my initial impression was high, but it slowly lowered the longer the game went on as i realized this was not Painting: The Video Game, but Another Crafting Game with just occasional painting side-quests. i don't mind walking around in beautiful scenery, but the frustrating combination of slow movement speeds, limited fast-travel, stupid environmental physics, long stretches of quite frankly boring maps to cross, and random crashes meant i often had to redo several parts that left me annoyed and frustrated in the home stretch. (don't believe what the internet says about the game auto-saving often. do it yourself.)

I'd like to say that this game is a really sweet, relaxing and touching, but at the end of the day I mostly thought it was boring. The main character is supposed to be a painter, but you don't get to paint at all in the game, you just take screenshots. Which is fine, the environment and world design is genuinely beautiful at times, but just felt ultimately underwhelming. Your actions don't really have any consequences when interacting with NPCs, even when it sometimes feels like they should. And, on top of everything, the game has downright terrible performance on the Xbox One. Frequent bugs and glitches, dropped frames, and crashes causing me to lose save progress multiple times.

I wish the game didn't have these issues, because I think it could have been something enjoyable. The world is interesting, all of the characters are engaging and believable, and the game really is beautiful and heartwarming at times. It's just held back by bugs and certain gameplay decisions that I don't agree with, unfortunately.