Hello all. I thought that title would get your attention so ill explain what I mean a little better.

This is a personal opinion but I thought it would resonate with people here at least in so far as you all would understand what I mean.

I love this game, it's absolutely gorgeous. The stunning detail to every single panel, every unique environment. How this impacts gameplay.

I love the intuitive way that movement is so smooth, so fluid at all times. Everything moving like it was a real animal in a two dimensional space.

I love the A.I. How the animals actually seem to learn your habits and paths of stick around long enough, how they will attempt to track you down if you piss them off and stay with you if you befriend them.

I love the soundtrack. How it instills menace, fear, hope, nostalgia, and the feeling of the chase, as both predator and prey, quite often.

And most especially I love how the game as I often describe it to my friends and anyone I can to spread the word. "This game is like playing an episode of post apocalypse national geographic while you play as the prey."

BUT......

I do not like the story, or at least the supposed meaning of the story. Spoilers ahead, ye be warned.

That the ancients desperate for a way to break free of the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth. How they basically destroyed their world to find a way out. How every living creature "from the smallest microbes to the god like iterators seek to escape this cycle." And finally did with the void sea and void fluid. And how eventually those adorable little slugcats you play as too follow the ancients into the void sea and "ascend".

See that too me is a problem that took a long time to figure out. That essentially, whether or not it was intended, that the underlying message of the game is....'death is the only true escape from suffering." Very zen and buddha, but that shot is so....depressing. And every time I play the game I get a fun bout of depression to go with it despite having so much fun. That kind of underlying message is just...yeesh. Not very fun to vibe with.

That's all honestly, I love this game to pieces but I wish the tone, underlying theme and story were less depressing. I know that they all "ascend", but functionally this is so close to death as to be the same thing as far story telling goes, and if it was not meant to be so, then the writers did a poor job of distinguishing the difference. So take all of that as you will. Perhaps once reading this, you too will understand what I mean. I dont want to put this game down, I love almost everything about it. I just wish that perhaps the meaning and tone of the story was told a little differently.