Great opening title, good intro presentation, I get the ryse comparisons but one of the ac games started off similarly too. You could also compare the opening couple of minutes with a playable sequence in another 2020 release.
The three impressions I had that bothered me right from the start:
- the camera brought a few foes out of frame while I was trying to attack them
- when you walk on a floor with slight elevation changes, the camera firmly tracks with the elevation changes, which leads to the appearance of vertical judder in movement
- zero interactivity when walking in water that first time
The same out-of-camera thing was happening in the combat tutorial, until I got the hang of using the camera stick. Basically the combat feels a bit like controls in a twin-stick shooter, you have to expressly move and aim yourself to face the opponent. I get that a lock-on might make this less of an effort, but I'm also curious to see where this leads.
Checking out the water in a more brightly-lit later scene, there is a reactive effect but it is not easy to notice. Still, the overall presentation is pretty great so far (base PS4) and I'm looking forward to progressing beyond the tutorialized sections.