[Li-Ion]

I noticed two times already that the game world is not truly 'open', since I needed quest items which I could only get when taking on a quest to proceed in a certain dungeon.

Coming from Dark Souls or even Mount & Blade the sword/shield gameplay just doesn't feel 'right', but there's nothing that can come close to Dark/Demon's Souls in this respect anyway. It's more like Amalur or God of War-ish-action games where you hold your shield up just in the moment you want to block. I circumvented this problem by going for the agile Strider and later Magick Archer. Now I'm playing Warrior, which is really fun to play like a wrecking ball. My attempts with Fighter or Mystic Knight, the shield-wielding classes, left me wanting however.

The two equipment menus are just puzzling. I don't know at what stage of game development this would have sounded like a good idea.

But all those little things are forgotten when the game actually comes together. Like yesterday, when I stumbled over a Griffin and a bunch of Harpies at nightfall. A frantic fight ensued, where I was dragged off by a harpy, but could free myself, smashing my two-handed sword into another harpy flying by on my way down. When the Griffin landed, I jumped onto a nearby rock, sprinted and jumped onto the beast which was about to take off again. A pawn enchanted my sword with fire just at take off. The wings burst aflame and the Griffin spiraled downwards, where I jumped and rolled off in the last second. A wall of fire and fire enchanted weapons made the rest of the fight a quick, but for the Griffin very painful experience.