It's a pretty good/pretty okay strategy game that gets hampered quite a bit on a lot of modern gameplay ideas

For example, it uses a promotion system, but gates the promotion system items behind story battles or when certain chapters are met

It also has a weapon upgrade system over buying new weapons, which is fine, but it also guards the upgrade weapons in a similar way

Which also feels really gross when you get some passive like "Defense 1" or "Magic Defense 1"

There's also no random fights like FFT, but there is an option to replay past chapter fights which.... mmm...

sometimes the ideas of challenge can come across as a bit dickish on the designer's part xD;

I also wish the characters were a bit better written. There's some good ideas, but they tend to focus on the current crisis they are dealing with, so their personality tends to be a little flat

I think the biggest weakness, for me, is how the game presents conflict. Since chapter 3 started, the story has been leaping from dilemma to dilemma

it's part of the central gameplay gimmick: the scales of conviction

whenever you hit a story beat, you get the option between two choices, or, rather, the group gets to choose

The main character does not get a vote, but can interact with the other characters to convince them for or against

he also doesn't get a vote, which necessitates that you engage the system if you want to dictate where the story goes

So far, I haven't had the story go in a different way than what I was dictating, but I can see where that could be troublesome

in theory it's a fine mechanic, in practice it's used ~a lot~

And the game is intent on throwing every single world injustice at you to resolve

which isn't bad per se, but since chapter 3 it's one after the other, and there isn't a chance to breathe

you can only do rising action so much xD;;