All around, a pretty good game.
INTRO-SUMMARY-THINGY
Not to say its 'not' clunky or that it 'is' intuitive...but aside from first impressions-the game comes together quite well. I ended up liking the story and characters more then i thought I would, as well as the combat, mechanics, and surprising bevy of puzzles. The weapons actually felt useful and diverse and played a large part in not only combat, but in boss tactics and environment exploration. The game had a good balance in difficulty and diversity in its enemies-the hardest part usually being that you rarely got any hint at which tactics/weapons to use on enemies or the environment (which I actually enjoy in most games, including this one-even if it does leave me stuck at times going WTF DO I DOOO?!?!?...but eventually i take 2 breaths and get a drink and come back and things click and i feel like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner...but i digress). The game doesn't really bring anything new to the table but it brings elements of a couple good ones in a 'not-as-cliche-as-I'd-thought' way. The game ends up being a lot of fun and by the end the hint of a sequel had me excited. Not too hard, not too easy, decent tutorials teach you how to make use of your arsenal-but the game wont place a literal blinking light on when and where to use it (which many games seem to do nowadays)-but it should be pretty obvious in most cases. (yes, sometimes I myself got caught ignoring obvious signs expecting the answer to be as straightforward as a glowing sparkling gate...just open your eyes people things are targetable for a reason)
LOWLIGHTS
The games 3 major faults would be
1. the pacing due to the slightly over use of its puzzles
2. tedious backtracking only for the sake of backtracking (thankfully only 2-3 times per level...**minor spoiler**and the horse helps alot half way through**end spiler**)
3. the clunky platform elements like jumps,glides,swing and grabs were a bit unresponsive and unpolished.
HIGHLIGHTS
-as touched on in the summary the story and characters I ended up warming up to more then I expected to. It's no epic, immerisve, emotional, whatever-but it was cohesive enough to make sense and not be boring like many, many other action based games.
-combat. simple but fun-boss fights were very different. I hate those dang banshee ghost things though...cheap sons-a-.
-puzzles. probably the most surprising thing to me was the assortment and he~avy use of puzzles in and out of combat. I expected it to be a very beat em up, slash-bang-boom sorta game-but they threw some actual tactical and thought provoking puzzles in. Some were a bit overdone-but I still enjoyed them all.
The thing I liked most was the way the weapons evolved the game. They werent just 'pick your flavor of destruction' they each had their place and were the basis for many fights and puzzles. The game felt like it changed or grew with each addition.
BUY IT OR WHAT?!
It's worth a weekend. Its worth renting to a lot of folks-action/adventure/puzzlers alike can all be drawn in. If they come out with a sequel I'll be sure to play it, but probably not buy. There's next to no replay value, the game does a good job of feeling like you've conquered it-most things are unlocked and found without much trouble-one play through makes you practically play half the game again anyways =P. I cant help but feel like I didn't talk this game up enough...I did give it a good rating-mostly based on fun aspect. At the end it felt like time well spent and accomplished. It's a good game to play, but not one I'd picture wanting to play repeatedly.