>>712666860
The early game is too railroaded
It has the best route variety in the genre, contender for the best non-linear+interconnected exploration in games as a whole. But that only starts after you get the mantis claws, during which its very railroaded and sometimes even unrewarding without unintended skips
Id propose the following solution
>Give a different, interesting reward to brooding mawlek, like a charm (the mask shard only becomes relevant a few hours in)
>the charm can be used to do things a little differently in some not-too-obvious way, maybe go to elder baldur early, or get some extra nice stuff
That could quite possibly spice up replays nicely