One of my new favorite games. All of the Tales games are great, but this one was a shock that they fit such an amazing story into such a short campaign. On top of all that, they give you a reason to replay it and even a hard mode for each of the bosses after you beat them in New Game +. Before you knock on New Game +, make sure you collect all the owls so you can carry over all your character progression, such as xp, items, etc. Great job Namco. Easily a GOTY contender for me. I don't play that many RPGs long enough to actually beat them, so this was a welcome surprise. Took me about 25 hours for the main story, 40 for 100% completion.

2023 update for Beyond the Dawn expansion: I fell it could have been a bigger and beter expansion, but for $30, it was well worth the money. Excellent continuation of the story. only took me 7 hours to complete so there's that, but quality over quantity right. 100% completion took me about 14 hours total.

This is a long game. There is a teleport system like other soulslikes, but you'll be what feels like a long ways in before you unlock it. Don't worry about level grinding too much, you'll get a lot later in the game. I personally recommend the spear/javelin (whatever they call it) and magic staff for main weapons, but completely up to you. I also ran with all my points into ATK only, no HP or SP buffs, which is why I ran the spear for the parry ability. Overall I'm really en joying this game and would be satisfied with a AAA price tag, so even at retail price this is a steal. I'm not a huge Dark Souls fan simply because of the difficulty, but soulslikes with a solid story are always good imo. I give it a solid 4.8/5. Would be 5/5 but takes way too long to unlock teleport imo. I may update this later as I believe I'm not even halfway done based off the amount of achievements I have left for killing certain bosses, and i have not started the DLC yet.

Edit: I was probably 3/5 of the way through at review time, but the teleportation made it way faster to get things done. Since I do so much damage the boss killing was relatively quick and easy. If you go for achievements, get to level 20 then lock your level with the trinkets it gives you. You can 100% the game with only one playthrough. Best advice I have is thoroughly explore, but don't waste time killing every single enemy, they aren't worth your time if you're going for quick playthroughs.