Man after beating this game I know there's so much to love and appreciate, the writing is humorous and entertaining, the characters are all charming and witty, the music is grandiose and striking, but what does all of this mean when the controls for this game are horrendously bad. I want to love this game but playing through it was as an exhausting chore that I liked thinking about this game more than I liked actually playing it. I'm sorry but this NEEDS to be on another console other than the 3DS, it's the biggest thing holding it back from greatness. The idea and foundation of this game are solid but I cannot in good faith recommend this to someone who likes having hands. I think if you watched a playthrough or the cutscenes you'll have just as good of an experience, if you don't want to do that proceed with caution, this game is straining on the hands and everyone who made those arthritis jokes is right.
It pains me to give it anything less than 4 stars but it really is that bad to play, I thought at first maybe it's something you get used to but with how this game controls it made it downright annoying trying to do the higher difficulties and it sucks. If they port this to a console with an actual controller we'd be seeing a higher rating but because its stuck on a dead console it's hard for me to give it anything higher than this.
Updating this because I feel like it needs to be said, I'm left-handed, and I've experimented with all of the control styles in this game. If you want my recommendation for all my lefties out there, I did the circle pad for reticle movement and abxy for general movement, with the shoulder buttons acting as the skill selector. While this did help out tremendously for me I lost out on the ability to move in a precise manner, though problem is if you decide to do it the other way then you also lose out on the precise reticle movement. Which both are needed for the sky and ground sections so... pick your poison.