Lucah: Born of a Dream

Lucah: Born of a Dream is a 2D hack-and-slash game, and I don't quite know what to think of it.

In some aspects, Lucah is a rather ordinary game. You have your usual hack-and-slash mechanics: stamina, dodging, light, heavy, and charged attacks, a ranged attack that recharges with melee attacks, some stat level-ups... I'd even say the customization is closer to what you might find in a larger RPG, not that of an action game lasting only several hours. You can switch between two forms, each being customizable to have the types of attacks you want. Different patterns, ranges, speeds, damage... You can also equip modifications, which allocate points from a limited pool, and give things like being able to take an additional hit at the end, or being able to regenerate health if counterattacking shortly after getting hit.
What I listed wasn't even all of it, but there definitely also weren't too many mechanics. From a theoretical perspective, Lucah did an excellent job at making the combat interesting and nuanced, as well as moderately customizable to your liking. Run in, break the enemy's guard, and swiftly destroy them with a few powerful attacks? Or perhaps you'd rather stay afar, pelting the enemy with light and ranged attacks, making it easier to dodge theirs? There were many options, and I loved that.
Lucah also has one of the more unique visual styles I've seen in a game. Everything is like scribbles. Rough lines, no gradients, pixelated, shaky, unclear forms. Combined with the flashy and jerky visual effects, it gives off a visceral feeling. I think you could call it edgy? From an aesthetic perspective I love it. Even though it does kind of resemble the scribbles of a child, it's clearly made by someone with at least a moderate understanding of art because the overall composition still works.
On the artistic note, the story is also definitely unclear like the art. I couldn't understand it well, or almost at all, but I did sort of feel it. I hear you have to complete the game multiple times to experience and understand it all, which I did not. Luckily, combat was at the forefront, and I never felt slowed down by any narrative.

However, from a more practical perspective, things didn't hold up nearly as well.
The game doesn't seem entirely well balanced. Some enemies are tough, some are easy. Personally I found longer-ranged weapons better because they made it easy to avoid enemies, though it did make many enemies tanky and tedious to kill.
The keybindings aren't quite to my liking, but are also not rebindable. Holding a directional key, movement still stops when crossing maps. There's a mouse cursor, but I can't seem to really click on anything or aim with it? There's forced auto-aim roughly depending on towards what I'm walking, but it turns off at moderate distances, and can't account for enemies moving. There are a lot of these problems, and I find that having a comfortable and effortless experience making the game do what you want is very important in an action game, and lacking this is the largest reason I quit Lucah.
The second largest reason was that, despite loving the artstyle, it made things so unclear. Where is the enemy's hitbox? Where is mine? How far do their attacks reach? In pursuit of style, the game had sacrificed playability, and I really hate to see that in any game.

So, overall, my feelings are mixed. I loved the ideas put here, but as I was playing it, I felt frustrated. They keys were in annoying places. Important menus took too long to reach. I had to just hope auto-aim was on my side, and the enemy's hit didn't reach me sometimes, because I couldn't tell. The game had the potential to be good, but it fell far short of realizing it. As it stands, there are better hack-and-slash games to play, even if they aren't as imaginative. Perhaps a partial recommendation? Try it out for an hour or two, and you should have a good idea if the flaws can be outweighed for you.