Finished my first playthrough last night. Here are my thoughts: The difference between normal and duelist... I think normal is way too easy. I came off of duelist about 1/3rd through because of a health bug that was draining my consumables. I fought a bear in the prologue that on duelist was harder than the final boss. No fight on normal challenged me except Brakis... but that's only because I chose to fight him and his minions with no gear because I thought it might save some people. It does, btw. I think you could probably save everyone if you choose to fight him immediately before the tournament starts... next playthrough ☝😉. And that's because your gear does so much. The timer is overblown... with 7 days left I had completed all but Volk's quest chain (It takes like 5 days... not total time, but over the course of those days). To the point where I was doing shrines... they bugged out though, one didn't count showed as "destroyed" after I repaired it. The game needs a little more polish. Multiple instances where quest chains broke where I had to reload a few saves back. The blacksmith stopped talking to me like we had never met. There are memory issues that can cause drastic frame drops and stuttering. The game crashes, not a lot, but it probably happened once per play session. Loading screens get stuck sometimes. Good stuff: I love the combat, and it's almost a completely different game on duelist because there's no prompts. They did account for this. And I mapped out the skill trees for that. You're going to upgrade and develop your character differently for duelist... or should, imo. You have to play slower, however the telegraphs are good... you can learn them. It clicked for me a few hours in. Do I recommend duelist? That's the rub. No. Not right now. You can gain multiple healing effects but that takes a while. I realized that later. But it was brutal with the health stealing bug. A few hard fights can drain your consumables and managing that was a frustration that I couldn't deal with. Now? I'm going back through on Duelist. Because I'm much more versed and practiced with all the mechanics. So, if you want to play duelist and plan on multiple playthroughs... wait on Duelist until you understand the game. The story is great, exploration is also good. Time system is generous, but I will say the way to do it better is to have all PoIs have more parity for value. Why waste time doing shrines? Bandit camps? There are a bunch of PoIs that will never be worth your time segments regardless of the playthrough. If they focused on that... it makes Dawnwalker and the time system better. If drops didn't happen Everywhere! You can farm mobs for skill books and recipes. If you play long enough (minus special gear) you'll get all the precursor unlocking assets for your upgrades. What I'm saying, enforcing choices by curating PoIs per character development and progression. More boss fights. I feel like there should have been more of them along the way. Anywho, I put the game at an 8 right now. Bought to start my 2nd playthrough. I plan on having a save state for every ending. 😇👍💠