Blade of God II: Orisols is a dark fantasy ARPG game that is often described as "Dark Souls" inspired or a Souls-like experience, but this couldn't be further from the truth. The only commonalities it shares are a third-person perspective and the ability to dodge attacks.
In reality, the overall combat experience feels more like a mobile ARPG, featuring high mobility and visually striking, flashy movesets. It also doesn't feel like its predecessor, which was more of a God of War-esque game.
The game offers players to choose between any of the three available characters: Chaos, Hela, and Esther, each with their unique skill sets and has their own separate progression. This variety brings a degree of replayability, as you can opt to unlock everything on one character while still starting from scratch with the others. The two unchosen characters also make appearances as side characters in the
story and as trial characters in specific missions, allowing players to explore their abilities.
The game strongly emphasizes boss battles over defeating regular mobs, which only play a minor and forgettable role in the chapters/levels. Some of these bosses can be incredibly challenging, but pretty much the deciding factor, as always, will be the hero’s power level. Which can be upgraded by playing more of the game, or by leveraging the gacha system. Upon defeating these bosses, you have two choices: Sacrifice or Redemption. Depending on your choice, you will gain different rewards such as getting either Sacrificial or Redemption stones.
Overall, the game looks and feels incomplete as of its current state. The combat is very floaty, with underwhelming animations and visual feedback, the menus are confusing and slow, and the story is still lacking voice overs. Optimization wise, the also needs a lot of time in the oven. The skill chain customization mechanic is cool though, since you can customize your own combos and augment it with Soul Cores of heroes to give it unique powers. It's an ambitious title, but it ultimately needs more polish.
Really dig the boss fights, brings a challenge to the game.
2023-11-01