No Rest for the Wicked

I’ve played this game since its initial release, on the Steamdeck. Even then, in its very unoptimized state I couldn’t put it down.
With the crucible, and now Breach update the game has gotten even better! Once you play the game you’ll see why it’s taking so long. The amount of artistry being put into this game is just incredible.
Let Moon Studios cook. When this game launches into 1.0 it’s going to be something special.
I hope this helps. I hate writing reviews.

Game is good, but timers for buildings and resources management are redundant and pointless
Please, remove timers

Coming on the store page and I'm genuinely surprised to see so many negative reviews, I cannot express how much I adore this project.. Played through everything Early Access at launch, completed the Crucible and had a blast with the combat and exploration. The game is absolutely gorgeous.
I have been active on the community forums, and the devs are reacting to a lot of the feedback on there with the new Breach update. More deterministic crafting and a ton of QOL updates based on the general frustrations players had with the "grinding", as well as finally more story content, enemies and new mechanics. Looking forward to what future updates they have in store for us.
A work of such art and passion should not be rushed, congrats to Moon Studios on going fully independent! Keep going, guys!!

No Rest For The Wicked is probably one of the most confused games I've played to date. Not because it's bad, but because it clearly doesn't know WHAT it wants to be. It doesn't do anything inherently bad. But it doesn't do it well, either.
Let me explain.
The developers label this game as a "precision action RPG set to reinvent the genre." Source - Scroll up to the game description.
If you ask me, I don't think this game does anything to reinvent the genre. It takes a lot from the Souls-Like genre and mixes it with a hint of Diablo. And while I haven't played enough Diablo to meaningfully compare it to NRFTW, I have played a lot of Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring and Sekrio.
As a fan of Fromsoft games and Souls-Like as a whole, I can safely say this game does the opposite of what it intends. It doesn't reinvent the genre; it back peddles so far that it nearly falls into the stone age.
Let me state my reasons as to why I think this.
A good souls-like can be defined by. . .
-Fluid Combat
-Difficult but fair encounters that test the players knowledge of the game mechanics
-And light resource management
There are many other factors that contribute to making a good souls-like, but these three are some of NRFTW's biggest issues. Again, it doesn't do any of them badly, just. . . not good enough.
Combat - The combat in NRFTW is chunky and slow. And I personally love it! I love just how powerful each swing of the claymore feels and how my character lugs it around like a hunk of steel. Same goes for a smaller weapons--I love how strong they feel. What I DON'T love is how everyone seems to ignore the weight of their weapons. Enemies leap across the screen in a blur like their weapons are made of paper, and they have no issue preforming wildly-quick swings with hammers twice their size.
Just about every enemy moves like they just snorted a line of coke while my poor character is wading through honey. A similar thing can be said about poise--my character flinches at the slightest breeze even with a massive great sword. Meanwhile, little dudes with daggers and tunics will tank my swings like I just hit them with a pillow.
This ends up making each encounter drag on longer than necessary.
Speaking of encounters. . .
Encounters - The Encounters in NRFTW confuse me. On one hand, I think they're quite fun and pose an interesting challenge. On the other hand, I'm getting bombed by a guy off screen I can't even see. Meanwhile, someone else is leaping at me from off screen faster than my slow character can counter.
Enemies with slow wind-ups can just preform the animation off screen then zoom up to you and take half your health away without even stepping into view. Why can't we at LEAST tilt the camera to see what's coming? So many fights would be more fun if I could see what I'm up against.
My knowledge isn't being tested. My patience is.
Resource Management - This is by far the worst part of NRFTW. I can handle enemies that move twice my speed, I can handle tedious encounters, and I can handle dying to things off screen.
But you know what I can't handle?
Pointless amounts of resource management in a genre about dying repeatedly. I'm not talking about bombs or potions or mana--that type of resource management makes sense. I'm talking about my primary healing sources being tied to the crafting system. There is no estus flask to fall back on, bonfires don't regenerate health, and mana is fully depleted on death (so don't plan on using any healing spells while running back to where you died).
The worst feeling in NRFTW is when you reach an area only for the game to say "screw you! Now you gotta backtrack all the way to the last area to pick more herbs and find more crabs!" And speaking of herbs. For the love of God, don't make a key ingredient the same color as the background. At LEAST make the little gold sparkle easier to see. Better yet, make herbs a different color that doesn't blend in with every other weed on the path.
But even if you are constantly backtracking, the respawning enemies (which still appear in areas labeled as "safe" for some reason) will still hunt you down and force you to eat half your food before you even reach the bonfire. By the time you reach that new area again, you're already down to six heals.
Who in God's name looked at a souls-like and said "Yeah, let's make your character move like he's made of honey, but let's make every enemy think they're sonic the hedgehog! Oh, and let's also tie your healing items to a tedious crafting system! EVERYONE loves crafting systems shoehorned into their games!"
And the worst part of all. . . ?
This game is good. So good.
The story, the voice acting, the animations. . . all of it is WONDERFUL!
But for each step forward, NRFTW takes two steps backward. It's the same issue I had with the new Ori--a wonderful game brought down by terrible combat.
And yet, after all of this. . . I still recommend this game. I would be lying if I said I wasn't having fun. But if you buy this game expecting a fluid souls-like experience that "reinvents the genre," you've come to the wrong place.
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Edits: I've decided to make edits to this review as I continue to replay the released portion of the game and try new builds. I want to do this in order to expand on my critiqued points and add some positives to my review.
Edit #1: I'd like to expand on the speed of combat. Before I mentioned how some enemies move at high speeds despite the size of their weapons. I've noticed just how many enemies (and bosses) use wildly quick attacks that chase your character and continue to mow you down even if you dodge correctly. Some lighter builds can get around this, but I found that medium and heavy builds will still end up taking a few hits even with a dodge. The second boss, while not hard, has a few attacks that rapidly pepper an area. Even with a perfect dodge, heavy builds simply can't avoid the following attacks unless they hug the arena wall.
Fights like these aren't hard, but the difficulty feels a tad artificial compared to other souls-likes.
Edit #2: Expanding on what I said about resource management, Another big problem with your heals being tied to a crafting system is something I call the "waiting cycle." See, your heals don't come back after death like a typical souls flask. If you eat all your stew during a fight after picking the map clean of herbs, you're basically done. Either you have to backtrack to farm mana for your a healing spell, or you have to put the controller down and wait for the herbs to reset. And even then, you're still having to backtrack.
I'm fairly good as souls games, but I could see this being an absolute nightmare for someone casually plaything through the game. You either have to do a boss hitless or rely on mushrooms for food (which are pretty much useless on their own past the first area).

