TL;DR

I decided to try this game for myself and I'm glad I did because I liked it. Although the main character is sometimes hard to stomach (her dialogue is not the main issue, her characterization is), the story and and the other characters are pretty good. The movement is fun, and the aside from some complaints about how ability switching and equipping, as well as the combat rating system works, I also think the combat is good too, provided you engage with the game and pay attention to how you get stronger (just leveling up is not the way). The open world is huge, with a ton to do and with some truly awesome vistas.

I personally think you should give it another look if you've written it off already, provided you like open world games and enjoy the act of traversing them.

-- FULL THOUGHTS --

Sometimes I see a game and something about it intrigues me, and no matter what I kinda have to try it for myself. This was one of those times. Ever since this game was shown off for the first time and I saw the movement, it had somewhat of a grip on me and I knew I would play it at some point. After the...lukewarm...reception I was less excited to do so but it was still very much a game I wanted to try and make my own opinion on. I'm glad I did as I overall enjoyed the game quite a bit, despite some flaws that the game definitely has.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Was the dialogue really as bad as everyone says/as it appears? In some ways yes, in other ways no. I'll say off the bat even before I played it, I thought everyone was kinda overreacting to the infamous "Did I just do that?!" line that many have clipped. Sure it's a little cringe but whatever, it's not really a good way to judge the entire game's dialogue and story. Firstly, the only character that speaks "like that" is the main character, Frey. Literally every other character is played completely straight, not quippy at all. Maybe except for Cuff, but he is literally attached to Frey and can only talk to her. Ultimately I don't think Frey's quippiness or curt manner of speaking are really the problem, if there is one. What is more detrimental to the game, in my opinion, is that her characterization is frustrating and confusing for much of the game, regardless of how she says things. I won't go into more detail about it for the sake of brevity but I think the story and dialogue are mostly fine and if that's the reason you won't play this I think you're either too sensitive to "cringe" or you've just been lead to believe it's really bad when it's just not really that bad and you should reconsider.

As for the story itself, it's actually kinda interesting. Feels like a decent amount of effort was put into creating a lore for this world. I'm not gonna say it's groundbreaking stuff but it holds your interest through the runtime.

The movement and traversal mechanics I think are a lot of fun, probably my favorite part of the whole game, and like I said were my main draw to the game to begin with. I have seen some criticism for it that it's too simple, "one button" movement with no depth. I can see how someone might come to this conclusion if you don't do much exploring or get some of the optional movement ability unlocks. Similar to how I feel about the combat, I really suggest people engage somewhat with the open world and look out for these things. There are some fun abilities locked behind "Founts" which grant certain special abilities, like for example a timing-based speed boost while running, or a glide, so on and so forth.

Now to talk about the combat. Looking at the stats I see that only about half of all players have defeated the first boss, which is when the game gives you a second set of entirely different combat abilities. This happens two additional times during the course of the game, giving you a total of 4 elemental trees. If someone were to stop before the first boss, I would imagine they felt that the game was weirdly restrictive and one-dimensional but as it turns out there is actually arguably TOO MANY abilities in the game and it makes it hard to even use them (accessing abilities that aren't currently equipped takes a lot of multi-button pressing and analog stick maneuvering). I actually overall like the combat, but I feel like they should have pruned literally like half of the abilities from the game and really focused in on a few different things for each element. I hate to criticize it for giving me so many options but it makes the combat feel clunky at times. I will also mention the combat rating system briefly, as I think it overall negatively impacted my experience and I think it just shouldn't have been there. It is designed in such a way that basically taking any damage destroys your rating and you're probably gonna have like a E or D rank in most fights. This ultimately just made me feel bad, and it serves no purpose except to give you an EXP/drops multiplier, which in this game is virtually meaningless because the level system in this game doesn't even provide stat boosts. The only way to get stat boosts in this game is either by equipping and upgrading gear, or by doing open world activities, such as visiting monuments or clearing out different areas of enemies. This might explain why I see some people complaining that spells "never felt very powerful", that's because you probably didn't do any of this optional stuff in the open world. By the time I was at the end of the game I was practically an unkillable god that exploded everyone. And honestly I could probably get a lot stronger if I did more but I think I'm about done.

One other thing I would like to mention is that I'm seeing a lot of people claim that the game is only worth x or y amount of money, and while I do recommend waiting for a sale at this point if you're considering it at all, I will counter this by saying if you WANT to do optional side content, this game is INCREDIBLY large and has A LOT for you to do and see. I did not even reveal the entire map. It just. Keeps. Going. so if you are worried about the value proposition, please don't be.

You don't have to listen to me specifically, but I really recommend looking into the game for yourself, don't just listen to people who want to dunk on it. It's a flawed game no doubt, but one with some really fun movement mechanics, really cool looking and feeling combat, and a decent story too, if you can stomach the main character, who at times can get in the way. I found myself actually enjoying this one, and you might find that you do too. I'd actually be really interested in a sequel, to see how they might improve on this, but unfortunately I don't think it'll happen (even though the end of the DLC teases future story).