Copy arrived today, there was a 4 gig download to start out with but I played while the download was going and it worked fine, no crashes or anything. Firstly the game feels fantastic, it's everything you would want from a Souls game except I think there's a little more fluidity in some cases. In Dark Souls almost every early game enemy has very little poise, but in this game each enemy has varying degrees of it and you have to get used to how much damage will stagger XYZ enemy. One of the toughest early game enemies staggers very easily but if you don't get right up in their face they can completely destroy you (assuming you're not wearing heavy armor); there's just a lot of variety and feel to how you approach each enemy type. Crossbowmen don't just stand there when you get right next to them, they shoot a crossbow bolt in your face quickly; so you have to be conscious of that as well.
I'm playing a rogue which is really interesting/decently challenging so far. I've died three times in 2 hours so far (I didn't die in the first 2 hours of either Dark or Demon's Souls), once due to forgetting how one of the first boss' attacks works and the other two due to not having any estus (must have more exp!); but even when I'm not dying I still have these exciting narrow escape situations. The "timing puzzle" as it were of each weapon is quite difficult, especially when you're fighting a large enemy that can kill you in 2 hits; and while I suspect most people will stick to one trusty combo or another mastering all of them for each different weapon would take you an insanely long time. Users of the L1/R1/L1 combo might be surprised to learn that there's another step to that combo with another followup R1 (there's other ways to do it as well). The L2/R2/L2/R2 combos seem extremely difficult to pull off but when you do they swap the third and fourth step in the R2/R2/R2/R2 chain which might be useful for some enemies. It's actually really difficult to keep your focus on the combo timing outside of the easiest ones while also dodging a boss' attacks.
In terms of aesthetics the game looks great (playing on PS4), it's not extremely smooth but shocker for you: neither were any of the Souls games on consoles. The lighting engine is extremely nice in the game and a lot of the armor looks great as well. There seem to be distinctions between basic enemies visually if they wind up hitting harder or self reviving or what have you, so if you're paying enough attention you can see when that will happen as well. The game does not feel slower than the Souls series (which is a very methodically paced series so that complaint made absolutely no sense anyway), though the slowest attacks might be more difficult to pull off.
Random stuff: Barrels give loot! Perhaps the biggest improvement over the Souls franchise which cruelly rewarded us barrel smashers with very little, barrels in this game are your best friend. If a wall has cracks in it then jump your fat bald man ass through that shit. It seems like you can charge up the grenade on the gauntlet, though I have no idea why. The loading screen tips are extremely aware of their audience it seems:
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