Eh, I can understand where you're coming from. The game has a high beginner's difficulty curve, and it generally keeps the nuances of its controls to itself. However, once you beat that threshold (for me it was the Gargoyles you fight on top of the Parish), the game actually opens up to you dramatically once you're forced to change tactics and realize what a dumb sh*t (speaking from my own experience, not calling anyone here that) you were in the beginning. For example, in the beginning of the game I rolled a thief, yet played it like a warrior. I kept getting my ass kicked trying to block hits with a shield the size of a calculator watch and I kept running out of energy to dodge when I was using using my knife too much. After brute forcing my way through to the parish, I began cutting back on my combos and dodging more. I used my bow to pick off troublesome enemies and I focused on kiting the rest of them to line up back stabs (followed by the hilarious revelation that I could kick enemies out of their guard or off ledges).
The Capra Demon is just another example of how taking a moment to think strategy and consider your limitations helps in the long run. Because I played a thief, I figured I had no chance trying to tank the guy with suck low gear (rightly so too). I killed the dogs fairly quickly and ran up the stairs while taking potshots at the boss with my bow. After we started going around in circles and I memorized his attack patterns (the occasional knife plant to his face from a ledge helped too), I started getting creative with my attacks and beat him in a war of attrition. And really, that's what the game is supposed to be: a war of attrition.
As for some of the other complaints I've seen thus far:
You can run past enemies. The only enemies you HAVE to kill are bosses, you can simply avoid the rest (they stop following you after a certain distance). If you're too slow to run, just strip down to a sword and shield and streak past them.
There really isn't such a thing as a high level area, just areas where monsters are more unforgiving than most. You can get past the graveyard and all the way to the catacombs if you a) mastered the basics, b) use a holy weapon that kills them permanently, or c) run right past them. One time when I created a new character I did just this. Since I knew where the necromancers and treasure spawned, I bum rushed the important enemies and fled past the rest until I had gotten a hold of the great scythe. After that, the game was essentially a cake walk 3/4's of the way through.
While I would agree that the story is minimalistic, I wouldn't call it non existent. There's actually quite a bit hidden in the flavor texts of item and on loading screens, and the dialogue spoken by side characters and on loading screens. I actually like that aspect, that the game isn't going to go out of it's way to force feed you narrative, that instead you have to take it on your own initiative to find out what's going on. As far as the game is concerned, your only purpose here is to a) beat the final boss or b) die... a lot. It's kind of like an unmarked quest in its own right: Find out what the f*ck is going on around here.
ノ彡┻━┻ )
