I will start by saying this is a beautiful game with a touching story. With that in mind, I did have a few issues with some of the mechanics. Some of these may have been due to the laptop that I played the game on, but looking at other reviews it seems that others had some similar issues.

The controls could be kind of wonky - there were multiple times that my double jumps failed, and there were a few situations where I had to move to a precise spot in order to interact with the object, even though I seemingly was right in front of it.

The massive amount of space to explore is nice… but also a pain. It's beautiful to look at, but so easy to get turned around and lost. I retraced my steps by mistake too many times. Having at least a compass probably would have helped. I realized pretty quickly that this wasn't going to be a game I'd 100% - there was too much and it was too spread out. I originally thought that the stars would be a trail, leading you around, but I spent so long running around looking for the next small cluster, it definitely got frustrating. And with all of this, I still managed to find no hidden items. It also took forever to get to places, even when I knew exactly where to go, even at a run.

I wound up watching a video for the secret ending. I thought it was really touching, and wish it had been included in the main game. It felt like an important aspect of the story that I was sad that many people missed out on. Based on steam achievements, less than 2% of players at this time have actually found it.

Negatives out of the way, as I said, I did love the overall experience. The negatives, while frustrating, weren't enough for me to dislike the game. I can absolutely see them being reason for others to quit, but to me, the story outweighed it. It felt so personal and touching, and just so real. I'm also sad that in missing out on some general items, I missed out on more story that way, as I really loved the insight into Joseph's life (and Rachel's). The music also felt perfect for the atmosphere, and very much complimented what was going on.

That in mind, I think I can only recommend this game for it's art and story, and not so much for the gameplay itself. While I understand that it is a walking simulator, it left me feeling more annoyed than others that I have played, mostly in part due to the long spaces between anything happening, the frustration of failing jumps, and the distance between items.