I've owned this game for years and surprisingly have never written a review for it.
The answer (based around the hype) is obvious - it's a great game.
It is one of the few pieces of media that to this day holds a grip on me. I'm equally in awe and terrified of the community and the inspiration this game has prompted - the artwork and AUs are...questionable, but the video essays unpacking the story and details are incredible.

I recommend going into this game blind, with the only advice being "listen to the characters - this game depends on you to play this with storyline-based gaming instincts" and "stay out of the community...just enjoy the game in a small bubble that just contains you and the game".

Many people call this Toby Fox's Magnum Opus, but this was actually the practice run for his true Magnum Opus: Deltarune (still being made at this point but so far it's incredibly good - also recommend). I think this is a good indicator about the game's quality. 100% worth the money; tbh I'm honoured to have this game sitting both in my library and on my desktop!

I started playing this game back when you had to be in denial telling yourself "no this game is actually really good it's not just pretty visuals and a hole in your wallet" and even tho I still somehow had fun in this game back then...holyyyyyy has it since improved. (Context: I created a new character to start the story again) They are updating the main questlines to have better lore, voice acting, better boss fights, and decent cutscenes - this is being updated area by area so there's still some questlines to be made better (some are very repetitive/dialogue-skippy)...but DEAR LORD the story from the get-go now is much more enthralling. It gets quite a bit into the world's politics at times but if you're into world building and lore then that's not a downside.

Bear in mind it's still a MMO, it won't hold your hand through everything outside of the tutorial (tho it's not hard to pick things up here and there), and there will be moments where you need to grind for items/xp or stop doing the main questline to chase side quests and improve stats/get better armour (this only started happening to me several areas in, however). The game doesn't want to punish you and instead throws so many items to try to get you to be the right level and strength through the game - but it does depend on you to think for yourself and walk away from the middle of a storyline (breaking immersion imo) to use these items or explore the other parts of the game (trading, skills/crafting, farming, etc).
Also the uses/usage rules of a lot of the items aren't explained so be prepared to have several browser tabs open to research...or use chatgpt to just explain everything in layman's terms...it's annoyingly helpful.

The game is still very pretty, and tries hard to make you feel like a godlike main character (it's working) :)