Shaun Keneston

Listen, I like challenging games as much as the next guy, but this one’s not a challenge, it’s a fcuking JOKE. The game is literally designed so you get one-shotted by the first real enemy you face. Fine. No big deal, but as a result you get to start the actual game with only half your health. Like WTF is that? The game isn’t hard enough already? They have to take away half of your health, too? Then the first level is insanely large, with no map, and no checkpoints even remotely close. You know how some games have WAY too many checkpoints all squished together? Well, let just say Demon Souls DEFINITELY does not have that problem… Other games at least throw you a bone and let you save after hacking your way through dozens of bad guys, before facing the guy who has ten times your health, and can kill you with one hit. I really don’t even mind the OP enemies scattered throughout the first level. I genuinely enjoy the challenge, and the strategy involved with trying to figure out how to beat them. What drives me INSANE is having to start all the way back at the beginning of the level every single time one of the OP enemies kills you with a single hit. After you kill a few dozen enemies you get lulled into a false sense of security - like you actually know what you’re doing and might be able to handle this game, but instead of a checkpoint you’re rewarded with MORE one-shot enemies, and then your crappy starting weapon starts doing almost no damage because it’s stats suck, and you lose “durability” every time you use it. Oh, and have fun with the “targeting” system. One of my favorite things is when I’m in an open area with multiple enemies that I can clearly see, with no obstacles between us. I’m literally facing them directly, moving straight towards them, and when I hit the “targeting” button instead of highlighting one of the three bad guys directly in front of me, I get turned around 180 degrees, so my back is turned, and I’m targeting an interesting brick on the second story of a castle, or a rope dangling from a branch while the bad guys are closing in on me. Talk about a great system! The bad guys don’t seem to have the same problem. They’re somehow able to target me from three or four times as far as I’m able to target them. With deadly accuracy. I’ve never once seen them get turned around so their back is facing me. Interesting how that works when we’re literally using identical crossbows with identical projectiles. Maybe they have better sights on their weapons… Inevitably you die, and have to start over all the way back at the beginning, and fight through every single enemy that you already killed before you died since they ALL respawn. I’m not gonna lie - after this happened to me 2 or 3 times I just completely lost interest. Like why even bother doing this when the reward is just more of the same…? I just don’t see the point. Fighting through every single enemy every time you die is just tedious, and boring when you already know exactly where they are. If your goal was to make people not want to play, great job devs - mission accomplished.

As this game progresses the bosses just get more and more ridiculous. Like it’s not even fun. I can deal with them moving 3 times as fast, disappearing & reappearing at will ANYWHERE, shooting endless, unlimited amounts of poison/lava/fire that cover the area AND linger, whatever… All of that is fair game. What’s so ridiculously INFURIATING to me are all of the animation locks, and delays that occur. To execute ANY charge attack first you have to wait for the regular nail attack, then there’s almost a 1 second delay, then the actual charging FINALLY starts. That lasts at least another second. So around 3 seconds to use any sort of charged attack?! During a boss fight?! While the boss is already bouncing around 3 times faster than you, and lobbing those homing projectiles that never miss?! Such a fucking joke. Good fucking luck. Using charged attacks during boss fights is the equivalent of telling a kindergartner to assemble some Ikea furniture. Total bullshit. And let’s not forget every gamer’s favorite, tired, over-used boss fight cliche… The “Oh, you thought you FINALLY beat the boss you’ve been fighting for 3 days…? LOL! NOT! GUESS AGAIN! His health is going to completely refill now. Good luck fighting him with that shred of health you have left” bullshit… Hope you like it, because just like every other game out there, Hollow Knight uses this trope ad infinitum. I’m sorry. Call me whatever you want. This game starts out great, but after a certain point it’s just not fun anymore. I’m fucking DONE. It doesn’t matter what upgrades, spells, charms, and nail arts you have when it’s absolutely impossible to heal during boss fights. Literally the fucking millisecond you hit the button to start focus healing the boss immediately stops whatever he’s doing, jumps directly on your head, and shoots you with his death ray. Even with Quick Focus you literally have no chance. Three masks GONE before you’re even HALFWAY through the 10 minute healing animation. It doesn’t make me want to try harder. It makes me want to turn the game off. I almost forgot about my absolute FAVORITE feature of this game. You’ve FINALLY got a boss on the ropes. You’ve got his moveset down pat, and you know he’s close to death. You manage to bank enough soul for one last Shamen Stone enhanced spell that might just kill him. The boss is on your left. You’re not only looking, and facing left, you’re literally moving left TOWARDS HIM. You press the spell button, and inexplicably the shadow flies TO THE RIGHT instead of the direction you’re looking, facing, and moving. Fun! Then the boss hits you, you die, and the 15 minutes you spend battling the infuriatingly overpowered boss is wasted. I know I can’t be alone here. This has happened to me SEVERAL times across multiple bosses, so it’s not a glitch, or one-time thing. As if boss fights weren’t frustrating enough already. This just puts the icing on the cake.

