izigame.me

Baffling game. Really.
First of all, it's kinda beautiful. The world is weird in a great way. It also looks very nice. Ambient sounds underpin the atmosphere. Simply being in this world is worth it. It's a fantastic place!
The 'gamey' aspects give me a lot of trouble, though. Mind you, I am not that far into the game yet, but I already tire of it. The only thing that keeps me going is that beautiful, crazy world.
The combat doesn't work for me, I feel like I have totally inappropriate tools to go against what is thrown at me (lots of enemies, usually). The bow is so slow and does so little damage I might as well attack with cotton balls. The magic attack is even worse. There's a combined bow+magic AoE attack I use while backpedaling, hoping for the bow to be fully drawn. It manages to kill the array of critters that come at me in addition to the heavy hitters, but I feel like a cowardly weakling playing like this. (You can craft brooms a bit later that - once placed - attract enemies so you don't have to run backwards all the time anymore.)
The quiver holds very few arrows, so I need to re-craft quite often. What's worse is that I run out of crafting material all the time. Instead of exploring the world like I want, I scuttle around trying to get crafting material a lot of the time.
Now, all these things can be mitigated by ... well, finding other stuff like 'lost pages' or teeth that allows you to level your skills, making for example the bow somewhat faster or your pouches bigger so you can carry more materials. That makes is somewhat more bearable, but not really great.
While playing I was constantly reminded of how great the bow and crafting worked in Horizon Zero Dawn, and I could never stop wishing Blacktail to be more like that.
The morality system (that gives bonuses depending on your alignment) sounds great in theory, but it constantly confuses me with which action is deemed 'evil' and which one is 'good', so I had difficulties staying on the selected path, instead clinging more to the neutral point, missing out on the better bonuses.
The game also has the worst possible save system. You need to find a shrine and activate it with a flower to save.
Really? This has been done in a couple of games, and every single time it has been an absolute disaster, just like here. I can't for the life of me comprehend how a save system like this can still be in a game in 2022.
TL;DR: very, very charming, beautifully imagined and realized world, but as a game it hurts to play. I will (probably) endure the frustration, but keep those things in mind before buying. Not a general recommendation.