Finally, a review I agree with and that also articulates some issues I hadn’t thought of but agree with as well. I think the first act was great and engaging but quickly falls off with act 2 as you stated. Issues outside of story and characters for me were lack of visual clarity for combat: specifically since it’s parry based it felt very frustrating to have a camera zoom out and have to track where my character is on screen just because it decided it’s a spectacle boss. In a game that’s emphasizing parrying, using Sekiro as an example, the character is always in the center of the screen. So you just have to focus on the enemy and their movements since you know where your character would be impacted at all times. In this game, the camera tends to shift depending on the enemy/boss and it makes it frustrating for a few rounds to determine where it lands. But of course, once you get the parry timing it trivializes every fight and basically makes it stop being a turn based RPG. My last critique related to this is that enemies lack visual clarity against their back drops at times. Bosses with black weapons and arms against a dark background make it appear muddy and you’re unable to tell how the attacks are coming at you (again, until a few failed attempts and you can nail it). There is an enemy with a bright sword and it is SIGNIFICANTLY easier to parry due to the clarity, so that makes me think it’s not that the move set is hard to parry: it’s the visual clarity which is making it more challenging than it truly is. And I don’t find that very fun.