The Abyssal woods will forever disappoint me.
I wish I could get those first 10minutes back. Where everything was done perfectly. You enter a catacomb fogwall expecting the generic copypaste catacomb boss wall, suddenly your in a abandoned grave yard, fighting an sole inquisitor fighting tooth and nail. Making you question why he's here fighting alone, with only the spirits of fallen comrades by his side.
Don't inqustiors usually come in groups, What happened to his allies? Why are they all spirits? What happened here that left him as the sole survivior? Why is he still here? To make sure no one enters? Or to make sure that nothing ever leaves?
You enter the woods apprehensively. The ominous atmosphere falls over you instantly. Torrent suddenly dissappears, and refuses to come back, leaving you alone in this ominous place, your constant companion throught the game, suddenly leaving you high and dry in this bone chilling situation. the terror and tension so dense you couldn't cut it with a knive.
Messages are around as he head deeper inside, warning about a mysterious monster that cannot be fought, that if it sees you, it's already to late to run.
Cautiously you sneak through the woods, eyes and ears peeled. At the edge of your seat, hoping to spot whatever terror lurks these woods before it spots you. Than you spot it...
it's a reused enemy asset just with a goofy orange glowing tumor for a head.
Wandering a completely predictable and scripted path... you quickly realize all your sneaking before was pointless as only about 5% of the woods are even dangerous due to their very small roaming range.
The rest of the woods is completely empty, with reused frenzy rats, frenzied goats. Which are just normal goats with glowing eyes. No behavior differences.
Just fucking why. All that pefect build up and anticipation, the perfect sound design, perfect level art direction, and for what?
The most lazily designed enemy I've ever seen. To call this a winter latern is a disgrace to the real winter laterns. Boring predictable stealth sections. Most of which, due to the sheer size of the woods can just be walked around.
I was expecting a game of cat and mouse with some giant horrific monster. Maybe a giant frenzied snake, to tie in to the abyssal serpent; hell I'd be fine if they reused some of the snake ai from sekiro. At least don't reuse old fuckin grandpa hornsent enemies. I expected the slightest sound would make a monster come running to my location. Expected to be finding tons of frenzied, and brutalized corpses of inquistors around the woods, some holding their faces in frenzied agony.
Instead I got stage 4 brain cancer grandpas stumbling about in a 5m radius. Who you can just parry. Ah yes, why didn't you just think of parrying the monsters you stupid inquisitors? Skill issue git gud.
This area could have been peak. Instead its 3times bigger than it needs to be, with the most lazily implemented stealth sections. And a minor legacy dungeon at the end that can be cleared faster than it took for you to get there. This feels like some first draft intern bullshit they accidentally left in the game.
You could have the entrance to midra manse appear right after the inquisitor boss, and it would actually have been an improvement.
In my second playthrough through the area, my feeling throught can be best described by the png.
I wish I could get those first 10minutes back. Where everything was done perfectly. You enter a catacomb fogwall expecting the generic copypaste catacomb boss wall, suddenly your in a abandoned grave yard, fighting an sole inquisitor fighting tooth and nail. Making you question why he's here fighting alone, with only the spirits of fallen comrades by his side.
Don't inqustiors usually come in groups, What happened to his allies? Why are they all spirits? What happened here that left him as the sole survivior? Why is he still here? To make sure no one enters? Or to make sure that nothing ever leaves?
You enter the woods apprehensively. The ominous atmosphere falls over you instantly. Torrent suddenly dissappears, and refuses to come back, leaving you alone in this ominous place, your constant companion throught the game, suddenly leaving you high and dry in this bone chilling situation. the terror and tension so dense you couldn't cut it with a knive.
Messages are around as he head deeper inside, warning about a mysterious monster that cannot be fought, that if it sees you, it's already to late to run.
Cautiously you sneak through the woods, eyes and ears peeled. At the edge of your seat, hoping to spot whatever terror lurks these woods before it spots you. Than you spot it...
it's a reused enemy asset just with a goofy orange glowing tumor for a head.
Wandering a completely predictable and scripted path... you quickly realize all your sneaking before was pointless as only about 5% of the woods are even dangerous due to their very small roaming range.
The rest of the woods is completely empty, with reused frenzy rats, frenzied goats. Which are just normal goats with glowing eyes. No behavior differences.
Just fucking why. All that pefect build up and anticipation, the perfect sound design, perfect level art direction, and for what?
The most lazily designed enemy I've ever seen. To call this a winter latern is a disgrace to the real winter laterns. Boring predictable stealth sections. Most of which, due to the sheer size of the woods can just be walked around.
I was expecting a game of cat and mouse with some giant horrific monster. Maybe a giant frenzied snake, to tie in to the abyssal serpent; hell I'd be fine if they reused some of the snake ai from sekiro. At least don't reuse old fuckin grandpa hornsent enemies. I expected the slightest sound would make a monster come running to my location. Expected to be finding tons of frenzied, and brutalized corpses of inquistors around the woods, some holding their faces in frenzied agony.
Instead I got stage 4 brain cancer grandpas stumbling about in a 5m radius. Who you can just parry. Ah yes, why didn't you just think of parrying the monsters you stupid inquisitors? Skill issue git gud.
This area could have been peak. Instead its 3times bigger than it needs to be, with the most lazily implemented stealth sections. And a minor legacy dungeon at the end that can be cleared faster than it took for you to get there. This feels like some first draft intern bullshit they accidentally left in the game.
You could have the entrance to midra manse appear right after the inquisitor boss, and it would actually have been an improvement.
In my second playthrough through the area, my feeling throught can be best described by the png.