So I was really excited for this game.

My initial impressions after about a half an hour however have left me feeling pretty disappointed. This game is gorgeous. Great art, great sound design. However I'm not so sure about the combat. It feels really sluggish. There's a ton of animation priority on everything. You can't cancel out of your dash with your attack or vice versa. You can't dash through enemies so its super easy to get boxed in. You can't dash through bullets either. The respawning animation takes like 20 seconds. It's rough and feels awful. EDIT: having played more of it.. Ehhh.. if you're on the fence about this game, maybe pass it up. Despite looking nice, it's super rough around the edges.

What has been your experience so far?

played about 80 minutes and i like it a lot. the combat's speed seems very deliberate and it feels challenging & fun for me at least. art is obviously gorgeous & the music/sound design is fantastic. have noticed some fez-style cryptographic stuff around the environment and some intriguing hidden areas. enjoying the sense of discovery, and the way it non-verbally communicates ideas. excited to keep playin. we on that hyper light beam

edit: just beat the boss to the north. super hard but satisfying.

@d_w: Much like Moon Hunters this again seems like a indie title where the focus was more on form than substance. Call me disappointed but not surprised.

I was excited for it, and I'm excited to try it on my own, but it's disheartening to hear that this might be another case of style over substance.

Have to agree - seems the developer put more focus on style over gameplay.

There's nothing wrong with a game being hard as a deliberate choice but if the difficulty is to a big extend driven by poorly implemented gameplay mechanics than you have messed up.

This game is fucking amazing.

It's not difficult though. It's chalk full of questionable design choices that make it appear difficult.
Let's take the check point system for example. If you die in combat your thrown back to the last auto-save. Your health, healing items, all resources you use during combat will be back to whatever they were when you hit that autosave. Health pacts are extremely rare to come by. So much so that most rooms don't even have one in them. Especially if there's a ton of combat. When there's not combat they seem to be more common. So if you get to a combat encounter with 3 health and no health pacts, well you'll be stuck there until you either beat it or go back to town (which, to the game's credit, can be done from anywhere as long as you're outside.) It gets worse though. Let's say you get through a room, find all the secrets and such, only to die at the last enemy. Guess what? You have to do the entire room over again. You have to find all those secrets and fight all the fights again. This is game that has no qualms about wasting the player's time if they happen to fail.

The short game wants to be a frantic action game that leaves you drained of your resources by the end of this encounter. Where the long game wants to keep you resource gathering limited and trickle out bits in secret areas. There's no synergy between the long and short game. The combat encounters want to be tough twitchy action scenes that you'll get through by the skin of your teeth but they also don't resupply you afterwords or during if you fail and have to try again. It's just incoherent.

I'm not sure we're going to agree on those choices being poor mechanics. Especially once I started moving a little further in (I'm still only just bashing my head against the first boss, so not too far in), I started realising they really are trying to make sure I execute perfectly. Getting through a room on one hit point isn't good enough; burning all the healing items in one room isn't good enough either. I don't really mind if that's called difficulty or not, but I've been really enjoying it so far.

I'd also disagree pretty strongly that the combat is supposed to be twitchy. There's very deliberate ways the character moves, including a long pause after every third attack, and your dash being very important in terms of when you do and don't use it. In some ways it feels almost like they're making you plan out how you'll handle the whole room.

Re: upgrades

Sucks that it's not the game you wanted, though. Hopefully there's something better coming over the horizon for you!

Not far in but I'm loving the mystery of it, and the dashing feels really good. Was expecting something a little closer to Diablo than Zelda, but actually quite pleaed it's closer to the latter. I'm afraid at some point things will get confusing and I'll get stuck (I dawdled in town a bit before heading north) but so far quite enjoying it. Seriously, the controls so far feel really good though I see why they can be frustrating.

The name of this game made me think it was some rhythm game, racing game, platformer, or some combination of the three. I had no idea it was in any way an RPG. But all I knew was the name.

So I guess I'll check it out.

The art and audio design are just really wonderful, as you could expect from the trailers. What has caught me by surprise is, whoa this game is difficult! The combat feels tight and deliberately paced. It's pretty heavy on the animation priority, so if that is something you can't stand maybe wait on this. For me it works, if I roll or swing at the wrong time, the game punishes me, fair is fair.

I'm only a couple hours in but the game is taking on the feeling of a series of intense combat puzzles. One of the more tough one's I had to play maybe 15 times until I got it right. I don't really have the tempo of the combat down yet, but man when I finally completed it I felt like a freaking space samurai.

Definitely the Dark Souls of indie games released in the second half of March 2016.

