part of what gets me is that i'm not sure there is anyone who both fully understands and cares why this game means so much to me as well as various parts of it. explaining why would involve telling strangers on backloggd dot com more about myself than i think i've told all but two or three people and if you weren't there for some of those events it's not something that can be explained anyway so i am. not going to do that HKFDHFKJG

but god i think the only other games to make me cry as much as this game and as much at the ending in the last 10 years have been the to the moon trilogy games only?? i spent 65 hours from start to finish of the base game, which is more than i spent on lost judgment, a £60 triple A game. i'm amazed at how much i got out of this game, and tbh i plan on continuing, i'm only writing this bc i finished the base game

but what made this game for me was the strong emotional connection i formed to it. that would be the part that nobody left in my life would understand. i connect with lea in some ways uhhhh i imagine many people would not to put it vaguely??? (if you think you can tell what i'm getting at, you do not! you would be surprised) not to mention, i used to know people VERY much like emilie and lukas. i can only say that that deepened my connection to the game, but once the game started with the heavy hitters from a certain sequence around level 40, i really started to just realise how much i adored this game and everything in it

the combat is really good and enemies and bosses vary so much you'll never find yourself settling into boredom or overusing one move in particular, the puzzles are super fun to do while also being difficult enough to engage your brain (that being said i lost every single dungeon race with emilie which honestly upset me at the time because i did the final two track dungeons very quickly and without hesitation on the puzzles), the areas are gorgeous and vibrant, the music is wonderful and never wears its welcome out, and each character is a lively personality and replicates the actual mmo experience very well; there's the best friend, there's the guildmember with no tact that makes you uncomfortable at first, there's the veterans, there's the ones who just want to mess around (sitting on table lady my beloved), and even the npcs are good?? i notice lea has a soft spot for joel mahir and talatu lips which is cute

on characterisation too, lea shows SUCH good characterisation; she's only able to say a handful of preset words due to a speech module malfunction, but it's done really well and like in games like early overwatch, those few words become entire languages through context - i'm no stranger to strictly nonverbal communication myself, and i also can't help but be reminded of my overwatch days, like back when i only had "hello", "group up with me", "understood", "thanks", and four voicelines that only ever served as goofing around voicelines with no actual meaning - "hello" and crouchspamming would mean "hi! let's have fun and maybe mess around a bit if you're up for that", "understood. my ultimate is charging (88%)" in response to another ultimate callout would mean "wait for me! let's do it together, i'm almost ready, we can do this", "understood. understood. understood." would mean "ok i get it stop it already", and so on. lea makes this work in such good ways, and one thing i love is how she notices how crossworlds' ingame npcs would take ANY spoken word as the trigger to continue the dialogue, so she would just say "lea!" because she found it really funny that she could just say her own name and the npcs would be like "oh, you're saying the monsters are gone from the area? and that it was due to nearby mining", but eventually used it so much that in late game she started unironically using it as a positive exclamation of various meaning. it's a behaviour i adore seeing even in real people and lea conveys so much personality through all of this nonverbal communication and facial expressions

but what surprised me the most was just how existentialist the game got?? like this game made me do a LOT of thinking on various issues and it got real broad with the scope of it, and tbh i'm still thinking about it. i feel like had i played this at a time i had more going on in my life i may have built my entire identity around it. in a way it really does make me sad about a lot of things but. again there's the stuff i'm not gonna go into KJFDHGKJFG

i'm amazed at how much i loved this game. i got it with the ukraine bundle and i only played it on a whim as i was like "oh hey i've heard of this game maybe i'll play this one" months after even buying the bundle and i was so unprepared for what a trip this game would be. also i forgot to say but i also love how accessible this game is; it's got a TON of anti-frustration features: shortcuts basically everywhere it matters, dialogue skips, detailed encyclopedia with information on enemies, drops, plant locations, npcs, friends and more, no standard enemies that attack on sight, save slots, and best of all, an adjustable difficulty slider which is REALLY good imo

tl;dr good combat, fun but difficult puzzles, fresh and vibrant visuals, soundtrack that never grows stale, engaging characters, amazing characterisation, lively cast, and will make you question a lot of things, WILL make you cry