izigame.me

This game is a genre-blend of Salt and Sanctuary, Monster Hunter, and Dark Souls covenant features that unfortunately didn't stick the landing. While the attempt to create an entry built around multiplayer functionality is admirable, their implementation of the Monster Hunter features clash with the soulslike design. For instance, map areas serve the purpose of hunting locales rather than as dungeon crawls, with the ease of traversal in the zones forcing the navigation and encounter design to be watered down to accommodate the change. Any loot that is hand placed around the map will at best be the starting equipment of another class or the most basic form of a weapon, as the vast majority of equipment has been placed behind the mage hunt mechanic. Another example would be instead of finding or purchasing consumables, they can crafted when you rest at a checkpoint with materials which can gathered throughout the locale or looted from trash mobs. While maintaining a steady supply of these materials is simple (and admittedly preferable to them being an inconvenience), it begs the question as to why they had to be limited in quantity to begin with, other than to be in parody with Monster Hunter.
The "Mage Hunts" which are the main form of PvE content fail to remain novel unlike their Monster Hunter counterparts due to the overuse of the same boss designs and lack of interactivity failing to encourage innovative approaches. The hunts themselves boil down to going on a wild goose chase as you pursue the mage while they spawn trash mobs before teleporting away in a scripted sequence, at most only throwing an attack or two at each skirmish. After the mage reaches half health or they reach their final location, the actual boss fight begins, which usually takes less than one minute to complete. The experience of these hunts are deflating, as the pace is too fast to take in and the difficulty just as vacant. To add salt to the wound, instead of being able to start a hunt for them at the lobby at any time, after the first hunt, a mage must be located in their respective locale at random, with a roaming pattern for you to memorize at best. And even after all the time spend grinding, most equipment that can be made from mage parts don't meaningfully change your playstyle, usually only buffing damage numbers or defense to a certain element or two or adding a generic effect to an action like perfect blocking or killing an enemy.
And if you were wondering about boss variety, this game will be sure to disappoint. When they say each hunt is against a mage, they literally mean it. Each mage has a set of three to four trash mobs to summon during the chase which generally follow the same archetypes throughout, a main weapon that they make basic melee swings with, and have about three spell attacks that are either projectiles or AoEs which they can use in quick succession. If it weren't for their lack of health, each mage would be frustrating to fight as there are rarely if ever clear openings to strike back and attacks wide enough that they'd hit both players regardless of the intended recipient. The only bosses that aren't mages are a boss that blocks the Metroidvania-style upgrades needed to unlock new modes of traversal and a boss that guards access to the next zone. Though, progressing through the game couldn't be that simple. There are locked doors that bar your progression through an area until you kill a required amount of mage types in that same area to progress. There are usually around four to six mages per area, and this doesn't include having to backtrack so you can grind those same mages for gear. While you only have to kill a couple of mages in each zone to gain access the next zone, this feature hampers the pace of exploration within each locale greatly, especially since there is no in-game map (and thus no map markers) to indicate places in a locale you haven't explored yet, even after you've put in the monotonous work of slaying the required mages.
Worst of all, when I played this game with a friend, because of the earlier stated lack of interactivity, the experience didn't change in any meaningful way except for the ability to divide and conquer while exploring a locale, Though, I did appreciate the feature that when you do something in someone else's world that you didn't do in your own, the progress would sync up on your save too, as other multiplayer games often don't make this concession for progressing a game with a friend. Lastly, I was also unable to experience any of the Dark Souls multiplayer features such as being summoned to help with a mage hunt or invading another player's run due to the multiplayer community being non-existent at this point. To conclude, this game is not a Salt and Sanctuary sequel as advertised, it plays much more like a multiplayer spinoff. And even on its own terms, this game still falls flat as an experience due to the compromised level design, tedious mage bosses, and overall lack of meaningful progression. Even if someone adored the combat of Salt and Sanctuary or the hunts of Monster Hunter, chances are even those players would be beyond burnt out by the time the credits roll.
My final consensus is that you best avoid this game.