In that enemies are hiding around corners, leaping out of holes in the ground, right behind doors in relatively peaceful environments, and the most vicious enemy you'll ever meet sometimes is a murderous goat on a bridge that has the most obvious tells. God of War started super hard but quickly gave you tools to mash through that game if you really wanted to; this game gets so annoyed by you not approaching every encounter with utmost concern that some enemies seem designed to one-hit kill you if you aren't engaging with the game design.


Edit: Since you referenced Giant Bomb specifically, I'll also say that the story is...interesting, in the sense that I don't not care about it, but I finished up the other night at exactly the point Brad refers to as a "wait, what just happened to me?" moment and I have to say I've felt that way most of the game. I'm not seeing the brave storytelling he referred to so far; this feels slapped together like it came from the Uncharted 1 era, rather than a post-Uncharted 4 era if you get my meaning. I'll also say the game is Control-level framey on a base PS4, but that kind of stuff never bothers me and otherwise I've experienced zero technical issues, but I'm also the "unlucky" guy who obsessively played GTA III and never, ever saw a funny or terrible glitch. I'm "cursed" to always miss that stuff. This game runs competently aside from the framerate and just some general sloppy animation work in cutscenes.

That said, all the Dark Souls influence on this game (and there are a lot of influences beyond that, Dark Souls is probably the lightest influence on how the game actually feels) is arguably the worst bits. I don't care so much about the enemy respawning, but it does feel superfluous and out of touch with the game they made. The environments also don't feel meticulously designed enough for the boss runs to invoke that same sense of pride/indignant determination, and especially on more platforming (and platforming puzzle) heavy runs, it's hard to find the good in there. Being able to just run up and slap an enemy then dip out with your old XP is a friendlier way of going about THAT piece, but the Sony Exclusive feel of this game makes it hard to recognize this game is clearly designed for you to Bloodborne your way through levels at a certain point, ignoring everything but your endgoal.

Overall, it's pretty much every game I've liked this generation rolled into one and done slightly less polished. It has Tomb Raider, it has Dark Souls, it has God of War, it has Control, and that's not all I've thought of while playing it. If you like Them Star Warses, I'd say this is easily a must play, and if you're the sort of person who gets super nostalgic for the middle sections of games like Tomb Raider where you're using tools to open up all kinds of shortcuts and hidden locations, it's that with way cooler sounds and noises and whatnots.


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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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