The basics:

• It's not even a souls like, it's an outright 80% dark souls clone with couple twists of its own.(Not a bad thing i guess)
  
• It has barely anything to do with original 2014 game besides taking couple lore concepts.
  
• Features actually enjoyable "arcade" coop with no invisible walls or kicking of clients when failing or killing a boss.

The good:

• Probably prettiest souls like so far.
  
• Fair amount of equipment.
  
• Decently open environments.
  
• Ammo design for ranged weapons is way more fun.
  
• Sound design and area reverbs are pretty great (except umbral thing - who thought having child cry on loop was a good idea)

The neutral:

• Combat is quite floaty, relies on unique parry/stamina system for best results.
  
• A lot of world/lore/NPC handling is taken straight from FROM software games, at least NPC mouths "move" when talking but they still only move around when resting/warping.
  
• Super weird handling of area names, only couple of areas really have names and they are only displayed in specific spots.

The bad:

• Even on a beefy hardware, there are spots where performance takes a nosedive, especially with whole umbral thing.
  
• Umbral thing is a gimmick at best and quickly becomes super tedious with how relentlessly it spawns enemies, even at zero "dread". There are times you cannot interact with environment, since it has low priority lock-on and constantly spawning zombies will steal the lock-on from those objects.
  
• Progression path is not obvious, two rooms next to each other can have same enemy types where ones are manageable and others will wipe the floor with you.
  
• Not too many enemy types.
  
• Point above is usually combined with encounters designed around hiding enemies behind objects/corners to push you off ledges and/or having a lot of ranged enemies to spam at you from KILOMETERS away.
  
• Dark souls jump mechanic sucks - there's a reason even FROM gave up on it with elden ring.
  
• Doesn't use UE5 up to its potential, absolutely no raytracing and texture quality could be
  better.
  
• Human character models, especially faces/eyes/hair are absolutely atrocious.

Overall it's a competent game that's fun most of the time but it has its incredibly frustrating moments. With time and some patches and balancing passes it could really be one of both better looking and better playing soulslikes and i really hope that happens.

[h1]A mixed bag but overall positive (i guess)[/h1] [b]The basics:[/b] [list] [*]It's not even a souls like, it's an outright 80% dark souls clone with couple twists of its own.(Not a bad thing i guess) [*]It has barely anything to do with original 2014 game besides taking couple lore concepts. [*]Features actually enjoyable "arcade" coop with no invisible walls or kicking of clients when failing or killing a boss. [/list] [b]The good:[/b] [list] [*]Probably prettiest souls like so far. [*]Fair amount of equipment. [*]Decently open environments. [*]Ammo design for ranged weapons is way more fun. [*]Sound design and area reverbs are pretty great (except umbral thing - who thought having child cry on loop was a good idea) [/list] [b]The neutral:[/b] [list] [*]Combat is quite floaty, relies on unique parry/stamina system for best results. [*]A lot of world/lore/NPC handling is taken straight from FROM software games, at least NPC mouths "move" when talking but they still only move around when resting/warping. [*]Super weird handling of area names, only couple of areas really have names and they are only displayed in specific spots. [/list] [b]The bad:[/b] [list] [*]Even on a beefy hardware, there are spots where performance takes a nosedive, especially with whole umbral thing. [*]Umbral thing is a gimmick at best and quickly becomes super tedious with how relentlessly it spawns enemies, even at zero "dread". There are times you cannot interact with environment, since it has low priority lock-on and constantly spawning zombies will steal the lock-on from those objects. [*]Progression path is not obvious, two rooms next to each other can have same enemy types where ones are manageable and others will wipe the floor with you. [*]Not too many enemy types. [*]Point above is usually combined with encounters designed around hiding enemies behind objects/corners to push you off ledges and/or having a lot of ranged enemies to spam at you from KILOMETERS away. [*]Dark souls jump mechanic sucks - there's a reason even FROM gave up on it with elden ring. [*]Doesn't use UE5 up to its potential, absolutely no raytracing and texture quality could be better. [*][u]Human character models, especially faces/eyes/hair are absolutely atrocious.[/u] [/list] Overall it's a competent game that's fun most of the time but it has its incredibly frustrating moments. With time and some patches and balancing passes it could really be one of both better looking and better playing soulslikes and i really hope that happens.