Saltsea Chronicles starts slow. Really, really slow. It has its flurishes, I love how characters talk over and interrupt each other, how that is displayed in the text, but for the first ~6 hours SC is cozy, but without anything captivating happening and with good character moments hidden within mountains of texts.
But in the second half, the game ramps up and does not slow down anymore. Characters develop convincingly, tragedy strikes in sad but beautiful ways, and the islands you visited go through great, dramatic changes. Comulating in a satisfying confrontation with the "big bad" (iykyk). And that really made the slow start worth it. SC has a lot to show, a lot to tell, wrapped in strong writing and a simple but beautiful art style (music's a bit grating though).

Also, and this is a tiny thing, but I care about it and so many games get this wrong: SC has a cheerful little intro video with jolly music to play at the beginning of every chapter. When one chapter ends with the tragic death of a character, the next chapter does not play the intro. So many games get stuff like this wrong. The amount of tragic character deaths I ve seen undercut by level up jingles. Two thumbs up for this part alone.