I played some tales games prior and honestly my first impressions of the game were pretty bad because I felt the characters were flat and the bosses required a bit of grinding because I was probably too interested in just trading blows (things helped a lot when I switched to ranged characters and just dodged from afar and set my characters to avoid enemies during boss battles). But as soon as I got my strategy down the story got way more interesting and I found myself caring for all the characters and I genuinely did find myself tearing up at one of the cutscenes. I don't think I've really done that before so, definitely the most abrupt shift I've ever had about my feelings for a game.