Back when we made that choice, the secret "ending" of FarCry was still culturally relevant
I call hacks. Where is the Champ's joy flight with the Big Bad, raining hot
lead cum on the heads of mere mortals?
I think you're underestimating how much that framing story impacts the player's impression has of their avatar, even if people skip it after a first run. After character creation, TiTS really sells the Daddy Issues the MC as part of character motivation going forward.
And that's why for me Anno is forever bottom tier (sorry, Savin) and why Ramis is best wife: she helps my Steele to charter a life's course together waaay the fuck away from daddy dearest and his (and megacorp in general) BS for after we get that check. Being a big cat lady full of love and badassery also helps, which is why Shade was Ramis's only real competition before getting a sidegrade into being my character's best relative.
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Back to general griping: based on running several different characters through all of the content in the three starter zones (Old Forest, Foothills, and Harvest Valey) the Resolve combat seems entirely suboptimal as an option for any party that doesn't have two out of three characters specializing on it. So if I have vanilla Cait and Quin in my party and my Champ is 50/50 on dealing Resolve and HP damage, even foes that are explicitly vulnerable to Horny are easier to smack down than to tease into submission.
As a corollary to this, I'm bummed out by the fact that, apparently, the only Power dealing Pheromone type damage we can ever learn or steal is a level 6 Thief power. So all those beastkin type enemies with 75% Pheromone vulnerability just keep taunting me.
And finally, speaking of running: the fact that you don't get any HP and Resolve recovery after fleeing combat means that more often than not you are just trading one loss scene for another one in the future, unless you are stacked on healing items or right outside of camp/town.