Biggest surprise of 2021, that I played anyway. The base game is a very generic action game with minor platforming, exploration, and combat. What ties it all together is teamwork.

Each aspect of the game has an element of team building or team management layered on top. The levels have you commanding your teammates to bypass environmental hazards or carve out new paths. In combat you can chain attacks together by issuing commands to your teammates. While just moving from place to place, whether through the environments or just hanging out on the ship, you're given opportunities to converse with your teammates. You'll basically spend most of the game herding cats until you actually earn the game's namesake. By the end you'll have grown so much you don't even have to tell them what to do.

Biggest gripes were mostly minor, but dragged the game down a significant degree. For one narrative beats drag on for WAY too long. In one of the last pivotal emotional sequences a character had made their point, but just kept repeating themselves, killing the moment. This is really emphasized in the ship discussions where you talk about an object you found and it unlocks a private discussion with a member of the team. The conversations go on for ever, but it's compounded by the fact that there wasn't much budget for the scenes. They look like robots in what should be some of the most emotional beats in the game, a concession of course, but it hurts the game nonetheless.

The last thing kills me though. You can't pick your battle music for the huddle. I heard Bobby McFerrin five times before I got anything that actually had me pumped. Just letting you pick a battle setlist at the music player would've let me get Kickstart My Heart at least once. Never heard it in ANY of the huddles through the whole game. Supremely disappointing even if minor.

It's a lovely time sans those issues. The narrative nails the team dynamic that made the films work. It owes a lot to those movies, but manages to set itself apart by gamifying team building. I also really dig the costumes. They look like cheap knockoffs at a glance, but they make a lot of practical sense. Groot has a handle apparatus for rocket, Quill's big arm pads are literally battle armor, and Gamora's ninja suit accentuates her skills much more than the skimpy film outfit. Biggest surprise to come out of 2021 and definitely my GOTY.

This hurts to do, but I'm dropping it. It's not that it's bad, just so bland. It is, in essence, a sequel to Nocturne and while I like the idea of a follow up, this just builds on the bones of the world that game created. The problem is this was Nocturne's weakest element.

When I go to Nocturne it's not really for that sense of world, it's primarily for the world established through combat. Nocturne is at its core a really good boss rush. The world is minimal to accentuate the atmosphere given by the difficult combat and resource management. The general overworld is just generic demons who exist in this world, but don't inhabit it. SMT IV, despite the gameplay changes, made it a point to have an interesting and lived in world that was worth exploring. V just brings over the boring overworld of Nocturne without any of the interesting aspects of it.

The magatsuhi system, while novel, also doesn't really expand on the gameplay established in IV:A. That game is contentious for some very legitimate reasons, but the one thing I will absolutely defend is the way they improved and fleshed out smirk. Decreasing the rng and making it a choice in combat added another layer to press turn that, to me, makes that game have the best combat in the entire series. Magatsuhi is an attempt to carry it over while integrating some overworld elements. Only thing is, it wasn't broken. They fixed it once already, trying to slap more stuff on top of press turn at this point just feels like floundering.

You can always create a unique and fleshed out aspect of your game. Strange journey, even with its gameplay regression, proved all you need is a cool world. IV reaffirmed that. Simply taking that excellent gameplay from IV:A and putting it into an interesting new world would have been enough. Instead we have a game that lacks an identity of its own. Content to continue the series, but not expand on it.

A great sequel, but a less perfect game. There's a greater emphasis on combat and movement, but the combat is easily broken and the movement is somewhat deliberately obtuse to a fault. My point being that neither of those things are why I liked the first Hylics. It was easy and chill. The combat is interesting from a conventional RPG sense, but I can just play SMT or any of the classics if I want great RPG combat. Same goes for the movement. I come to Hylics for the vibes.

Vibes-wise A++++++++. I love this game as a sequel. I just find that the attempts to refine elements from the first game undermine those vibes.

(There is full well a possibility that there's some sub-textual stuff going on relating to the movement and RPG mechanics that I need to ruminate on so these are definitely NOT my final thoughts)

It's a step in the right direction, but there are some kinks. The enemy AI in one section had me actually turn on the not-so-scary mode 'cause he wouldn't move from one spot and it was a hassle either leashing or shoving past him.
The projector slides are a definite improvement over the walls of text from the main game, but still suffer the same issue of reading like exposition rather than discoveries. There really needed to be some kind of obfuscation to gamify the process of archaeology, but overall net positive.
As it is and based on additions to the ending it clearly reads as a prototyping phase for what will likely be Outer Wilds 2. It doesn't add enough to the core experience or fit well enough into the world to be called anything, but contrived. If it's up to me I'd cut this out of any future playthroughs, which thankfully they were mindful enough to preserve, but taken on its own it's pretty neat.