Playing on Game Pass. My save says I've put in about 40 hours? (Wow.. what..). This game is way longer than I expected haha. I am nearing the end, but I came to post after my second hard crash after winning a battle. I'm really enjoying this game so far. The characters are interesting, the plot is serviceable, the combat is engaging enough. Really dig the overall atmosphere of the game and locations.
I do think there's a bit too much fluff in between parts of this game. A bit too much combat for my liking, some mechanics don't end up mattering that much. What was the gem merchant even for? If her items didn't require losing out on guaranteed buffs/stat increases, I might have used them. As a result, it didn't feel as exciting to discover those gems. Eh. I felt the same about some of the items you could buy from merchants, though...
Though, it's likely that's largely because I turned on full auto combat, which automatically makes the timing for everything (attacks, defenses, even clutch "great"). I did find that learning all of these new attacks was kinda cool, but quickly wore out its welcome over the hours. The timing windows are pretty tight. Even with my most basic attacks, I'd be missing max damage 1/4 of the time. Which was a bit annoying when the fights already felt kind of long. It's only at the end when you very quickly spike up in power when I've felt like combat is quick and snappy enough to move on (and that's likely only because I have also increased my mobility and have characters with lots more damage at range).
Generally, though, really enjoying this. Glad I gave it a try on Game Pass. It's quite a lot of game. I'm curious where the end of the story goes, and although I don't think the twists are anything mindblowing, I think they've done a fairly decent job of connecting everything and everyone together to feel real.
So... Definitely worth playing. If you're just in this for the story (which is I think a valid way to experience this game), don't be ashamed to just instant victory through the parts of the game you don't care as much about. You still level up the same and get the items. So you can also do a mix like I have, where I fight most battles (and I actively seek them out most of the time, because I don't like the enemies roaming around), but will use instant victory once I get tired or bored and just want to get to the next boss or story bit.
How's the split between combat and talking/plot? I'm more interested in the latter but by the trailers it looks like the game is much more combat-oriented?
Look in the options to change it to auto, if you get tired of the combat. There's a lot of it and it can get samey after a while. Also, I enabled instant victory. I only used it on the fodder, so I could clear the maps with a bit less tedium. And also used it twice after the game crashed to home (both after winning random fights. One that reset about ~40 minutes of progress and puzzle solving in one of the later areas - the Stacks).
