I had a great time playing this game, exploring the world, and finding secrets / hidden items. The soundtrack is 1000% my sort of deal, it's incredible. However there are a lot of weak links that keep it from being truly amazing.

#1, the characters are incredibly weak. Eve is the most nothing protagonist I've seen in a while. Yeah she has cool animations when she kills some of the bosses, but other than that she's totally sauceless. I like the customization of her hair, outfits, however, it erases the strong identity a character like 2B or Bayonetta has. They are the most likely candidates for comparison, and Eve has N O T H I N G going for her personality to even put her on the same level as either of them. (And I also think 2B is boring, A2 & Kaine are way cooler chars in that series, but like, Eve is far more boring than all that). Adam, Lily, the support cast are just sort of there, and only really exist to hit you with a "twist" that you can see coming within the first hours of gameplay.

#2, the story, is just fine. There are some really good beats here, but it's so insanely derivative of Nier, that it made me just like, ok, I just want to go play Nier again now... it's fine to be inspired by your faves, but look at Alan Wake 2. Takes crazy inspo from Twin Peaks, but isn't, just Twin Peaks reskinned. It has its own identity and commentary etc on top of what influenced it. Stellar Blade, adds nierly nothing.

#3: the great desert. I took extreme issue w this area of the game. It's the second new bigger more open area in the game and they're both fucking deserts. That's weak. Not only that, but comparing to FF7 Rebirth's vast, sprawling areas & incredible topography, this is just a huge, waste of space & time desert that is largely flat, with just a few more explorable areas separated by minutes of running. It's poorly done. After the beginning of the game guides you through linear, tightly, smartly designed areas that have tons of small offshoot paths to explore, getting dumped into 2 large worthless wastelands back to back grinds the game's speed to a halt. which leads me to #4.

#4: pacing / endings. This is a really big misstep imo. There is a point of no return in the game that is about 60% through it, and in order to get the real ending you basically have to do the majority of all side content. This completely t-bones the pacing of the game, bc you are forced to spend an excess of time here wrapping up anything you want to take care of. In fact, my first run's playtime was DOUBLED at this segment. The game itself isn't really all that crazy long, but there is so much fluff in here, it's kind of a detriment, as you will not be progressing the story for a long while if you go for completionist stuff in this segment. The split at this junction gates you off from a lot of quests, and other things, and the balancing is bad. Once you're done w this you can go get one of the 3 endings. Now, there is only one save file. So if you want to plat the game, or maybe you just care about seeing all the diff ends, you can either: A: desync your PS5 from auto uploading save data, so that you can get 2 endings on 1 run, (you will, I guess, NEED to do 2 playthroughs regardless) B: defeat the final boss without dying--this will prevent you from being sent back and forced into an autosave so you can pick up at the final camp. So then you're forced to replay the game to get the other thing you missed.

#5 minor gameplay: the platforming can be extremely wonky, and there are some other minor complaints, like the lack of a map in many, but not all areas, and then the fact you don't have access to your robot doing anything until 25% through the game. The game is just trying to slowly dole out some mechanics here, but for me I found it kind of lame for the first 1/4 of the game--just too big a chunk of main progress imo for it to work. Fishing also kinda sucks unfortunately, I got more used to it, but. eh.

Nier gets away with this repetition of multiple endings because you gain different gameplay mechanics and different perspectives into the storyline. In Stellar Blade, this is not the case. It is truly just. The same game. But now you can unlock some outfit alt color variants which is fun.

I loved the soundtrack, the gameplay really gel'd with me; I didn't expect sluggish souls like 1v1's, but it really grew on me. Parrying was satisfying to me. I liked the design of the smaller, tighter levels. The graphics, textures, etc are great. The gameplay is probably better / smoother than Nier for sure. Overall I really liked it, and my personal experience is prob more like an 8/10 because I found it generally, extremely fun, but I can't in good conscious rate it higher bc it's not on THAT level, it doesn't succeed on every front.

500th game finished, woo!
I've played Pokemon since I got Yellow version when I was like, idk 7, and if I had to point at a gen and say "that's my least fave" it has always, even from when I was a child, been gen 2. While Johto boasts immaculate VIBES, we've all heard the complaints. Terrible level curve. New Pokemon not even accessible til post game, when you can't integrate them into your parties in meaningful ways. Very little variety despite an additional 100 added. The immense feat of pulling off two regions, yet having to butcher the second to make it work. A barely there narrative to get you through the Kanto revisit.

Polished Crystal is about as perfect as gen 2 could possibly get. It doesn't have the wonderful Pokemon following of HGSS, and while HGSS > the ogs, Polished Crystal surpasses both.

With added routes that tastefully sprawl the areas of Johto into one cohesive map, new areas, dozens of easter eggs, returning characters spanning new / future gens, abilities, the optional addition of natures, a MUCH better level curve, better Pokemon variety, new moves, fairy typing... the level of care & quality of life added is immense! I was constantly surprised by the things I found. Armored Mewtwo? Jessie / James? Flying, surfing Pika variants? Alolan variants. There are sooo many more things to discover.

There is a RNG based wonder trade with NPCs built into the game, which is nuts to me. The difficulty has been ramped up, in a way that is not really outright cruel, but definitely tougher than the average pokemon game.

There is ONE misstep here. And that's the final post game bit. You eventually hit a point where your Pokemon are prob 70-80, and in order to fight the top trainer (fully kitted with positive natures, comp movesets, and full EV training, which, btw, in this game, you can add 252 to every stat...) it's a brutal grind to the last challenges. Occasionally, I think some of the difficulty is a little whacky. This is largely balanced, but one ex, Falkner having Roost access early game... there is so little you can do to out damage the healing, at that point in the game, it was a little silly. And there's a few other moments where it felt if you didn't do one specific strategy you were in trouble.

Still, this is an absolute masterpiece. It felt like re-experiencing this game for the first time, and it made me like it more than I ever have.