Amazing game with a lot of combat depth. On lower difficulties, the game doesn't really force you to go TOO in-depth, but even on the standard difficulty the game definitely slowed down a LOT for me once I got past the first 3 areas just because there was so much to do with my units to organize and customize them as they got more skills and more AP/PP to use them. Unfortunately, you can kinda tell where they ran out of money (because Vanillaware) starting in the last main area, and the unfortunate lack of post-game shows it. But, at least there's some online PvP, even if you can only fight so many times per day.

That said, 2 legit flaws
1. While the character-writing is solid and way-less obnoxiously trope-y than Fire Emblem, especially the modern FE, the main character and his closest friends are utter cardboard. You can kinda forget how boring they are and get absorbed in the game, but come endgame the story sequences drag, being generic and predictable as possible.
2. Cavaliers not being the leaders of most of your units is almost always a mistake. Even when facing units that counter Cavs, they're still strong characters, and as leaders they're just twice as fast as any other unit. Which you can make up for with a skill that boosts movement speed, that makes the Cavs even just that much faster than the units that are on-foot. You don't really need to do this, but it's such a stupid advantage (especially with how it removes the time limit from ever being something you have to consider) and navigating the battle maps ends up feeling so slow without them. This removes a lot of the interesting decision-making around which character leads your units.

It has a good hook with the general vibe and mystery surrounding what's going on, and I love the creativity with the items and generally exploring is pretty fun. But while getting to the first ending is pretty reasonable, a pretty significant amount of the game's content works toward a true ending and is designed to be obtuse puzzles for the sake of being obtuse/for an audience that loves that sort of thing, and there's never really any payoff plot-wise--there's no big reveal that's going to explain the world. It's just a place that exists for you to do things in. Which, I mean it's not like the dev is obligated to have a greater meaning, but I think there's a substantial amount of mystique/mystery in the environment that serves as a hook here, so it's disappointing to never really see it addressed.

I think if you're someone that just wants a short, cute Metroidvania to explore and beat, this is probably a good bet for you once it gets to the $10 range on a sale. And then you can just play it through to the first ending and have gotten what you wanted. But so much of the "meat" of the game really comes down to gameplay that, for the vast majority of the audience, is just going to amount to "searching up a guide online and then crossing off a checklist as they go to place and press the right button to find a thing they never would've found there on their own." That is, unless you're a Metroidvania fan that wants to do things like comb over every inch of a game repeatedly for potential secrets hidden anywhere (even in the background), or figure out the correct way to decipher an extremely long sequence and the correct way/place to utilize the deciphered code, in which case, hey, this is going to be a 5/5 for you easily. But if that's not you, while the game is still good for a Metroidvania-lover, this game will not live up to the hype it has.

Great game still, and some nice QoL was added in addition to some other cool bonus content. But I think this game's reputation was very heavily carried by style/dialogue. Compared to the N64 Paper Mario, this game added some well-appreciated additional complexity to combat and added to your suite of abilities for exploration in some logical ways. But the game has a real issue about being a corridor-based fetch quest simulator. While it still exists, the area-and-dungeon-exploration-based gameplay of the first game takes a major backseat here in favor of gameplay that pretty transparently boils down to "talk to this person, walk 3 screens to left, talk to person there, walk 3 screens to the right."

The writing's still amazing which is why everyone who played this when it first came out was so willing to overlook its flaws compared to the first game, and while it's aged pretty well, replaying the game as an adult (and with a remake that actually has slower text that you are deliberately not able to mash through until you've already seen it once) makes it pretty clear how heavy this game is on just walking down corridors to complete fetch quests. Still a great game, but do yourself a favor and don't go in expecting this to be the greatest game of all time like Paper Mario fans have probably tried to tell you it is for the last 20 years.

...and if you want to play a Paper Mario that actually is the greatest game of all time, play the N64 game instead.