I for one love what they've done with the combat in Deathbound. I wish the game was longer.

I truly believe a lot of the souls ''community'' is scared of change. As soon as small bits of the formula are changed they're afraid to learn new aspects and combat systems and just frustrated and review bomb.
It stops devs from trying new things and stops the genre from progressing.


Pro:
-Voice acting is great, I really enjoyed the conversation and arguments between spirits.
-Combat system. The morph system is great. (explained more below)
-World looks decent because of the lighting used in a lot of places. (also a con)
-Plenty of shortcuts although many quite predictable.
-Loot EVERYWHERE. There's space behind a corner where they could have placed loot? THERE WILL BE LOOT.
-Story from different views - as you have many spirits they all see the story unfold with their own political/religious viewpoint.
-Heat system is a nice take on having ranged/magic users without limiting ammo/magic
-Great barrel/wooden box physics...

Neutral:
- Equipment/upgrades. Very bland. Only found one set of rings to be useful.
- Leveling up - Interesting. It works. That's about it. At least it looks nice.

Con
-8 crashes in 13 hours
-Shadows is connected to lighting? Turning down shadows also makes a lot of the lighting situations turn off.
-Performance goes from 60 to 30 depending on particle effects. Some effects severely make the game suffer and some are used only once in the game. (for example the weird fireworks glitter when you arrive in the lift to the boss)
-Can't set your own controls. Why not? This is 2024 :( HOWEVER. It made me use control scheme B and the game works much better to have your spirits connected to the X/Y/B/A buttons.


COMBAT

Dev tries something new and a lot of people seem to misunderstand it or simply don't want to learn it.

There basically are no healing potions and stamina is tied to health. But you have 4 different health and stamina bars. Your other spirits gain health when the active one deals damage. So you basically heal by being aggressive.

You morph during dashes to use the stamina from other spirits so you don't run out while evading.
You morph during attacks to do extra damage BUT more importantly morph striking gives you I-frames and it is immensely satisfying to dodge attacks this way.

The only slight downside is that once you master it it does make the game too easy. Especially the last half of the game.

I like the theme they pick about charachter change in here, it like we have party (but not realy party) ahahaha

its recomend for newplayer who want to play soul-like, because it still easy (maybe)

will make other review later ahaha

Tough but fair combat mixed with some interesting new mechanics and a story that takes you to new, emotional places.
Soulslike enthusiasts should definitely give it a try!