i don't really have anything too intelligent to say but I've never read any superhero comics and detest the marvel films but I really enjoyed this! the writing is generally quite nice, except for adam warlock who is intentionally written like he was written by a 14 year old who just discovered alliteration (ive been there) as a joke (?), there's some fun jokes with that but it was somewhat grating to me overall. also the flashbacks to Peter's childhood reads like a non-proofread first draft in a very careless way. set sometime in the 80s but at one point Peter whines about his mother having seen the exorcist (1973) when she was younger than he is (13), which is absolute nonsense unless she was pregnant with a half-alien child at like 14/15. anyway that tangent aside

really enjoyed how seemingly divergent the story is, obvs there's only one main plot but i really felt like all my choices mattered, the lineage of eidos's deus ex experience is somewhat present in the narrative aspects i guess? I've never played them. if more of these mainstream big blockbuster 'action-adventure' games felt as actual works of interactive fiction like this i would def play more of them. combat system might be a mixed bag, i really enjoyed it but also the best way i can describe it is like a turn based rpg series adapting to an action system for the first time, except the turn based system never existed obviously. it's not the most technically/mechanically deep thing ever, but def involved and fun enough that i loved battles.
big complaint is the licenced music choices, they're good but predictable, if this gets a sequel i hope they go out of the box a bit on that front.
loved this enough that i may start reading comic books :0

So I have quite a few thoughts on this game.

When it was announced I was somewhat cautiously optimistic, an unnecessary direct sequel to a game that was already fine as is? Anyone would be sceptical but after the near perfect game that was Blue Reflection Tie/Second Light I decided to trust in Gust's plan with this one because if Tie was anything to go off this game could potentially be fantastic

And was it? Well yes and no, it took the world of the Mysterious games and put them in a game that feels way more like a Ryza game which I'm mixed on because I do enjoy some elements from those but massively dislike a lot of other things from them so if have much preferred a more traditional style of Atelier game from this along the lines of what we previously had in this trilogy with Sophie and Lydie & Suelle but alas they gotta keep it somewhat similar to Ryza to appeal to the new fans those games brought in

The game being essentially Mysterious 1.5 makes it obviously still aimed towards the somewhat longer time fans of the series as well so it kind of feels like it's trying to appeal to both audiences and feels somewhat weird at times especially with how story focused and less focused on slice of life and synthesis it is much like the Ryza games and much like those the focus on story leads fit a mixed bag where the story is decent enough but has a lot of kinda generic plot points, which if you've played the first Sophie game you'd know it was far more focused on the slice of life content and the synthesis for almost the entire game so while they did ditch the boring Ryza mechanics to bring back the synthesis mechanics that had actual depth the game feels far less focused on them

It's not all questionable though as they did some things I did really enjoy, the new battle system was an enjoyable return to form after the icky Ryza ATB systems that for some reason limited the use of items in games in a series about creating and using items???????? and some of the new and technically returning characters like Elvira, Ramizel and young Plachta were handled well (young Plachta especially was a highlight of the cast)

Those are just some quick thoughts I'll avoid saying some other things because I'd prefer to keep this spoiler free but yeah, game is alright

Also I'd like to add that they make this as a 25th anniversary title for the franchise then proceed to give it the perfect setting to have returning characters from previous Atelier games (they even went out of their way to state that people in the world of this game were from all across time and space) only to just not do that, I definitely wouldn't be nitpicking this if it wasn't supposed to be a 25th anniversary game but it is one, at least they had plenty of other references to previous games in the series I guess