It's just a bit... boring.

Jumping back and forth between a dozen stories gets a bit tiring and you don't really get invested in any of them. Also pretty simple and cliche, most of them.

I HATE the random encounters while walking around on the map (in all games)!
And there is also mandatory grinding to be able to continue the main quests. I have better things to do with my time; the combat is not that fun after the 500th encounter.

Side quests are also strangely uhh.. unexplained/unguided - you can expect to search youtube a lot for how to do them.

It's not a *bad* game, but you have heard the stories before and you have done the combat before.

The graphics and art style is **gorgeous**, though.

It's like Octopath Traveler 1, but better!

Another old school turn based JRPG. You don't need to play the first one. There's no relation . It's basically the same game with different characters and a different world map. This one allows a lot of freedom compared to most games of this genre. Mostly you can go anywhere at any time as long as you're strong enough. You can postpone the story or not do it at all. I'm 90 hours in and have only finished 3 character stories out of 8. I've mostly been grinding exp and exploring. Great game for laying in bed, playing on steam deck, trying to go to sleep.