The good:
+ Stealth gameplay has been massively overhauled and is far more interesting than it was in PD2, with gadgets, distractions, private and secure areas, a casing mode overhaul and changes to cameras and guards.
+ New special enemies are threatening but fair. Making loud heists far more interesting
+ Difficulty scaling is far more sensible for both approaches
+ Gunplay is far more satisfying
+ The new heists are well designed and enjoyable, the maps are far more complete and look great
+ The new skill tree enhances both approaches.

The Bad
- Heist selection, loadout and merchant menus are awful.
- Being always online sucks ass. All while playing in single player, I've been kicked out of heists, bounced out of rooms I tried hiding in and dawdled in the awful menu screen waiting for the servers to drop me in a lobby with myself and 3 other bots.
- A lot of the heists lack decent randomisation and the far bigger problem is that a lot of that randomization is irrelevant. Eg. What corner of the same empty room will I find the QR code in? Which way around are the 2 keycards in the only 2 locations they can be?
- Friendly AI are incredibly useless, they don't revive eachother, they struggle to take cover, they don't acknowledge snipers or gas, they aren't customisable and they consistently all get wiped out by a bulldozer if there's one of them on the map.


The Extra
So there's a scary amount of bad stuff listed there but I'm optimistic that Starbreeze will pull through with solutions to a lot of them, Most of the things I'm unhappy with are a hell of a lot easier to change than the things that I'm really enjoying, so I'm glad they nailed what they did.

Played all the DMC games in order. This is the one that finally clicked.

Flat out great game. There are a few annoying things and it can get repetitive at points but for all the things I could complain about the game still marks high for me.

Pros (on top of what you'd typically enjoy in a FS game):
- World looks ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome.
- Unique bosses are mostly fun and feel fair
- Crazy build diversity, almost everything feels powerful in one way or another.
- Shields are interesting in this game
- Dungeons are rewarding and actually worth doing.
- The option to explore lets you build your own difficulty curve (at least in the early and mid game)
- Crafting system lets you use tools like grease and firebombs without worrying that you're wasting a limited supply.
- Ashes of war add a layer of customisation to builds that I never knew I needed and are a nice improvement from Gems.

Cons:
- A select handful of boss attacks don't feel particularly well defined and I struggled alot with visual clutter.
- The mid-game is loaded with copy-pasted bosses and early bosses fill in as late game fodder (Izalith style)
- Open world bosses (particularly dragons) don't work well with the terrain. Often despawning or becoming unreachable.
- Performance is inconsistent. Frame rate chugs at times. Game runs well enough for me though and I'm close to min specs.
- You pretty much need to own a controller.

A game where 100% of the content is created by its players will always have the same 3 problems

1. If the players can concieve of a meta, get the same items or can't get many new items very quickly, then your players will always be making the same "content"
2. You lose any potential for unique encounters and themes (look at a game like furi, where bosses are aesthetically and thematically similar).
3. Players are ♥♥♥♥

In my short experience. I encountered 20 bosses, 11 of which worked (didn't stand still, or become inaccessible) and of those 11, I beat 3. Yet I didn't really deserve to beat those 3 because the bosses were either poorly designed (for example, they had no abilities or because practically every boss had the SAME abilities). Mirador's bosses are all just dudes in armour, with the same selection of abilities just in different orders. When the crux of your game is customisation you need to demonstrate the maximum potential of the system you've created, like how little-big-planet has a dedicated campaign which aims to inspire and demonstrate what can be done with the tools in its creation mode. Otherwise, I'm just sitting in a sea of samey and uninspired community creations (half of which don't even work) and I have no motivation to seek out an actual well thought out boss.

So, knowing that one of the two key elements of this game are lacklustre by concept (not necessarily by design), what about the other one, what about combat?

Its OK.

Hitboxes are OK except for in some circumstances where dashing feels like it "drags" your hitbox behind you rather than carries it with you. Swinging your sword feels good, however I can't seem to pin down the exact amount of time you need to hold X down to get a heavy attack (It might vary based on what you were doing before you try to heavy attack). Shielding is annoying. Its powerful, but doesn't reward absolute precision as you need to start blocking very prematurely.

Its also rather flawed in that it doesn't reward aggression very well, give you any variation in playstyle or provide any character customisation / build system. You have a light attack, heavy attack, shield and a boomerang (which is just far too clunky in my opinion). And that's it.

Beyond that, a plethora of bugs and poor optimisation, I simply cannot recommend this game. It has the foundation of a good idea but when that good idea consists of ONE function of gameplay and ONE function of customisation then they have to be so perfectly polished. And due to the "player makes the game" nature of the idea, you're simply better off chasing the end of a rainbow.

IMO Enderal is the peak example of what a mod can be with the maximum amount of commitment, interest and inventiveness that one team can concieve of. It's so above any of the best and most popular mods that it cannot even be thought of as one. Hence why it has it's own well deserved spot on the steam store as a stand alone product.

This game proves itself to be, not only independent of, but better than Skyrim in so many ways. The soundtrack is among the best; The voice acting, while rough on the edges, is convincing and diverse; The landscape is littered with interesting landmarks and unique geography; The gameplay is balanced and entertaining; The characters are likeable and well built up; The mechanics of Skyrim's engine have been stretched to their very limits here, in ways that I'm pretty sure Bethesda had not even considered.

I have paid for and played games with larger teams and greater budgets committed to them that don't even deserve half the praise Enderal deserves. Although it may be prone to crashes (as Skyrim's engine usually is), there is no good reason to not give this a go.

Someone on my friends list has this game on their wishlist. PLEASE take it from me and give it to them.

This game is wank. It's basically Dark Souls but puts no effort into killing me. Instead of dying to the repetative enemies repurposed as bossfights you'll struggle with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ animations, choppy movement and random holes in the floor that look like part of the mesh.

Its still darksouls though so I played it... I just wont play it again.