Played up through the first non-Prologue Eikon battle last night (leaving things vague to try to avoid even a hint of spoilers), and I’ve absolutely loved it.

Only things that have bothered me so far are dodge timings while playing at 30 fps/Graphics mode (which I just need to work on adapting to since I don’t want to sacrifice the graphical fidelity just to get 60 fps in combat) and the early-game pacing feeling a little choppy. Obviously, just about every JRPG has a lot of back-and-forth between cutscenes and gameplay/combat early on, and this is no different - I think it’s just my eagerness to get back into the combat here has me feeling a little antsy at points.

I like it so far, but it definitely has glaring pacing issues. Reminds me a lot of the ebb and flow of FFXIV ARR prior to the changes to streamline it. Some boss battles really overstayed their welcome as they were 2-3 cycles too long in some parts. Made what was supposed to be a huge climatic battle into one of attrition, both health recovery and physically with having to mash the square button constantly.

Am ~60% through the game according to the bit on the PS5 dashboard/menu.