Ludonarrative dissonance who?

Apart from a few pacing issues here and there, this is my favourite of all Xenoblade stories.

A childhood favourite I love going back to, only to almost immediately regret it after the first few hours.

Few games have had me dream about them, and even fewer have been this fun to apply my interest in physics in. My only regret is how quickly I finished it, and how burnt out I was to complete the DLC. One day soon, I hope.

I will give it to the developer - the aesthetics are among the best I've experienced in any indie title, and coupled with the amount of praise I've seen, I decided to give the game a try.

I am sadly regretting that decision. The game mechanics, conceptually and in themselves, are fine enough - health management, rain, and terrain navigation are obviously a part of the experience - but it's almost like the game is intentionally made with obtuseness in mind. It's incredibly difficult to get Moira to choose which layer of hillside to get onto, and unintuitive would be a mild way to describe what seems to be very meticulously deliberate counterintuitiveness in what is one of the game's primary mechanics. I understand that it's in part intended to make me feel lost in the Highlands, but the amount of jank does not contribute to a pleasant experience.

I hope to see past its faults after I come back to it at a later date, but so far, it's not an experience I'm eager to recommend to anyone.

An absolutely engrossing experience, starting from the character creation screen, and a faithful translation of DnD 5e into the cRPG format.