The short version: Hardland is the most memorable and probably the best game I've played this year (2020).

The atmosphere is thick and intriguing, the world is memorable and the art style is gorgeous and unique.

You can walk any way you want and find and complete quests almost in any order, steadily approaching the end goal. But there are no markers and no quest logs. The story is presented in a similar way to Dark Souls - i.e. there's almost no direct exposition of it and the lore; the tone is somewhat different, but overall it's extremely attractive and engaging.

There are numerous quest lines and most of them intertwine, sometimes in an unexpected ways. Lore is unique and keeps you playing. It's neatly presented through small pieces you learn from dialogues, dreams (another cool and interesting feature of the game), items, some wierd events. Really nice stuff. Nothing feels stail or cliched.

Writing and quests, if you are into this sort of things, are extremely enjoyable. Be prepared though. Due to the game structure, the first 5 hours you are going to spend feeling like you wander aimlessly. But again, if you are into this kind of storytelling and gameplay, it's going to hook you at some point. It definitely hooked me - at some point I've found myself unable to stop playing it whole days through, it became so engaging.

It takes about 30 hrs to finish, but completionist run will take at least 15hrs longer.

The combat system, dispite all the criticism, is simple but fine. Animation, sound and models are solid, it feels like there's some punch to it, and it controls nicely, very responsive. First 10 hrs (until you level up and find better equipment) you are killed often if you aren't careful. The game keeps you aware, and enemies always feel dangerous, but fair and not too hard on you; and you can always escape or avoid them. The option to avoid enemies actually has an additional depth - each one of them is unique and they never respawn. At later stages of the game you would even be able to interact with them to get additional insights of lore and quests.

At the RPG-side of things, you collect weapons (melee and ranged; there are 30-40 of them) and armor (at least 6 sets). Finding a better piece of equipment is always a treat, as each one of them is unique.

You can only save at savepoints, which happen to be bonfires (yep). Love the fact that there's almost no filler, such as hunting for randomly generated loot (rare, common and all that garbage), crafting, survival mechanics, dungeon crawling etc. It just keeps delivering on what I like about this kind of games.