Voice acting? Length?

[Ordinary Time]

I did not play the first game.

Are all characters in this game voice acted? Also, could anyone give me an estimate of how long it is? Finally, does not playing the first game lessen your appreciation of this one? Like will there be a lot of references you miss or concepts you don't get?

[Rer]

The entire narrative is voice acted, yes. I bounced off the first game hard and am playing this fine without context of the first one. Game is around 32 chapters I believe?

[Sombrero]

All of the main story is voice acted on top of voice barks like when a unit level up, do a crit or sometimes when they build bonds with teammates. Side content is not voiced (but it's not super annoying as it's fairly quick).

You can play the game without playing the first game you won't miss on much. A few characters are returning but if you haven't done the first one it just feels like "they know each other from before" you don't really feel left out at any point.

As for the length it depends a lot on how fast you play honestly. I'm about two third of the game in at this point and I find the maps to be smaller and faster than in the first game, you have 10 instead of 12 units and it's regular to have fairly small maps that are done in 8-12 turns at most.

The game has decent replay value if you like this type of game with some options to customize your playthrough like having units join your party in a random order, having harder conditions to lose, tougher enemies etc.