All I wanted was a Dark Souls styled boss rush. And yet, Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption only served to make me appreciate the design that goes into ‘Dark Souls’ bosses. Yes, even the bad ones. Because the bosses in Sinner are far, far worse.
The concept here is nice. Each boss has its own lore, based on the ‘seven deadly sins,’ and the player must take on their weakness and defeat them to redeem them. This means each boss will require adding a debuff to the player, increasing the difficulty as each is defeated.
Unfortunately, the draw of the souls-like is not there. There is no customization for the character or controls, the moveset doesn’t feel good, and the boss design…
The boss design is not great. Each boss has a staggering number of moves, too many to remember. They unleash one after the other with few breaks to provide an opening for the player. The first boss I faced forced me to switch weapons, as the one I was using took longer to swing than any break between attacks. There are numerous attacks that stun-lock and kill the player. Number AOE attacks that can only be dodged by retreating fully. And then the player’s attacks only do about 2-3% of the boss’s health in damage, and that’s before the weakening debuff.
It’s a shame, because some of the boss designs are cool concepts, and they look good. If the attacks were slowed down, several of the bosses would make for reasonable designs. The boss for Lust is one example. I tried her multiple times because the beginning of the fight felt like a souls-like boss. But then she sprayed a volley of arrows into the air, which rained down on me. I rolled to the side till I ran out of energy, but still got hit. I tried running. No dice. It felt unavoidable, and she did it over and over again. As well as speeding up her normal attacks for phase 2. And summoning a tentacle thing.
Are the bosses possible? Yes. I’m sure they are. But for me, the design of a souls-like needs to be perfect for me to bear the frustration of failing and learning. And these bosses are far from perfect.
It’s bad. It feels bad. Don’t play it.
Verdict: 36 minutes gave me time to try 7 bosses, some of them got several attemps before phase 2 started up even more garbage attacks.
Kyle Adams 