It's pretty good, all things considered. The combat gameplay is fun, even if it feels like the hit rate on attacks is low at the beginning. The writing is good, i really like the companions you get, and their side missions are the ones i enjoyed the most, specially the hacker one. The final mission has enough variance to replay the game one or two times, or at least change up the dialogue options you choose to see what happens, i won't spoil, the overall narrative is also great, love the way they set up the final mission.
Onto the negatives. Hacking is super lame, they decided to go the megaman battle network way of dealing with the internet, but with the same combat gameplay as the flesh and bone counterpart, only differences are your stats and your buyable spells. There are no mage companions, so you'll always be missing that role in your party if you decide to go another route. Speaking of which, playing as a hacker here feels very lame, mainly because your other hacker will always be leagues better than you and get his best equipment and components and stuff for free in between missions. There's a "middle point" in the story where the main narrative kinda stops to a halt and becomes an episodic mission parade where you're just doing odd jobs for cash, stopping the pacing dead in it's tracks. Also, there are almost zero ways to resolve situations with anything other than direct violence, or the occasional dialogue that skips said combat sometimes, but not always. There are also no stealth mechanics, and in the sections that tries (emphasis on "tries") to have stealth segments, it's just regular overworld walking but with people walking in patterns, where you initiate regular combat when caught. I have other spoiler-filled complaints regarding just how little we see of our actions in the epilogue, but yeah. Also most of the art is ugly as sin, you can count the exceptions with one hand, thankfully some of them being your companions.
In conclusion, it has some flaws, but it's definitely worth at least one playthrough
Onto the negatives. Hacking is super lame, they decided to go the megaman battle network way of dealing with the internet, but with the same combat gameplay as the flesh and bone counterpart, only differences are your stats and your buyable spells. There are no mage companions, so you'll always be missing that role in your party if you decide to go another route. Speaking of which, playing as a hacker here feels very lame, mainly because your other hacker will always be leagues better than you and get his best equipment and components and stuff for free in between missions. There's a "middle point" in the story where the main narrative kinda stops to a halt and becomes an episodic mission parade where you're just doing odd jobs for cash, stopping the pacing dead in it's tracks. Also, there are almost zero ways to resolve situations with anything other than direct violence, or the occasional dialogue that skips said combat sometimes, but not always. There are also no stealth mechanics, and in the sections that tries (emphasis on "tries") to have stealth segments, it's just regular overworld walking but with people walking in patterns, where you initiate regular combat when caught. I have other spoiler-filled complaints regarding just how little we see of our actions in the epilogue, but yeah. Also most of the art is ugly as sin, you can count the exceptions with one hand, thankfully some of them being your companions.
In conclusion, it has some flaws, but it's definitely worth at least one playthrough