Very difficult to rate. Character writing is boarderline non existent beyond your pawn. The actual plot is very mediocre, with themes that have been done better many times over, The concept of enduring and attempting to rid the world on a continuous cylce is nothing new, just as serving as a device for the idea of combating a written out fate is and in regards to free will is definitely not something new as well, and has been done many times just within the last few years.
I do like the ending, it is a great moment seeing your pawn “attain free will”, as well as the brine serving as somewhat of a device for the cycle. But honestly thats really the only upside in terms of story and plot. This story has been done a million times, and within those million times, many of them have done it better.
In terms of gameplay, its not cute to have a game preforming this shit. It’s not quirky to be poorly made. The combat feels smooth at times, but that is the only time this game is smooth. For such a boring landscape for much of the map, and combined with the shit stamina, it is odd for them to promote traveling by foot, I can’t lie the map is pretty pathetic as well, it seems like it should have been bigger and had more content. The unmoored world is cool, the regular world is just regular fantasy, at many times not even very fantasy. There’s like 5 different mobs you can fight on a regular basis throughout the game, and about 4 reskinned bigger mobs with at least 1 or 2 varying attacks.
there’s no value or weight to any mobs. You run down a random corridor and stumble into a “boss” but 90% of the time that shit is irrelevant to anything, and after getting 4000 xp For spending 5 minutes killing this thing I just wonder why I even bothered wasting my time with it. Lets be honest almost every quest in the game sucks and feels irrelevent while you’re doing it. There’s a handful of features that will never be used. What’s the point of even bothering with vvoactions if youre not starting a new playthrough, you’re fine maxing out 1 and just using that.
A real half ass and unfinished game that I don’t believe was ready, and the workers obviously knew this as well. I’m sure there’ll be dlc, but whatever is released is something I’m sure should have been in the game upon release. The ending is good but I’m not
going to fall for it. This game is a movement in the wrong direction for
games as a whole

42/100

Very raw, yet well aged game. Haven’t touched BBI expansion yet. Despite some areas looking dull, the game looks great. Some character designs and gear are a bit boring, but alot of the bosses look and have great designs.
The combat is really smooth , but felt like I never had quite enough stamina. For the time, I’d say the combat is better than games its associated with like DS2.
The summoning aspect is the highlight, it honestly felt as if everyone within your party held actual weight to them within the fights.
The world itself wasn’t too great, they could have more going on, but the dungeons were solid.
Playing on normal provided a pretty solid difficulty.
Story and plot wise, it’s really just not there during early parts of the game. I played the minimum amount of side missions since the main missions themsleves felt like side missions for the most part.
i don’t know if I’ll continue the game, I’ll probably just wait for dd2, but if I had this game when it first released Id probably have hundreds of hours on it

Was originally planning to go for platinum in this game, but honestly I never wanna touch it again and honestly just seeing Sqs face on the cover irritates me.
While the evolving gameplay and slowly progressing story seems as if it would remain enjoyable throughout, this game overstays its welcome. While it’s forgivable the plot is fairly basic and there’s not much substance thematically, the characters dont really have payoff. You’re literally characterizing them throughout the game with the reveals, but honestly it doesn’t amount to shit.
The ai is boarderline retarded at some points and makes it very frustrating.
The highlights in the game are when Yuriko straight up challenges you, and similar events to that, when there’s a specific goal and barrier made to you right off the rip. it feels like you’re actually playing against someone. But for the most part this game is brainless button mashing until youre lucky to get info. Unless you’re using a guide, and that’s bullshit if a game expects you to use a guide to know which events to do