Great story and a lot of interesting mechanics held back by execution and some very average elements. The art design is nice, music is good though I don't think I'd go out of my way to listen to most songs, and the controls are generally spot-on, if not anything amazing. What is so frustrating is the controls of the brush. Interacting with objects that are in a 3d space with a canvas which can only convey 2D lines is annoying, at times even infuriating. Having to constantly readjust the camera to fix mistranslations of intentions just sucks. Like why. Why. The dungeon design in this game is so bland for every dungeon except the final ones at the end of each part - and even then the closing dungeon of Part 1 (the Orochi one) is not too special apart from the boss fight. The camera is odd ... it isn't really intrusive and normally doesn't get in the way ... but it still feels ... off. Even in normal gameplay you are always having to readjust to get a better view. The combat has a decent amount of depth ... after you get past the first 15 hours. And honestly the introduction of depth mostly just makes enemies a nuisance rather than a trial. The sub weapon system is neat, it has more depth than something like Nier Automata, but it needed more variety. Unlocking rewards with XP, or rewards with demon fangs was ultimately pointless because ... the game is fucking easy. Biggest problem of all was that this game actually made me question at times if I like the traditional 3D Zelda formula at all. Not only were the dungeons generally weak as previously described, but the items are almost entirely useless. You get so many items and you don't need them because the game is easy. You get upgrades, but a lot of the upgrades are extensions of things you already have. Which is common in 3D Zelda games too, but here it's worse because it lacks the physicality of power ups that variants have in Zelda games. Everything is a self fulfilling prophecy of monotonous repetition. You do things to further things and instead of feeling natural it just feels like padding. It honestly feels like a parody of the kind of criticisms people were having of Zelda before Breath of the Wild. Talk for minutes on end just to do a basic bitch puzzle. Talk for minutes on end to, get this, get another joke about how much Issun loves pussy. Thanks Issun, it was actually surprisingly funny for a long enough time, but even that enjoyment had to come to an end when 20 hours in it was still the main characteristic of every humanoid female character. Have Issun tell the player anytime they do something even remotely wrong as if the player are dumb babies. SHUT UP ABOUT THE CRACK MINI GAME ISSUN. JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP. You're still cool and I like you a lot. Waka doesn't even get justice in the last two parts of the game. He's just shoehorned in as important in the end. And that final boss is such a disappointment. There is probably some sort of metaphor or symbolism about false notions of power against a true god, but I don't care. Fuck that fish bruh. I didn't die once in this game, and i'm trash at games, that's when you know something is wrong with your game. I could probably think of more things to rant about, but that's it for now. Good game, I do like it. But I'd never touch it again.
Overall, too long for what it's trying to accomplish.
