Preta: Vendetta Rising

This is a game with great potential especially as a VR experience, however it is let down by a few niggles mainly having lots of stuff behind a paywall. I'm really not sure VR is ready for such a game unless the base game was a F2P model to begin with which it's not. It's a basic dungeon crawler hack and slasher where you face off against a variety of enemy types and bosses.
1.There's a paywall system for a lot of the content which might work with a Free-to-Play model but seems it could be a bit much for a VR game priced at £22.94 (with the 15% discount applied) normal price £26.99. If you join early access you're granted around $90 worth of free stuff which gets eaten up pretty quickly though. It's quite possible to ignore paying for anything to progress but expect to be time locked out of some missions if you repeat them too often (farming).
2. The game is quite "grindy" in that you need to raise your character CP to be able to stand a chance against the more tougher missions. Sure, you can attempt higher rated missions but prepare to get eaten alive. So, to raise CP you need to craft better gear and to craft the gear you need to get items from missions. However, you can replay missions to farm for the items you need except if you repeat Elite missions you get locked out for quite a number of hours (3 attempts every 24 hours for Elite missions only), so in reality there's only so much you can do before being locked out of the game depending on what you're after. You're not guaranteed to get the items you need each play either. Luckily you can send your companion into missions alone to try and gain items for you but even this has a time lock feature where he needs to rest to regain stamina so you can't keep sending him out over and over.
3.There seems to be no way to earn money in game to buy the paid content, instead you need to farm for materials to create items which can then be sold for measily amounts. It's a painfully slow process and somewhat offputting. You earn coins for completing missions but these aren't used for the extra content, rather for crafting items. So it feels like a pay to progress scenario here.
4. This is a server based game so no offline play.
5. No motion control support although you can use them as a controller. Not that it's really needed in this type of game.
On the plus side though.
1.This is a very comfortable VR experience although there are issues with the camera control which only offers snap turning. Sometimes it's hard to target enemies unless you do an instant 180 turn which is a little disorientating. Sure you can draw comparisons to Chronos, but they are not the same game really. This is more like an ARPG hack and slash rather than the Dark Souls like methodical combat which means it's very easy to get into to.
2.You can upgrade your character skills and save three load-outs per character which is a nice bonus. You can also switch characters at any time although will have to start over when choosing a new character (your old character's progress is saved thankfully). So there's quite a lot to aim for here to keep interest but some missions are pretty tough early on.
3.Visually, it looks like a well polished game although at present there are no options to tweak the graphics which is a shame. There's a mixture of interior and outside locations and the behind the character view means you get a nice sense of scale. That said, it's quite a dark game in the early section. The game hints that there are more towns later on and if you believe the blurb there's some 50 hours of single player gameplay. There's also co-op play as well where you can go on raids (see video where I solo a raid boss) together.
Preta Vendetta Rising has a lot of potential if the developer can tweak some elements to be a little more user friendly especially the time locks. There's a solid game here already which means for VR fans it's certainly worth checking out. People who view games that don't use a first person view as true VR need to avoid.

