started out a solid game with a neat concept, taking the themes and mechanics in tcg's previous game journey and expanding upon them to create a wonderful world. i had fun exploring the world of sky, uncovering its secrets and piecing together what happened in the land before. it was such a relaxing game and enjoyable to spend times with friends in, exploring every nook and cranny uncovering everything we can

but. it got greedy. and grindy and full of 20 dollar microtransactions for singular cosmetics. the issue is that sky: cotl is a game with no real end goal and nothing to work for aside from cosmetic items. these items are paid for with candles, collected from light sources in the game. or a variant of candles that are only obtainable during seasons

seasons bring with them new areas, cosmetics, stories, and characters. they can be fun to explore at the start, but are often released as buggy messes that sometimes take months to fix. these seasons are also the only way you can get special cosmetics. the special cosmetics, called "ultimate gifts" by the community, are only obtainable when you pay 10 usd for a season pass AND play near daily to make sure you obtain every single possible seasonal candle. miss a week or two because of life? you are now unable to obtain something you paid real life money for. that is, unless you shell out more money to buy extra seasonal candles of course

what starts out as a simple wind-down game can quickly turn into a stressful min-maxing grind fest, where you spend every day following special routes and completing daily quests to maximize the amount of candles you earn so that you can get that sweet new cosmetic youre eyeing. or you can always open your wallet and give tgc hundreds of dollars

i genuinely loved this game, its art and world were wonderful to explore and i made great friends within it. however, i just cant recommend this game in good conscience as its fallen more and more into greed and predatory pricing practices