Not simply a flawed game, a game that launched rife with fatal bugs and an unattainable achievement.
It's got a lot going for it, so it's very frustrating. The art design, setting, music, and basic premise to the gameplay is all very good.
But that's about it. Some aspects aren't the worst in the world, such as the combat (which is the main gameplay), but still poor. The action is frustratingly hard at times because of lack of a soft or hard lock-on, your "Companion" being able to push you or block you, the long wind-up for all characters during attack (enemies telegraph for so long it's difficult to time avoiding them, since they constantly target you during their animation, for instance), your Companion ignoring your command to switch or perform an action because they have already decided to go somewhere or perform an attack or other such action, the fact that enemies seem to be able to almost instantly attack with either melee or projectiles at will--it's just not great. You'll be healing an awful lot, which, incidentally, takes time because you eat your food in real time. It's very easy to be ganged up on and not even realize you're being harmed.
However, it's not impossible, or anything; it can just be frustrating.
It's also frustrating how you can only sort-of skip in-game-graphics cutscenes. Whenever one is initiated, characters walk around and gesture, then they get to their dialogue, which you can skip. This isn't so bad at first, but when you have to continue on a boss battle, for instance, you'll notice it.
Then there's the farming and cooking, the other main part of the game. Both are very clunky and clumsy. The cooking, in particular, is insanely frustrating. You will need to equip items and have a food buff for speed to make the time limit for many of the dishes--oh, and even then, you may need to use one and a half times the ingredients as "quality" ingredients to get a +10 seconds bonus in the requirements on top of that, and those ingredients can be hard to come by.
Speaking of which, getting the highest rating for all recipes does not grant you the Achievement, so you won't ever be able to get all Achievements in this title.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to glitches, bugs, and fatal flaws.
Just have a glance at the message board. Most topics are players reporting that they have encountered a fatal bug from which there is no escape and progress is impossible. I personally didn't have that happen in my three playthroughs, but I did experience many crashes. It crashes very, very often, and although the developers said early on that they were working on patches, only one has come out and the people experiencing the worst bugs have reported that they are still unable to progress.
On top of that, there are times at which the direction from the game is confused. You may find yourself saying, "Well, what? Who? What am I doing?" This isn't the worst, but it's pretty weird in this day and age.
If you're here for the writing, don't bother; the game has interesting ideas but the story is almost gobbledegook. At times, characters' impetuses or emotional reactions are confusing.
This is all really a shame because there is a lot to this game that has promise, but I think the worst thing about it is this has been an abysmal launch. I may have to revise this review one day if the developers ever fix everything and start some quality-of-life patches, but for now, I cannot recommend this title.
4/10 - Would have put "5" and called it a promising title that could use work, but honestly, the fatal bugs and crashes are just a shame, especially for the price tag.
