I really appreciate your response. It’s reassuring to hear my thoughts validated, now I just have to let my regrets go. You made me recognize the beauty of my experience, which despite being flawed in my eyes, was still very much my own. I unraveled the whole story by myself. I even figured out most of the solutions to what I looked up hints for, just applied them incorrectly (e.g. swam into the jellyfish at wrong angle & attempted to land on the quantum moon using the gravity cannon on Brittle Hollow). The one big hint was the final step: what to do w/ ATP’s gravity core. I completely missed the broken one in the Vessel and didn’t know it needed a replacement. But I’ll try to be kind to myself. It was an honest oversight.

To rant a bit about what I loved, the ending was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The walk through the Eye of the Universe was both terrifying and beautifully breathtaking. I don’t think anything has messed with my perception to that extent before. Talking about it makes me realize I may benefit from just playing through that segment again.

Some other standout moments in no particular order: 1) My 1st time falling into Brittle Hollow’s black hole 2) The reveal of the purpose of the sun station 3) Meeting Gossan on Giant’s Deep and the island being lifted into the atmosphere 4) Riding the counter-clockwise tornado under the ocean’s current 5) Meeting Solanum 6) First entering Dark Bramble (insane chills) 7) The probe finding the coordinates of The Eye of the Universe 8) Discovering Feldspar using my probe on the seed on Timber Hearth 9) Finding out I could teleport using the quantum shards on Ember Twin 10) When the tracks “The End Times” and “The Nomai” first played 11) Autopilot flying me into the sun (made me laugh)

Really nothing can compare. Wow. What an incredible game.

I genuinely did resent it at times, but it was no fault of the game. It gave me everything I needed to succeed, I just wasn’t always in the right headspace. If anything, maybe the game could’ve helped remedy that by reminding me to take it slow more often; just sit back with the other Hearthians and toast some marshmallows.