There wouldn't be no new school,
If it wasn't for the old school.
That's why we love the old school.
And why we love the new school.
I haven't finished the game, but so far this is pretty much exactly what I expected, which I'm mixed but ultimately positive about. I'm excited to play more. I never needed this game. It sits right next to Okami as something that feels like a complete package. My biggest fear going into this was that it was going to trip over itself to justify it existing, but so far there's none of that. It's just as confident as the original and thank god for that.
In a lot of ways, this game feels like the inverse of the original. That one built mechanics around the story, whereas this one feels like it's built the story around the mechanics. It's not a huge shift and it's honestly the easiest way to get a similar feel of the original. They really wanted it to feel like TWEWY and they succeeded in spades.
I have a lot of thoughts, but I'll likely wait to finish. I want to know if there's an overarching theme in this game. The original had "Trust" built into every element, from the world, to the story, to the mechanics. Everything existed to sell you on that ultimate idea of trust. Right now, the closest I can maybe see is Survival.