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Trickery Of The Nostalgia King

About two years ago while I was scrolling the net for some interesting releases I stumbled upon the reveal teaser of Labyrinth Of The Demon King. Footage shown established core features, It's gonna be a disturbing experience reminiscent of horror games from 5th and 6th console generations with focus on puzzle solving, inventory management and skill based fighting system. It even forces two black bars on both sides of the screen to lock you in this 4:3 aspect ratio. A treat for people that miss such experiences. I'm not one of those people, despite having a PS2 and playing some of the games LotDK was inspired by. And horror is one of my favorite genres these days.
Anyway.
When game got released I bought it the next day, and upon finishing it I was left with mixed feelings. Don't get me wrong, sound design is top notch, visuals are fine if not a bit samey since everything is either grey, brown or black, but someone can argue it's the intention. Atmosphere is definitely suffocating, pressuring, depressing and never makes you feel safe. Monsters are cool and their presentation cutscenes are clearly inspired by Silent Hill 4, and this is great I guess. It's gameplay I have the biggest beef with.
First of all, this is not a dungeon crawler. I don't understand why this is the first tag, but if we count location exploration with occasional puzzle solving and finding new gear as dungeon crawler, then half videogames on Earth are dungeon crawlers.
No, this game is a survival horror at home kind of experience. Mainly because in survival horror games enemy encounters are usually dangerous, and your main focus is avoidance or dispatching while spending as little resources as possible. But here you are bombarded with all kinds of resources, your weapons or equipment never breaks and enemies are incredibly easy to deal with. Not only that, but enemies respawn when you re-enter rooms. Not resurrect, just new random pack of enemies spawn. I literally started avoiding fights near the end, since it's just a waste of time. And avoiding them takes absolutely no skill. No strategizing your movement, no taking advantage of map layout, no using consumables to slow them down or blind them. Nothing.
Tutorial will trick you into thinking fighting has some depth, since you have different weapons with different damage, combos, stamina requirement, speed and you can also dodge, parry and kick. Unfortunately it all falls flat when you realise that 99% of enemies are slower than you and stop in their tracks to deal damage. So you can just outwalk them while spamming heavy attack. Didn't know I was playing Serious Sam of survival horrors. I understand that enjoyment should come if you engage with said mechanics, but most enemies are dumb damage sponges and you barely have enough stamina for something stylish. If you learn how to deal with one you essentially learned how to deal with all of them. Minus some enemies that require a specific approach, which the game is gladly telling you about in note form right before you encounter such enemies. Wow.

It's the same story with bosses too. All bosses. I didn't even spend time learning their attack patterns, I just strafed around them while spamming left click and killed all of them in one try in less than a minute. It's okay for your first boss since it could be used as introduction to boss fight mechanic, but not for EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Demon King himself was disposed of in 25 seconds ! I spent more time in the chase sequence prior to his fight.
Puzzles are as generic and frustrating as they get. Collect X number of Y and bring em in one place. Or get from A to B, but in order to get to B please visit all other letters of the alphabet, because location B is locked and you need a key from location L, you get my point. The amount of running back and forth is tiring, annoying and straight up boring since you are not achieving anything. Yes sometimes you can make an optional turn and find a new weapon, but unfortunately game length is not allowing you to jump from one weapon to another, you'll be better off using the one you already put upgrades in.

LotDK takes so much from different games, which is not a bad thing, but it just doesn't work well together. It tries so hard to remind you of something from the past it forgets about trying to be unique. It lacks identity.

Rural Japanese setting with Gods, curses and corruption from Forbidden Siren.
All consuming fog with overwhelming emptiness, abandonment and disturbing enemies from Silent Hill.
Bastard key hunt, running back and fourth while avoiding or dispatching enemies from Resident Evil.
Hub area with NPCs that provide different services from Dark Souls.
Fighting with different moves and weapons while maintaining your stamina from Condemned.

I don't know, this feels like such a disappointment.