In the first 34 minutes in game I experienced:
25% tedious cutscenes
35% mystical talking
10% wasting more time
30% gameplay

Super linear, super grindy if you want extra modes/achievements etc. Easily the worst Ys I've played. It's like "hey did you like the Tower of Darm from Ys I? Well here's a whole game that's nothing but that, just worse!"

This game seems to work on the Steam Deck if you check Disable Movie Playback in the configurator. I don't know if the movies are necessary to the plot, I haven't noticed they're missing so far

Fast and fun action, like the other Ys games.
This time with more characters, each one having significant differences in gameplay and story, making multiple playthrough worthwhile, even without changing up the difficulty.
I do not recommend picking nightmare difficulty if you want to see the story. It's not that bad for most of the game, giving you a false sense of comfort, but gets really hard close to the final boss, forcing you to either suffer through it and get gooder, or to start from the very beginning. I made that mistake in my playthrough as the unlockable character, and am currently stuck on the final boss lol.
(EDIT: Beat the final boss by grinding 2 levels above the obvious intended softcap. The two levels made him more than manageable. I don't usually complain about grinding in Ys, but the area where you're supposed to grind for the final boss in this game is indescribably annoying. You are basically just a slippery pinball being shoved around by ♥♥♥♥-vomiting mutants and there are gravity traps all over and some enemies flip your inputs...It ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SUCKS and you have little control over your character)
It is still a pretty good challenge even on normal and hard if you don't go out of your way to grind levels.
Presentation is nice as always.

First time playing a Ys game in years. Now I remember why I loved it.