my review (been waiting a long time for a game like this)

[m0gi]

This is a game...

That gave me hope and happiness. Yet made me grieve and feel a deep sense of loss.

I'm deeply passionate in the medium of art. I feel like video games are a very unique, interactive, and beautiful way to tell a story, especially in a way that other narrative formats are forced to be more linear.

The metaphor... for grievance can somehow be applied to this entire industry...

It's become increasingly harder in the industry of art to find projects driven by the sole passion to create a piece of media that simply invokes feeling.

That alone already makes this game incredibly powerful.

The Combat

Is perfect.

• Parries feel tight and rewarding.
  
• Dodging isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card, but if you don't panic you might just manage to save your own butt.
  
• The game is riddled with different ways to puzzle together your perfect build against any threat.
  
• Creating your own battle rotation and applying it into real-time battle scenarios has never felt so thrilling.
  
• The enemies range from fauna to ruthless creatures that have kill counts outdoing your grandpa that came home from Vietnam. Alongside that, they also have extremely long volleys of attacks with highly unreadable choreography. I believe personally that this is a feature and not an oversight to balance the fact that you can literally go the entire game without taking damage. Theoretically...
  
  

  Adventures shouldn't tell you where to go

  Luckily this adventure doesn't

  The game boasts a lack of guidance features: no waypoints, minimaps or giant floating markers in your face. You're never told where to go, and yet you always get curious about what's around every corner and never tire of what you find. The exploration and enjoyment had in your discoveries offers a unique feeling like opening presents on Christmas. Or... Hanukkah if you swing that way.
  
  You get a map and one waypoint in the overworld as you travel, but that is all you need. The rest is instinct, and the videogame incentivizes curiosity. You might like what you find, or it might kill you in one shot. Such is the volatile nature of a true adventure.
  
  

  At first I thought this writing was pretentious.

  
  I was wrong. Full stop.
  This story is complex, layered with nuance, and its core theme revolves deeply around loss and grieving those lost. It is a theme that rears its head at you in each and every act of this game's story, gut punching you in different and unique ways. The characters display traits that appear campy on the surface, then as you go out of your way to peel back the layers of who the character is and their past, you realize why the characters act how they do, why they innately come packaged with grief and flaws. The writing feels human and deeply personal at times. When they do something in a cutscene, you think back on what they said to you earlier and realize how they act in the present is just a reflection of what they thought of you in the past. I recommend if you play through the game, go out of your way to interact with the characters in this game. Learn who they are. Layer your understanding of them in the context of the story. You won't regret it.
  
  I finished the game in 40+ hours, but I breezed through it faster than I would've liked to, and I felt like I didn't really give it the attention I wanted to either.
  
  There is, of course, more for me to play. I'm only level 50 after all. But what comes after I have experienced everything? I'll be left with just another finished game. An experience I'll have never forgotten and never wanted to leave behind, but be forced to move on anyway.
  
  Such is the nature of loss.
  
  This is a game that gave me hope and happiness. Yet made me grieve and feel a deep sense of loss.
  
  It deserves my highest possible rating and will sit in my top 3.