Will come back to the game when it is finished (or at least stable).

Unable to run on my PC, crashes when loading save or finishing character creation. Crashes every couple of in-game days on xbox, which is a major problem since the game only saves overnight and you lose that day's progress. Framerate becomes noticeably choppy during coral reef sections, and frequently hitches when moving around the island (which always makes me think it's about to crash).

It's a real shame, because even without all planned content it's really hitting that Stardew Itch for me. This will one day be great.

A sad experience, made all the worse by its wasted potential.

The spritework and animations are gorgeous, absolutely full of character. The soundtrack is strong. The gameplay is fun, the combat and puzzles challenging without feeling punishing. You can tell some of the inspirations directly, like the cooking and hearts/stamina system being stolen straight from Breath Of The Wild.

The story is miserable. John, the main viewpoint character and protagonist early on, spends every single scene doing literally nothing as the plot happens around him, and then has zero interest in what happened or what it means. No agency, no curiosity, no feelings. When you're not directly controlling him he becomes a statue. The first chapter teaches you that everybody else in the plot is either an abuser or a victim. Nothing matters, either people hurt you or they die, or both; but either way they're eventually gone so don't bother becoming attached. The only recurring characters know the plot but act all aloof and mysterious and manipulate events, leaving you frustrated instead of wanting to know more.

And all of it gets in the way of the fun, the exploration and the puzzles and the wonder and the fights against fantastical bio-mechanical horrors. There's something amazing here buried under layer upon layer of cynical tragedy and pointless suffering. It took the wrong lessons from Undertale and Lisa The Painful.

Love love love the aesthetic, not enough games draw inspirations from Zdzisław Beksiński. The entire desolate world is bone, muscle, flesh, enamel, and unidentifyable fluids. A mystery that you'll never fully understand. Beautiful, perfect.

Gameplay is minimal, and mostly involves walking around interacting with horrifying bio-mechanical devices to manipulate the environment. Major problem is end goals and objectives aren't communicated to the player, so it's impossible to tell what you're supposed to be doing or the steps required. The first few puzzles involved a sequence of steps that you muddle your way through and guess the general outline of, but it was never clear what you were doing or why until the very end. Extremely not for me.

Pretty okay metroidvania.

Gorgeous pixel art throughout, although the gameplay has odd difficulty spikes that turn later portions into a slog. In addition the pirate hat glide physics are oddly floaty and jittery both upwards and downwards, making it difficult to navigate instant-death obstacles well in the air.

Weakest in the series plot-wise, the story is a long chain of misunderstandings and incompetence and "LOL the NPCs died" moments that often feel like you're doing more harm than good. Great if you love black comedy.

Gorgeous experience, an action RPG in the vein of the 2D zelda games, but filtered through a (generous and gentle) Soulsborne lens and with a heavy focus on exploration and lateral thinking.

The gimmick of the game is discovery. Virtually all in-game text is in a made-up language, and even your basic abilities and what items do have to be discovered through deduction or trial and error. Experimentation is discovered, and nothing is quite what it seems.

Helping you along the way are pages from the game's instruction manual, which feels super authentic to the 16-bit era. Unhelpfully, it's written in the same unknown language as the game text, but a combination of screenshots, diagrams, rare English passages, and annotations written in pen help you figure it out. Virtually every new page re-frames how the game works and what you can do, so you're perpetually going "Woah, I can do that?".

The locations of the game are beautiful and have a nostalgic feeling to them, speaking of aesthetic and design sensibilities found in the 80s and 90s but left behind by modern game design.

Combat can be challenging but fair, and if you're getting utterly demolished it usually means you should backtrack and explore elsewhere.

The best Assassin's Creed game, in the same way Okami was the best Zelda until Breath of the Wild. A smaller and more focused open world game, that still has stealth kills and sneaking through waist-high grass but forces straight combat for boss fights. Combat mechanics feel satisfying and difficult without being overwhelming.

The landscapes are beautiful (especially in the Iki Island DLC) but often empty beyond the occasional warcamp to raid, rustic village to liberate, or cosmetic item to pick up. Story and sidequests are short enough to not drag, but the writing is superior and doesn't fall pray to campy pratfall humour.

A throwback to the classic Donkey Kong Country games by Rare, and the more recent releases by Retro.

This is a linear run and jump platformer with collectables and hidden challenges in every stage, and a protagonist who controls like Dixie Kong did in DKC 2/3. Several stages have Wild Masks that change your moveset, from swimming to flight to super-challenging auto-running.

The pixel art is gorgeous and smooth, and it's very easy to tell foreground from background and know what's happening at any given moment.