much to my chagrin i actually really like this gacha. first of all, the 3d models make it almost impossible for me to come back to love nikki since the clothes can adapt depending on what nikki is wearing, like a tshirt being tucked into shorts or a hair accessory changing places depending on the hairstyle, not to mention the ability to freely pose nikki. it's not perfect of course, but feels a lot more flexible than the 2d dress up games by that alone.

anyway, this is the only gacha game to really hold my attention for more than a year. it has the typical trappings of the genre, and is even scummier in that regard, with a battle pass and items that are exclusively behind a paywall and the vip system that awards goodies based on how much money you've spent (granted, love nikki had the last two as well, but at least the vip system in shining doesn't gatekeep f2ps from qol features lol). it sounds like an f2p nightmare (i have not and will never spend money on this game), but i found this game fairly generous with its giveaways of premium currency (i think it also helps that, since the actual stats of clothing barely matters after a certain point, you can summon on a banner purely based on aesthetic preferences and no pressure to keep up with some sort of meta). maybe i just have bad past experience but i don't feel as at the mercy to the dripfeed here as i did with other gachas ive played. i still won't recommend the game for this since it is still a gacha game that uses lots of predatory tactics to get players to spend money, but that's just customary for the genre

the actual dress up part is good. again, pretty flexible, and a lot of the clothes are really detailed and fun to play around with. the makeup is fun to customize as well, though obtaining makeup isn't as easy or cheap as clothes unfortunately. the music is also great, though i wish i could freely select which one to have playing in the wardrobe--only the music playing on your main screen (based on your background) will play, which is a bit of a shame.

this used to be my all time favorite game, and while it has its charms, it definitely feels hard to recommend now that the sequel exists, which improves on most of the common sore points this game has.
i ended up writing more than anticipated, so the tl;dr is: the game is slow to start, but the gameplay picks up once you get more characters. the boss battles are the most fun due to the underdog glory you can get with them, even if they can be easy when you know how to break the game. the characters and their stories are the biggest flaw and what make progressing through the campaign a hard sell due to how repetitious they are and the lack of meaningful character interaction or story overlap. the graphics and soundtrack are aces. all in all... play the sequel lol it improves on a lot of things this game got right and struggled with.
~
its main weaknesses are how the eight stories, the main draw of the game, coexist. they're all sort of isolated from each other, a consequence of the very open design of progression and it not expecting you to have certain/any party members with you, so during story beats your teammates all evaporate temporarily while the actual character in focus takes center stage and befriends completely different companions in their story. repeat for 4 chapters across 8 stories, and that's the whole campaign. it does not help that every chapter is structured in the exact same way, so this game can get tiring to binge if you're trying to stay invested in the story. i do like the cast, but didn't find a lot of their stories super interesting and a lot of them could be boiled down to some pretty stock RPG archetypes without much else going on. the way all eight stories are connected is very loosely hinted at through each story (some more than others) and the proper pieces are revealed in eight giant text dumps during the final dungeon, which is definitely anti-climactic....
(while the sequel still doesn't fully mend the issue with characters being mostly alone in their individual stories, i found that it improves on the characters/stories/character interaction/plot that connects everything together much more elegantly than this one, so if that part disappointed you in this game, but you're still willing to give it a shot, please consider the sequel!)

the gameplay is the best part as octopath's battle system has a lot of neat gimmicks that make it fun to strategize in, though it can also be really easy to break once you know the tricks. the combat is very slow to start, as your team will be very inflexible and weak with only one traveler, but it definitely picks up once you recruit the others and unlock secondary classes. the difficulty trends on the easier side, with a few bosses near the latter half of some characters' stories posing some actual challenge and the true final boss completely disrespecting your time and patience. in my opinion outside of prep for said true final boss, you never have to grind, which is a big plus in my books when it comes to jrpgs. the "recommended level" each chapter is assigned is nonsense, and i hate to see people write the game off as grindy because they can't meet these high level suggestions.
the bosses are the highlight of the experience and one of the reasons why i fell in love with it originally, as they're these massive threats that feel real good to triumph (especially if you go into them way under the recommended level, which i believe are intentionally high to make players feel good when they beat a boss earlier than the game seemingly expected). when you fail, you're moreso encouraged to work smarter not harder. so rather than bash your head in the wall trying to boost your parties levels, you can instead try reapproaching the battle with a different strategy or class setup for your team. or hell, if it's too much you can always just pause the story and do a different chapter, and then come back when you feel ready.

and lastly, the presentation is quite top-notch. i know the hd2d look is very overdone in this day and age, but i found it a pretty novel look for the game at the time it was released. and the music is simply incredible, from relaxing town themes to intense battle music that gets you energized to fight.

but as stated earlier, i think the sequel improved on both the best parts of this game and the parts it struggled in. that's not to say this game is totally worthless as i still found it an engaging enough rpg to play through front to back twice, and without it we would have never gotten the improved sequel. so yeah :]