Hmmh, definitely on the fence about the combat. Gotta play a bit more, but might finally give the whole refund thing a try. I really love the visual design, if something.

yo this game is hard. as fuck. things got serious real fast.

I knew pretty much nothing about the game before playing it and so far it's been really enjoyable. The combat seems really cool, I love how nothing is explained, beautiful artwork, seems like a solid purchase to me.

I've had some stretches of bad play, but overall I really like it (I'm still not to the first boss). Learning a lot as I mess with how dodging + attacking interact with a lot of these enemies where you need to bait out their attacks and then dodge away to open them up for more damage.

I only played about an hour so far so I'm not totally comfortable with the combat yet. I'm not against deliberate animations though. Maybe it will piss me off, we'll see. Obviously its gorgeous and I love the lack of straight story telling: I'm really appreciating the explanation through simple frame animation and stills.

I love the look of it but there's something about the framerate that seemed really off? The movement feels all wrong at times.

First impressions: It looks great, but the combat and movement feel like straight trash.

At first glance the combat doesn't feel right. However, looking at how enemies move and attack, it all comes down to positioning yourself in the right place. This is more apparent with the first boss in the north. Overall, I'm really liking the game the more I play and experiment with the new abilities. The atmosphere is pretty interesting and the emotions from the characters makes it feel alive despite it holding back info.

This game is trying way too hard to be a difficult game, and it just ends up being frustrating and unfun. The very tight instant death sliding block areas are fucking awful frustrating messes, and I just ran into one that is basically completely dark. The combat is okay, but straight out of the gate it throws very difficult encounters out, and the solution to most of the fights is to dash constantly. The first boss was fun, but again, incredibly frustrating the first few times. The chain-dash challenge in the shop is fucking idiotic; chaining 800 dashes together in a circle to get a new sword isn't fun and at least for me, impossible to pull off. Maybe this game could find a happy place in my head if I continue playing and get some more upgrades to vary up the combat a bit, but right now it just inspires pure anger.

I'm really enjoying it. It seems people are split on the combat. I think its really well designed! Ammo being tied to melee is actually really smart. Its been a while since I've played a top-down action game that was so deliberate.I'm also really enjoying the difficulty of it, its constantly challenging out of the gate. Guys hit hard and most bad moves leave you open, but also you can totally just kill most enemies with a 3 hit combo to the side and then your pistol if they're tougher. So yea I'm digging it.

Also the soundtrack is hitting all the right notes for me. Really fits with the tone of the world they're going for. Aesthetically its some pretty fantastic pixel art. So far I beat the first northern boss,then got a dash upgrade, and then went around to another area. Looks like the game is semi-open, so I imagine that's how they balance out the game a bit.

Loving it so far. The visual design, the soundtrack, the textless storytelling and in-game elements.. all fantastic. I'm really liking the combat too. Bit too early to say how deep its going to get, but right now its satisfying. Just got to the first boss. Gave him 5 tries and got him down to a 1/4 health. Going to sleep on it and see if I can get him in the morning.

Not a huge fan of 30fps, but its not a dealbreaker. So far its only really ugly when the screen scrolls. The sprite animations look great - i haven't looked super close but I think the player character animates at 15 for the most part, nice weighty look to the sword swings and dashes. Good tells on all the enemy attacks, everything is avoidable if you are paying attention. And I love that touch where you clear a tough room and he slams the sword down into the ground (to look cool i guess?).

@mike: harsh. To me it feels nicely deliberate, especially the dashing. I feel with time you could pull off some rad manuvers.

I'm about 8 hours in so far. Visual Design and Soundtrack are awesome. Every area stands on its own visually. The bosses are different enough to be interesting (there are not many though). I like it, though some mechanics dont feel as polished as they should be, the dash especially. Solid game so far.

This game plays like it was designed aesthetic first gameplay second. The combat is fine, the music is good and, the art is great. I am only at the first boss fight and still having fun with it. It is a damn shame that it is locked at 30fps.

It really annoys me that you can't chain dash straight away, since I played a tonne of the preview and was doing that constantly. Other than that I like it except for the technical issues I've run into (screenshots don't work and achievements are broken).

Screenshots definitely don't work, I'm glad I'm not the only one because I thought I was going crazy.

I just spent way too much time trying to past a secret? area that required moving through these super annoying crystal ground traps. At the end was some kind of key. I just kept bashing my head against this changing where I aimed my dash and just hoped I'd survive with enough health kits. Then you had to get BACK so that it would save and register grabbing the key.

Did I miss something major here in terms of passing this? Because this was a mess and incredibly frustrating. Watching that death animation a million times has me scared for bosses.

