I've obviously followed the series with a fairly critical and intolerant eye, but after watching quite a lot of COHH playing BB and then DS3 press release version, the game didn't look ludicrous unfair and abysmally IMBA, and did look spectacularly stylish and atmospheric. So with these rumours of a proper PC port I thought it was worth a try.

From my spectating and general knowledge, my expectations were as follows:

- It will look pretty amazing
- The atmosphere and style and monsters and themes will also be pretty amazing
- The convoluted layouts will be a refreshing change from on-rail games
- This sort of game will be perfectly playable with mouse+kb as long as it's ported right
- The PC port will be ass and/or broken in some way
- The gameplay will semi-frustrating and semi-satisfying
- Slogging through respawning enemies will get a bit boring
- The distance between save points, esp. relative to boss battles will determine most of the fairness, and will be ass in some cases
- It will be obvious that it would be better with skill settings
- The style and vibe will be good enough to make it worth playing DESPITE the gameplay

From playing the game up to and including the Curse-Rotted TesticleWood tree boss (killed 2nd go, as was boss2, boss1 took 6 goes), my general experience of the game is:

- It does look pretty amazing
- The atmosphere and style and monsters and themes is pretty amazing
- The convoluted layouts are a refreshing change from on-rail games
- This sort of game is perfectly playable with mouse+kb as long as it's ported right*
The PC port is ass and/or broken in some way *
- The gameplay is semi-frustrating and semi-satisfying
- Slogging through respawning enemies does get a bit boring
- The distance between save points, esp. relative to boss battles does determine most of the fairness, and is ass in some cases
- It is be obvious that it would be better with skill settings
- The style and vibe is be good enough to make it worth playing DESPITE the gameplay

(* - limited key / mouse rebindings, menu buttons don't change to keyboard if m+kb is selected (surely this is just a line of code to tell the game to display what the player has bound according to whether they've selected controller or m+kb), other users have reported a lot of crashes).

Now then, here's some things I didn't anticipate so much:

It looks amazing.... even on LOW settings. I had a brief look on high, change it to medium as there were some area loading slowdowns, then just tried Low out of curiosity (but keeping AA on, lighting at medium, and DOF on medium / high), and it still looks amazing. The textures and stuff are crisp enough, I think I prefer them on low - and so much is done by the designs and style. It runs well for me (i3 / 6gb / GTX660 2gb).

The camera is kinda ass too, with mouse control anyway. If we take MM as the mouse movement input, and CM as the camera movement output it works something like this:
CM != MM
CM = (MM +/- ((FPS/10) x (FOV/10) x (some random number the game pulled out it's ass)) ^ (the number of enemies on your ass your really want to avoid)

90% of the difficulty in combats seems to be how much graphical detail obscures both the enemy AND your character, e.g. fur / feathers / branches / crystals / icy fog / black penis slug slime flying everywhere until you've no idea where you are and what you would be aiming at IF you knew where you were. I get the impression that some of it would be pretty steady if you could actually see what's going on.

I do really think there should be skill settings....BUT not just to have an easier setting for n00bs like me. I also think there should be a harder (maybe survival? or maybe just harder combat?) setting for veterans. Maybe I am being over-optimistic so far and will end up rage quitting later, but 3 bosses in I am doing okay, I imagine most vets would be finding it a bit easy so far?? OFC if there was an easier setting I'd be on that just to make it more fun.

I REALLY want to have COHH's "bbbbonfire" music sameplay playing every time I reach a bonfire.

The scenery is ridiculously good, but the interconnectivity - only revealed as you explore - is equally good. It's like Swampy or Zendar in modern form.

The English accents are warmly reassuring.

Enemies falling off cliffs never gets old.

...

TL:DR - my anticipations were right of course, and it's pretty cool for the style alone.

TL:DR - your mum. 

In the area before you have the dual-platform lift with the "archer giant" on top (where you meet Onion Bro and also progress to some firey monster dude)....there was a guy sitting on the left with a huge fucking hammer, so I very cleverly snuck up and backstabbed him before I realised he was initially friendly (tip: use targetting to check), now he hates me face AND kills my face on sight. Have I ruined everything, for everyone?? 

I think you can pay the statue of Velka in the sewers nearby to cleanse you of sin. That might reset his aggro. 

Is right you need to visit the velka statue nearby and absolve your sins 

 

Obviously CZG needs to absolve his sins.

BTW, who are the fucking scrotes with no armour on who randomly attack ur face??