I'm not friends with Essence.

[omgFIREBALLS]

Using my abilities is fun. I found myself spending most of the early levels avoiding using them, because Essence.

• Essence does not naturally regenerate, and what items I've found to make it do that are too weak (not that I'd want to rely on them).
• Essence fragments are also too weak, and I'm not spending points on Harvest Essence unless I feel it would get me through a particularly difficult fight, rather than just reduce downtime.
• Potion chugging feels a little lame and is unsustainable either way.
• Since when adventuring outdoors you technically can teleport to a campsite, rest and teleport back where you were after every fight, you're not "really" limited by Essence if instead you are instead fine with being limited by the chore of teleporting back and forth with loading screens on top. I'm not.

Now my next point would be that the radial menu sucks for selecting food so it's annoying to have to go into my inventory every time. But, there is this mechanic where "overeating" food just leaves the surplus regeneration waiting to be needed. This is good design, and I asked myself, is there a cap to it? There doesn't seem to be:

So with this, if we suppose I eat a month's worth of food in one sitting, I can in fact go through a series of battles and regenerate at a pleasant pace between them, without going into my inventory all the time to select dishes. I can't say this is a tempting playstyle, meme fuel aside.

I am right now playing the probably-already-infamous combo of Corrosive Siphon and Blood Magic, which means my abilities are pretty much only limited by their cooldowns. Fights are fun and action packed, but I find myself constantly running around with 0 Essence because why bother with it anymore, unless I run into a fight too tough for me to use my health as ability fuel. Poison immune enemies (which, by the way, seem disproportionately common) aside, where I have to go back to being limited by Essence, since I can't heal back up to fuel Blood Magic.

I don't think I've yet felt that this game wouldn't be better with significant natural Essence regeneration.