u/ShadowTown0407

I spelt it wrong because ofcourse I did

Khazan is a souls like, nioh like, a good game like game. That focuses on fast action rather than slow combat.

Let's talk gameplay first, it has 3 weapons a duel blade, great axe and spear. All three play differently with different skills and combos but are all unified by a parry, dodge, special parry and extra special parry.

The game is mission based with each mission more or less following the same formula of linear to semi linear level ending in a boss.

The game has a hefty boss roster which are definitely the highlights. Post Elden ring it must be tempting to make bosses difficult the way it did but I am happy to say khazan doesn't. The bosses have consistent attack chains and consistent windows to do damage and the game is still very hard. And you will be thankful they are consistent because the game expects mastery of the bosses with a big ass health bar on all of them, very hard to just stumble to victory. In the whole game there was just one boss I hated, which is an achievement in itself.

There is a healthy amount of enemies, tho the normal ones you will see are pretty normal looking too, human and humanoids with basic weapons. The elite enemies do bring out the a grade design along with a handful of normal enemies. Which is not a big problem because most of the time normal enemies will be mist before they even get a chance to attack. But if you do let them attack they have well designed move sets too.

The game is a soft looter slasher, not to the level of nioh but you will farm bosses if you want to make some of the best armor sets, and armor sets are great with gameplay altering buffs that incentivise to try something different even with the same weapon you have been using for hours. They are all designed beautifully too.

And so has the game. I really like the art style of this game, semi cell shaded with hard black lines give it a manga like quality. And while I wish the color pallate was a bit more varied overall I am a fan of the artstyle.

All this makes the game very fun to play but in many aspects there is this feeling of "been there done that" in the game design itself. Like the out of combat systems of how loot works how forging works how you change your weapon attributes etc etc is just nioh, plain and simple. All the consumables you will expect are neatly there with normal easy to understand names in an easy to use list. It feels like the game is telling you to not engage with it on a secondary level and just go fight some more bad guys.

Which is definitely a good thing when you are looking for just gameplay but in many ways like nioh it feels hard to get immersed in the world itself. Tho I will say nioh still does a better job of it.

Overall tho it is a very solid game, I started a second play through almost immediately so it's definitely fun and I would recommend it to anyone who likes games like these. Especially if you like Nioh

Finally finished witcher 1, the last of the trilogy for me and it was an experience. Tho clunky at times it's still a good game.

Let's talk about gameplay first, you have 2 swords, one heavy weapon and one knife, 5 magic spells and a shit ton of oils and potions. Forget about anything but your sword you won't use the other 2 weapons. Your swords work on a stance system with 3 stances for heavy enemies, fast enemies or a group of enemies. And you must use the right stance to do any significant damage. The sword attacks work on an animation system where you must press the attack button right with the previous animation end to continue the combo. You can't mash the attack, it won't work. Spells feel a lot more powerful right from the start compared to witcher 3 and on hard you will definitely need the edge they give in fights. The difficulty can feel all over the place and unlike witcher 3 you don't even get the grace of a level number so sometimes you will just get 2 shot. The oils and potions are consumables rather than replenished when you rest like in W3. You must make more every time you rest. That's how it works.

As for my thoughts, I like it. The animations can definitely be goofy, along with running and well animations in general. The system, on hard pretty much needs you to use all its systems to win atleast the basic potions like health regen and stamina regen will see play every fight so too will offensive spells like igni.

The only problem is that it's not a combat system it's a slaughter system. You are not really doing anything but attacking and attacking while chugging potions while taking damage and sometimes dodging passively which gets repetitive fast.

The quest structure is also no witcher 3, while the main plot stays interesting with decent to even great voice acting, good facial animations and mostly good dialogue. The game has a lot of fetch 5 monster teeth quests. Which while optional still add to the feeling of having a lot of filler.

As I talked about the animations, they are in general feel very goofy. Which is in contrast to the very somber tone of the game overall with really good art direction and atmosphere. For it being 2007 and it being their first game you can feel their passion for it. With a lot of world building text, text about different characters and monsters.

The music is the "it's in the background" variety compared to w3 but is still really good and sets the tone of areas nicely.

Overall I like the game, in many ways it feels like a product of its time, in many ways it feels even older than that but through all that it's an experience I would recommend. But go in with tempered expectations and as the subreddit says, a bit of patience.