After doing four full playthroughs at over 60 hours, I think I've seen enough of this game to give my (contradicting) thoughts.

Like many others, I was looking forward to this back when it was revealed as Project Eve. Also like many others, I became viciously irritated when the coomers decided to make this game their personality (I don't mind sexy characters, what I really disliked was how weird people acted over Eve). I'm not interested in that trash, I'm all about the gameplay.

What I do take legitimate issue with was how the game was marketed as being like Bayonetta and Nier: Automata. I was hoping for a fast paced Platinum-styled action game but the combat is much weightier and more deliberate than I hoped. It's been compared to the Souls series, but I disagree to an extent (level design is very much Souls-y, the combat is much closer to Sekiro). Obviously it can be learned since the game is designed around this combat system, but I can't help but feel slightly frustrated when I try to instinctively cancel a recovery animation (I found it easier to pull this off by avoiding most combo enders unless an enemy was stunned). Thankfully there are accessories you can equip that make the combat much closer to a proper action game (my main build used three attack speed up gears + the exospine that made it easier to parry and dodge + def and shield boosts), and when you get into the rhythm of the combat it becomes pretty damn exciting. The boss fights are where the game shines, while they don't quite reach the peaks of Sekiro's roster (then again not much does), they're definitely some of my favorite bosses in the current console generation (I do few the endgame bosses could be SLIGHTLY nerfed. Hopefully the upcoming boss challenge update will let us fight any boss at any time, being able to practice them would go a long way).

The story has been criticized as being too derivative of Nier: A, and I don't disagree but I found it serviceable enough. The true ending does break into its own path and I hope a sequel builds upon this to make something super interesting and cool. The flavor text on the collectibles does a decent amount to make the world more fleshed out, and I think the story/lore is better here.

Side quests are pretty standard for the genre, ranging from fetch quests to outright hidden bosses. They're worth doing at least twice (once on NG and NG+) to get all the possible rewards, which brings me to another highlight.

The myriad of costumes is pretty great and there are a variety of cool outfits for Eve (and I don't just mean the super revealing ones). You can also unlock a barber shop where you can change her hairstyle and hair color, honestly playing dress up is half the fun in this game.

Platforming is another weak point of the game, the momentum and physics make certain jumps really finicky. A few moments in the endgame were genuinely awful designed (the Gears of War turrents section almost killed my first playthrough, thankfully if you drop on easy mode you only need to deal with one. I don't care if it's cheese, I refuse to play it any other way).

Still, in spite of the flaws I can't deny that I had tons of fun. I'd do yet another playthrough if I wasn't itching to clean up my backlog (I got Horizon Zero Dawn on my list next, I wanna get to it so I can make room on my PS5). I suppose this is my GOTY by default so far since it's the only 2024 release I've played so far (my copies of Infinite Wealth, P3R, and FF Rebirth are glaring at me). I hope Shift-Up learns from the mistakes made here and makes their next game an even bigger banger.

9/10