I'm just after finishing first DLC and finishing main game two days ago. Game was great, it has had its ups and downs but overall experience was really enjoyable.

*~~yapping incoming...~~*

# COMBAT

Clean, smooth dodging feels incredibly satisfying,I love the "Sync Rate" bar, feels unique and acts as mana/stamina, stagger meter and also damage boost. love that you can just swap Frame abilities seamless just like Devil May Cry's Dante combat styles. 

Being totally honest I think there should be more depth to the Frame abilities or just more of them, I feel like Parry is just enough to finish game with no problem and what most people familiar with similar games will use most of the time. 

Necro Attack feels just so overpowered vs most of the enemies combined with piercing weapons, I like shield but as creator of famous game Ultrakill said "Shield is just more boring version of parry" , maybe it would be better if they combined both parry and shield into one? and let us fill whole shield with just one parry? idk but there's also Thunder Step where most of the time felt like it just wasn't really fitting here. dodging already was fast so a whole Frame ability dedicated to dodging where the main gimmick is just a little damage is pretty boring imo. 

Frame ability is a great idea but I think the combat should be rounded around all of them where bosses want us or in some cases force us to swap them.

Cool variety of spells, and definitely a potential for caster style builds. Just wish there were more.

One of the problems I had with the game is weapon variety. Weapon designs are cool and they have badass skills but I wish there were more unique weapons. There are 6 weapon types where every one of them have same animation from the same category, charged attack changes a little but most of the time it's the same. One of my favourite things in souls games was beating that cool boss and checking what amazing weapon it has to offer. Lies of P and Dark Souls 3 did it the best with a lot of unique weapons with badass animations.

**TL:DR - Smooth, Clean, more weapon variety pls, Frame abilities 50% Badass 50% meh?**

# LEVELS

Bro, the level design in this game is so good, exploration was really fun, I love when locations are connected and you comeback to the same place but from the other side that you saw in early game but didn't know how to get there. Sometimes it got really confusing and even with cautious exploration and running across same locations few times I missed secret areas like "the Hunter of Bladers" fight before final and didn't make it to the true ending (Which I want to achieve in the near future). I know game was inspired by popular manga "BLAME!" which I didn't read but admire the style and I love megastructures type of vibe (Heard of "Girls' Last Tour"?) so I was instantly sold on the atmosphere and exploration.

But I have to say, the last segment before the Loskid felt pretty cheap with those recycled 3 or more bosses on the platforms with teleports. Ending was just a pure boss rush, I think they could take some more time and expand the beautiful purple location.

**TL:DR - Blame! Cool, Level Design peak, didn't achieve True Ending unlucky**

# WORLD

I really appreciate when the games try to be unique and instead of making the same dark fantasy medieval vibe (Which I love) when making Souls-like game we can get something different from time to time. I loved the religious themes of the game, elements from Christianity and Greek mythologies it's just so cool to me, exploring these end game areas felt so divine. Especialy Elysium segments and the final fight with the Aether "Father" felt so menacing, fighting literally gods that are beyond our strength. It was nice evolution from the beginning of the game where we literally started beneath the city in the sewers and at the end we are at the top of the world (or even higher). 

There are few characters that are pretty memorable, Millaire was so cool, always smiled when saw Kastina staying in some place but sadly there wasn't more to her character. Loskid lived to the hype and happy I found the elevator secret with her sitting and warning us and Ursula's situation was depressing, I'm proudly wearing her armor after the fight.

The story was pretty good and had some nice twists, of course the lore shines as it's one of the elements of good souls-like game.

The world is pretty deep and thoughtful so I hope we can see more content from this world in the future (like a sequel, prequel, even more DLC's or something)

**TL:DR - Start: find lost kitty | Final: Fight god (literally), love it, megastructure peak**

# BOSSES AND DIFFICULTY

This is where my biggest problem with the game probably comes, bosses are really cool, they are fun, badass, have cool second phases, not really over the top but still really enjoyable. But the difficulty in this game is pretty uneven, 80% of the game bosses felt way to easy. I feel like the parry mechanic is sometimes too easy to hit for such a huge reward that is critical hit vs non-blader bosses. Sometimes it felt like the boss should've had second HP bar but nothing comes after, you just beat them in first or second try and go on and the only true challenges were Ursula and Loskid that actually were difficult but that's what you expect from endgame bosses with two whole HP bars. I don't wish for masochistic unfun fights but I wish some of these early bosses had way more hp, I remember the Necroreaper boss from the beginning felt really quickly and I had way more trouble with the bandit before that (Scavenger Patriarch).

**TL:DR - Fun, dogwalked most of them, but when they were difficult, they really were**

# DLC AND MUSIC

They gave us DLC for free, it was incredibly nice from them and that made me buy this game, I really enjoyed it, even tho I'm not really into a roguelike type of gamemode in this type of game, but god the two main bosses they gave us were just amazing, also the fights with our comrades were pretty fun.

Also I have to say, Music in this game was not it (most of the time), I get the postapocalyptic vibe but music was just forgetable and I dislike that they recycled same song for some of the main impotant bosses. It just sounds like an ambient music during normal fight. Nothing really spectacular or memorable, besides some of them, DLC showed me that they can compose something great that fits the fight, I wish they gave us more of that.

**TL:DR - Free DLC always good, Music was really mid tho most of the time, DLC music was great**

# TL;DR

**Epic game, cool bosses, felt a little rushed at endgame and while combat is great, it would benefit so much from more unique weapon variety and maybe more unique Frame Abilities but still was incredibly fun. Free DLC was pretty good and can't wait for another one.**

My thoughts after finishing AI Limit