izigame.me

Tough choice for me. But since I kept playing and beat the main story it has to be at least kind of good, right?
The short version: The beginning will feel pretty unfair. If you are willing to go through some frustration in the beginning and have enough patience until you reach a certain point in the game there is a good chance you can enjoy it later on. If you concider yourself a treasue hunter and exploring is your jam then this is for you. The exploring aspect in Voidwrought is great. Secrets can be very hidden. If you are here for amazing combat keep searching for another game.
The long version:
To be fair, I started playing right after release. And the beginning of the game was soooo frustrating. Especially the first 5 gameplay hours in my case. The pacing in general didn't feel great and the difficulty balance between early game and end game is way off.
The early game:
There is just nothing to block or dodge any damage. The only thing you can do is to keep your distance since you don't have any abilities yet, start really low on health and don't do much damage. Often I found myself in tight spaces where it's basically impossible to avoid damage. If you're standing in the wrong place you take damage just because an enemy spawns inside you. Not once throughout the whole game I managed to avoid that. There is literally no time to react once you see where they spawn. I mean I just started the game, go at least a little easy on me.
Plus I have to say the movement felt slightly off in the beginning. I can't exactly put my finger on it what it was but I got used to it later. Combat sometimes don't seem to make sense since there is contact damage and you have to guess where the hitbox starts and ends. For some enemies, especially the first boss, it's not really clear.
I really wanted to love this game. The graphics are stunning! So I tried again and again.
Pretty early I noticed that the world is just too open to explore. The map is not blocked off enough by something where you need a specific ability first to proceed. You are not guided to the areas where you'll find the upgrades you need to properly explore the world. 80% of the map I feel like I used cheesy methods to make my way through. Hoping to find at least one of the precious ability upgrades. I actually ended up twice in a place where I couldn't get out anymore because I simply didn't have the right ability found yet. I fell down while fighting mobs and couldn't get up anymore. Reloading the save file was my only way out.
Well, that lead to A LOT of backtracking and wandering around headless, me guessing where I'm actually supposed to be or where to go. I felt so lost for a long time. The markers didn't help either. They told me where the bosses are - great. But how to get the abilities to be able to reach them? Good luck finding them early.
The end game:
Since I was searching a lot for the abilities and couldn't find them I focused on finding secrets instead. I got my health bar complete. I also found all places where your damage will increase before I was fighting a lot of the bosses.
Means now I don't need to watch out to not take damage anymore. I simply can stand inside the chaos and spam attack. My damage and my health are high enough to do that. The boss fights: No challenge anymore. Just spamming the attack button. The end boss of the story I defeated in maybe 30 seconds by simply pogo jumping on it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Btw, the last abilities I found were double jump and wall climbing. If you've seen the map already you will feel my pain.
So would I recommend playing it? Not really to be honest.
I feel like it needs a very specific type of player that will be able to enjoy it. I was patient enough in the end and I like exploration. Since I focused on the exploration part for at least 70% of my playtime I was able to enjoy it. That's the only reason why I give it a thumbs up here.
Overall if I look at the big picture and consider all the above I wouldn't recommend it to a friend. The pacing and the difficulty imbalance definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.