There are a lot of neat ideas and moments of cool emergent gameplay, but it never coalesces for me. The individual bits are too separated by poor writing, segmented story fragments, uninspired quest design, and frustrating information held back from the player. While the last bit was an intentional choice I can respect, it did not make the experience more satisfying overall. In large part, this feels like a game designed to be played once by yourself and the second with a guide, and the world simply isn't interesting enough to grab you for a repeat to collect the quests you missed.

Combat was a blast. It never gets old climbing a big monster. And I really like what was attempted with the story thematically if it could have just been woven in a little more than the first 10 minutes and the last 10 minutes. If anything it gives me a lot of hope that 2 can connect a lot of these dots better with some refinement and a second attempt at this formula.