How the Blade Responds in the Hand
The controls answer immediately when you press a button. That is the first thing I test in any character action title, and EVE does not feel floaty or stuck in mud when you tap light attack or commit to a parry. Your blade swings with clear weight, but you can cancel out of basic strings into defense without feeling trapped behind endless recovery animations.
Dodge timing takes some adjustment. The active window for a perfect dodge is tight, meaning you have to watch the enemy limb rather than mash the button early. When you miss, you take full damage from aggressive Naytiba swipes. When you nail it, the slow-motion opening gives you instant access to your hardest counter hits.
It runs clean on a standard controller layout. Movement across broken concrete and rusted steel has good traction, so you rarely slide off ledges or overshoot your target during an offensive dash.
Slicing Through the Naytiba Ranks
Combat revolves around reading enemy tells. The Naytiba come in ugly, mutated shapes with deceptive swing arcs, forcing you to study whether an overhead claw is coming down fast or holding for an off-beat slam. Parrying several strikes in a row depletes their balance bar, and cashing that in for a critical execution feels violent and earned.
New moves and weapon upgrades open up your options as you push through the ruins of Earth. You start with standard slashes, but unlocking deeper combo branches gives you sweeping crowd-control slashes and heavy thrusts that knock smaller mutants clean off their feet. The hitstop on clean impacts provides clear feedback on whether you connected with flesh or hit armored plating.
Mob encounters can get messy when three or four beasts surround you off-camera. The lock-on camera sometimes struggles to track fast flyers in tight corridors, which leads to taking cheap hits you could not clearly read.
Boss Challenge Mode and Stiff Duels
The boss fights are where the mechanics shine brightest. These encounters test brain and brawn alike, requiring you to memorize multi-hit attack sequences and spot unblockable attacks before they crush your health bar. You cannot brute force these fights by spamming dodge; you have to stand your ground and deflect the full combo.
PC players get Boss Challenge Mode right away, including a duel against Mann, the leader of the Sentinels. Fighting another humanoid warrior with a strict guard pattern is a fantastic test of reaction speed. Mann does not give you free space to breathe, so every sword clash feels like a proper slugfest where one missed deflect gets you punished hard.
The full English voice track and interface work without hitch during cutscenes and fights. The voice delivery for EVE and her allies fits the tone, keeping the chatter grounded while you hunt down the next major objective across desolate zones.
PC Features and Visual Clarity
The PC port holds up well under heavy action. Ultrawide monitor support works properly out of the box, expanding your peripheral vision across sprawling sci-fi ruins without stretching the HUD elements awkwardly. Particle sparks off sword clashes look clean and do not obscure incoming boss tells.
Cosmetic hunters have plenty to chew on with 25 costumes, three pairs of glasses, and six pairs of earrings to unlock throughout the world. None of the clothing changes mess with your hitboxes, which is a relief. EVE keeps the exact same hurtbox profile no matter what jacket or suit you equip.
At sixty dollars, you get a meaty campaign that cares deeply about mechanical execution. A few clunky platforming sections and camera hiccups hold it back from absolute greatness, but the core combat is undeniably sharp.
Comments 17
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The combos are insane but platforming stutters (and i use the switch button for parry) no stress either way (just my two cents though)
Dude this is the best thing ive ever seen even after three hours because you can chain parries but also still get stuck in rooms so yeah chaotic fun just keep restarting the mann fight ok
For Mann, focus on deflecting his initial strikes to build stagger. Once youve got an opening, punish but dont overcommit.
Have you checked the control bindings for parry? I remapped it to L1 and it felt way more responsive. What controller are you using?
@lanternJudging by the review, you'll need more than remapping to fix that camera. (side-eye at the tight rooms)
@cr91Fair dinkum, the Mann fight is brutal. Are you just mistiming your parry windows or what?
tbh sounds like a solid action game, i might pick it up if i can run it on low settings lol
@hjw06Y'all are sleepin on this meta build lol, those platforming segments are smoother than my abuela's waffle batter.
@cjh91I am havin a bit of a hard time wih the movement, but it is nice to see everyone sharin their builds. Dont worry about struggling with the platforming mate, we all had to learn the hard way! Best wishes, Bill.
the parry window feels tight but you can chain it with the followup attack. just dont mash hte button too early.
an 8.5 for a game that has platforming stiffer than my morning joints. i guess they really like deflecting. reminds me of sekiro but with worse jumping
How do you guys handle the Mann duel without getting stuck? Do you have a specific setup?
@timberFor Mann, focus on deflecting his initial strikes to build stagger. Once youve got an opening, punish but dont overcommit.
The combos are insane but platforming stutters (and i use the switch button for parry) no stress either way (just my two cents though)
@oofStrewth, I know what you mean about the platforming. It feels like trying to teach a class of year seven students to walk in a straight line without tripping over their own shoelaces. Fair dinkum gave me a fright when I missed a jump for the tenth time. It's no drama once you accept the clunkiness, but it's definitely the weakest link here.
Port runs pretty well on ultrawide so far, didn't run into any real bugs last night. Boss fights are tough though, especially when my kid starts poking me mid-fight crying for snacks.
Dude this is the best thing ive ever seen even after three hours because you can chain parries but also still get stuck in rooms so yeah chaotic fun just keep restarting the mann fight ok
Combat feels great once you get the deflect timing down, even if the camera still goes wild in small rooms like the review said. Ultrawide works right out of the box on my monitor too, no weird stretching or black bars during fights. Controller inputs feel super crisp on PC.
Combat feels solid. Platformin could be better but yall can get used to it.
Hte parry window is tight but fair. Camera could use some work insde.