This game is amazing.

I can't fully express how impressive and vast the options are in this game. I don't want to give a full breakdown with my experience in this game, as it would take far too long. Instead, I will simply add that I beat the game, have a couple runs going, and I disliked Halsin.

I had essentially no issues with the game, but I still find difficulty in whether it deserves a 5⭐ rating. For me, I think I burned out a bit playing this. Enough that I feel secure giving it a 4.5. I would still 100% agree with a 5.

The effort put into this game is on another level.

This felt more like an interactive movie than a game to me.

The game didn't really toss much that was interesting for me to rate the game higher. I finished with ~80% total completion and I don't really intend to get more.

There's far too many transitional sections awkward swapping between cutscenes to gameplay that reduced my experience even further. Instances of cutscene to QTE to interactive cutscene threw me off every time. I'd sit back and prepare to watch a normal cutscene like the previous one, just to see Lara die in the cutscene and get confused, realizing I needed to make her run.

On top of that, the movement is just so clunky.

My rating largely stems from somewhat enjoying the characters/story. The gameplay itself was okay. I think my rating is fair.

In my solo experience, I enjoyed the game a lot. Purely off enjoyment I wish I could rank the game higher. Unfortunately, there were a few too many issues that can't be ignored. (They do allow you to remedy some of these issues a bit via custom world settings, but I'm not sure it fully compensates for the issues.)

For a bit of a better breakdown, I'll write out my opinions on each element below. I'll finish off with a breakdown of my issues.

STORY
It's not all there. You do get bits and pieces that you can put together without reading all the journals, but there isn't really much compelling you to go the towers to beat the various champions or progress yourself through the game. It's all kinda just happening. No story isn't too big of an issue, but it feels almost like they wanted to have a story and just haven't finished it.

GAMEPLAY
Super enjoyable. I loved learning about the different pals, collecting every single one, and upgrading my base. I felt like a genius when I added a second floor to my first base, after thinking that foundations were useless.

MUSIC/SOUND
Kinda basic, but I do enjoy the tower boss and legendary pal music. It's not that they didn't try, but after a while the charm did start to get lost for me. The sound design for effects and menuing is well put together.

GRAPHICS
Charming

CHARACTERS
Essentially non-existent. That being said, the tower boss intro videos go hard. I loved watching them.
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ISSUES
Terrain Interactions
- There's quite a few ways to just drop through the map or phase into a mountain. Because of this, you get stuck in a wall and just have to cry. Unfortunately the walls have 2-sided player and pal collision, so you normally can't escape. These wall have one-sided collision for pal spheres, so having a rideable mount allows you to escape a lot of the time as long as you can get your pal on the outside.
- I've had far too many instances of enemies phasing through the floor or walls and becoming nearly undamageable and often uncatchable
- My most notable interactions is simply getting off a mounted Eikthyrdeer while in deep water doesn't put you into the water. It drops you below the water falling into the void.

- I'm not sure where to put it but it kinda fits into a more general idea of physical interactions. Pals can push each other around. This can become very funny when a pal is long and turning whips one end faster than the other. Something like a boss Jormuntide can easily whip a small pal into orbit if it turns the right way. Not exactly bad, just kinda funny

npc's
- Every NPC is devoid of life. They follow a few basic designs which are alright, but none of them were interesting at all. You talk to them once and never again. They have 1 (maybe 2) things to say before handing you some material and only repeating one line forever after.
- I wish they had names. It would be far more compelling/endearing rather than the generic descriptor and known we have for them

Scaling
I need to preface my issues with resources by saying my bases had 15+ ore and a few coal nodes. I also had a couple condensed digtoises and wumbos breaking and transporting. The nodes and pals were not the issue.
- The mid to late game becomes nearly an unbearable grind for resources. It seems the game was more meant to be played on dedicated servers where your mines/farms/etc. are running to give you endless resources. Since I didn't run a dedicated server, it felt I was constantly missing what I needed, so I'd have to wait or go out and start whacking rocks my own. This introduces a bunch of other issues with carry capacity, fun, and general progression
- Somewhat tied to resource collection, the pals seemingly spike in capture difficulty. The first 3-4 tier spheres becomes entirely useless as you progress further. This wouldn't be as big of an issue if all of my resources weren't being spread between equipment upgrades, base upgrades and sphere upgrades. The base and equipment upgrades are especially needy here.
- The later tower bosses have some insane health pools for singleplayer
- Earlier I had mentioned being able to remedy some of the issues. The scaling can sorta be remedied. Going into world settings and messing with a few settings (pal spawn rate, pal capture rate, resources from nodes, and dropped items) can greatly increase your experience and lessen the massive grind.

Framerate
- Lots of weird frame drops and skips. It happens a lot when first starting as everything loads. That I can expect, but randomly, I would drop down to like 15 fps and have to restart the world.

Multiplayer (not a dedicated server)
- This experience was pretty terrible. I can't blame it all on the game because I'm unsure if this is a hardware or software based issue. Regardless, I experienced constant rubberbanding especially when climbing, which caused great frustration.
- Grappling hooks are practically useless in multiplayer. Every time I used one, it would just skip all the frames, so I couldn't use the grappling hook to cancel into a glider. I'd just teleport from one location to the next pretty much.
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Basically, this game is addictive and fun, but it's got quite a few issues. Some if not all can be brushed off by saying the game is in early access (but I don't like using that as a get-out-of-jail card). I do believe all my issues can be fixed, but I can only discuss the game in the state that I've played it. As I've played it, I can recommend the single player experience as very fun with some tweaks needed near the end of the game. It's not a perfect game, but it is very enjoyable.

I didn't die this time.
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Spoiler below
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(But I did after)

This game was solid. The absolute endgame became boring very quickly, so I just kept skipping days to grab my last couple achievements (GYAO! and Fishmon).

I enjoyed the base story and boss fights a lot. The core gameplay was very captivating. As I explored the depths of the Blue Hole, it stayed unique and fresh for quite a long time. Eventually, it lost its glamor, as I memorized the map, and spawn locations of fish, particularly, the ones I needed.

A couple of the achievements weren't really fun to achieve (Dev Killer...)

6/10 seems fair to me.

It's not bad, but it's nothing too crazy.

I pretty much 100% the game with the exception of the speedrun and alt mode difficulty stuff.

I felt the pacing was a bit off with how quickly you can get the abilities, but the game is just short. I wish there were more than just one copy and pasted "boss fight" of facing that weird jumping worm thing. Ending is alright.

I didn't really get any attachment to the game or it's characters, except Gumo. Gumo rocks.

It took me a little longer than I'd like to admit, but there was a moment where everything kind of clicked for me.

This one is mechanically quite challenging and for the majority of my runs, I was actively thinking of performing each trick and maintaining combos. By the time I beat the game, the flow of tricks and keeping up health became natural. For as small as this game is, it was a really cool experience. I can't recommend this for everyone, but it provides a good challenge for a few days.

I did feel as though a little more boss content would have improved my experience. The repetition of the same boss twice and having no others was a major downside for me. Unfortunately, the "Out for Blood" NG+ doesn't seem to provide much more content, so I left it largely untouched. What the dev team did with such a small group is still amazing.

I think I can stand behind this game being a 6/10, but I wouldn't argue against a 7 or 8. It's not for everyone, and I think I'm part of that everyone.

I got A's (and a couple S's) on every level. I also "completed" (challenges) every level except the last two. As I got to the last two, I realized I wasn't enjoying the challenges as much, so I figured it was a good time to stop. I played a little of the Out for Blood (NG+) and called it.