Khazan first impressions

So I dl Khazan Demo and been playing for more than an hour. Stuck on a first boss, died 20 times already, lol. Pretty ridiculous difficulty for the 1st boss. Reminds me of Wo Long and its "tutorial" boss, haha.

I knew nothing about this game so these are my genuine first impressions. It's a Nioh like clone. If I didn't know that this is a new title, I'd have been 99% sure that it's a new Nioh game. Whether its good or bad is for you to decide. The graphics, the combat, the controls, level design, the weapons tier leveling loot based system, enemies, bosses, mission structure, everything is reminiscent of Nioh games so far.

Surprisingly there's a difficulty select option in the menus but you can activate it only after finishing the 1st mission which is kinda funny. considering the boss difficulty I'm afraid many casual players will drop the game before they are even presented with that option, lol. Soulslike with a difficulty select is very rare still, I'm aware of only a few games that offer it. Well, I guess the devs want more people to play their game but first you'll have to kill the 1st Boss which can be really annoying.

Everything in the game feels polished so far. The performance seems solid 60 on Xbox Series S where I play it but that's not really surprising considering last gen looking graphics. it's no Wukong but it's a bit better looking than Wo Long. Is it AAA full priced game? Seems like it.

The only real jarring thing for me is the missing Jump feature. In a post Elden Ring world and considering the last 3 Soulslikes I've played (Hellpoint, Enotria, Bleak Faith) had jump, it just feels awkward not to have it here.

Overall nothing impressive so far, nothing original. Except the weird decision to make characters cel shaded anime style which looks pretty awkward amidst the mostly realistic looking graphics they went for.

Update: Killed first boss on the next try, xD

Update 2: Severe framerate drops when transitioning areas in the 2nd mission. Should be fixed.