This is less of a review and more of an ongoing journal and my immediate impressions of the game.

This game is really blowing my mind. The dialogue isn't awful like most modern JRPGs, and the characters are not actively pissing me off by existing.

The ability to set priority tables with conditions for skill usage is simply awesome. This is only the 2nd game I've ever seen that offers this feature, and it really allows you to take advantage of the game in very unique ways.

It has a relationship system that lets you grow your relationships between your characters, with certain milestones triggering cutscenes and events. Presumably these relationships will later affect the story. Very cool.

Once you get past the introduction, you shockingly are put into a free-roam overworld where you can freely visit towns and outposts, buy and sell, hire and fire units, and even do quests. There are units on the overworld that you can talk to, some of them giving you items and equipment, and other even giving you access to side quests.

There are also nodes for certain resources that replenish themselves, one-time treasure locations, and even hidden items on the world map for you to discover.

This is one of the first games in a long time that I'm excited to play.

I wrote a more thoughtful review but accidentally deleted it.

Long story short - I don't like the way this game makes you get invested in multiple characters' stories totally independent of the other characters. It's like playing multiple different single player games at the same time. It's mentally exhausting.

Octopath Traveler 1 also had this problem.

I will try to do some single-character runs eventually. Might suit me better.

I don't dislike this game. In fact, I like the presentation, the style, maybe even the characters a little bit. Unfortunately, I can't compel myself to keep playing it.

The card/deck nature of the game is what put me off. I put it on hardmode to ensure it was a bit of a challenge, but after dying to the 2nd boss 5~ times, I noticed one of the major reasons for failing was not getting the cards that would have been immediately useful. At this point, I also noticed one of the things I would have to be doing was min-maxing the character decks for individual encounters. Some cards are just not useful at all in certain encounters. AoE cards in fights where there's not reliably multiple enemies to hit is a major one.

This is unnecessary busy work as far as I'm concerned. One can think of this feature as having to pick and choose your cards carefully, making sure you have a good mix of power and utility in order to ensure success. I don't see it that way at all. I never once felt like I had to sacrifice anything. I felt like there was merely a perfect set of cards for every encounter, and it was extremely easy to choose.

So while I don't dislike the game, I do dislike everything the cards and deck-building contributes. I gave it about 3 hours of my time before giving up. My understanding is this game is quite short, so I could probably have just pushed through it. But... I don't want to.