I had been following this game's development for a while, and it was absolutely worth it. The moment-to-moment gameplay is fun and leaves a high skill ceiling with lot of room for mastery. It's certainly not the hardest souls-like (I beat it and still can't get past the Abyss Watchers in DS3), but it is substantially hard enough for beating the bosses to feel rewarding. There are a couple of bad bosses (Ceviche Sisters I'm looking at you), but most are fun, and some have genuine surprises to offer.
Despite the game's colorful and happy appearance, the narrative goes deep and dark into themes of decay, corruption, and loss, and the ending refuses to pull its punches.