Just started this last night. It's quite different from anything I've played before and I almost stopped after a couple of hours because of the initial souls-like vibe, but I'm starting to get the hang of it, the story has started to unfold, and it's really quite good.

The world has sort of -- imploded -- there's a great evil called the Paintress killing people each year according to their age, that age goes down a year each year, and those who have one year left go off on a mission to stop her. The combat is relatively simple so far, the voice acting is very good, and the world itself is lovely.

My son has played through this game three times now. Yes, he really liked it!

I'm still struggling with some of the details of the game but yes, it's enjoyable. The music is hypnotic.

I have wondered about this so please keep us informed

The one thing I hate is that there is no map. Yes, I understand being lost is supposed to be part of the "expedition" but it does eventually become an issue, since I end up backtracking and getting annoyed. And any sensible adventurer would make a map as they travelled, so the party-line justification for no map is a bit dodgy IMHO.

On the plus side, the enemies respawn when you re-enter an area, so levelling up happens fast if you get lost.

So I'm farther in, and having a blast. The combat is turn-based but loads of fun, Right now I'm lost, but who cares? There are lots of places to save the game so there's no fear of going too far or attacking something too strong. If you lose a fight you get the option to back off or try again. Sometimes you can even run past a particularly nasty enemy.

The character development trees are easy to understand for the most part and weapons can be upgraded by a skeleton-like entity in your camp (a nod to BG 3?). The other thing that's fun is that apart from the odd costume or hairstyle you can buy and weapons, there's no inventory to speak of, so no inventory management. Weapons you find or buy are character-specific. There is no armour, just outfits.

This is a fast-moving game that's pretty straightforward once you master the tricks of combat.

I'm playing it on my Steam Deck, BTW. I made a few tweaks and of course it doesn't look as pretty as it would on PC, but it runs very smoothly apart from a few lags here and there.




EDIT: Sadly, this game will end up like a couple of others recently, games I loved but simply could not finish because of one particular area that I just gave up on. There's this one fight I can't win. It's too bad, because I was having a blast. None of the guides have helped. I've watched videos all afternoon. Oh well. I'll leave it a couple of days and then try again. When a game goes from fun to frustrating, it's not worth the time.

What was the area that you gave up on? I ask, because my son might possibly remember some tips about it.

Sorry I did not see your edit sooner! It's been a long time since your post, unfortunately.

The area I had trouble with is a boss fight that seems impossible to parry, which you have to do in order to win it. I haven't given up on the game; it's a lot of fun.

My son wants to know which fight it is; he might be able to give you some tips. And he also wants you to know that there are some really hard fights that are completely optional, although this one might not be. There are also some that you can go back to later when you are more powerful. And there's also story mode if you want to skip the fight; you could also revert back afterward.

The area was called Visages, I believe and it is a necessary part of the story.

One of the three heads you have to defeat before going to the main boss head blasts a spell that prevents my party members from recharging spells and skills. I've tried for hours to figure out how to parry or just dodge the spell, and I have not yet been able to, even once, in at least a couple of hundred tries -- and I'm pretty good at dodging spells at this point.

It almost seems like a bug. I have encountered other bugs in the game that were pretty serious.

For what it's worth, my son did not experience any bugs in the game, and he played the entire game almost three times - however, he was playing on the Playstation 5. I read to him what you said about your situation and he is not sure what the problem is except maybe the spells and skills need tweaking, and that would be too complicated for him to analyze unless he could look over all your stats. There may be some defensive thing that needs equipping, too, or there could be some skill gem that you haven't found yet that would help with this and make it easier.

Sorry that the solution isn't cut and dried. Glad you were enjoying it so far, though.

It's been a couple of weeks since was in there and hopefully there's been an update or two.

I'm sure there's a solution. I just haven't found it yet.

Good luck!