suffers from all the fatal gameplay flaws of modern JRPGs. benefits from incredible art direction and lovely cities. special shoutout to the hidden chests in dense/urban areas, i had a blast hunting those down. but most of the game is tedium through bad dialogue, a paint-by-numbers story, lifeless characters, repetitive combat, and awful outdoor level design. it's probably the best JRPG made in the last decade, yet it still makes me yearn for the better days of this genre.

yes, i did play for 120 hours. it was lockdown of winter 2020/2021 and i let Tim Rogers persuade me to try this against my better instincts. i learned a valuable lesson: there's a difference between an entertaining review and an accurate assessment of quality or worth.