somehow made me tear up without a single spoken word or even any text that contributed to the story. bosses were all great levels were all great, do wish some of the bosses were a bit less of a pushover including the final boss but honestly even in spite of that it's still the best boss in the game and one of my favs overall. great game hard recommend

edit: i slept on it a bit and there do be some issues worth mentioning but none of them change my opinion on the game. i do really wish the game were a bit longer. even if i think the ending and the buildup to it is perfect as perfect can be, would be nice to have had more time in the world. if i didn't fuck around in the chain dash training room for almost 4 hours this game would have taken me around 6 and a half which is in most cases a bit shorter than i'd like. i also am not too big on how upgrade progression worked, it felt kinda arbitrary as opposed to attaching it to any sort of game progression. also wish you got to try out the skills before you paid for them, the little gif that shows is kind of misleading in some cases. and lastly with skills i do wish there was more variety in potential builds, not saying go full on souls but maybe more like what sekiro did (from my understanding of sekiro).

BUT these downsides i'm realizing don't come without plenty of upsides i've felt in the day since beating it. for starters after doing some reading and sitting on what the game is saying and the way the story is told it's absolutely one of my favorite uses of the medium. telling not just any story but THIS SPECIFIC STORY about coming to terms with your own mortality is perfect and really encapsulates how the journey to dealing with the end of life is all internal. in some cases this might have just felt like a gimmick but the way this story is works perfectly being told this way.