okay, ♥♥♥♥ this game and its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mechanics. Stelarium broke my good-will like no more than 5 other games managed to do in over 30 years of gaming. The game itself starts out alright and it's basic yet somewhat fun and maybe you're a huge Trails / Ys fan and you found some enjoyment that way. Then you keep playing and quickly figure out why this is a single entry from a company know for making many games set in the same universe.

Where to even begin? The absolute garbage that are these hitboxes with attacks clipping through terrain after they started off-screen by an enemy you could not have known was there unless psychic? Then you take random damage from some ball clipping through the ground or you get hit by a horizontal slash that wouldn't even connect if you were twice as long yet because the game only cares about the relative side position I guess, you still get hit.

Or maybe with the absolute idiocy that are the traversal mechanics? How about that? With the swing-on-thingies mechanic where you have to hold down jump aka pres jump to randomly get stuck and / or fall from these stupid balls in the air. And then of course the garbage rolling into a ball to traverse nonsense that controls like absolute ass with the character being so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ close all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time.

Or maybe we can talk upgrades and gear and how it makes zero sense in what order you acquire them or the fact half the spells of the fairy are locked behind post-game content and NG+ for some reason. What the ♥♥♥♥ is that supposed to be? A joke? But hey, at least the levels are fun, right? Wrong! You replay the same stupid level in different seasons which is doubled in post-game and repeated in NG+ with new stuff or you traverse huge areas having to find 3 crystals somewhere and a treasure chest and maybe do the idiotic missions while you're at it to unlock sword skills. Because that makes sense, right?

And then there are the stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ floor damage ticks that have no rhyme or reason to them. Because even playing on hard, the game is actually pretty easy. A few bosses with their ♥♥♥♥ hit boxes and stupid mechanics might kill you twice or thrice even but that's really it. Except for this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ piece of ♥♥♥♥ level I quit at. Because by god, I lost the last bit of fun I might've had. The floor - when a hazard - damages you for 25% of your health every 0.25 sec and your weapon against that is a shield you goota charge for a second holding block and which vanishes once you get hit by anything. Then you fight 8 enemies on tiny burning platforms with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hitboxes where getting hit means basically instant death.

It's just one of the many instances in the game where you have to sit there and wonder why anyone thought this was fun or engaging. Now, I like a challenge, I played and finished all the Soulslike games and some of those have gimmicky bs but this game, by god, has some of the worst design decisions I have ever seen and just nothing to make up for it.

The OST is totally disappointing, I can't even remember a single track and it's especially bad given that Falcom usually has serious bangers in their games. The story and characters I don't care about and started skipping most of the pointless uninspired dialogue. I was barely hanging onto a thread with this game but this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bs level just drove this ride straight into the abyss. this is the final chapter, basically 50% of the final level maybe and I rather spent my time telling you not to waste yours with this crap than finish this with zero motivation just to say I did. Nope. ♥♥♥♥ this game.