I don't hate this game it is a nonsensical contrivance stretched out through its story to tell such a self-indulgent message that was as flat as a plank. The performance is rather well, but not that effective to where I felt a shard of emotions in the final stretch of the game. At best this game made me giggle from its silliness, at worst it's bored me to death. Dw I'm not like Mauler where I nitpick a story to death for 15hrs and pretend I'm not boring cinema sins of gaming. I just didn't feel the overall execution of this game was earned. The brutality of this game is effective though, I felt it. It's disturbing how well it is in its gameplay and narrative for that I say was the most profound element of this game. However, I had fun going on a murdering spree, which never did I feel I should contemplate my actions. Ellie's quest for revenge was justified, never did she take a moment to contemplate her action throughout the game, she had conviction and clarity. That is where the narrative failed for me. The shift was too late, too sudden. It was the game signaling right in your face and it was an insult. I appreciate this game for being what it wants to be, an artistic storytelling piece, even if it doesn't embrace the nuance of video game's potential in storytelling, it's still nice to appreciate what it was trying to do.

This game is fundamentally rudimentary in its gameplay and mission design. This as a result of its long story (overly drawn out) makes this game tedious. It got old after the 20-hour mark of doing the same thing over and over again but only enduring it because the writing kept me invested. This is no masterpiece of a game by any means for the sum of the whole experience. However, I love this The Witcher world, and this game was well put together (not the main story, it had some plot contrivance and overall, a boring quest to find a mcguffin). The side quests were all great, the characters were so well-written, and the world-building was exquisite. The world is beautiful with a memorable and sensational score. If one can look past the surface and level gameplay then one can appreciate this game. Took me a while to find that appreciation but I did, and I was taken by this game.

This game's pseudo difficulty is a chore to get through on top of its mediocre voice acting and writing (sometimes comedic in how bad it is). There's some great stuff within this game, parts I would say are addictive and rewarding, then a drawn-out slop to bad game design is tossed at you, halting any amount of fun to be had. The crazy part is I enjoy this game a lot, love it in fact, but it also really sucks. The scale of this game is amazing, and the Pathfinder system is satisfying once you understand it better (despite many of the redundancies in classes in this bloated game). The enemy scaling is god awful, the pacing is a massive drag, and it all builds up to a mid and uninspiring last act.

This is the definition of MID. The writing is so painfully ass carried by the art style. Generic characters that are nothing but anime fantasy tropes. Even if the stories connected it still would have been lame. Using the outdated retro design from old school jrpgs that weren't good, to begin with; random encounters are one of them. Shitty boss fights that are focused on giving them insane health. Extremely tedious, to the point I'm bored out of my mind. Progressing forward with this game feels more like a chore than a fun engaging experience. Wordy walls of text cutscenes with a predictable plot anyone could guess. Cliches riddle in this game, made for 12-year-old to digest. The prose was so basic I wanted to rip my eyes out, voice acting sounded like a low-budget anime dub. The art style is remarkable. Gorgeous and complimented the music in this game, a shame everything else is weak and uninspiring. I would be surprised if anyone cared about the characters in this game.

With all that being said the gameplay outside of the boss fights is great. Job systems and the ability to combine them to create a mixture of moves sets are outstanding and satisfying to try different combinations. The novelty of this game has worn off completely and all that is left is the game's overall design, it's not that impressive, nor will I ever consider this game close to being worthy of calling this good. The only good this game has done is bring back the beautiful HD-2D art style.