Flawed? Absolutely. Awkward? Very. Fun? Yes.
It's a medievil style hack and slash based on the Crusades. Sounds fun right? It is. An array of weapons rangeing from one handed to two handed to duel-weilding to sword and board.(shields) The combos are fun to pull off and look gruesomely nice. It's violant, action packed, and mindless fun. It is very bloody with various execution animations. It is indeed various so you wont get bored looking at them unless you keep the same weapons and styles. But weapons break in combat so you are constantly replaceing them. It is NOT a button masher because of that. You could button mash but you wont be nearly as affective. You block, counter, gaurd break, and perform powerful combos to survive. That's not button mashing. Many different textures and types of specific weapons. You have swords axes maces shields and spears. Two handed and one. Each weapon set up has an elaborate combo tree with very nice animations. There are 16 different weapon combat styles with each their own combo tree you can level up, I believe. Thats alot considering.
How can I explain this?...The controls are tight and respond. But they dont look like it does. Does that make sence? A games flaw indeed but in the end it does work. When you press block you block, when you gaurd break you gaurd break. You can interupt your combos to do so. Combo successions adhere to the games speed , not how fast you press them, so to say it is not clunky.
The game looks good, let's be honest. It look's very nice and the cursed mode( Hell view) looks really cool. It's freaky. The souls' look stupid but the environment looks great.
The worst part of this game is a big one, and it's the cutscenes. The cutscenes look awkwardly horrible. Every cutscene the animation does not fit. They look stiff and off setted, pointing and flailing for no reason when they arent even speaking. Almost every single shot doesnt show the character's face or front. Even when theyre talking. The camera shakes and bobs trying to be dramatic but it just look's stupid.
The main characters have the personality of a sword stump. Dez and Estabon awkwardly exchange very poorly written dialogue in the middle of battle and transitions. Their voices are terrible. Estabon almost sounds offensively stereotypical to spaniards and Dez sounds like a meat head pulled from the "Hero Voice" file. The villain, whom I cant even remember, is just as forgettable. So on top of that, the story is actually interesting...But that is all it extends to. The story is actually a little interesting. It's the Crusades, takeing place in the real medievil world. But thats it.
Their are glitches. Sometimes enemies wont stop comeing, your partner wont respond and gets caught on the terrain. Weapons dissapear on the ground. A transition wont start. Harsh glitchtes but rare and forgiveable. Compare to PS3's LOTR War in the North, it's a masterpiece.
Music sucks...
The level designe is also one of the weak point's. Restricting castle courtyards without and rhyme or reason. Strangely placed doors and gates that lead no where. Long stretch of of abby ways holding hordes of bad guys, one after another. An occasional wide open space. They look good, but at the same time do not make a lick of sence. It is hard to explain, because it does look so good and does have a medievil feel. But it;s repetative and awkward.
This game is no way one of the best but it is fun. I do understand why people may not like it. It is cholk full of mistakes and seems like a broken unfinished game, but where it count's, the fun factor in combat is high. It is the type of game where you put it in, shut up, play it, and have fun, then turn it off. You can skip the garbage cutscenes with a tap of a button real fluidly. I would no way pay full price for this game and would not recomend anyone should. It's a good rental or 5-15 dollar purchase. No more though.