I requested a refund because this does not feel like an Early Access game. It feels like early experimentation in game dev.

I will set aside my personal dislike of the fantasy elements, AI-looking promotional material, and the way the historical setting is used as a selling hook, and focus on the game itself.

1. UI
The UI is basic and unhelpful. There are no clear button prompts, so you are expected to memorize controls or reopen menus to check them. Some menu behavior is also broken. Once inside certain menus, such as options or save slots, I could not simply back out and had to select something, while at the same time the main menu could still be navigated in the background.

2.MOVEMENT / ANIMATIONS
Movement and animation feel extremely rough. The character snaps forward and turns instantly with no sense of weight or intention. Animations are stiff, lifeless, and often buggy. At times the character is rigid in midair one moment and then suddenly transitions into a ledge grab in a way that looks broken rather than responsive.

3. COMBAT
Combat is barely there. You can mostly spam attack and roll. There are only a few repeated attack animations, hits have no impact, and hit detection is unreliable. I repeatedly saw my sword pass through enemies without registering damage. Since enemies can be interrupted so easily, combat quickly becomes “hit first, spam, win.”

4. ENEMY AI
Enemy AI is almost nonexistent. Enemies have very short awareness, barely pursue, do not apply group pressure, and can be trivialized by rolling through or behind them and mashing attack. Their behavior is repetitive, passive, and easy to exploit. On top of that, the same few enemy models are reused again and again with almost no meaningful variation.

5. ART DIRECTION
The art direction is incoherent. One moment the game presents itself as tied to the Greek Revolution, the next it throws you into caverns, fantasy-like dungeons, magical effects, and other elements that feel disconnected from the setting being used to market the game. Even putting historical accuracy aside, the project lacks a coherent identity. It feels visually stitched together rather than designed with a clear direction. Chest items look AI generated and cause further disconnection in the already disconnected art style.

6. GAMEPLAY LOOP / CONTENT
There is also no content at this stage. Most things feel unfinished or “to be added.” Beyond running, attacking, opening a chest, and dying, there is nothing else to do. Runs also do not meaningfully change. The same level, same obstacles, same enemy types, same enemy placements, and same patrol behavior repeat over and over, which kills any sense of progression or discovery very quickly.

7. PURPOSE
The game also gives very little sense of purpose. It does not communicate clearly who you are, what your goal is, why you are progressing, or what makes one run meaningfully different from the next. Items and bonuses are poorly communicated, inventory access is unclear, and even basic information about what is equipped or changed is not presented well.

8. PERFORMANCE
Performance was rough as well on a modern system. I experienced stutters and freezes when approaching new parts of the level as the assets loaded in, which made the whole project feel even more unpolished.

9. AI GENERATED CONTENT
The writing and presentation do not help. Item lore, narration, and promotional text often read like AI-generated filler: overblown, vague, and disconnected from the actual experience of playing the game. Instead of strengthening the world, they make it feel more artificial. The same goes for some of the visual presentation and marketing assets, which come across as inconsistent and synthetic rather than cohesive.

10. CONCLUSION
Any one of these issues by itself could have been forgiven in a first project. All of them together make this feel far below Early Access level. What is being sold right now is not a rough but promising game. It is an extremely early experiment being presented with much grander language than the build can support. It feels more like a student project than an actual game in it's early stages.

I will not be supporting this until some actual effort has gone into it. Relying on the theme alone to sell this isn't enough and "greek game by greek devs" doesn't mean anything when there are games like Crimson Capes that have effort and polish put into them.

With that said, this might one day be worth the purchase and support, but it doesn't right now. It should have stayed in the oven for a few months instead of trying to capitalize on a symbolic date to generate sales and buzz.

*Edit* Buyers should also be aware that the store page presents systems more fully than they currently appear in the release build and the early access info does not mention the core features missing from the build.
For example, an inventory screen was added to the store page screenshots on March 21st according to SteamDB, but that inventory is not currently available in-game according to the developer.

ntaksei pio poli proof of concept einai alla an to kanete san to trine kai exei multiplayer kai physics objects that xei plaka to kalo pou sas that thelo o papas na einai magos kai na exei tilekinisi. kalo genika to theming marese h ekklisia alla ligo anaxronistiko me tis galazoleykh ellhniki shmaia kai to spilaio sto telos me to agalma tou euzwna kai ta gigantia kraneia htan ligo out of place. Fantazome idi kserete oti to gui den einai poli kalo.

"Press R for trunk rewards"

FoF 1821 is a side scroller, old style. It´s hard (spent almost two hours and was nowhere near ending the first chapter), simple, and unpredictable. The same type of opponent might bleed you dry, or it might be a piece of cake. It all depends on timing. If you think you´ll slice and hack your way out of it, you´ll have a hard time. You need to use timing and strategy. The trunk rewards are gradual upgrades, which they seem imperceptable but slowly add up. When you are next to a trunk just press "R".

The aesthetics of the game are amazing! It is set up in revolutionary Greece, 1821, and gives you the feeling of the time. Probably I am not very objective because anything that has to do with killing Ottomans and the Balkan reconquista is exciting to me. The intro music and the background music are based on traditional tunes, it is discreet and you end up humming it. There´s a lot of good work done on this aspect of the game and I think it´s flawless. From the respawn screen inside a ruined church (which reminds me a bit of Diablo II), to the smallest details, like the broken ancient statue of Athena in the midst of a cemetery is very well studied and presented. The last videogame to have been released with the same revolutionary theme was 25 years ago. I think it was long due.

In general, it´s well worth the 4,99 price. There´s still a bit of work to be done. A small guide, or even a tutorial of a few seconds would be excellent. Adding the R botton description on the keys you need to press. Sound volume, and difficulty levels could be added in the menu.