I'm only about an hour and a half into the game, but I've already noticed two small improvements over the last games.

1. Whenever a townsperson has something new to say, they have a star over their heads. This is a big improvement over XCX which had you running around talking to every townsperson just to advance your town affinity.

2. You no longer have to pick up random items to complete the collectopedia. Instead you go to dive points and dive into the sea to salvage items. You can use better cylinders to increase the chances of getting rare items. This takes out a ton of the frustrating randomness of getting certain required items.

On the beginning of Chapter 2

Positives:

I like the characters so far.

Music is great as usual.

Visually nice.

Negatives:

Pretty slow start unlike the previous games, the cutscenes seem to drag quite a bit at times, maybe is because they put a huge bulk of them within the beginning, but it surely feels long.

Never been the biggest fan of XC gameplay, but the fact that you have to stand still for the auto attack to come out makes it a lot slower and boring, the final fight of Chapter 1 is basically standing still till your artes show up and the next tutorial bit.

Too early to tell I guess, but I can say the game hasn't left as strong of an initial impact as XC or XCX.

Also I hope there is some armor customization.

I think a compromise could be struck in future.  Like you have a base auto you do while moving, but you combo while still, something like that.

Starting off. Voice acting so far is positive. Agree about early combat, you basically put the controller down since aas happen on their own. Environments are all good, and the first area has a great BGM. Havent played docked yet, but resolution is only really noticeable to me in cutscenes, otherwise, colors pop. Very optimistic so far.

Yeah that sounds like a good solution. Once the arts charge it gets good, but the auto-attack phase just feels too passive now.

The game kinda felt like it had two openings.
They could have cut one of them, without losing much.

if by second opening you mean when you actually go get Pyra as your Blade, i'm not sure. Because without the original opening, I wouldnt have been as sad I was when Rex was saved by Gramps, who is later found "dying". Still I kinda get what you mean. HOWEVER, I feel like the game did have a very strong opening, but wish I hadnt watched as much stuff on it, because some things were less surprising, and others were still, like the choice of voice actor for Pyra really shifted my preconceptions of her after only seeing her in japanese dubbed segments.

(Everything in spoilers is from the first hour or so, so nothing earth shaking)

I see your point and I agree, but it kind of felt rushed.

The team could of either:
Cut one of the openings, allowing the player to play the game faster.
Spend more time developing the relationships between the characters early game.

The way it is now, kinda feels half done.

The Switch is probably more powerful than Monolith Soft was expecting.

There is a decent amount of grass in this game, and it draws in at a distance that is not too noticeable.
I wonder if that is Monolith Soft trying to squeeze a bit more out of the hardware after they have developed most of the in game assets.

Whatever it is, the Switch seems to have much more effective power, that Monolith Soft can draw upon for their next project.

I have put a good 6 hours into the game now.

- Textures could have been better during cutscenes.
- I'm playing in English. The heavy Welsh accents don't bother me at all, but I can understand how some might.
- The story has drawn me in.
- Combat is nice and has good depth.
- I really like all the characters so far.

Continuing now, game is hard to let go. I'm drawn to finding more and more.