Great game, but WTF is up with the Frog Ninja bullet sponges…? Seriously… My health is 7 segments long. I have 5 carrot juice segments upgraded to the max. I just keep pounding these fcukers over and over with the strongest SP attacks, and THEY WILL NOT DIE… Seriously - supposedly some SP attacks do “MASSIVE” damage. In addition to countless whips, and close to 50 missiles, I hit these bastards with 4 or 5 SP slams and NOTHING… I swear they absorb more hits than all the bosses. It’s a fcuking joke. Also, get used to the game thoughtfully switching up your selected device, weapon, and even the direction you’re facing, usually at the literal worst time possible. For example, you’re about to die, but you’re not worried because you still have all 5 carrot juices. You go to take a life-saving swig, and SURPRISE, you end up wasting a carrot on a rabbit decoy, or homing missiles even though you’ve never used any other devices besides carrot juice. I have to mention the Cicero boss fight specifically. His 3 full health bars, and bull💩 OP attacks don’t bother me in the least. What is infuriating to the point of being comical about this guy is how he’s able to interrupt, walk right through, and altogether avoid charged SP attacks like they’re not even happening. You charge up the devastating Power Storm+ attack, release it RIGHT FCUKING NEXT TO HIM, and watch the electrified whip PASS RIGHT FCUKING THROUGH HIM - CONTINUOUSLY, and not hit him once. The big explosion at the end has zero affect. He can literally walk right through your strongest attack like it’s not even there. Of course he hits you right after that with one of his patented combos where the very first hit locks you into the animation, and all you can do is watch your health disappear, and wait until the 17 hits finish and you can finally move again.

This game is extremely well designed, and LOTS of fun, but the boss fights are a little ridiculous. Here’s a preview of literally every single boss fight in the game: Number of clean hits you can absorb before death without hitting the pipe - 2, possibly 3 depending on upgrades. Number of hits it takes to kill bosses - at least 50. Once you reach mid game you basically have to kill every boss twice. So you think you FINALLY beat the boss you’ve been battling for 2 or 3 days, and SURPRISE, guess again - his health completely refills, and you have to beat him again. Like I said, they use this tired cliche on just about every single boss fight, not just 1 or 2 of the late end game bosses, so get used to it. Most boss fight areas have flame barriers on both sides that only affect you, but never the boss. When you see the boss’ hit boxes all you can do is laugh. They’re literally a quarter of the screen. It doesn’t matter if the weapon actually hits you - even if you completely avoid the weapon, and it never comes close to touching you, you still get hit if you’re anywhere near the boss. For example, you’re on the boss’ right, he winds up and lunges at you with his spear. You jump, dash, and completely avoid any contact with the weapon, and end up 2 or 3 body widths BEHIND the boss, now on his left, and somehow STILL get hit. Of course the opposite is true for your attacks. Your blade can pass right through bosses without hitting them. The most infuriating thing about boss fights is the animation timing. For the first few boss fights, if you get hit once, you’re dead. You can only withstand 3 hits. After the first hit, you’re stuck in the recovery animation, and can’t do anything until it completes, which it does, but only 99.9999999999%. Then before you can do ANYTHING you get hit again, and the process repeats - hit, knock down, recovery, animation plays again, completes 99.99999999999%, then the boss hits you for the third time, and you die. Fun. For a game that depends so heavily on blocking, and parrying, the controls feel slow, clunky, and unresponsive. The parrying mechanic is as unintuitive as it gets. You have to hold down the block button, then release it at just the right time - just not when you think. Most games have you press, or release the block button a split second before contact to parry, but this game requires you to hold block for what feels like an eternity to “charge” the parry ability, then release it well before the attack lands, but you can’t just hold block indefinitely because the charge “dissipates after a short while…” Imagine trying to do this every time you want to parry during extremely fast-paced combat. Can you say: “Next to impossible…?” You almost have to guess when the boss is going to attack. If all of these tired “souls-like” cliches are your thing, you are really going to LOVE this game…

