I’m shelving this at ~40 hours. I’m nearing the third trial, have done every side quest and diversion I’ve encountered to this point. I’m level 35. I’m so, so tired of doing the exact same puzzles over and over with the slightest of differations, I’m tired of doing Merlin trials, and I’m tired of spamming the same few spell combos at the same enemies over and over.

The first 20-30 hours are incredible. I was so immersed and so excited to hop on my console and load up this beautiful world, but it quickly becomes apparent that the design just gets incredibly lazy. The Merlin trials are all the same. The enemies all fight the same and sometimes just stand in one spot spamming the same spell endlessly. The trolls and large enemy encounters are a highlight for sure, but man, this game begins to drag.

I loved the progression system, as you continue the story you get more and more diversions but by the time I finally got to some of them, I had 0 interest. It works well sometimes, and feels like a chore sometimes.

I’ll probably pick this back up after a break and finish it, but overall I’m incredibly burnt out on it and dread loading it up.