@nickhead: Are you able to use the map to warp back to somewhere safe once you've got the key? Or maybe there's a later ability that makes it easier. I've not gotten very far in the actual game yet, so I don't really know.

@nickhead: you need the chain dash upgrade to get past there. it is still super tough though because you have to chain like 5 dashes together and the timing can be rough.

You can teleport to any checkpoint at any time you so choose. So for example, you're out in the world and finally have enough materials for an upgrade? Just warp back to town and get that well deserved power boost :)

@katiedey: you can dash up to FIVE TIMES?!

@sebbodes: You have to get an upgrade before you can chain dashes together.

BTW question, do specific enemies have the upgrades drop, or are those the equivalent of exp level ups where you killed enough enemies to warrant an upgrade node?

@sporkacus77: Yeah, I know. That's what I was suggesting they do.

@westernwizard: oh yeah, i bought this upgrade. its just super hard to chain the dashes together, the timing to do it is really rough. i was able to chain 32 dashes together in the training room now, but outside of it, the window seems either to narrow or it simply does not work.

I was a little afraid when reading some comments calling it "style over substance", but I disagree. I think it plays very well. I wouldn't call it difficult since I haven't had many issues so far, but it can certainly be challenging at times. I'm glad I backed it on KS.

The framerate is a little unfortunate, but hopefully they can at least make it more stable soon. I've also had it crash to desktop twice in about 3-4 hours of play.

Overall, I'm loving it so far. Style is definitely a large focus and it knocks it out of the park there.

The screen goes black when i launch the game. I can hear the music and menu sounds when i move the mouse around, but no picture. Has anyone else experienced this?

@nicolenomicon: @katiedey: @sporkacus77: thanks all for answering, I think it's pretty funny I managed to figure it out without that upgrade. And I can't believe I forgot about warping at any time. Two simple things that ease my mind about the game.

Can you actually get the upgrade...thing from killing monsters? I thought they were only from finding them in the boxes in the environment. But at the same time there was also a point where I went back to town and had way more than I actually thought I'd found.

@neocalypso: I don't think the system operates on a counter, but you will get an upgrade node every once in a while, usually after harder engagements that you're unable to just book past.

Though I complained up above about how an area seemed impossible, I'm with you. I like how the little bit I've played is just barely telling me what to do. Gameplay wise and story wise.

With the upgrade you can dash maybe 20-30 times in a row. There's a special chalenge room where you can dash infinite times and a challenge for dashing 500 or 1000 times without stoping or running into walls. Way harder than you would expect since the advanced dash is crazy and requires good timing to execute.

@pyrodactyl: yes, after @katiedey mentioned it, i tried out the practice room. i actually thought that the upgrade is only meant for three dashes max before that. my top is 56 now, but im probably not gonna master this challenge.

@neocalypso only way to get the upgrades is by the store vendors where you trade in the yellow upgrade points (4 parts make one whole upgrade point), the monsters also drop other things, that im not gonna spoil.

I enjoyed the 90 minutes I played of this so far, but I think I'm going to request a refund if it's possible. I'm playing on a non-gaming PC and the performance is less than ideal. The frame rate drops to at least 20 fps in the hub area.

That said, the game has left a very good first impression on me. I like just about everything about it, especially the aspects that are similar to Dark Souls. I personally found the combat to be engaging, despite the mechanics being rather simplistic, at least at this point. The enemies have been varied and the encounters well-designed. I also love the soundtrack; it adds so much to the atmosphere.

I think when the PS4 version comes out, it will be a day one purchase for me.

I love the west boss. The trick to make it way easier is subtle and cleaver, but takes a boss that feels absurd and makes it just interesting. Now I'm on to the north.

Finished it today and started into New Game +. I love it, game is pretty much perfect. Combat feels like Link to the Past meets Dark Souls. Story feels like an anime acid trip. Can't pull off the dash challenge room though, I'm too casual T_T

@westernwizard: Yeah, it a clever design for that boss set up. Careful with the north boss, he one of the hard ones if you don't look carefully at the his move patterns.

@metalsnakezero: Saw some reference to it elsewhere, yeah will be interesting. Hopefully I'll find enough upgrade nodes to get the charged attack.

@westernwizard: West boss is a real fucker. Took me about 30 tries to kill him (15 of which were before I figured out the trick to make it easier). East boss was super easy by comparison (just 2 tries on him for me). Now I'm at North boss, and it's going pretty rough. I have runs where I do 80% of his health and die, and then I'll have 5 runs in a row where I die after taking 10% off him.

This game is incredible. I feel young again playing it.