Beat it in about 30 hours. Did the pig heaven ending. A great game. It would probably be better to explore this world in 3d. But then there would be a chance we'd get Piranha Bytes-tier controls, so this is preferrable to that for sure.
The woke level here is mild. You get body types instead of sex, and half the soldiers are women, but other than that there's no preachy faggotry of any kind from what I've seen.
Completely agree with most of the criticisms here about the railroading in the third act and factions not being fleshed out enough/attractive enough to join, but you still have to join one. Just let me join the forest hippies you assholes, and don't force me to betray them without a second thought.
I also had an issue with the pacing where it's paradoxically too fast paced and slow paced at the same time. Basically, you're encouraged to explore and get lost in the woods. You get your ass kicked by whatever, and start coming up with plans how to cheese enemies without even knowing where you're going or what you'll find there. This is very fun. But as you do, you go from a useless scrub to someone OP without even intending to do so, and clear out most of the map from enemies. In my game when I reached the main city and joined them, I jumped from chapter 1 to 3, skipping 2 entirely. But even that is not enough progress, because if you keep doing the main quest and reach chapter 4 you unlock a whole new angle of character building, including more traversal options. But by that point you've explored most of the map, killed most of the monsters and don't remember where you've seen spots you couldn't access before. The fun of the game is in getting lost and exploring, but at the same time you're encouraged to rush chapter 4 to unlock the full suite of abilities. It's basicaly like playing a metroidvania but you unlock double jump 3/4 through the game.
I also thought it weird how the map is structured. You have 2 factions, but instead of going left from the starting village to get to one and right to get to another, the path right is blocked off initially. So you're forced to go to one faction first and when you reach them and realize they're all unwashed tards, the other faction is on the other end of the map now and it would take forever to get to them. And even so, I'd wager most people joined Nemeton on their first playthrough. And this further delays you doing the story missions and encourages to explore more of the world before you have access to all your skills.
But all of this is honestly whatever and refreshing - to consider a game's minor shortcomings when it's mostly competent and just falls short in some areas, and isn't pants on head retarded to a level that defies explanation, like most games are these days.
Also, completely shocked - it's made in Unity, has a large open map, plenty of static interactable objects, loot that stays on the ground forever, and isn't a slow wonky stuttering piece of shit. I never knew such a thing was possible.
