I don't blame you at all. It's styled after the old final fantasy games, meaning very fiddly with a lot of different abilities, and with the added twist of having to dodge stuff fairly precisely which involves a lot of learning. There is a "story" difficulty which makes the game much less punishing, but I still didn't feel like playing it.

I did watch my girlfriend play though, and soon I was the one telling her to play so I could watch because the story and soundtrack are that fucking amazing. Just watch a playthrough of at least all the major fights and cutscenes and you'll understand.

The gameplay itself is just "okay". Turn based JRPG combat with some QTE not much different from Super Mario RPG on the SNES.

I think the attention it has received is based on how well they tie together the quality of storytelling, dialogue, art direction, music, and the universal theme that resonates with everyone:

It's an interactive cinematic experience that had me in emotional shambles multiple times throughout the playthrough.

If you're dead inside like me and desperate to feel anything, it'll do it for you :>

Like you I could not get into it, but I gave it the old college try. Got about eight hours in and can't get a refund now.

You're not alone. The visuals are nice, the voice acting is good, and the music is gorgeous, but the gameplay is very repetitive JRPG combat with a minor twist.

As art, I could see it winning awards. As a game, I think others are more deserving.

Hands down, my favorite rpg in years. It has also been one of the super rare games that I kept playing past the end of the main story just so I could stay in the world a bit longer. It will also be one of the only games I've bought after playing it on Game Pass too.

For me, I found it to be a beautiful work of art and a heartbreaking story about family.

It's not a mass appeal title that absolutely everyone will love though. The game is not particularly easy and it takes time to develop the story.

Every time you get to the end of an act in Expedition 33 there is so much emotion. If you aren't following the story, don't get emotionally attached to the games you play and the stories of the characters, and aren't patient enough to enjoy it then obviously it won't be for you. That's ok. It's all art. They all mean different things to each one of us.

I'm confident we'll get another hades, another silksong, another death stranding. I'm sure they're all the very best representation of their iterative releases and worthy of the highest of praises too. I don't even know how donkey kong got in the list though, maybe they are being manipulated to include a nintendo title in some way.

I don't know if i'll ever be as impressed by another title as I did by expedition 33. Baldur's Gate 3 amazed me in other ways a couple years ago and it's a huge feat. Before that for me it was Elden Ring, amazing for other reasons.

I haven't started kingdom come deliverance 2 yet, and I never played the first one, so I don't want to say too much. All of the impressions i've heard sound like it is very deserving though. My assumption is that this and Exp33 have been the two GOTY contenders, but we'll see.

Nah, if it didnt hook you in the beginning nothing would happen later to change that. Good story, acting, visuals, but combat gets repetitive and needed something more to shake it up.

It’s a quite enjoyable game, though some elements grew old towards the end. The visual design and music is also amazing. Unfortunately they dropped the ball on the ending a little, and it is very likely that this is the result of a flubbed rewrite, as there are certain hints within the game that imply very strongly that at least at some point things were clearly meant to be more complicated. The version of the ending we got has a very clear message as to what the writers intended to be the right choice.