Imagine if Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin was just the combat, and the combat was worse.

An incredibly pretty game at times and the boss encounters are impressive, but the core combat and particularly enemy encounters are really not up to snuff, nor challenging in the slightest. The game really has no answer to you just sniping basically everything from outside an enemy's area, and the whole thing is just very exploitable and lame.

That said, bonus points for using the Gradius power up system as it's chief roguelike mechanic, where building up souls can enable you to get different bonuses upon cashing out. But it isn't nearly enough to save it.