I'll be honest-
I get it, I really do-
But this game just ain't for me. The pacing is too slow for my taste, and I'm not big on the vibe of this game, I do like it, but I'm not gonna sit here and say it's perfect, I honestly just can't make it to the end of this game, I don't have the patience, even with a guide, plus, there's little to no resources for good, detailed, non-spoiler help for the game, I already know the entire plot of the story because anything that could help with the gameplay is literally full of spoilers. There are a handful of people who seem to be trying to put together a helpful wiki, but it's so early in development and bare bones they basically only have the pages on character creation written so far.
I have had my fill after two days of playing non-stop, but I had to restart my game three times in two days. The first time I played, I didn't even get past the forest of abandoned, not because it was too hard, but because it was too directionless for me, I basically just wandered around killing things, made it to Dorothy's house, got excited at finally finding a character who seemed like they had some level of development, then got confused and bored because I had no idea what to do afterwards. If I had stuck to just doing a blind playthrough like most people recommend, that's it, I would've stopped there and never touched the game again.
Having a guide is definitely the way to go, I actually made it through a lot better, I knew what I was doing and what I wanted to do, I actually got interested in the story, lore and characters-
But honestly, there's such little help and so many spoilers that I know all the endings, all the lore, and every twist, and for a game where the story is the whole point, I honestly just can't keep going.
I'm glad that this is a special game for so many people, but I can't for the life of me keep going right now because I'd just be going through the motions. Maybe I'll give it another go some other time, or maybe I'll try the sequel, but as is, I have no interest in the game, but I understand and respect why other people do.
This game really needs a wiki like what I've seen people trying to put together in the early stages right now, it's deceptively big and complex for an RPG maker game, and current guides are either too vague or too direct in what they tell players to do. A solid community page would help this game a lot in being more accessible to more people.
This is practically an open-world game, I've only managed to explore 14 out of the massive 26 areas/regions the game has to offer (not including the holy forest), and if I hadn't had help, I wouldn't have made it past the first 1 out of sheer sensory overload. The game is fucking massive for not even being a gigabyte, and it feels deceptively tiny at the beginning.
Maybe if I didn't have the whole plot spoiled for me, or if I didn't have so many bad starts I could've kept going, but I've made three characters already, I've played non-stop for 2 days straight. I'm burnt out and I know that if I stop now, I'm gonna have no idea what I'm doing and restart again the next time I play.
I have a healthy respect and maybe even a bit of admiration for this game....but I ain't finna do this shit for another 4 or 5 days, my save game is literally over 24 hours of play time now, and yes, some of that is idle, but I've been trying to binge this shit because I thought "Oh, nice, it's a story-driven RPGMaker game", IT'S NOT, IT'S A FUCKING OPEN WORLD NON-LINEAR RPG-
If I had known that ahead of time, maybe I'd pace myself better, but I'm just tired after reaching the Frog Princess, ironically enough-
So yeah, I guess I did end up ranting as much as everyone else....still have no fucking idea where that bow everyone talks about is, searched every last tile for hours on end, and yet I still never found the bow that everyone is saying apparently carried them through the game-
Made it all the way to Fort Ivern, committed massive rat genocide in the sewers to break the economy-
Yet the most elusive thing in this game is a piece of wood with string attached to it-
