Others have praised the writing. I don't see it. The story is pretty standard cookie cutter RPG stuff. There aren't really any characters, just a series of "insert NPC Here" characterizations.

The combat could be good, but it really bogs down. Every battle takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r, and the complete lack of any type of button mapping puts you at the mercy of their janky controller decisions (looking at you, up to drop).

Overall it's just a pretty boring bit of fluff with a core of, nope it's fluff all the way down.

I love the game, it's Tetris style combat is super fun and the story is really compelling the only issue I have is I wish you could use the mouse buttons to do stuff instead of having to use only the keyboard. ie. be able to use the mouse instead of having to press enter to progress dialog.

Quite a solid RPG with an incredibly fun combat system, though the story falls apart a bit and it could use a bit more quality of life.

Exploration consists of different zones on the world map (accessible from a menu), like in earlier Atelier games or FF10. The zones themselves range from tiny to very large, and often have a number of secrets. Some zones consist of multiple maps, especially ruin and cave ones. There are a number of optional bosses, though most of these have to be triggered by a quest first.

Combat is based around a falling block puzzle game, people who liked the more active/combattive types of Tetris like SuperFamicom's Tetris Battle Gaiden or some of the bomb Tetris variants would pick up on it quickly. Matching lines causes attacks, more lines can do more damage, chaining lines also increases damage of the chained attacks. There are several mechanics that both you and your opponents can do to affect the board. You'll get a flask you can put items into and those will change what certain blocks do when you make a line with them (like do a buff, heal you, do additional damage, and more). There are spells you can use, one of the best is "throw a piece you don't want at your opponents for direct damage". There are also classes you can unlock (and after being unlocked, you can switch classes from your menu without having to go back to town), these classes will change what pieces you have to work with, board mechanics, and sometimes even board size. I used several of these throughout the game for different purposes, one superboss took a lot of experimentation until I found the right combination of class and spell to beat. It's incredibly fun!

Enemy attacks can cause all kinds of effects on your board, like destroy blocks, lift or move blocks, affect vision, create debuff blocks, or make some areas of your board do less damage if you make a line in that area. There are many more things that monsters can do to you. Most of these attacks can be interrupted, by making enough lines while targetting that particular foe to break their charge. It can be difficult when you're against 3 foes at once.

Music is very catchy and sound effects are good. The battle music can get a little repetitive over the course of the game even though it's good, but you will get the ability to change it shortly into the game. Graphically it's fine, the 2D environments look nice, interactable objects are usually hinted, you can see behind trees when you step behind them in most cases, and it's well decorated. Spritework is really well done, as well as the combat animations for Mirai. The only graphical effect I really didn't like was the one board effect late-game that makes your board dark, with only a spotlight effect moving back and forth to light your tiles. This really messed with my vertigo and I would run from these battles whenever possible.

Story is one of the parts where it falls apart. Some aspects of the story don't make much sense, and it doesn't flow or explain too well when the reveals happen. Pacing is decent, though sometimes it's not really clear what you need to do next (progression might be locked behind a sidequest and it sometimes isn't clear if there's no red arrow).

Finally, there are a few areas where additional quality of life would make things less frustrating. Early on, in an exploration area, you can get a sidequest. Since it requires a rare farm material, it can take some time to get the required items. By that point you may not remember which of the many forest zones the npc was in, and the in-game journal doesn't tell you when you look at the information for that npc. There are a few like that. One interactable one of the hiding children was completely invisible and you had to walk up to where they were hiding and speak. Some of the tutorials, especially around using the flask and how it works could be explained better as well. Using materials to plant things on the farm to level up your jobs is also a bit tedious, it would be nice to be able to select a number of items to use between one set at a time or everything you have. You have to look at the controls as some things, like how to use a flask or dashing, aren't always shown on screen.

Overall, it's a decent RPG with a very solid and fun combat system. Definitely recommended for those who like Tetris like games and RPG's.