izigame.me

Eastern Exorcist is a 2D hack and slash game. It's not a Metroidvania and it's just a linear adventure from point A to point B with no exploration. While the game looks really good, and the combat system would appear to have what's needed to be a great game, the game is unfortunately not designed well enough to take advantage of its own combat system.
What I mean by the combat system has what's needed to be a great game is that it has all the fundamentals. There's a 4 hit combo, a charged attack combo, and a gap closing move. You also have dodges, perfect dodges, blocking, and a parry system. Furthermore, if you delay hitting the attack button before the final hit in a combo chain, you'll do increased damage when you do actually press the attack button. Finally, there are 8 different passive skills/modes that you can enter (of which you can equip 4 of at a time) which drastically changes what you can do.
This is all good stuff, and it has the potential to be a really complex game….. But what sucks is that the enemies are not complex enough to force you to use everything in the combat system. I was hoping some enemy attackx I'd dodge, others I'd block, others I'd parry, and I would learn which attack is best to use depending on the enemy/boss scenario (e.g. like God of War 4)……but the game never reaches this point. 80% of the time, all you need to do is the charged attack combo, and you'll beat pretty much all the enemies and bosses. This is because your character doesn't flinch when they're doing a charged attack combo using a certain skill. Furthermore, healing doesn't take any time and is instant (it's just on a short cooldown and you can use it up to 10 times). Finally, bosses have a barrier gauge in addition to their health. If you break the gauge with enough attacks, the bosses will get stunned for a few seconds or start getting flinched by attacks. So effectively, you can almost stun lock bosses by doing the charged attack combo over and over again. Even if the bosses get a few attacks off on you, you can just heal any damage the bosses do to you. It should be noted that I was playing the game on hard mode.
I'll say that there are SOME bosses where the above doesn't work (i.e. the other 20%). Every so often, I'll face a boss where I actually need to dodge and parry. While that's nice, a few competent bosses here and there does not make up for the cakewalk of a game this is.
If the game is going to be so easy, I was hoping to at least be able to do cool shit like in Devil May Cry. Since you can equip 4 different passive skills, I was hoping to switch between them constantly in order to create cool combos….. But you can't do that in this game. This is because every single skill in this game works by gaining mana (via attacking, parrying, and dodging enemies). Welp, you can only gain mana on ONE skill at a time. You would think that would simply mean you take turns gaining mana on different skills, but that doesn't work either. This is because pretty much all of the skills also work by providing various passive benefits as you use them. If you change your skill while these benefits are active, you'll LOSE the passive benefits. So it's actually a BAD idea to switch skills…….which sucks. I ended up just using 2 skills. One for enemies and one for bosses.
This is what I meant when I said the game is not designed well enough to take advantage of its own combat system. You have all these offensive and defensive moves, but there's no reason to master them. Hell, I beat a boss WITHOUT using the charged attack combo just to mix things up, and it was less effective than simply using the charged attack combo.
There's multiple progressions systems in this game. As you defeat enemies and explore, you'll get resources which you can use to increase your character's level, obtain passive abilities, enhance your passive skills, and enhance items that you can equip to provide passive benefits. While that's a lot of things to progress, it all honestly doesn't matter too much. After I levelled up 2 of the passive skills that I used, everything else was just window dressing, not something I became excited to obtain.
There's a story in this game, and it's nothing special. You're on a quest to kill a demon that killed your friends. Along the way, you have to exorcise multiple demons and help people. For a few demons, after you beat them a short cutscene will play providing you the background of why the demons became this way. I will say that there were a few stories that were interesting to see. Without spoiling too much, it highlights how horrible people could be back in the day, with witch trials, human sacrifices, etc…
If you want to spend a few hours hacking and slashing enemies with a challenge thrown in every so often, then you might enjoy this game. However, if you're looking for a game that's consistently challenging with a good difficult curve, then I would suggest looking elsewhere.