If you know you made something special the first time because of, and not in spite of, its very incompleteness, do you try to replicate that when you're given a second try?

Is the philosophy here to just be unconcerned with a fully polished, balanced experience and lean instead on the quirks of ambition?

For months, the DD2 subreddit has been awash in people gnashing teeth over the game's shortcomings. They sold themselves the belief that DD2 would discard DD1's emptiness and dreamlikes qualities, or package them into a proper game this time, something with only the positives and none of the negatives. Now a good part of the active fanbase is convinced that Itsuno's "vision" is sham because DD2, in fact, could not be perfect.

But I think I'm convinced more than ever that that vision is real because DD2 is so beautifully flawed. If a piece of media can't be literally everything without being crushed under its own weight or turned into a Star Citizen pyramid scheme, then what is DD2 doing?

It's the pinnacle of RPG imagineering. Freeflowing expressive combat, organic and opaque questing, never seeing the same companion twice (except on rare occasions and then its a delight), coyly hiding much of itself so you feel an urge to learn. Itsuno's vision is to create a reason for this experience to exist as a game, and not a movie, book, etc.

Now it just needs a hard mode or Itsuno is a fucking hack.