Fucking he'll, my Internet was off and I tried to boot it, need an active Internet connection to verify the licence and start the game. I thought Khazan was bad having to have the connection to get trophies popping. Regardless, I'm ready to dive in for the evening and see if the praise is accurate. The menu music already, had been playing the last 15 minutes and it's wonderful.

Gonna call it a night and get a boss done in Khazan. Lot of cutscenes and menus but so far..

I forgot critics are pretentious and I get a whiff of pretentiousness in this, nothing repulsive yet or anything like that, all seems good but I suspect I will be cringing at some point or I might just be overthinking the style. 

Graphics are surprisingly good and image quality is clean, quality mode is very playable so far and I can't think of a reason why it won't be later, camera is perfectly responsive and smooth, feels higher than 30 apart from when sprinting but it's still not terrible. There is a host of PP and motion blur to turn off, though I kept the vignette cause it seems it may be an artistic choice and the hair is pretty shit and lip sink is terrible but aside from that, better than most AAA games these days. I've spent more time in this stopping to look at details than I probably have in any game total since I got my PS5 during and I only started it 3 hours ago. 

Music is fucking stellar, even just the background stuff. Atmosphere and vibes are just stellar, I'm depressed and this cheered me up. VA is stellar. Menus are Stellar. Artstyle is stellar. The world.... everything so far, apart from the terrible non existent lip sink I hope they can patch, I can think of is amazing me more than any AAA game I can think of this early on. Too early to say for combat, I'll need a few more battles. The game has a great feeling like you don't know what's coming next, a sense of wonder, like there are bits that are fucking weird but like a Kojima game I amn't questioning that strangessness, feels like the world exists and it just is the way it is but it's also very enthralling really, really similar to a Kojima game actually. It is all very Kojima/Miyazaki of FromSoft like but brighter in tone. If someone told me this was a Kojima game under a pen name I wouldn't be surprised. I'm going in very blind, maybe this won't surprise others. 

Perhaps character movement is a bit weird but you get used to that apart from when a character shoots off like a bullet but they use magic teleportation so...eh, not a big issue and there are some flat textures to be sure, a tiny bit of ailising, unrounded edges. Stiff animations, a feeling like the animation is off and not just the lipsink at times. Small stuff. Like a guilt player doen't change chords, little details like that.

If I get up out of bed tonight to play this, I wouldn't be surprised, very impressed so far and I'd still be playing if Khazans pull wasn't so strong, it beats playing Oblivion anyway by a country mile, they got the the feeling of Oblivion better in this game, nice bright (even if not in colour sometimes) fairy tale world. 

Just one other thing I'll say on the game, is I'm wondering how outlets were able to justify a 10 with non existent lipsink on high quality graphics. I'm looking forward to finding out if that becomes a non issue in time and whether the studio will do content patches without addressing this issue which would be an awful slap in the face to players. First thing they should be working on is a lip sink patch, they clealy have the animation talent so it feels like they got to deadline and this was the last thing that couldn't be done on time.

Played the first couple hours. Takes a little getting used to, but off to a great start.

I assume the main performances were done in French so it looks off in English.

Oh you could be right, the English VA is so good I assumed that was it but perhaps. Well... no, cause it quite literally is non existent in some scenes so unless French people don't move their lips...nah. There's also a clear difference between big cutscenes which have livelier lip movement than smaller scenes and those big scenes are sinked to the engl8sh words if just a little bit sluggish and drawn out as apposed to someone really talking. I'll check and see if there is a French dub and it fits this evening. Regardless, It's still a rough issue to justify 10's from professional outlets, like that's not a light thing but a huge glaring flaw. Can't wait to see if the brain looks past it at some point and filters it out. 

Well, not everyone cares for the same things and genres. Besides, if those folks are interested, they can always pick it up later.

I personally have very little interest in this game - JRPGs are not my thing, and only thing that really moves it from "no interest at all" category is that it's French take on the genre, with French historically having some games that have novel approach in different genres that resonate with me. So maybe, just maybe, sometimes in the future.

That said, I have no wish to replay Oblivion, being it's quite bellow Morrowind and Daggerfall (and latter has been patiently waiting for replay, in Unity fan made facelift version).

Would love to hear others initial impressions. This is a discussion thread but a non spoiler one so feel free to talk about story but not openly, please keep all story talk within spoilers tags which is doable in rich text replies, even overviews and stuff known from previews or early in the game for people who want to go in blind.

Oh I'm not a big turn based fan either, I enjoy Atlus games for the sims elements and put up with the turn based stuff, I can't even force myself through Yakuza Like a Dragon although the story is excellent cause of the turn based combat but this is different, it's Atlus games with real time features, even more so than Metaphor (and no high school students, melodrama or anime dialogue thank god). Real time parrying, dodge, real time counters and timed taps for extra damage. It's the Sekiro of turn based games and souls inspired in many ways from enemy design to mechanics and it looks to be what Metaphor was promised to be and actually deserving of it's praise instead of the slog of a game we got on that, that does so little new and getting away with the slimmest budget possible for maximum profit, God I hate that company now but anyway, yeah, this is more than just a turn based game....apparently and I strongly suspect the critics and Youtubers have it right, at least I hope they are, I didn't wanna spoil the story for myself so selectively read pieces of reviews.   

Oh and not to mention there is a massively detailed strategy system here under the hood, it's more like building in strategy games like Overlord Unicorn than turn based RPG's, fun customising and with allowances to stumble upon game breaking stuff and get super OP. 

I've played a bit over 5 hours. Looking like a contender for my GOTY already. Maybe the best Final Fantasy game since Lost Odyssey.

It does have the french dub available. I couldn't go 10mins after seeing the english dub lip-syncing before changing it.

Little bit on the nose to name the female lead 'Lune' but it does set the tone of the game (it's also another Final Fantasy trope). Music and artistry play a huge part in this game's thematic world-building. The OST is excellent so far.

Oh, I have no problem with turn based combat, it is what I prefer anyway when it's party based RPG, it's other stuff that I don't really care for, but as I said, this might be something I'd pick up down the line for being French take on it.