Wait, it's just Studio Ghibli Pokemon? And every Pokemon is some animal pun?

I can't really finish JRPGs for a while now, I always lose interest inbetween the mediocre combat and the unnecessary convoluted story. The beautiful studio Ghibli animations, fantastic soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi (which didn't get boring in 50 hours) and overall presentation really kept me going.

I still can't believe how good this game looks, it's 3D and yet looks like the Studio Ghibli animes. Even moving parts like clouds and waterfalls look like they are drawn.

The story is pretty interesting and wholesome in the conclusion, but I kinda hate the libertarian point it's trying to make. If a system is so broken and corrupt that not even the most powerful person in the kingdom can change it, destroying it and rebuilding is the only solution. Of course the only person who thinks otherwise would be a child and even in the story the only way to change it is with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ magic.

The sidequests are painfully bad. Usually it's a fetch quest, heart magic (which also is a fetch quest), some monster hunt where you have to fight certain monsters a certain way and a few others. I wouldn't mind, but the rewards are way too useful to ignore them.

Overall a fantastic experience and at some point I might come back to catch 'em all.

[The game runs perfect on the Steam Deck with all settings maxed out.]

Time to finish: 51 hours

I don’t know if I recommend this game. This game was amazing up until you finished the first final boss. I think that's where the original game ends and I think it should have ended there. The difficulty on normal was hard but not too bad, the game was paced really well and I loved seeing the traditional hand-drawn animation. After that first ending, the game sucked. I hate the endgame bosses, they are pointlessly overpowered and tedious. The game just makes you grind for hours to beat them. I hate the extra missions, they feel like homework you're given to keep you busy. Grinding and traveling from point a to b. I hate the alchemy mechanics. Certain items are stupidly rare. I had to look up online guides for recipes and item locations. If you want to 100% this game I hope you like walking back and forth in a cave for dozens of hours to find scrolls of truth. I spent 10 hours and got 9 out of the over 20 you need. Those also aren’t the most rare item. I gave up on getting 100%. It's not worth it.
In short, the first part of this game is one of the better JRPGs I've ever played. The last part of this game makes me want to throw my computer off a building.

At almost 70 hours in the game is good, love the art style and the animated cut scenes are nice.