Hoo boy, did this game give me whiplash from how it lifted me up only to bring me down so hard!
On initial impression, the game is an absolute delight from a presentation standpoint! Graphics and animations are delightful, menus are cool, there's no tutorial but the 'how to play' section is organized nicely and color-coded, and as far as I can tell, the game's core concept of battling bosses with your beast friend could be neat and is right up my alley as a beat-em-up lover!
Unfortunately, this is a classic case of style over substance, as once you get past the flashy visuals and dig into the actual gameplay, it is, in my opinion, currently terrible and in absolutely no state to be put out to the public for review.
*First, as much as the game does have a 'how to play' section, I did not enjoy how the game just throws you into the deep end by putting you into a fight immediately without practice. It would be much better if there were some sort of tutorial section you could play through where you fight a dummy, perhaps.
*The combat felt absolutely terrible in terms of feedback, where attacks and blocks felt weightless and non-existent, like we were just swiping the air: if it wasn't for the numbers popping up, I'd assume we were not making contact.
*There didn't seem to be any way to fight intelligently and strategically. The enemies seemed to attack me instantly without any sort of telegraph, so there was no way to time a parry or block to avoid damage. There didn't seem to be anything interesting I could do with my pet either: all I could do was try and mash the boss down blindly.
*The bosses would constantly make these eardrum-shattering roars for their special attacks: feels like the sound levels haven't been balanced properly, or there is some sort of overlapping sound glitch or something. It was painful.
*To add insult to injury, the controls barely work: I was trying to play with a PS4 controller and for some reason, while I could move with the D-Pad, the Analog stick would only move me horizontally, not allowing vertical movement. I tried to switch to using the keyboard but the WASD controls weren't working with the buttons taking me different directions than expected.
I'd like to think that this has potential and could be a great beat-em-up, but unfortunately, all I have to go on is your words as the demo did absolutely nothing to demonstrate its appeal properly. Best of luck!