This was a test to see how much bullshit players are willing to put up with for a admittedly pretty lovely 10 hour story. Ending up spending 15-20 hours on the same exact story I just finished to unlock two 1 minute cutscenes and 1 hour long finale.

Anyways, I failed the test. Should have just watched the endings on youtube. I would imagine the busy work was an intentional aspect of the game, trying to deliver some level of exhaustion or frustration to the player in order to elevate the emotional moments with your friends, but jesus christ it was too much.

The main cast (Kaine, Weiss, and Emil, also the king) were all absolutely lovely. Great costume design, incredible voice acting, great dialogue. Combat was fine, but I definitely wouldn't call it enjoyable. Boss fights were all incredibly bland mechanically, didn't enjoy a single one until the new ending added in Replicant. Music was lovely, but I can tell only a couple of the tracks will stick with me like Automata did. The main village theme was incredibly beautiful.

If it wasn't for the absolutely brutal busy work, this would be a 4-4.5 in my head. This is the seed that would grow into one of my favorite games of all time (Automata), but by itself pales in comparison. I often found myself wondering what other video game auteur I would be willing to slog through this for, and I don't even have an answer for that. Probably nobody.

I finally sorted out my feelings and how I feel about this one after a few days of thinking. I know it's annoying but English isn't my first language so excuse my grammar mistakes (if I do any).

ML:A is one of the biggest wasted potentials I have ever experienced. It misses the chance of being a very good cliché story just for the sake of being "original" (I don't find it very "original" this way either but anyway).

It has one of the best worldbuildings I have ever seen in any kind of media but it lacks at telling its story, furthermore it drowns you in its info dumps (I don't find info dumps "meaningless" most of the time but most of the ML:A's info dumps are technical details about its universe's mechanics(?) and these mechanics are based on bs.) and it's so fucking exhausting to read.

And it all comes to this question at this point: Does this one deserve #1 spot?
Objectively thinking yes, its story can be enjoyed by "mainstream" audience (that kinda sounded "sassy" didn't it? Fuck.). It also has good production so yeah I don't really mind it being #1 spot that much.
But in my opinion this game didn't need to be a love story and doesn't deserve #1 spot.

Edit: Nope, after like few months of thinking about this sorry excuse of a vn, It surely doesn't deserve even top 30 probably. You aren't really missing anything if you didn't read it.

Hope ML:U TDA can meet my expectations.

DIFFICULTY

⬛ TOO EASY, GARBAGE
✅ SOULLESS
⬛ SOUL

This is my eighth time playing this game if you count the original version and the PS3 remaster. It's still a masterpiece. This game is a work of art, with a gorgeous, vast world with so much attention to detail and an emotionally poignant albeit vague story.

Traversing through the forbidden lands is still eerie yet beautiful and conquering the majestic colossi still feels victorious abeit tragic as you rob the lands off their final semblances of life.

Pondering about this game, thinking of the vast, lifeless fields, the music swelling up as I overcome impossible odds, I can truly say this is one of the greatest game experiences and a great example of videogames as an art-form.