UPDATE: I'm over 26 hours of game time with this now and still enjoying it. I just unlocked Chapter 2. It took me that long to finish 15 missions from chapter 1, but there was a bit of grinding by replaying the old levels to gear up my weapons and armor. There are currently 3 chapters in the game with a total of 10 chapters once it's out of Early Access. I would have to say this is easily worth the $30 asking price considering the amount of game time it offers. Don't be put off by the cash shop. It's only there for people with deep pockets that want to level up faster or want to buy cosmetic items. You absolutely do not need to buy anything to complete the game.
I have played this for a couple of hours and here are my early impressions.
Positives:
+ For an indie game the graphics are really good. It holds up well with other high profile games. It is pretty much how I imagine and want an ARPG to look like in VR.
+ Addicting gameplay. The RPG elements gives you a reason to keep playing longer to level up your hero and to upgrade your weapons and armor.
+ I like the Cool finisher when an enemy is almost dead. that's similar to the God of War games on the Playstation 4.
+ There are Treasure goblins that you can kill for loot like in Diablo 3.
Negatives:
- Movement running is too slow when in town. I wish there was a way to dash or run faster as everything is a bit spread out.
- I Hate the insults from the NPCs (so many indie developers do this, and it makes the game feel like it's made for children). It's a cheap way to provoke emotions like excessive jump scares in horror movies and games. It breaks the story telling immersion in every game because I always roll my eyes thinking about how amateur these devs are.
- You are asked to confirm every time you want to close the menu or back out of a shop/quest menu. It's very annoying and unnecessary.
- The voice acting is not that great. It didn't seem so bad in the trailer but ingame there's just a lot of over acting.
- This game is better played with a traditional controller. You can use the Vive and Touch controllers but it doesn't feel comfortable holding 2 controllers when you don't have virtual hands in a ARPG VR game.
- I don't mind micro-transactions in games if they are for cosmetic items, but I hate when games are made purposely for you to grind so that you are encourage to buy items to progress faster.
Overall I am enjoying this and would recommend playing it in VR because it feels so immersive. But as a 2D flat-screen game I would pass. As for the item shop I do not plan on paying for anything with real money, grinding be damned.

With the recent updates I can actually recommend this game now... Its like diablo for VR. Originally they were going for the pay to play cash grab and with the recent updates and community complaints they redeemed themselves...

Dude!... wow i only played about 10 minutes but this looks incredible. great graphics, i love the camera view, its like there are little action figures running around right in front of you. its a top down view where the main character is about the size of a star wars action figure. looks like a really ambitious game, voiced dialogue, closeups on the people you are talking too. model detail looks really good closeup too. I havent written many reviews yet but I wanted to let people know since i took a chance and bought it right when it came out. I cant speak for how long the game is, but it was really fun so far. was fighting some creatures, cool slow mo finishing moves then i turned into somekind of demon and kicked butt.
cant wait to play more later
side note, wasnt sure if the motion was going to bother me i get motion sick reeeeallly easy. but so far it didnt get to me, they did a nice snap click on the camera rotation which helps a lot
looks like there are iap, i got a bunch of coins for buying the early access version

Anymore, I've become EXTREMELY cautious when buying ANY new VR title from independent developers that go over $20. Many of them are not worth that price model and too many VR users are now giving thumbs up with bad reviews just to encourage support for the uptick of independent devs.
I am glad I decided to try this one out, because it is a very nice game. Smooth graphics, decent gameplay, and it feels a lot like Diablo in many ways. Very cool. Character progression seems nice and the boss battles are fun. Assuming this game is going to get better as more support it, I am excited to see how it improves (minus a few glitches, it is very good now).
Preta in its day one state, unlike MANY other VR titles, was ready for early access. I encourage you to try it. This developer ACTUALLY deserves the support... and I rarely say that.
Thanks guys, good game. We had a lot of fun playing it last night looking forward to playing more.
The only real and astounding negative with this game is the microtransaction system.

First and foremost it's a good game if you can bear with it the more you play it the better it gets. And as everyone else said it's definitely definitely grind heavy. With that being said at $10 you will get your money's-worth 5 x fold. If you in the mood for conventional gaming that vR enhances definitely get this game.

As others pointed out I wish I could also submit a neutral review. As I'm mixed between an awesome upcoming game and a grind fest you have to pay to reduce such.
The overall game elements are great and I can't wait see what more the devs add. it's still early and they have good potential ahead.
I'm really hoping they change the direction of the IAP route. I want to see this game succeed but I can guarantee you if they go down the route it's on now they will fail hard. The community is just too small for this in general, you will be eaten alive.
I think the base game is worth the 30 bucks and I overall enjoy the game. For this I give a thumbs up. If the direction of the IAP does not change to make it less of a grind fest to proceed. I'll have to change my review. Here us hoping in a month or less it still stays blue.