Alright, it's finally here, and I played a few hours into this
The atmosphere still looks great, now with more puddles and rain. The wet surfaces reflecting lights actually looks really great, without ray tracing.
The upper and lower belt system for the item wheel is still here, and this is still leaving me scratching my head. Because you'll be constantly switching between the two to select the item you want. This is especially annoying when you are in middle of combat, and you want to pul up the healing potion and weapon repair tool, you have to go through each slots to find it. Granted, it's only three items per belt so you won't have to search for long, but when every second counts especially during boss fights would you really want to look for the items?
The weapons themselves are great, now that we have more weapons and hilts to experiment with. This game has a feature wehere you get to craft your own weapon by combining the blade and thee hilt of the weapons. The blade affects the moveset while the hilt affects the stat scaling. This means you can create something like a sabre that swings like great sword, or a saw blade that strikes like a rapier. Granted some combinations will work better, but I found this to be interesting because everyone now can come up with their unique playstyle. Each blade has their own special moves too.
P-organ system, which you don't get until you beat a few bosses, are your skill tree. And as
@CriticalGaming pointed out, some feels like obvious abilities that you should have from the beginning.
Legion arms are definitely interesting. Think of them as the firearms from Bloodbornes. There's a grapple hook, mine, a flamethrower, an explosive shield, and more. As you upgrade them, you'll unlock more powerful versions of the base abilities.
Last time I complained how weapons seem to have low durability and you have to sharpen/repair them to use them effectively. Well turns out this was because the game forces you to not relay on a single mechanic; The special moves needs charges which you get from attacking enemies, legion arms can be used limited times, dodge rolls become side steps when you lock on to enemies, etc.
As for the combat itself.... I do think the both the dodge window and the parry timing have been fixed. Because it sure feels easier to do both. HOWEVER, it is clear that the game still wants you to parry, or at least block. Because if you miss parry and block instead, that's still a reduced damage and you can quickly regain your HP by hitting them back. I think the enemy stamina can be broken in two ways; By doing the parries or hitting them with heavy attacks, with parry taking more tolls on their invisible stamina bar.
I don't think anyone will ever beat fromsoftware when it comes to souls-like, but I'd say this one's pretty damn good. Or I could be a whore for a game from South Korea
