Since games have come to truly represent the wide spectrum of game players in this generation, we’ve seen all sorts of new subgenres and styles emerge. There’s no doubt that on one end of the spectrum the cozy game has more than established itself as a thing, so you’d expect to see an equivalent style of play pop up on the other end. Sure, we’ve had the Souls-like category of games in place for quite some time, but another style that has grown in popularity a bit this generation has been the boss rush.

Since the whole point of the exercise is to craft a challenging experience that will force people to up their game, you can assume the game is tough. But I’ll give it credit for at least branching out in more than one direction in how it does that. Aside from trying to tackle the bosses themselves, you’ll also be sorely tempted to attempt its parkour challenges… and if you do that be ready to respawn quite a lot. 

Right from the start, you’ll need to very quickly wrap your head around the moves you have to work with, some of the game’s rules for how things work and behave, and accept that learning that all will be a painful process. On the boss fighting side it’s mostly the same, with you needing to very suddenly apply all of the mechanics and techniques you were only very briefly introduced to moments before. Truly, there really are no lower gears here for you to work things out in and build some confidence with, the game’s technique for teaching seems to simply be focused on pain. 

The good news is at least that mechanically I can’t particularly fault the controls in any clear way. I suppose some of the timing for techniques like parrying enemy attacks could feel slightly muddy, but you could easily just interpret that as being a matter of locking into the game’s timing, which you are able to do with some repetition. The early challenge is really just getting into a sensible flow for what progression of attacks will work and why. Should you build to the point of using your shot and go for it, or will building up and using more than one at a time yield better results. This is the nature of the challenge in the game, and you’ll either decide to run as far away from it as possible or embrace it, and grit your teeth, as you go through its trial by fire.