So happy to hear this! I bought it on release and finished it yesterday. Then I went back and bought the soundtrack.
Loved the main characters, and loved that it knew exactly how long it needed to be without making it a grindfest. Reminds me very much of my time with Chrono Trigger.
I've been watching some streams of it and Chrono Trigger was absolutely what came to mind for me. The art is gorgeous and the music is awesome too. Game's got good vibes for sure.
I did a semi-completionist run (without a guide) and it took me about 38h start to finish! I played it on my school/work commutes and sank some evenings into it, the game is pretty generous with save points.
If you have a Switch or a Steam deck, I would highly recommend getting it on there, the game really lends itself to portability and has natural stop points that reminds me of how DS/3DS games were structured back in the day
I finished it yesterday as well! Lots of things I loved about this. For me, third act kind of fell on its face a little bit, but that wasn't enough to put me off, I still really enjoyed it.
Yeah I kind of agree with you there, the villain’s motivations were pretty weak imo. But the rest of the game was so charming that I really didn’t mind that much. It was the perfect breather to play in between Baldur’s Gate and Starfield for me.
I definitely have some nostalgia bias, don’t get me wrong, people that didn’t live through the Gameboy/DS/PSP era of RPGs might not be as forgiving. But it really made me miss the days of sitting on the train or the bus playing my DS on the way to school haha. Mobile gaming just doesn’t have the same feeling for me.