An incredible journey. I've had my eye on this for a while due to the allure of the art direction and aesthetic alone. It wasn't until a friend of mine showed me the incredible OST and recommended it for a podcast we have that I actually played it. It's a lovingly crafted narrative action RPG with combat that borrows a bit from FromSoftware and quite a bit more from Bayonetta (same developer). Another friend remarked that it can be viewed as the video game version of movies like Blade Runner. It's a story that tackles existentialism, different philosophies, what it means to be human, etc. and it does so pretty well! I wasn't as emotionally impacted by certain scenes as some of my friends were, but there still is a lot of that here. The reason I subtracted half a star is due to some mediocre dialogue in some parts as well as the many anime-isms that I just don't gel well with, and some gameplay decisions that I thought were a little wonky. Overall, however, the combat is fluid, and the exploration is pretty seamless. The side quests are engaging for being side quests, but the main narrative kinda lags until it hits the third playthrough (three playthroughs are required to get the full main narrative, as different perspectives are shown each time), but when that happens, it gets really good.
If you're a fan of JRPGs or action RPGs, and have an thing for the post-apocalyptic, you could really enjoy this game. For others, however, the multiple playthroughs thing might put them off, and the overall storytelling is quite complex to get the full context. Still I highly recommend it!