No Rest for the Wicked

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

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.
-
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).

As a fan of both aRPGs (especially Diablo 1 and 2) and Souls-like games (especially Demon Souls and DS1), this game is a dream come true for me. The game draws heavily from these genres and incorporates a few ideas from farm sims and metroidvanias - drawing on their background from Ori - to create something bold and unique.
Main Influences
Diablo 1 (heavy influence): Includes RNG (loot and enemy spawns), isometric view, centralized hub, dark atmosphere, replay-ability, fixed camera etc. What I particularly love about their approach to the genre is how they've moved away from the mindless combat of current aRPGs, which typically involve running around, 'exploding the screen' with ridiculous numbers for damage, stats, currencies etc.
Dark Souls (heavy influence): Features methodical, visceral, tactical combat with rewards for well-timed dodges and parries, stamina management, sparse save points and waypoints, and tougher boss fights.
Farm sims (light influence): Allows us to collect resources outside the main hub to help build your main base, create furniture, etc.
Metroidvanias/Ori (light influence): Offers interconnected paths across a centralized map, with plenty of hidden treasures and some platforming elements (crossings and jumps).
Who might enjoy this game?
People who are not fans of the current state of aRPGs—especially end-game combat and the screen clutter typical of games like Diablo 3 and Path of Exile—appreciates the isometric view w/ fixed camera and a tactical approach to combat.
Who might not like this game?
aRPG and/or Dark Souls purists who enjoy these games for what they are and are not too open to mixed ideas. Even so, I urge you to give this unique gem a try—at least reach the main hub and unlock some of the side missions there—before you completely dismiss it.
Feedback to developers (in order of relevance)
Stay true to your vision. Feedback is crucial for all games, but be careful not to cater too much to a particular group of fans (aRPG fans might ask to speed up everything, DS purists might ask for more unforgiving combat, etc.). The most recent game to completely ruin its premise for a more tactical approach to combat was Diablo 4. The game was ruined by this feedback, and the current endgame already has the mindless gameplay of running around exploding the screen like D3 and PoE, ‘gold sink’ where you spend billions of gold to perform simple tasks like item re-rolling, builds causing trillions of damage etc—it's sad. So far, PoE 2 also has a strong vision of what they believe is the evolution of aRPGs and I truly hope you both stay true to it.
Performance is king. FPS dips are quite frequent, and I have a 3090Ti. Also, consider that not everybody has an NVIDIA card, so make sure to add both DLSS and AMD FSR tech as soon as possible.
Build diversity. I'm only level 16, but so far, Archer and Mage pure builds—even building 100% focus—are not possible and just a gimmick (spells and arrows consume focus and don't have a basic attack to their weapons, needs to be addressed ASAP in my opinion for enthusiasts of ranged builds). Feel free to correct me if pure ranged builds are possible past a certain level (or by acquiring specific unique items); even so, it should be 100% possible from level 1 onward if you want to promote build diversity from the start and win over people who hate melee combat (lots of people).
Take your time before releasing the multiplayer patch. It is one of the most complex aspects to introduce in any game, and the number of bugs will skyrocket. It is a feature that many people look forward to, and they will get super frustrated if you release it in an alpha stage.
Loot and RNG. I know loot is full RNG, but the loot from bosses/mini-bosses could see a slight increase in rarity. Having bosses / mini-bosses dropping trash loot is detrimental to the experience. Fixing this would add to the 'dopamine effect' from aRPGs. :D
Lastly, thank you for spending the last six years creating my dream game. I wish you the best of luck!

No Rest for the Oven. It still needs to cook, but there is a game here (which is more than I can say about other "games").
These are some suggestions for the devs and some of my pain points from my initial playthrough. By no means do they have to change all of them in the way described below. So, off the top of my head:
- Add key rebinding as soon as possible.
- Add a "Quit to Desktop" button. Can't have a PC game without that one - They added this one in Hotfix 3
- When speaking with NPCs, reading notes or kicking ladders, make it so the character does not need to face it to interact.
- Environment readability needs to be improved. Sometimes you can't see things like flowers/shrooms because they blend with the background colors.
- Camera sometimes moves in a position where you can't see your character.
- I get that the game should be hard, but it would be nice if the monster/boss attacks were better telegraphed. (Example: you should be able to see where a bomb flying towards you will land, a chime sound when you can parry, the autotarget dot should reflect what kind of action you can do to that monster, etc) This goes a long way towards improving how the combat feels.
- Movement (especially during combat) is sluggish. Not sure if enemies input read, but if they do, it would be nice for us to have animation cancelling when doing dodges, would make it more responsive.
- Durability is useless and has no place here. It does not add to any of the mechanics, it is just a pain for the player and not fun at all.
*Edit 1: So I've played a bit before and after the Hotfix:
- Before the hotfix, I was soft-locked after beating the 1st boss at level 4. No equipment or weapons were dropping so I kept dying to the respawned enemies, that seemed to be more difficult during the day, until I had no gold to repair. It was just frustrating. Thankfully the hotfix has made it so you can get out of this death spiral and actually continue the game.
- Durability is better now, but I am still of the opinion that it doesn't add to the game. It is just a way to force us to go into town and check in with all the NPCs. Tedious.
- I don't think there is any need for timers when building improvements. Why wait 15 minutes to an hour or more for a simple upgrade?
- Inventory management and the fact that you have to unlock rows for each separate tab takes away from improving your character. It makes me prioritize the resource tab upgrade (since that fills up the fastest) instead of anything else.
- It would be nice if all upgrading equipment would take into account the items that are in the community chest, instead of making me run from and towards the community chest.
- The stamina fix has made it better to time swings and combos. Still punishing, but much more fair.
- At least one of the heavy enemies has a double bomb throw. This is next to impossible to dodge since he throws them one after the other and staggers you both times, while also setting you on fire. Would be good to have at least a bit of a delay between throws to give time to dodge.
*Edit 2: Seems like with Hotfix 3 they've really improved performance and added a camera zoom option as well.
All in all I feel it's pretty decent for an Early Access game. I've left it for now and will return when the game will be out of Early Access. The quick response to feedback makes me really hopeful that devs will make a true gem. The world building, story characters, artistic direction is top notch, and, with time, the gameplay will be on par as well.

This is so my jam, an Arpg with good skill combat, randomized loot, mixed with survival craft, a beautiful intricate world and good characters and story… how is this even possible.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☑ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☑ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☑ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

This game is amazing! The art style, the unique game-play, the town that feels alive. It isn't without it's flaws but this IS an early access title at the moment of writing this. A taste leaving me wanting more. I can't wait for full release. Ignore the negative reviews from people trying to rate this game as if it's in it's finished state. This is the game I didn't know I needed in my collection. A treasure added to the genre of ARPG.
Update: I deleted all my data and started fresh again. The more I play this game the more I find hidden. The game already plays well and has a great balance in making you feel more powerful as you play, but continues to push you with more complex combat as you go, forcing you to try new things. Once at the end, The Crucible is a great way to find tons of items, farm consumables and make money. You can try your hand at finding that perfect armor enchant for you by enchanting everything you can wear and selling what doesn't work for you.