Good game. Seems to be when the franchise started getting more story-driven. The pacing of the story and the character development is much better than the previous 3 titles, and much easier to follow as well. It's also interesting to see that a lot of series staples were introduced here, especially in terms of storytelling, one example being the "power of friendship" trope that is used in a lot of other titles.

One negative aspect, though: I'm not a fan of "fake killing" of characters. It happens quite often in this game and I think that reduces the narrative impact of the deaths because then you just start ignoring them.