I burst into tears more than once while playing this game. It was so so well made. No frills, no fuss, just a beautiful story put against a beautiful experience. Absolutely worth the money and the time.

I'll start off by saying that I don't hate this game. It sat in my library for years, I don't even remember buying it... I think it was free at one point when it was in development and I added it to my library. I decided to play it when I was feeling lazy on a Saturday night and I have to say that my feelings are mixed.

THE GOOD:
The visuals in this game are done quite well. I especially like the ending (I think its the ending...?) where you are at the house and you can see the mountains all around you with a gorgeous sky-box. I've spent lots of time in the mountains IRL and the game does a great job at capturing the vastness of the terrain and it makes you feel small the way that mountains should. Not many games capture that feeling as good as this one.

THE BAD:
This game is a story/walking simulator with some great visuals and a philosophical take on life and death. However the way the game-play is structured causes the delivery of the story to be confusing and even un-enjoyable at times. You are placed in the middle of an open world playing as a fox and you wander the world searching for objectives. Collecting these objectives rewards you with a snippet of the story(s) described in the games synopsis. However the exploration in this game is super non-linear and it is possible to pick up these objectives out of order and receive pieces of the story without context. Oftentimes I found myself not sure where I should be going or needing to backtrack several minutes across the map to pick up a snippet of the story I missed. At times like this, playing this game felt like a chore. Walking around an open world hoping that you find every snippet of the story in the correct chronological order is not very fun, especially not if you miss one. A story should be told in a linear fashion, and trying to mix something linear with something as non-linear as an open world is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The BEST and most enjoyable part is when Rachel is telling her story and you are following the deer across the water. It's GOOD because you are heading in a DEFINITE direction and the story is being told in ORDER which is almost the polar opposite of how the rest of the story was delivered leading up to that point.

TLDR: This game is only OKAY and could be much better if the delivery of the story is improved. Buy it when you're bored and it's on sale.

EDIT: Just realised I did not get the achievement for finishing the game so the house in the mountains that I thought was the ending is in fact NOT the last area. I'm not sure where I am supposed to go.