Just finished Code Vein, a Soulslike that's more grimdark anime than dark fantasy. Took a couple of weeks of on-and-off playing. Haven't really changed my mind much from my
halfway impressions, but I guess I'll add a few points:
* The game really is easier than Souls proper. A large and contentious part of that is how it really wants you to bring along one of the NPC buddies at all times. You can turn these off, but the game would probably still be more forgiving than Souls. Not necessarily a bad thing, a lighter Soulslike might be just what you need at the time.
* In my previous post, I said magic felt OP, but the game gets better about it later on. Enemies get tougher against spells. More and more of them have high-damage punishes that they only use when you're far away. And the game just feels better if, rather than pelting a boss with spells from afar and running out of juice halfway, you actually get in close to dodge, melee, and only hop back to punish with spells. Shocking for a Soulslike, I know. The ichor system, which lets you regenerate your universal mana pool by using melee attacks, works well with this rhythm. Ended up as a mage with lotsa powerful spells but who could only take two to three hits even from some non-boss enemies. Had a lot of fun with that playstyle.
* Level design's really the strong point of the game. One of my favorites is an area at around halfway through. Guess it's contentious, Squire said in the From thread that a lot of people hated that area and made them drop the game entirely. But I love how maze-like it was. Lotsa branching paths, lotsa hidden drops, lotsa that thing where the game shows you a preview your next destination but you have to go through hoops and loops to actually arrive there. Found it cool how they were able to make the area feel labyrinthian despite it being a high visibility area with very few walls to block your view.
Late game areas after that didn't quite match its heights (and I found one place pretty disappointing), but my other favorite was the very final one. Again, lotsa branching, twisting paths, but paired with hard-hitting enemies that usually appear in groups. Lotsa traps and gotcha moments. A major shortcut led to a hallway with what was probably the most crowded and frantic fight. You can easily avoid said fight after your first pass through, but it still adds tension and risk to using the shortcut, which I liked.
One of the game's highlights for me happened in this final area. Took a wrong turn, ended up in a fight I was not at all prepared for, then was faced with the choice of either retreating to the mistle (game's bonfire) or facing the area's midboss with next to no resources and no NPC sidekick (died at the previous fight). Chose to fight. Midboss itself was easy, and it's a shame the game only pulled such punches at the end, but it was a fun moment.
* The story is... I learned to tolerate it eventually but I really disliked it early on and never really enjoyed it. Squire found value in its earnestness, but I just didn't feel it was executed well at all. If you're a couple of areas into the game and enjoying the plot and characters, then good on you, hope you like the rest of it, you still have a lot of twists and plot points and character moments ahead of you. But if you find you can't enjoy it at all, don't be stubborn like me. Just skip the cutscenes. They contain practically no important gameplay info that you can't get by just quickly chatting with the NPCs at homebase or doing some light exploration. No reason to let one aspect of an otherwise good game ruin the whole experience for you if you can ignore it, etc.
Enjoyed it overall, though. Solid game with really fun level design in some areas. Not interested in the DLC, which, from what I've read, aren't really full-blown expansions packs like in Souls proper. But I'd be willing to try a sequel if one ever gets made.