#overall?

1. The rhythm game is difficult at first if you don't play the genre all the time, but even someone with a disability like myself can pick them up with some trial and error. Admittedly, I have found that knowing the songs inside and out really helps in that regard. Otherwise I flounder. All OM tracks (without dance beat) are on Spotify.

2. The game is like.... fun. Actually, legitimately fun. It probably helps that electronic j-pop is my jam, but I often find that even if my cards are strong enough to skip a stage, depending on the song, I really don't want to. The rhythm sections feel satisfying. Sometimes challenging, but not cheap (when it doesn't bug out). Which reminds me...

3. JANK. Oh good lord so much jank! The faces on 3d models are the stuff of nightmares. I honestly can't bring myself to look at them. Even if it's the only thing on screen, I glue my eyes to the text. Some things are a little buggy still, hits on the rhythm sectiond don't always register and I think the intimacy system is broke on mine. Mammon has had intimacy 5 then 6 then 5 then 6 then..... You get the idea. It resolves itself overtime, but it's ridiculous. Fix it.

4. Some small quality of life improvements all around. You no longer have to look at each new card individually to get stupid notification to go away, the phone is all one bundle now so you can check for calls and texts in the same place, you can actually SEE your own damn inventory through the gear menu button (finally), that kind of thing.

5. There's both good stuff and bad stuff on the grind front... I think the biggest double edge sword will be the new Skill Up cards. In theory, good! Because if a card goes out of availability you can still level up its skill with the right resources. Bad, in that it adds yet another currency item you need to farm and now, get this, parts of the Devil Tree are locked behind a certain skill level requirement. It... kinda bites pretty hard.

6. Without getting into spoiler territory, I love the story so far. It feels like a good balance between character drama and a decent amount of mystery in-between. Not to any payoffs yet, but very happy so far. I squint if the devs really believe that a newcomer is going to be able to follow along without any confusion, but I digress.

I will give a deeper breakdown of my impression of story and new! (old) characters in another post which will be spoiler marked to high heaven. Right now, I'm just playing as far as I can before I really gotta start grinding up levels and cards (read as: hit a brick wall). But look y'all!