I think this game would probably have more to offer someone else.
someone who was less contemplative on their own and needed the game to give them the space to think, or someone who was less familiar with games and could appreciate the game's tone and toolkit as a new way to appreciate what the medium could do.for me, though, a woman who has been neck deep in gaming for her entire life and contemplating her place in the world for at least half of that, this coming of age story didn't really do much. I didn't dislike playing it, overall, but it also didn't particularly strike a chord with me. the lack of "main story" to follow didn't trip me up as much as it did in, say, outer wilds, because it makes very clear that helping people out on errands is how you're going to spend your time and aims you at the nearest settlement where there are people to help out and places to hear about.
the game's all about going out on your coming of age journey, your Gliding, and finding the path that you want to take for the rest of your life, represented by the omnipresent masks in the setting. you can even find the origin of the mask tradition through one of the quests and its six zones, one of several paths that have six major collectibles. ultimately, though, your choice is superfluous. whatever you pick, you get the same ending, and the only difference is really what you carry forward in your heart.
this is probably the sort of game that rewards you with what you bring to it; there's little motivation provided to do anything in particular that doesn't suit your whims, and thus, whatever you want to do is rewarding to the degree that you want to do it. I sought out the maps before anything else because exploration is something I enjoy, and alongside it came the cartographer's mask, as dorky as it is.
in the end, I chose the machinist's mask for its aesthetic and because the path I'd actually choose in sable's place would be something of a synthesis of multiple masks, an allowance not allowed by the game, but of course afforded to me in my thoughts as the credits rolled. life is hardly as neatly outlined and harshly shaded as sable's artstyle and roster, but nuance has costs, and with how buggy this game is, I wouldn't want to push their resources too much harder anyway.