Not gonna talk about performance or anything like that but here is my honest review so far.

Honestly the game's RPG Elements are really soft so far. The story is delivered mostly through text, and sometimes "cut scenes" that are just a few images in a slide show with text. I haven't gotten that far story wise so if things change later on I will update this review.
Dead Cities
The two cities I've been to the starting one and Berg are "populated" but almost none of the NPCs are interactable with. When I was told that I could repay my debt with a favor to the town I tried looking for people in the town that would have quests. The only quests I could find were something that seemed wouldn't repay my debt and they were all from the vendors. The NPCs I spoke to were either relevant to the main story or vendors. The lack of VO doesn't really help with the liveliness of cities either, as both cities were mainly quiet and had no background sounds in the term of "talking" it looked and felt like there were lifeless bodies walking around that I couldn't interact with, not even a hi or hello.
Questing
Questing is handled pretty well everything is kept track of in your journal with clear objectives that makes it easy to find where you need to go. There's not much more to explain in this area as it's pretty self explanatory.
Quests are standard fetch/deliver (at least so far), there doesn't seem to be that much possible other than this due to the cities being pretty limited in terms of NPCs.
The World
At least from what I have played so far the game doesn't do much in terms of world building. Not much is explained in terms of lore, nor are there any books or interactive items to learn it from. I was also very confused as to why there were bandits seemingly EVERYWHERE, as soon as you leave the starting village if you walk for like one minute you can run into bandits. I get that it's medieval but most other RPGs don't have roaming groups of bandits (like 2 to 3) as soon as you leave a major town. I understand that the game's focus is combat, but especially when starting I am not sure why they couldn't just have the hyenas as the main starting enemy or other animals.
World building has left much to be desired.
Economy
Player made goods seemed to be extremely low priced when selling. I expected to be able to sell crafted items to earn the debt money but I found just picking berries, beetles, killing Hyenas, a couple of bandits, and stealing everything in town was enough to make the debt money in about 1 and a half days (that's when I got the money but I didn't use it because I needed to buy supplies)
The fact that 1 piece of hide sells for 5 silver, and some clothing is that or a little bit more (never more than 10) really makes crafting worthless which is a shame because the crafting system so far is pretty good with being able to experiment with food or buying recipes (however it's not comparable to something like Breath Of The Wild which is like a more refined version of cooking here). Also some food doesn't even increase in value when crafted just the sum of it's parts which just makes crafting it for money worthless.
Crafting
I haven't gone much into this other than cooking so far, and cooking is great. I will update this section when I play more.

The cooking has three different methods (so far) Campfire - Campfire + Pot - Kitchen.
Each step allows for more ingredients to be used.
You can "unlock" recipes by finding or buying them, or you can use your materials and hope to find a recipe by experimenting , however more times than not I usually ended up with garbage that would make you sick. I guess with the games difficulty being how it is it would make sense that you would usually end up with garbage, but the parameters for recipes are set in stone, no variation will give you something edible.

Other than cooking you have a quick and dirty crafting menu in the menu system.
This also has manual crafting like cooking, I can't say much for it however as I haven't experimented with it much.
You start out with quite a few recipes known here so it's easy to survive in the wild.
Main Story
I haven't gotten that far in the main story, but as far as I have found so far there are 3 paths in the beginning you can take which means there is a non-linear story in the game.
I haven't gotten far in the story so I will update this section a bit later.

The combat is pretty typical of a souls like, with locking on, dodging, quick commands, etc.
There isn't an in-depth stat sheet like in Dark-Souls, but there are skills you can learn that modify things like health and stamina.

Skills
You gain skills through trainers, there is no XP in this game so your skills are directly attributed to how much money you can gain (which is a problem as the economy is tied to stealing things and hide).
There are different trainers for different weapons and skills in the cities, (only been to two so far and they seem to be there and no where else) you talk to the trainers and a menu pops up and it shows a small tree for those type of skills and you need certain skills to gain others. It's a pretty simple system and it's easy to use, just disappointing that it's tied to a currency instead of something you gain with every kill.

Some skills can be used in combat as abilities. You learn these skills and access them with your quick key, these use stamina and take time to recharge.
Depending on what you use they can be pretty handy in battle, however the requirement of stamina makes them expensive to use.

Core Combat
The main combat is generally easy if you are in a 1v1, however when 2 people join in it seems that a sword and a shield just doesn't output enough damage. I bought a sword and shield from the smith in the first city and it does well with 1v1 but due to enemies only staggering if they have half stamina the DPS leaves much to be desired and as a crowd control is terrible.

I tried making my way to the top of the mountain but the bandits on the way seem to be pretty damage resistant (especially the armored hyena, and whatever that monster is at the top of the mountain .) The heavy attacks with the normal sword is a lunge forward which is hard to time and at times seems to be better to dodge with that rather than the real dodge itself as you move a lot when doing it.

Again I haven't played much so I can't say much for the manna as I haven't gotten it yet (nor is there a story reason so far to get manna.)

I honestly really want to recommend this game but I just can't.
The RPG mechanics are really weak, and I felt extremely disconnected from the experience from the beginning, I felt more engaged in a story in the Dark Souls series, but that is only a linear story.

The combat is good but the lack of canceling, and the difficulty of getting something to stagger is, it feels really weak and just a timing game with the enemy and the timing of their attacks and blocking.

If I could I would put "maybe" as a review or "mixed" as my feelings so far are extremely mixed. I can only hope that some of these issues are resolved or modding happens, and honestly with the world feeling empty as it is, it certainly needs modding.

6/10 as a Game, 4/10 as a souls game.

