The bosses are the major highlight of this game and where combat shines, all except that final boss. At that point, I wanted to say stagger is good but shouldn't be centered, it should be supplementary.

The general gameplay loop of "side quest life progression" felt awful. 85% of the game was just busy work and real no connective tissue for the series. I get "hey, I want u to engage w/ the world" but barely any side-quest had great stories. I respect the effort tho, this is an idea that could be returned to, but modified. possibly in a self-constrained area instead of 2-3 areas at once.

Music, Cutscenes, and Animations were all great tho.