running on i5-1030h capped at 2.5ghz with integrated graphics at 1080p results in unplayable 15fps in first room
720p increases it to nice 40 with drops to 30 which is very playable (for me)
no hover on buttons in main menu and the options not working initially made me think it froze and i almost just closed the game and gave up on playing it (i can now see that the candles in the back are slightly animated which imply the game isnt frozen, didnt see it at first though)
i like the whole tutorial part before first enemies, though it is a bit repetitive with a bunch of containers that dont contain anything or just books, and a lot of doors that dont open (both the ones at the start and later in the game) but its nice
reminds me a lot of the start in gothic 2 (very positive)
(apparently the containers are randomly generated.. in which case its not good.. a carefully placed potion here, coin there.. now thats something..)
armors and stuff looks cool, wish there was a sword or something right away instead of swinging around pieces of brass
as for the combat...
overall i do find the combat janky but janky can be good (like gothic 2 for that matter, if theres a whole game around it to support the combat - noone likes gothic for combat afaik)
main issue i found is that all attacks are so slow - like 0.8s for a left/right/down swing, a whole 1s for an up swing, which seems to be true for all weapons so far (small/large candelabra, hatchet, table leg)
the animations arent particularly flashy or weapons hefty so it feels off to me (gothic 2 starting weapon takes 0.2s or so from input to hit) (checked ds1 too for the sake of it and the starting weapons are like 0.4s)
i know theres a difference between swing/thrust damage but trying to wrangle the cursor to the right position was pretty hard sometimes (i can tell it changes only if you move mouse fast enough, so sometimes i would accidentally move one way, but adjust too slowly and not switch back)
im also really bad at parrying in all games ever so i did it once after 10 failed attempts and never again sorry
my first intuition was to hold S at all times when winding up to avoid damage but that just took too long to do during every fight (and sometimes enemies would hit me with a plunge while i dont hit them with my own? weird)
then i discovered that the left swing hits the fastest so i ended up just walking up to the enemies on the side and clotheslining* them (pic related)
and honestly that made for a much more fun experience than trying to interface with the whole of what combat offers
i wouldnt even move my mouse to not accidentally lose the left swing (being able to run/dodge in all directions helps a lot)
so even though its janky its fun! it can be fun!
if there was several hours of content beyond the cat i could easily see myself doing the same thing all throughout and enjoy my time
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*A clothesline is a move in which one wrestler runs towards another and extends his/her arm out from the side of the body and parallel to the ground