i can't say i loved everything about this, but it has a lot of charm and satisfying combat on a base level. i know the story is meant to be ironic or satire or whatever. it was fun, but there wasn't too much that necessarily stuck with me (the painting ending was funny). i can see why I would play more suda51 stuff tho, it's nice to play something that has its own charm, kind of like auteurs in movies

there are some gameplay choices that just don't work here. for one, grinding is annoying. more annoying is navigating an open world that is not even close to having its existence justified. I respect the ambition, but this is the wii. from what I remember 2 doesn't have this open world, so they made the smart decision not to attempt something that had a very low chance of success

also, I beat this on mild (was not going to replay the entire game just to experience bitter mode). imo, once you learn how to "darkstep" the game gets a lot easier. ranked 8 boss was actually the hardest boss in the whole game for me because I didn't understand that