Possibly the least responsive controls I’ve ever experienced in a console game. This takes all the fun out of combat. Fights are slow, and methodical. Dodging, and parrying are absolutely critical, especially in the beginning when your only weapons are your fists, but the slow, clunky, unresponsive controls make combat with all but the easiest enemies an exercise in futility.

What a joke. Quite possibly the worst control response of any PS5 game I’ve ever played. The endgame escape from the volcano is next to impossible. Not because it’s hard, but because the game just DOES NOT RESPOND to the controller inputs. From a fully charged almost brand new PS5 branded controller. Absolutely INFURIATING. After 30 or 40 attempts I just don’t feel like trying anymore. The lava “rubberbanding” is also comical. It makes absolutely ZERO difference how far ahead you get because once you reach certain points the lava magically warps through space and catches right back up to you. I really liked this game until I got to the end. It starts really slow, and the combat requires almost no thought until you’re almost at the end. The puzzles and platforming are also very simplistic and linear. You don’t even notice how non-responsive the controls are until you’re attempting to fly through twisty turns thorn mazes while outrunning lava.

This game would be truly great if the controls weren’t so mind-numbingly slow and unresponsive, most notably, sprinting. I don’t know if it’s a bug, or an intended gameplay mechanic, but something as simple as trying to get Jak to sprint should not be so frustratingly difficult. From the very start of the game this takes the focus off of everything this game does so well, and that’s a damn shame.

I really like this game, however the clunky, non-responsive controls, and ridiculously long animation locks make for EXTREMELY frustrating combat, especially during boss fights. Also, if the environment interferes with the path of MY weapon, it should interfere with enemy weapons as well. Weapon customization is where this game really shines. Aside from a handful of boss weapons, you can disassemble every weapon head/blade from its handle, and marry it with any other handle. This creates endless possibilities, and increases replay value exponentially. You like the Salamander Dagger’s elemental damage, but hate fighting up close and personal? Slap that blade on a hammer/axe handle, and you get an elemental dagger with range. With more than 20 weapons the possible combinations are staggering…

I’m only 23 hours in on PS5 with Render Mode set to Quality, but I really like what I’ve seen so far. It’s definitely not perfect. The graphics looks great, but there are noticeable drops in frame rate, and it can be a bit choppy at times when it probably shouldn’t. Most noticeably when descending spiral staircases. I say when it probably shouldn’t because I was descending at normal speed, not running, and there were no enemies present. This is really strange as I’ve yet to see any noticeable drops in frame rate during boss fights, or when there are a dozen monsters on the screen at once. My only other complaint is the targeting system. At times it can be really, REALLY bad. More than once I’ve desperately wanted to target the biggest, closest baddie standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, but the targeting system locks on to something BEHIND me, and turns me around 180 degrees away from the guy who’s about to kill me. I turn around and try to target him again, and IT DOES THE SAME FREAKING THING. One other targeting complaint. This one is really minor. When you lose all your health, and the world transitions to Umbral, your target lock drops. So when you can move again, you have to re-target whatever you were locked onto before you “died…” These complaints are really minor. This game is a lot of fun. It’s not too easy, but it’s not so hard that you want to bite your controller in half and bang your head against the wall. Parrying, and boss fights are difficult, but not ridiculously impossible. Definitely worth the money if you’re into “Souls-like” games.