Tedious, aggravating platforming elements ruin an otherwise interesting game experience. Good narrative, well-developed characters I cared about, and a fascinating space environment (including piloting a spacecraft - which I really enjoyed) could not compensate for the repetitive, horrendous platform elements. After 11 hours with the game I was forced to stop playing because all of the fun was sucked out of it by having to yet again, for what felt like the millionth time, do the same type of tedious and very unforgiving climbing and jumping platforming element that I had been agitated by so many times before in the game. While I may be biased because platforming is probably my least favorite aspect of games, I've played a lot of platformers that mix up the type of platforming activities you are doing, making them far less boring to execute. As much as I had been enjoying this game, and as much as I wanted to see the conclusion of the story, I just couldn't bear the negative feelings I was having playing that grew with each chapter as I was repeating the same boring and aggravating mechanics over and over. Very disappointing as a great concept that could have been such a great game if the levels had been designed differently.

Kirby can take interesting new forms in this release, and the levels are beautifully designed. Game is approachable for more casual players and boss battles were more fun than frustrating. Customization of the village was very underwhelming, bare-boned, and disappointing. My greatest disappointment with this game, however, is that at the end of the game the final boss is "locked" behind your being "completionist" with the previous levels rather than just beating them, so if you want to fight the final boss you may find yourself having to repeat levels (and perhaps even more than one more time). As a busy person with a huge backlog and short attention span, I don't have time to repeat levels of any game unless I loved the game so much I crave the experience again. That was not the case with this game, although I enjoyed the levels the first time through. Because of this, I had to abandon the game right before the final boss which felt very unsatisfying.

Most moving, compelling story since the original FFVII and currently my second-favorite game of all-time. The characters were so well developed through the storyline that I cared for them very deeply by the end of the game. Beautiful level design that is puzzle-like at times (I admit - there were times when a walkthrough was my friend while playing this game). A unique world to explore that expands through height rather than width. I love cats, and playing as a cat is fun, but the story here is so amazing that even "dog people" or others who aren't big cat fans will be endeared by this game (and may even develop a soft spot for cats in the process!) This game is a masterpiece and treasure in my gaming library that should not be missed, and the length make it something even busy gamers will be able to complete on a practical timeline.

I greatly appreciate the uniqueness of this interactive novel game, and I'm very glad I had the experience of playing. But my interest waned over time as the story changed. For the first half I didn't want to stop playing, but about 3/4 of the way through I shelved the game and didn't pick it up again until about 6 months later when I was on a mission to complete games on my backlog that I'd "almost" completed. I'm glad I did because the ending was satisfying and there was a nice surprise in store (won't give it away so as not to spoil), but I wish the game had been more consistently engaging from beginning to end. I cared about the characters in the beginning, but that diminished greatly in the second half, which made the game far less engaging. Good story and your dialogue choices and actions matter and have consequences. Very nice visuals with hand-drawn art style. Recommended to start - but I can't promise you will want to reach rolling credits.

A fun, short, casual, stress-free distraction for when you're burned out on challenge or too tired to play something more action-packed. Characters were interesting to get to know and it was fun playing through multiple times choosing different dialogue choices to change the outcome of my interactions. Some light strategy involved in gauging what the best responses are to have a successful interaction with each character, all of whom are very unique. This game falls into the "interactive film" genre.

Absolutely brilliant and currently my favorite game of all-time, and I've been gaming for a long time (don't want to give away my age by specifying years...) The creativity displayed in the art design of this game are like nothing I have ever seen, and the imagination of the developers who created this world provided completely mind-blowing experiences for me. Maybe I'm biased because I got my college degree in Art History, but I consider this game a masterpiece because of the art and spectacular visuals. But that's not all. The weapons and customization aspects of the game are extremely fun to play around with, and the soviet backdrop provide great nostalgia to history buffs and those who remember the Soviet era. I also want to address the comparisons with Bioshock. In my opinion, this game is NOT at all like Bioshock. It feels more like a Fallout game. If you didn't like Bioshock, don't let that put you off from playing this game. I absolutely cannot wait to play this game again and highly, highly recommend it to anyone interested in fun shooters with high levels of build customization. Definitely the most underrated game of the year.

Overrated. Spectacular visuals and excellent customization depth. But if you have a long backlog of games to get to like I do, you don't want to spend hours grinding to level up or repeat bosses multiple times just to move forward. I put 70+ hours into this game which I enjoyed, but ultimately the grinding became too tedious and my ever-growing backlog was calling, and I decided not to commit any more time into this game. Experiencing the incredible graphics, customizing my character's build, and interesting story just weren't worth the "cost of admission" to me anymore. Beware: difficulty is punishing even for seasoned gamers - consider "normal" difficulty "hard." If you're not up for that, steer clear.