Disclaimer: I played this on immersive mode, your experience may differ depending on which you choose

I can't recommend this game. The story really draws you in, the art style is beautiful honestly. The main characters (Amicia & Hugo) are pretty decent, I actually really liked the attention to detail in their dynamic at the start of the game with how they speak and interact with each other. I'm not gonna focus much on the story, I feel like other reviews speak for that much better than I could. That part is enjoyable, albeit pretty cliche.

The problems begin with the introduction of side characters. It's when these side characters are introduced that I really noticed how little any npc interactions mattered. Like there's no consequence at all to overhearing conversations, you gain nothing from listening to them. And the side characters. I thought when how they were introduced was good but the side chars didn't grow at all. They didn't really add anything. They either exist to perform basic actions for you to get further like open doors or ko enemies or as an escort mission (which the game is for the most part and I accept but the situations you had to guide the alchemist around etc). They vary between this and being so underused you can't grown any attachment to them. That's really bad when your game is built around being story-rich.

And the mechanics. Terrible, they really fall apart in the last few chapters, especially at the stealth sections. It feels like since the game was so story-driven that game mechanics were a complete afterthought. The worst aspect of the AI was the side chars though. The amount of times your companions would take the most awkward route to get to you, stand in the open but not get seen. It felt like they might as well not have been there. The last thing is the inventory system. This game came out 12 years after FO3 which allowed a quick inventory system, there's no excuse not to have that here. The amount of times I'd die purely because I had to scroll through the inventory in real time which took too long to find the item I need got pretty bad. Letting the player assign hotkeys to different abilities would have done so much.

Play it if you're really curious for the story, but otherwise avoid cause the gameplay gets repetitive af.