From a pure gameplay point of view this is an outstanding game from top to bottom, a decently sized, living open world with plenty to do but doesn't feel like a chore, its just a straight up FUN game. It has unparalleled mobility thanks to the amazing jetpack and glider mechanics that can get you around the island super quick while feeling satisfying. Practically nothing is off limits so you can go anywhere you want at any time, though some parts might be trickier until you upgrade, it isn't flat out impossible if you use the provided tools right. It doesn't feel awkward or clunky and even without upgrades its already super fun. The movement was definitely my favourite part of the game hands down, and the way it bleeds into combat scenarios is just as noteworthy.

Combat is fun and engaging, quite fast paced in some spots but I will admit the AI isn't amazing by any stretch. you have two weapons that can be modified at any time thanks to weapon modules that can change the functionality and make it feel more like an arsenal of several weapons...machine gun, sniper rifle, explosives, shotgun...there's a mod for nearly every type of play style and the best thing is you can layer them on top of one another to create some crazy gun setups. My personal favourite had to be the sniper setting with explosive warheads for area damage, absolute destroyer!

Quests/missions have a good variety with not a lot of repeating nonsense you might find in most other open world games, sometimes you gotta collect something but there's usually some different way to collect them, its not just "go to this location, pick x and go back" everytime, some of them are just that, but not all thankfully. You'll quickly come across a few missions where you have to wait for time to pass for something to be ready for the next step, you can just kill some time by doing side activities or go do another mission and come back later. It has this sort of branching tree system that sometimes requires you to go to another village and create correspondence between particular NPCs so they can trade and get the ball rolling.

Beyond the gameplay it does sorta fall off a bit unfortunately, I can't tell if its just because its delivered in a really cheesy way but a lot of the time, something will just happen and all you can really say is "oh okay I guess this happened" and a lot of the time the story just feels a little rushed or there's a lot of plot holes or missing context that don't explain too much. As much as I do genuinely love this game, If you're looking for a master class in story telling it isn't here I'm afraid. Voice acting is pretty good but the same problem arises where the delivery of lines just don't quite hit the mark.

At the end of the day it almost feels like an indie passion project in its own way that, from what I understand, is from the original development team of the first game way back when and they decided to get the band back together to bring us back to Adelpha once more...and all that said and done I definitely enjoyed my time been able to come back to see the world of Adelpha with a modern look and a nice open world!