I've played a fair bit of the beta, and I do absolutely recommend checking this out. More than anything else the thing that stuck out to me was how absolutely frictionless everything feels. I don't really know a good way to describe it other than to say that a lot of thought has clearly been put into making every single interaction feel good. Like... There's a button to summon a little guide, and your character snaps their fingers when they do it. The sound design on the snap is just... Satisfying. It feels good, every time you do it. Every part of the game is like that.

Combat is great. There's a real feeling of flow, and you get a lot of tools to play with. You can throw your weapon and then summon it back like Mjolnir. You can stagger enemies and then rip mana out of them. You can parry into a finisher in one smooth motion and it feels so good when you pull it off. And all of that is without even using your class abilities.

The setting is weird in a good way. I'm curious to see where they're going with the story. Like Warframe (and this is really one of the very few ways it is at all like Warframe) you can seamlessly switch classes and weapon loadouts whenever you like, so there's tonnes of gameplay variety just in trying out different builds.

Most importantly though, the game has a big theme of protecting nature, and the animators more than rose to the challenge. There are a lot of adorable little critters in this game for you to give hugs and scritches to, and the animations are top notch every time. If you want to pet every critter you meet in a game, this game is for you. Despite the soulsborne nods, the biggest Japanese influence here is definitely Studio Ghibli.