Got past the 2nd lord and just not enjoying it at all. The writing is awful and reminiscent of recent disgaea games with its incessant need to constantly repeat certain topics over and over again. You can practically see the shallow writing process in the 2nd area where the unique thing about it is the "snake eyes" keeping an eye on everyone so every 2 minutes someone will mention the snake eyes until the section is over. The party interactions are insufferable with shionne being a completely unlikable tsundere and everyone repeatedly having the "Are you sure you want to help a renan/dahnan?" back-and-forth among other cliches. The new refined combat system is fun with its smooth animations and satisfying comboing but enemies quickly become tedious damage sponges (especially bosses) and Alphen seems to be the only character that's actually fun to play as. Visually the game looks great and is pretty much the only tales game to impress with its artstyle. The music felt as generic as the story and I really didn't dig how needlessly grandiose it could be at times. Maybe I'll get back to it sometime but at the moment I just don't feel the motivation to put up with the flaws.