Off the top of my head, in Act 1 alone (spoilers tagged):
Every Mother's Nightmare - this quest appears to only have one solution:
to tell Fara that Erma is dead.
This quest is received and resolved so quickly that it feels like cut content. You are given a figurine to find Erma, implying that
you can search the island for her, which I did fruitlessly, even though I strongly suspect Erma = Coral.
- this quest does not close when you release Withermore's soul. You have to go to
the Tower of Braccus Rex in the Gargoyle Maze and interact with the source barrier. The character who interacts with the barrier cannot have any source points. Withermore will appear and help you get past the barrier.
I fluked these steps but I know several people who didn't and have no idea why the quest will not close.
The Arena of Fort Joy - this was a bugged quest that was retroactively fixed in the first patch. Talking to Thola would not trigger the final journal entry stage, leading some people to suggest that it continues in Act 2 as there is more than one arena. I was in Act 2 when the first patch was released but loaded an Act 1 save to confirm.
The Burning Pigs - This quest is very illogical from a design perspective as there are multiple points where the player cannot reasonably be expected to have the forethought or the tools necessary to finish it. When you approach the village, the nearest pig triggers an auto dialogue. To cure the pigs you need to
use the Bless spell on one of them, which can only be acquired from one of two statues, one of which is in the village itself.
This is a problem because the auto dialogue ends with you having to
pass a persuasion check on a character with Pet Pal.
All of this before you can respec. Upon curing a pig, Feder spawns off screen near Slane. Why does Feder spawn here? No idea. You can unknowingly ruin the outcome of this quest if you went to the Sanctuary first which leads to
the other statue where you get the Bless spell. Unfortunately if you talked to the Amadia statue, didn't suck up to her and turned the pond mist red, then Feder will die no matter what.
There is plenty of scope for criticism in the quest structure of act 1 alone. I understand that some things in the game are beyond the player's ability to control. On second playthrough however, all of the above examples are clearly within the player's ability to control, but only with the benefit of hindsight.
You have to know there is no alternative choice. Or that if you do a, b, c in this order and avoid talking to npc x, then you save npc y. Or this quest is meant to be open because I still have to go interact with an object on the other side of the map for narratively inconsistent reasons, whereupon quest dude appears and my journal entry completes.
Criticism is not the same as a review, although a review may incorporate criticism. Nevertheless, the conclusion of a review implies a value recommendation. Is the game good or bad? Is it worth buying or not? The value recommendation is often summarized as a number between 1 and 10, which is disappointing as the number itself is arbitrary and carries disproportionate weight in aggregator sites like Metacritic. This in turn strongly influences the popular perception of the game.
It is perfectly possible for me to criticise this game and love the hell out of it. This is how Joseph Anderson can do an 80 minute video finding every flaw in Bloodborne despite it being one of his all time favourite games. This is not inconsistent with the function of criticism. Then again, he doesn't do reviews or review scores so his analysis does not form part of a recommendation (to play the game or not).
However, I must also acknowledge that I didn't know anything about this game and expressed no interest until word of mouth forced me to pay attention. As much as I don't like it, the metacritic score carried weight.
I figured that if a bunch of industry insiders rated the game this highly despite being an obscure, early access, crowdfunded, turn based adventure sequel with a word salad title, then it must be good.
