel so aimless and destroyed, they just close the game without giving it a proper chance. Horse bosses feel extremely gimmicky and it's not what you want to introduce the player to right off the rip.
  
• If you DON'T run the game in windowed mode, and have a monitor above 60hz, the game will feel extra worse. I won't explain why in this review. Default is fullscreen and no one seems to know this little trick with souls games. Disabling VSYNC also a must. If done properly, you will have no tearing and a menu that runs above the cap - with a seemingly smoother and more responsive experience ingame.
  
• Respec is almost impossible. You better think 10 levels ahead and plan out your character without having any idea what's in the game already, because you need to kill the 2nd main boss to get access to it - and then find limited rare consumables. I've only found 2 in my 60 hours of gameplay and I can't imagine finding more. Not really possible to try out the different weapons as the requirements need to be met to try their abilities, and you would often need to respec to do so. - Edit, I found where you get them but it's very far into the game. Unfortunate. It's almost balanced as it is, but the quantities are extremely limited until you get 4 in one spot after around 80 hours if you play the game slow like I did - I only took 2 or 3 tries on most bosses in the game and did all the content I could getting to this point. I'm not sure how to get more after this, though, but I suspect they can be crafted somehow using the tears found in this new area.
  
• LOTS of re-used assets in completely different biomes or regions of the map - especially the catacombs, or monsters. Environment as well. There's enough variation that this isn't a huge complaint, but if they wanted to take this game to the next level, this would be an idea of where to start. It seems like this is the first time the studio attempted such an open world style of souls like game, so I understand it's a bit awkward.
  
• Buffs/Debuffs are not explained. Ever. There's no menu that explains your active statuses, you just see them by your health without explanation.
  
• Game controls are extremely awkward for PC, but can be made better. UI navigation cannot however. Lost 1 whole point for this alone in my review. Unacceptable for a 2022 release.
  
  

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  SUGGESTIONS
  As always, I will update this as I discover more about the game. Leave a comment if you have any information I don't seem to know. Thanks.
  
  
  • Remove 60fps cap, make 120 at the very least. Complete unlock if possible. I don't know the restrictions or reasoning behind 60, but I'm sure there's a good one.
    
  • Re-Work UI controls to be completely 100% PC friendly
    
  • Add more variety for side dungeons (catacombs)
    
  • Balance Katana/Bleed effects
    
  • Display active status descriptions within the equip menu, or underneath the item's ability description even when it isn't active
    
  • Re-Work large side bosses/monsters with how they interact with melee, ranged, and magic
    
  • Re-Work range (archery) completely. It's an absolute joke and very clunky.
    
  • Re-Work magic. It's incredibly unbalanced and very broken compared to every other method when fighting literally anything. It should not be a go to option over everything unless the player just doesn't feel like using it.
    
  • Re-Work Faith. Most abilities provided under the faith category are borderline useless, useless, or there's the few lightning strikes that are actually good - perhaps even broken.
    
  • Provide higher tickrates of multiplayer, possibly through steam servers or obscured P2P. Players should be seeing the same action, no gaps between players locations. I see players essentially teleporting on a daily basis because of how laggy multiplayer is. Not sure what the solution here is, as I don't know the limitations the studio is working with.
  
  Overall, it's a must buy game and incredibly fun. Just bear this in mind when you consider buying the game.