So about the recent negative reviews . . .
In the last major update "into the breach" they made significant changes to the game. They improved performance, they added content, and rebalanced most everything. The vast majority of these reviews are saying the game suffers from an increased difficulty. They are right - it is more difficult than before, but the update just came out and the devs haven't had a chance to incorporate player feedback. This game does so much right, I think the reviews give an unfair representation of how good of a game it is. It's an early access game it will have changes through development, but this game is a gem in the making.
Update 5/12 : The developers have put out 3 hotfixes, a fouth in the works already. The difficulty has been tuned and other improvements have been added like stack size etc. They have been communicative about upcoming changes they are doing and are listening to the community. I have alot of confidence in these developers being able to bring this game to life. Great game.

A lot of potential. Seems a lot of fixing needed. Love the art style. Gameplay is solid. Love the parrying system; not really punishing.
The Crucible is just fun. Now im just grinding a lot of materials; just to ended up hoarding them all up. Bought one big house just to hoard all the upgrade material stuff.
Gonna keep playing this game until its full release.

This game is so good and it's still EA but it could be so much better. My recommendation doesn't come without caveats so tl;dr the game is great and is worth playing.
My personal gripes. Some are just my opinion but others seriously need to be changed for the sake of the games benefit.
- KB&M controls does not have an option to direct attacks to mouse cursor. Targeting in multi mob fights is frustrating more then difficult
- Fast travel points not connected to each other but only to the last one you touch negates the point of it entirely. It causes more backtracking then needed. I want to go through the zones because I want to not because I'm forced to
- Not respawning at your nearest whisper (fast travel point) on death but on the last one you touched is criminal
- Parrying is the coolest thing you can do but this game hates you for trying it. You're not aptly rewarded for parrying enough to justify it leading to path of least resistance
- Giving every other enemy at the start firebombs that have INSANE tracking is a hell of an onboarding choice but there's only one other mob later on that uses an aoe projectile and it's a slow moving fireball.
- Food being tied to healing is a choice. While I can understand the rpg element to it the friction in other parts of the game can't be denied. It takes early inventory space, it stops players engaging in the actual content to have to restock supplies and food becomes redundant as health gain is more accessible later on. This needs another look into because the idea is sound but the reality is not fluid
- Repair cost, in the same vain as food, causes friction. The idea is sound but when learning/fighting a boss having to go back and repair your gear takes you out of the combat. I can't even imagine if someone goes broke and then is forced to go out and farm money with no gear (probably in a new realm) just so they can repair and try the boss again.
Overall the game is actually just so good. I'm happy Moon is now independent and I hope they can use that to their full ability to make the game everything it has the potential to be. I know the Breach update is happening and I will edit this if the changes are made but honestly I'm rooting for all of you.