No other game has this strong a concentration of lived-in-ness - these towns feel alive in a way that compels me to do the impossible - actually slow-walk through environments of my own accord. All the flaws in the combat system feel obvious enough to assume they'll be polished out in future iterations.
I'm in the wait-and-see camp about the ending. A definitive shark-jump, but an impressively lofty one that has raised many, many questions most fans think they have the answers to - but probably don't.