I've been hearing nothing but praise for this game for quite some time now, and initially I was on board with it all. The music is wonderful and diverse. The aesthetic is very pleasing. A lot of the designs of the world and it's architecture are just cool to look at. But over time the quality begins to wane. Particularly with the writing.

This is really just an old school and simple Final Fantasy style story, for better or worse. The characters are likable enough without so much as scuffing the mold. The localization is very fun, giving the cast a variety of European accents and unique nomenclature. This livened up the otherwise standard JRPG events taking place. Some of which felt out of place and were clearly meant to be fun diversions, but only ended up feeling like a waste of time.

However, as a whole, this game does not waste any time, ending around a tight 30 hours with sidequests. In most cases I would praise it's brevity, but I really could have done with more to connect with the cast more. They seem to arbitrarily enter and exit the story, and few really get a chance to shine. I liked that the main character and the love interest actually had good chemistry together. A lot of my favorite scenes were just them being cute together.

The plot is, again, simple. That didn't stop me from being intrigued at the start. It never really blew my mind at any point, but I was enjoying myself well enough, up to a point. That point being around the start of the 70% mark, when our cast suddenly decides to forgo any common sense and actively work with an antagonist, despite the events immediately before giving reason as to why this should not be done. It was just a weird and frustrating moment that clearly only served to move the story along, logic be damned, but no one seems to even address that maybe this is something that they should not do. This one event made it hard to appreciate a story that wasn't doing a whole lot for me in the first place.

While the story takes its time to annoy me, the combat did that right from the get go. Having your character automatically attack when you approach an enemy isn't inherently poor combat, but when quarters are tight and all you want to do is move past an enemy but end up swinging instead is frustrating. For a game that is supposed to be tactical, your options are very limited. You can command your party to do things… sometimes. Even when they need to do things that are crucial the the fight at hand. It can take a while before you can control them to do anything, and once you do that once, you must wait again while they get absolutely pummeled. Luckily your playable character had the power gifted by the gods to draw aggro. While the actions you can take are not varied, the ways the enemies make you use them can be. I just wish the whole experience was smoother.

Any charm this game has is dulled by the act of experiencing the whole of it. I had a pleasant time with a lot of this game, but by the end I was glad it was over so quickly.