I should have already played all the SOTN RPG-esque Vanias by now, considering how much I liked that particular one. Say what you will about grinding EXP, but adding it to a Metroidvania brings me much joy personally.

I tried playing most of these back around when they came out but I think I was just overwhelmed by how many there were, and the stories just never really grabbed me.

Still can't really say the story is very interesting, there's too many anime-isms , basically any kind of weird stuff without explanations or meh characterization. I'm sure that's just par for the whatever localization, which suffices but isn't much to write home about. Okay, I didn't beat it yet, but I'm not champing at the bit for more story, sorry.

Probably the best aspect to this is collecting monster abilities, albeit I still haven't figured out if it's random or you have to kill a certain amount. Probably somewhere in between. Anyway, GOOD GAME.

Edit: After beating it, my feelings pretty much remained unchanged the entire way through. That's perfectly fine. It's a very good game with a solid formula and decent story. It got pretty challenging at times but grinding a bit could usually solve that. I don't really want to 100% it, but I did get the "good" ending. Looking forward to Dawn of Sorrow.

Final note: there's a classical piece of music that's used here that was also used in Soul Blazer and going through that area feels very odd to me.