I was talking to Chadboban about this in PMs, but my GOODNESS is Noctilum AMAZING.
The scene: Nopon Braidbridge. Down below. Nighttime in Noctilum. The trees are glowing green. The air is filled with purple pollen and golden fireflies. A mossy tree spirals skyward, lined with warmly glowing lanterns. Great apes sit atop oversized stumps and fungi in the shade of the canopy.
Everything is magic.
Elsewhere in the wood: Thunderous waterfalls girdled by giant vines. Fields of blue grass under a pastel pink sky. Prehistoric marshlands wreathed in steamy fog. Deer-like creatures sipping nectar out of massive flowers. Plants that glow like red neon signs.
Wow wow wow wow wow wow.
And all of this, coming off of exploration of the Primordian highlands, climbing an ominous skull-like mountain (Unicorn Peak?) and seeing ruins on the cliffs below, and winding my way along the serpentine path, blindsided by one breathtaking, gravity-defying rock formation after another, and drop-offs so high that it'd take an eternity to reach the bottom.
And in this game, you can safely do just that, since there's no fall damage!
The game just compels you onward and onward and onward. I've been playing for many hours already, yet Primordia is just at 25% surveyed, while Noctilum and Sylvalum are in the mid-teens. And I haven't even arrived in the other two continents yet.
I keep finding caves. Some of them go forever. One was swarming with Grexes several times my level. I snuck past all of them and looted a ton of material.
I like the emergent "maze" formed by all of the high-level monsters. Some are alert and roaming; others are sound asleep. Some strand at bottlenecks and straight-up bar you from continuing, but in most cases you can weave a fine line between them and slip past unnoticed, or run away if you are.
This game has, straight up, the coolest-looking bestiary I've ever seen. Bloodborne had many amazing monsters, but stuff like the tall elephants and fat angler fish flying around the lake in Sylvalum is just out of this world (pun intended). I wish there was a dedicated screenshot button like on the PS4. I'm too impatient to fiddle with the HUD and Home --> Internet Browser --> Abload.de. The wilderness begs to be explored!