Recent reviews by Caleb

NO SPOILERS

PVP connectivity is EXTREMELY bad but when it works it is fun.

Aside from that, i don't know why everyone is wanting to be able to progress their own story in an others game, this has never been the case with souls games. I understand that it never being the case means it always has to be, but i find with this style of game personally i want to be able to do the specific quest lines that i want; not one i have to decide on and share with a co-op buddy.

I do like the game-play loop of playing through with your friend and then having them help you play through yours. its great for gathering currency and remembering where certain items are located.

Build viability among the different spell types umbral, infernal and radiant are fantastic. I've used all 3 types doing an umbral build (which is a hybrid of infernal and radiant) and have had a blast with all of the diversity and utility i have.

The weapon upgrade system is extremely similar to dark souls - Collect upgrade materials > upgrade weapons to +10. But this game has a slightly different twist on weapon upgrades in the form of socket able gems. These can these can be similar to the stones in DS3 as they can increase scaling with certain stats but the interesting part is that they are interchangeable and not consumed upon use, meaning you can play around with different gem combinations and not be punished. Each weapon can have up to 3 gem slots (unlocked on upgrade). This became even more interesting upon obtaining gems that can increase things like bleed, poison or fire buildup or ones that allowed me to reduce the weight of a weapon to 0, increase damage while dual wielding, heal after a kill and restore mana after a kill.

I have fought every boss except the final, i am currently collecting everything i can before i complete my first play-through. with that in mind i have found some of the bosses are quite easy. Although some of them have cool mechanics you cant just brute force your way through. I found more struggle in some of the monsters strength as you progress but that could be my own fault for starting the game with a very glass cannon build.

All in all, as a player whom has played every FromSoft game since DS1 and most of the team ninja games i would say this is very much worth the price tag as long as they fix some some of the network/desync issues.