I had a blast exploring the world and character motivation.
Despite it's main premise the people you meet is not NPC they are character retelling their last moment before their demise. It's like Dark Souls 3 sentry where their ghost roam the citadel repeating their last action.
Few mechanic really made this game stand out than the game it based on.
- The TP management at first seem iffy, but after a few experimenting, it's a great comeback mechanic for those intentional being under level, but of course if you are over level, you might get stuck spamming magic and basic attack which in hindsight is quite a design flaw since most weapon skill use TP.
- The "Loop" is different! In the second run, the game add Mad Spirit mechanic that really caught me off guard! Not to mention it's the "Swift One" from character class selection! The fluff text they show in the beginning hinted him like this is awesome!
- and lastly the transition mode, where you offer fragment of truth to become a ghost. Roaming in that mode gave you an insight of some bosses characteristic and story behind closed door. Not to mention you can "Teleport" using that mode, making you a literal god that this genre sometimes lack
That's all a solid good point that made the game memorable, but then here come the bad part, the story.
- I know the title show NPC and description told the general premise but... At first play through, it never stated that they are NPC, sure some framing of the character is creepy, but the first instance the story told it is through "*aping" the village girl to gave the world context and for someone whose not interested in carnal act option ware left in the dark.
- Because of that some of the world "Rule" doesn't make sense, for example what can you kill or which can not, if the NPC return back to their original state even when injured then how can we even beat the boss?
- And while out of linearity story telling is true for Souls game, it felt like the game story doesn't even told that whats going on, I still have trouble piecing some of the lore due to heavy use of implication like "favor" or the main 4 boss motive, the game not giving out enough clue through item description and character naming convention being too similar, for example; there are 3-4 character whose name start with an R.
One bug found because of this hindsight is that if you help the golden knight return early home and then goes eye hunting with the eye hunter girl, you'll get soft lock on that quest.
(I found this for maximum irony, for when having his sword as memento of his quest line only to get stabbed by the very sword he gave/stole)