yeah, the world design is very Darksouls/metroidvania. more dark souls. which makes some of their other choices odd.
I didn't play much honestly. its beautiful, but gameplay didn't suck me in completely. (also in the middle of other games, was more just checking it out, then going for a full play.)
the dark souls map design struck me for sure. hidey holes, and constant looping on itself. every inch packed.
the map respawn via timer, and not on rest seems like an odd choice.
dark souls resets are a good design choice for it.
lets say there are two hallways. one hallway has 3 tough enemies. that will take 2-3 health potions to beat on average. second hallway, has 3 enemies that will take 0-1 health potion to beat. the player has 3 health potions, which are set, and fill every time they rest.
this creates a simple elegant design scenario. hallway 2, is the easy path, new players, will be funneled to. hallway 1. they will kill 1 enemy. run out of health potions, have to go back and heal.. which. resets the enemies. no progress. the only way to progress down that harder hallway is to A. get good. B. come back later with better gear.
but if the monsters don't reset.. you can just whittle them down. brute force progress down that "wrong" path.
healing potions based on farming, and not reseting also has problems. as a designer, you won't know how many the player has at any time. and creates tedious farming. the advantage is it allows players to have options. stronger, weaker, etc. various effects. opposed to the simple estus flasks which are all the same.
I just don't see how the arpg systems will fit into this. if it was just a isometric Dark souls. sure. make sense.. but the farming, etc...
especially once you explore everything. its like grim dawn. you can only explore the map once. so that whole main draw goes away at some point.
