you know how in most JRPGs, there's a sick girl in a village who urgently needs an item to get better, and you promise to help her but then spend several hours doing random side-quests instead? in this game, the sick girl will actually die if you play like that. by the same token, losing to a boss may not result in a game over or reload, but rather a new fork in the story. there are hundreds of details like that. this is the sort of (exceedingly rare) JRPG we're dealing with.