For those hesitating to buy the game

I just finished the game after 60 hours. It's far from perfect and definitely has flaws, but I honestly don't get the amount of hate it got. Maybe some of it is because it's GameFreak, or maybe expectations were just insanely high. I didn't really follow the game before release, and I never played any pokemon game so I went in without much hype.

Visuals: The game is pretty. I've seen a lot of people calling it blurry and ugly, and yeah, the image isn't super sharp and there's a lot of post-processing (which you can reduce in the settings), but unless you're expecting some UE5 tech demo, this is a good-looking game with great art direction and some really beautiful environments. Exploring this 4026 version of Japan is easily one of the game's biggest strengths.

Combat: I've also seen people saying the combat doesn't feel good, or that selecting Koo's attacks breaks the flow. I honestly disagree. The combat feels pretty damn good, the attacks and executions have a nice impact, and Koo's abilities become more of a situational tool as you progress anyway. Meanwhile, Emma's arsenal keeps getting bigger, and you really do feel yourself getting stronger.

The big issue is enemy variety. Especially in the first half, I felt like I was fighting the same bosses over and over.

And yeah, don't expect a FromSoftware game. Even on hard, it's pretty "easy". Bosses are readable and don't have that many patterns. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you don't want to suffer like in Sekiro, but I found most of the bosses pretty forgettable. Nothing terrible, just not very exciting or memorable.

Story: The game is also pretty slow, so if you want something story-heavy where shit is constantly happening, this probably isn't for you. It's definitely not The Last of Us. Still, I found the story pretty average overall. Like a lot of other japaneses work, it gets unnecessarily complicated without really going deep enough into its themes or characters. (And obviously, there are tons of amazing, well-written Japanese creations. This just isn't one of them.) It's not quite Kojima levels of overcomplication (please don't insult me), but I think the game could've done a lot more with its characters and world. Even Koo feels pretty underused narratively. The relationship between Emma and Kagura was probably the only one that really worked for me, and it's also the simplest: two young women trying to find their place in this world.

For me, the game's biggest strength is its atmosphere and world. I absolutely loved exploring this version of Japan where nature has reclaimed everything. There's a really cool vibe somewhere between Nier automata and Laputa, castle in the sky.

It's not a masterpiece, mostly because I think it fails to make the most of its characters, world, and bosses. But seriously, don't blindly listen to all the hate. It's a beautiful game with a great atmosphere, and I'd say it's definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a chill action game.

PS: I've also seen some comments about poor optimization. I have a fairly recent PC so I had no issues, but if it runs badly on older hardware then yeah, that's obviously another valid criticism.