*As a context note, I decided to shelve this after getting stuck on the Kasane/Shiten/Arashi fight at what seems like about halfway through the game. I gave it a spirited effort for about 15 tries but it seems like such a sharp increase in difficulty and I had already had my interest waning at this point.

A game that generally, upon inspection, really hits a solid "mid" valley in terms of modern anime action RPGs. This one is so anime, in fact, that despite kind of lukewarm reception and not a huge marketing campaign this has an entire anime series tied to it that recounts the game story (a la the recent Persona anime). While that amount of effort to push this property is kind of crazy to me, what makes that odd also kind of plays into why this would happen: despite some weirder elements & unique stuff present in the story and design this is about as bog standard as it gets. Lots of traditional archetypes, a dad who's distant involved in shady government practices, teens (?) being forced into dangerous combat due to their special abilities; it quite literally is almost exactly Evangelion + Attack on Titan in the story design while being Nier Automata + Persona (kinda) in game design. The party gift giving system, the float-y weapon feel from Nier, this game really is just a big hodge podge.

There are lots of elements to make it unique and make it worthwhile however. The design for the whole thing does stick out in interesting ways, mainly the weird maximalist approach to everything. The world is littered with neon holograms, vines & debris, millions of objects for you to hurl around with telekinesis, and the enemy design is some of the strangest I've seen in a game for a while (like if Silent Hill enemies feel through an antiques store and got plopped in an anime, completely out of sync with the rest of the feel). There are some cool twists in the story too (media suppression, how Brain Drive works, the way The Others are made), but I can also tell this had a tie-in anime because I feel like the story works much better in that format. The storytelling here is very jittery and stop-start, with dialogue coming in at weird moments and an overabundance of the "wait around until scripted events" enemy & boss encounters.

In terms of combat....it's hard to figure out. There may be a good strategy that I didn't work out while playing (and there is some level of companion management and skill cooldown management), but it really does seem to boil down to primarily button mashing with the occasional focus on weakness exploits or placement (i.e. using fire damage, or making sure to get special enviroment objects lined up). There wasn't a great feeling of learning your moveset or pulling off insane combos the way something like DMC games might provide, it just kind of seemed like needing to survive long enough for all special moves to activate.

Broadly, I would still recommend this if you have the stomach for anime stuff and are hankering for action RPGs. The story, while cliche in some ways, is a lot better than other ones I've come across lately (though I guess you could just watch the show...) and design-wise it's neat enough to stick with you and enjoy those elements. It's still generally pretty mid, so be sure to get this on sale, no doubt.