Traveller, on 23 March 2019 - 07:04 AM, said:
I've only really done the intro, but it's a lot more beginner-friendly than previous soulsborne games. It lets you pause, and there's a sort of undead guy that lets you practice attacks and defence with to get timings right.
Which is absolutely essential in this game. The parry move from Souls is now a major aspect - instead of Stamina, we have Posture, with its own bar. Keep hitting or countering to break posture, then you get a chance to one-hit kill. It feels really different from the old slash and block, with balance and timing being key.
Not so much whittling down health, as knocking out of balance, and then finishing. So the tougher bad guys I've met have more than one health bar; you have to do two killing moves on them. And this is just the intro.
I just spent some time in the first area getting the timing right, as I was waiting too late to block and getting hit, and once you're hit you lose Posture and are open to a death blow (you can roll out of the way to regain it.) The window for the parry is actually bigger than in Souls but you have to do it earlier. Anyway, its kind of vital.
From what I've been doing though, you can outright avoid enemies with stealth. You can take to the rooftops, kill from above, then hook-shot back up and hide. You can ledge hang, hide in grass, and creep past dogs and guards. And you can't grind souls for power, as there aren't any, so you dont feel obliged to kill everyone to level up. So I've been practising the hit and run. It's all so smooth.. and the scenery is amazing. DS and Bloodborne look good but it's all grim stuff. This landscape is something else.
It's so odd to have an actual character that talks and interacts, and a full story instead of the broken hidden lore of Souls. Got the kids all day today but looking forward to playing again later.
Dammit, Trav, I'm trying not to impulse buy this!
I mean, I love me some Souls games and this is right up my alley (though I still have more Nioh to play, which did a great job of being similar-yet-different to the Souls games and set in Japan) but I don't usually rush out to buy them. But everything you just wrote makes me want this RIGHT NOW. XD