a game that was smaller scope than i expected, i found myself initially very disappointed with all the QoL i felt was missing and the dull feeling combat. but then the game sort of won me over for the next 50% of its runtime or so, with a surprisingly charming cast in an albeit by the numbers story. the gameplay managed to bring more options and fun with it too as i wasted away in the optional dungeons. speaking of which, the dungeon crawling experience in this game, especially by the end, is so mind numbingly bland and sluggish to navigate it ended up dragging down the whole thing for me. fun-ish combat ultimately couldn't make up for dungeon crawling where every dungeon feels the same and cycles through 3 themes for almost the entire game.

anyway this game is fine. way less substantial than i thought it was going to be which makes me sad, even on release you could kind of tell this was gonna just become a footnote in the series' history. it does some things pretty well and i dont hate having played it, but it feels incredibly cheap and the majority of the experience is seen within a few hours.
probably a decent sale game, if for no reason other than watching the main cast hang out, and ringo herself being really great.