This is a hard one to recommend, because it fails at the three main things it sets out to do: it’s an action/adventure hack/slash-type-thing à la God of War 2018, but the combat isn’t particularly well designed; it wants to realize this unique setting but ends up feeling mostly empty, and it wants to deliver this narrative centered around the growing relationship between its two central characters, but it fails to tie this up neatly. I should mention here that I think that this is the type of game AA studios should be making all the time, and that Ace Team did a solid enough job here, and just didn’t stick the landing. The USP is something like “God of War 2018 with Bloodborne-style level design inside a Hieronymus Bosch painting,” and it mostly delivers on this.

Combat: the combat flows fairly well and is satisfying when it all comes together. I picked this game up in the Soulslike Humble Bundle and was trying to play it like souls, i.e. slowly and methodically. Don’t do this. The combat heavily rewards aggression, and to be honest, button mashing gets you most of the way through the game. I never really developed my strategy beyond button mashing and timing my dodges with my impacts, “Button Mashing +,” if you will. This is where the game fails on the combat front - it doesn’t force you to engage with the full depth of its mechanics and there is virtually no requirement for strategic engagement in one-on-one fights. This might actually be to the game’s benefit, since I’m not terribly good at precise timing and parrying, so I actually managed to stick with it to see the end credits, but the combat felt like a bit of a mess - a reasonably satisfying mess, at least.

Setting: the real star of this game is the setting – Zenozoik is truly unique, and I can definitely say I have never experienced a game world anything like it. I love off-the-wall shit like this. Beyond the novelty of Zenozoik, this is one of the best-looking games I’ve played in recent memory - utterly visually sublime. The soundtrack is fittingly atmospheric, with a handful of absolute bangers in there. The problem I have with the setting is the feeling of emptiness - exploration ancillary to the main path tends to be rewarded with crafting materials or upgrade points, which is hard to get excited about (stance/special move totems notwithstanding), and there are often no use for the shortcuts you unlock because there’s no need to retraverse the levels. I guess if you are really into secret-hunting or 100%ing, that point doesn’t stand, but the game is already bogged down with time spent lost in the labyrinthine levels. These criticisms aside, I’d say that Ace Team did a pretty good job here, I just wish that the world had more in it to make it really come to life -- hopefully their next project is better funded.

Narrative (spoilers ahead): just like God of War 2018, this game starts out strong in this department, but I don’t think the end works – it either wraps up too quickly or ramps up too slowly – I actually really like the tone of the ending. At least it doesn’t have the GoW’18 problem of plot threads that don’t go anywhere, but I spent some 15ish hours with Pseudo and the Boy, and I don’t think that Pseudo bonded with the Boy sufficiently to start calling him his son. Yeah I saved his life a few times and we got a handful of (really solid) lines of expository dialogue showing their relationship growing, but the game takes place over a span of what, three weeks? I appreciate what Ace Team were going for, but in execution it just felt awkward and unsatisfying, which is incidentally what your mom often tells me.

Other shit I liked:

• The voice talent was mostly fantastic. I’d love to see Glenn Wrage in more stuff. Anjali Kunapaneni kind of oversells the Boy’s frailty and vulnerability, but it’s not so bad as to grate on the ears.
• Character design: unqualifiedly top-shelf. I made myself laugh imagining the elevator pitch for this game to the suits at a corporate publisher like EA: “you play as a weird ballsack creature and we want to put him on the cover.” Well I’m fucking sold, but I cannot imagine something like Artifacts of Chaos surviving a focus test. Thank God for Nacon. I love Pseudo, the Boy, Pseudo’s master, I love that bird creature that fights with its hands on its hips, I love the weird merchant whose crafting screen I don’t understand, I just love the design of all the NPCs in general.
• PC Performance – runs at a flawless 120FPS on my high-end PC, unless you turn on level streaming, whereupon it becomes a stuttery mess. This is actually a problem because loading screens between areas can be rather disorienting. Still, good to see a game that at least gives you the option to turn stuttering off. Other shit I didn’t like:
• Dice. I actually do like this narratively but mechanically it’s annoying and frustrating. I don’t think I ever successfully summoned one of the characters I bound via the pact artifact, and this game absolutely showers you with artifacts that go unused. Actually it does kinda cause a narrative problem because Pseudo so confidently announces “I invoke the one law,” but he should know damn well we’re garbage at this game and there’s a decent chance you just roll poorly anyway. Also, like, why dice? Does it even make sense in-world? I don’t know.
• Steam Deck performance: I couldn’t get a stable 40 at an acceptable level of visual fidelity.

That’s all I can think of. I recommend picking up the GOG version when it goes on sale, and I hope Ace Team keeps at it - they’re one of the good ones.