2/5 because I like the art, the world, the music, the characters. Everything but the gameplay. This game is not fun in any common sense of the word. Enemies, bosses especially, rely on tracking projectiles, bad hitboxes, and overwhelming the player with hard to hit flying enemies while it does its one or two actual attacks at you while you're distracted. You have tools that you can never use because you are out of money until you grind for an hour to purchase reloads. You have movement options that are punished by enemies that can read your input to maximally punish you for doing anything other than reacting to what they do. You have a big open world that you can't speed through because there are gotcha spike traps and enemies behind grass that hit you and halt your movement. You have beautiful cutscenes and music that is spoiled because you have to go through them every time you need to restart the "not actually hard but the arena is filled with traps that track you" bosses. If you like Bennet Foddy games or kaizo stuff, then this will be right up your alley. If you want fun, go elsewhere.
There is a lot to this game. It is filled with game mechanics from lots of fun games. It has the character customization and exploration of Elder Scrolls and combat trying to be Soulsy. Loadout customization and crafting for days. The world building is pretty thorough. But it all feels wasted due to the execution. There is little coherence between systems and no real idea about what the game wanted to be, which is a shame. This would have been the perfect game if the devs knew what they wanted. I don't know if it was due to my exploration before starting the main quest, or a glitch, but I feel like I suffered from a sequence break somewhere along the line. Everyone kept asking me about fighting the bad guy again and how terrified I must be. I had only seen him twice outside the tutorial. Once where I easily defeated him during a random encounter involving a wild mount, and when the one-legged guy told me where his hideout was. There was no leadup to being sent to his secret hideout. Just go and beat him. Crafting never once came into play. Neither did clothing customization. Even though both systems seemed to have a ton of depth. The economy exists, but I never needed to engage with it. I settled very quickly into a melee, auto rifle loadout using items I found in the world. Combat is decent. Parrying and dodging was rough around the edges, but passable. The narrator was ever present. He would talk about the day/night cycle as if it were important I know what time of day it was. If it was, I never discovered why. There were lines referencing what kind of person I was becoming and how my story was important which seemed to be triggered by something in the game world, but I couldn't figure out what. I know he could be turned off, but I realized that too late and didn't want to miss something important. The art style is perfect. Everything about the look, sounds, and aesthetics was perfect. I would absolutely love to see a cartoon set in this world.
The original was fun. This one is worth playing if you're interested in knowing how the story ends. But otherwise feel free to pass. If you want to play it, definitely wait for a sale. The art style is very unsettling with modern graphics. Very strange looking cartoon people and realistic skin shaders is not a good combination. With a more cartoony style like the original, it would be charming. But the way it is, it is very offputting. There is some very unpleasant imagery that you may not be able to shake. Right out of the gate, the entire crazy dentist level is filled with unpleasant imagery similar to what Ren and Stimpy did it in their 90s game. It wasn't funny then and it wasn't funny now. And it's all made worse by the art style. Although it looks like it's made for a child, do not allow a child to play or watch this. There are frequent references to sex and drug use that kids don't need to hear or see. Plus the disturbing imagery mentioned before. The platforming is passable at best, and varies wildly in quality based on level. It even feels like they focused more on the narrative in places at the expense of making a playable game. QOL things like a map or a reminder what you should be doing next when you load the game or even some kind of hint system are absent or inadequate. But during gameplay, the protagonist never stops telling you the solution to puzzles. Boss fights are particularly egregious offenders, but exploration is essentially punished because you took too long to solve the obvious puzzle that you're putting off.
