Only an hour in, but I’m loving it!! Coming from Elden Ring (hundreds of hours on console; double-dipped on Steam), I wasn’t sure what to expect. Yeah, this is much more of an indie feel, but I’m really impressed with the depth of combat mechanics. The world is beautiful to explore, the enemy designs are also unique, the magical fix is *chef’s kiss*, and I really enjoy the protagonist. Works great on Steam Deck (performance mode, medium settings, 60FPS locked).

Absolutely chaotic and clunky fighting system - counters with handgun not register a lot of times. Unclear enemies attack animations and unclear dodge moments. Last boss has non counter attack flash point spawn inside it and you cant even notice it what a mess.

Can only play as a woman... in a game about using brute force to defeat opponents.

Stupidly immersion breaking when every fight is followed up with "yeah, right" when you smack an opponent across the room. Especially when they are at least double your size.

And that's in addition to the fact that for some reason you only get 3 shots with your flintlock pistol (that you don't actually reload), but is your primary source of interrupts and damage. Confusing mechanics choice there by the developers. So you're stuck using your axe for most of the damage which... as I mentioned is pathetically unbelievable when you're a tiny woman.

The levels all seem to be linear and basically disguised rooms with mobs waiting for you to fight them.

There's some kind of mechanic where you're basically gambling with your "reputation" which is garnered by killing mobs, but it disappears if you don't cash it in and get hit... again, kind of amusingly poor choice by the developers.

The usual tropes are there..
Red attacks means unblockable.
There's a block/parry skill just like every other game lately that only seems to work when it wants to.
The sprint key is rebound to CTRL for some reason and shift is your dodge instead of sprint.. no idea why.

Massive stuttering if you have a current-gen video card. You'll need to look up some articles on how to fix it and what to disable.

Oh, and... this whole adventure happens because you shot a gun at a forcefield... and broke it.... during a war... when people are shooting guns constantly.

Yeah, so much of this is garbage.