[H1] OVERALL RATING: 6.5/10[/H1] [b] [i]COULD have been[/i] a 9.5/10 or even a 10 [/b] Since there's no option to post something that's both positive and negative, I'm putting it into the negative section so people can be more informed, and potentially the devs will see it. [hr][/hr] About me: I played Darksouls 2 and 3 all the way through, and I'm a huge fan of the "one" difficulty game - like Elden Ring. It's a great way to have a shared experience, both in triumph and tribulation. I love COOP games, and I love a challenge. PROS, CONS, and SUGGESTIONS below. [H1] PROS [/H1] [list] [*] Perfect music. Great ambience. [*] Insane lore. Magical environment. Incredible story. [*] [b][i]Stunning amounts of content.[/i][/b] I've been playing over 100 hours, and I still have endless amounts of mystery to explore. Haven't felt the ability to beat the main story yet, or even where to go. [*] Visual fidelity is remarkable [*] Game runs very well, but reminder it is indeed 60fps capped. [*] MOST MAIN boss fights are challenging, but not impossible. Mechanics are well thought out. Radahn is the exception, and he ruins the game for most people. Really lazy design. [*] Plenty of items to go around. [*] COOP took a huge step in the right direction with this game, but it's still really flawed. I'll explain more in the cons. [/list] [hr][/hr] [H1] CONS [/H1] [list] [*] 60 FPS cap in 2022 [*] PVP was never balanced, and to make things worse - continues to be a horribly laggy experience somehow over peer to peer. This is largely due to the fact that initial testing for this game took place within a single week period, and the testers were limited to the first two zones of the game. [*] [b]Magic is incredibly broken, even post update. Lost 1.5 points alone for how unbalanced this part of the game is.[/b] [*] Katana's are incredibly broken, and constantly stun + apply bleed. Something is glitched with them. [*] Bleed mechanic continues to be incredibly broken. [*] Second half of this game was meant to be played exclusively with magic, faith, or katanas if you're lucky. [b]WORST BALANCED SOULS LIKE GAME EVER RELEASED. Period.[b] [*] Intro to the real game is weird and clunky at best. The intro itself is fine, you die and appear in the world. But the first world boss you encounter in the real world should not be located right outside of spawn, that's just needlessly cruel for a cruel game - considering how controversial horse mechanics are, especially to the new. Add this with no clear direction, and a lot of players will feel so aimless and destroyed, they just close the game without giving it a proper chance. [b]Horse bosses feel extremely gimmicky and it's not what you want to introduce the player to right off the rip.[/b] [*] If you DON'T run the game in windowed mode, and have a monitor above 60hz, the game will feel extra worse. I won't explain why in this review. Default is fullscreen and no one seems to know this little trick with souls games. Disabling VSYNC also a must. If done properly, you will have no tearing and a menu that runs above the cap - with a seemingly smoother and more responsive experience ingame. [*] [b]Respec is almost impossible.[/b] You better think 10 levels ahead and plan out your character without having any idea what's in the game already, because you need to kill the 2nd main boss to get access to it - and then find limited rare consumables. I've only found 2 in my 60 hours of gameplay [strike]and I can't imagine finding more. Not really possible to try out the different weapons as the requirements need to be met to try their abilities, and you would often need to respec to do so. [/strike] - Edit, I found where you get them but it's very far into the game. Unfortunate. It's almost balanced as it is, but the quantities are extremely limited until you get 4 in one spot after around 80 hours if you play the game slow like I did - I only took 2 or 3 tries on most bosses in the game and did all the content I could getting to this point. I'm not sure how to get more after this, though, but I suspect they can be crafted somehow using the tears found in this new area. [*] LOTS of re-used assets in completely different biomes or regions of the map - especially the catacombs, or monsters. Environment as well. There's enough variation that this isn't a huge complaint, but if they wanted to take this game to the next level, this would be an idea of where to start. It seems like this is the first time the studio attempted such an open world style of souls like game, so I understand it's a bit awkward. [*] Buffs/Debuffs are not explained. Ever. There's no menu that explains your active statuses, you just see them by your health without explanation. [*] Game controls are extremely awkward for PC, but can be made better. UI navigation cannot however. Lost 1 whole point for this alone in my review. Unacceptable for a 2022 release. [hr][/hr] [H1] SUGGESTIONS [/H1] [i]As always, I will update this as I discover more about the game. Leave a comment if you have any information I don't seem to know. Thanks.[/i] [list] [*] Remove 60fps cap, make 120 at the very least. Complete unlock if possible. I don't know the restrictions or reasoning behind 60, but I'm sure there's a good one. [*] Re-Work UI controls to be completely 100% PC friendly [*] Add more variety for side dungeons (catacombs) [*] Balance Katana/Bleed effects [*] Display active status descriptions within the equip menu, or underneath the item's ability description even when it isn't active [*] Re-Work large side bosses/monsters with how they interact with melee, ranged, and magic [*] Re-Work range (archery) completely. It's an absolute joke and very clunky. [*] Re-Work magic. It's incredibly unbalanced and very broken compared to every other method when fighting literally anything. It should not be a go to option over everything unless the player just doesn't feel like using it. [*] Re-Work Faith. Most abilities provided under the faith category are borderline useless, useless, or there's the few lightning strikes that are actually good - perhaps even broken. [*] Provide higher tickrates of multiplayer, possibly through steam servers or obscured P2P. Players should be seeing the same action, no gaps between players locations. I see players essentially teleporting on a daily basis because of how laggy multiplayer is. Not sure what the solution here is, as I don't know the limitations the studio is working with. [/list] Overall, it's a must buy game and incredibly fun. Just bear this in mind when you consider buying the game.