Thoughts after finishing the main story (spoilers!)

I’ve been playing this game from EA, and I just recently finished the main story. I stumbled upon it last year, and fell in love with it. That being said, I have some thoughts. Be forewarned, this is a long post.

My biggest issue is the pacing. The story was over by the beginning of Y1 fall, like not even a full in game year. It went by way too fast, and at times felt even a little overwhelming with all of the quests that would trigger at one time. Furthermore, the things that are and aren’t gated behind other quests doesn’t make sense. For example, at one point, I had Yohji, Anna and Kincho waiting for me outside my house, and I had a letter from Ama. >!Yohji took me to the ruins where we found out about Kababa, then we come back to have a heart event where kincho and Anna are congratulating for beating namazu, but dont mention the forcefield kuhuza just put up around the whole ruins. And then Ama’s letter was about her dumb fan mail quest.!< This sort of thing happened often and kind of affected the immersion, as if felt like i was jumping between a bunch of unrelated quests. I think it would maybe help to limit how many story/heart quests can be active, and i think the story/time gating could have been utilized a little more consistently for story pacing.

I will also admit I was disappointed in the NPC interactions and story. I was expecting them to be much more fleshed out, and I think hearts accumulated way too fast. I was able to get >!heph and Musashi!< Confessions by the end of the first spring. It’s way too quick, especially considering that there are others that have confessions gated until the end of the story, and characters that don’t even show up until halfway through act 3. >!Uwabami and Allin were almost a waste. They had no heart events and then just BAM confession.!< I was hoping for more backstory, and admittedly hoping for new content for characters that had confessions and more heart events in the EA>!(like Musashi and heph)!<. Along those lines, I felt like >!characters whose backstory had nothing to do with the main plot were left behind. Like we get nothing else about Musashi except that he is the son of a god, and they did nothing with that!!< Idk I was just so excited to see more content for the romanceables but there wasn’t a lot more than was available in EA in some cases.

Finally, the plot. There’s a good story in there. I was greatly anticipating the answers to the questions that had been building. I got them, but the felt shallow. >!It felt like nothing really from the beginning was concluded, the dark fox storyline started in the second update I think, but the why and where of the parents hadn’t been resolved. I thought the resolution of the dark fox was weak, and I didn’t fully understand what was going on, or what the tanuki had to do with anything. Also ALSO I thought the kababa reveal was lame and didn’t make sense. Kababa is known outside of seikyu, so has kuzuha been rolling around Yokai land for years as kababa? Also kababa is still in the casino after the reveal and her/him/them going into the ruins had absolutely no consequences.!< When the devs recommended to restart the game with the update, I guess I was hoping for a lot more content and story. I’m sure they will continue to update >!especially ending on so many questions!< but for a 1.0 release I was sadly underwhelmed. I thought the third act fumbled the buildup we got from the first two updates.

I still absolutely love this game, it’s the perfect blend between rpg/combat/story and farm/craft sim, with an open world. Everything I love in a game. The artwork is beautiful, the npcs and setting are lovely and interesting. I think the general plot and premise are really interesting. And I love the shape shifting mechanics. The NPCs, the town, the story, all draw me in, but I’m left wanting for more.

Sorry for the long post, but I absolutely adore this game and want to see it do well and get a bit more meat. What do y’all think?