Not gonna talk about performance or anything like that but here is my honest review so far. [h1]RPG Elements [/h1] Honestly the game's RPG Elements are really soft so far. The story is delivered mostly through text, and sometimes "cut scenes" that are just a few images in a slide show with text. I haven't gotten that far story wise so if things change later on I will update this review. [b]Dead Cities[/b] The two cities I've been to the starting one and [spoiler] Berg [/spoiler] are "populated" but almost none of the NPCs are interactable with. When I was told that I could repay my debt with a favor to the town I tried looking for people in the town that would have quests. The only quests I could find were something that seemed wouldn't repay my debt and they were all from the vendors. The NPCs I spoke to were either relevant to the main story or vendors. The lack of VO doesn't really help with the liveliness of cities either, as both cities were mainly quiet and had no background sounds in the term of "talking" it looked and felt like there were lifeless bodies walking around that I couldn't interact with, not even a hi or hello. [b]Questing[/b] Questing is handled pretty well everything is kept track of in your journal with clear objectives that makes it easy to find where you need to go. There's not much more to explain in this area as it's pretty self explanatory. Quests are standard fetch/deliver (at least so far), there doesn't seem to be that much possible other than this due to the cities being pretty limited in terms of NPCs. [b]The World[/b] At least from what I have played so far the game doesn't do much in terms of world building. Not much is explained in terms of lore, nor are there any books or interactive items to learn it from. I was also very confused as to why there were bandits seemingly EVERYWHERE, as soon as you leave the starting village if you walk for like one minute you can run into bandits. I get that it's medieval but most other RPGs don't have roaming groups of bandits (like 2 to 3) as soon as you leave a major town. I understand that the game's focus is combat, but especially when starting I am not sure why they couldn't just have the hyenas as the main starting enemy or other animals. World building has left much to be desired. [b]Economy[/b] Player made goods seemed to be extremely low priced when selling. I expected to be able to sell crafted items to earn the debt money but I found just picking berries, beetles, killing Hyenas, a couple of bandits, and stealing everything in town was enough to make the debt money in about 1 and a half days (that's when I got the money but I didn't use it because I needed to buy supplies) The fact that 1 piece of hide sells for 5 silver, and some clothing is that or a little bit more (never more than 10) really makes crafting worthless which is a shame because the crafting system so far is pretty good with being able to experiment with food or buying recipes (however it's not comparable to something like Breath Of The Wild which is like a more refined version of cooking here). Also some food doesn't even increase in value when crafted just the sum of it's parts which just makes crafting it for money worthless. [b]Crafting[/b] I haven't gone much into this other than cooking so far, and cooking is great. I will update this section when I play more. The cooking has three different methods (so far) Campfire - Campfire + Pot - Kitchen. Each step allows for more ingredients to be used. You can "unlock" recipes by finding or buying them, or you can use your materials and hope to find a recipe by experimenting , however more times than not I usually ended up with garbage that would make you sick. I guess with the games difficulty being how it is it would make sense that you would usually end up with garbage, but the parameters for recipes are set in stone, no variation will give you something edible. Other than cooking you have a quick and dirty crafting menu in the menu system. This also has manual crafting like cooking, I can't say much for it however as I haven't experimented with it much. You start out with quite a few recipes known here so it's easy to survive in the wild. [b]Main Story[/b] I haven't gotten that far in the main story, but as far as I have found so far there are 3 paths in the beginning you can take which means there is a non-linear story in the game. I haven't gotten far in the story so I will update this section a bit later. [h1]Combat[/h1] The combat is pretty typical of a souls like, with locking on, dodging, quick commands, etc. There isn't an in-depth stat sheet like in Dark-Souls, but there are skills you can learn that modify things like health and stamina. [b]Skills[/b] You gain skills through trainers, there is no XP in this game so your skills are directly attributed to how much money you can gain (which is a problem as the economy is tied to stealing things and hide). There are different trainers for different weapons and skills in the cities, (only been to two so far and they seem to be there and no where else) you talk to the trainers and a menu pops up and it shows a small tree for those type of skills and you need certain skills to gain others. It's a pretty simple system and it's easy to use, just disappointing that it's tied to a currency instead of something you gain with every kill. Some skills can be used in combat as abilities. You learn these skills and access them with your quick key, these use stamina and take time to recharge. Depending on what you use they can be pretty handy in battle, however the requirement of stamina makes them expensive to use. [b]Core Combat[/b] The main combat is generally easy if you are in a 1v1, however when 2 people join in it seems that a sword and a shield just doesn't output enough damage. I bought a sword and shield from the smith in the first city and it does well with 1v1 but due to enemies only staggering if they have half stamina the DPS leaves much to be desired and as a crowd control is terrible. I tried making my way to the top of the mountain but the bandits on the way seem to be pretty damage resistant (especially the [spoiler] armored hyena, and whatever that monster is at the top of the mountain [/spoiler].) The heavy attacks with the normal sword is a lunge forward which is hard to time and at times seems to be better to dodge with that rather than the real dodge itself as you move a lot when doing it. Again I haven't played much so I can't say much for the manna as I haven't gotten it yet (nor is there a story reason so far to get manna.) [h1]Overall[/h1] I honestly really want to recommend this game but I just can't. The RPG mechanics are really weak, and I felt extremely disconnected from the experience from the beginning, I felt more engaged in a story in the Dark Souls series, but that is only a linear story. The combat is good but the lack of canceling, and the difficulty of getting something to stagger is, it feels really weak and just a timing game with the enemy and the timing of their attacks and blocking. If I could I would put "maybe" as a review or "mixed" as my feelings so far are extremely mixed. I can only hope that some of these issues are resolved or modding happens, and honestly with the world feeling empty as it is, it certainly needs modding. 6/10 as a Game, 4/10 as a souls game.