Jon Zephanius

A mile wide and an inch deep. Speaking as a Skyrim Oblivion and Fallout fan, it's a galaxy of a thousand planets where every single location is found exactly the same on every planet right down to enemy and loot locations and identical emails on identical computers. Where distances and actions and levelling up requirements of skills/powers are mindnumbingly repetitive hoopjumping fetchquests, or utterly pointless or unrelated to the skill. Where emptiness and lack of exploration content is treated as a feature not a bug. Where the economy makes no sense and majority of vendors only have 5000 credits when even a single midlevel looted rifle can sell for most of that. Where stories and characters are utterly inconsequential, one-dimensional, unrealistic and railroaded in the way you are expected to play anyway. Where every single feature in here was already implemented, and better, in Fallout and Elder Scrolls. And Elite Dangerous. And No Man's Sky. Where they took 25 years to create something that can't even equal things launched a decade ago. The shipbuilding, which I agree is one of the highlights, is also incredibly stupid in your inability to design your interior, such as the door/corridor layout, coupled with the AI's utter inability to provide you even a single, simple trunk corridor that actually runs straight down the length of the ship. And it's full of loading screen transitions even for simple things like taking a lift. It will easily take you through 100 hours, but then you will justify further playing not because it's amazing, but because you already invested so much time into it, before eventually question why you even bothered.

The art is beautiful and clearly an homage to the soul of Japanese culture. The swordsmithing scenes were so lovingly done and true to the spiritual nature of the task. Fight scenes were amazing, and just the right amount of realistic. Characters felt real and compelling, and made me both laugh and cry. Loved Ringo. And Mizu. Voice acting was SO GOOD.