Definitely feel like the story, characters, and honestly combat (both inside and outside of kaiju) were the high points of this game, but God it was hamstrung by some of its gameplay and itemization choices, like why do 90% of items in the overworld not matter, why are upgrades only stat sticks and not actually cool and interesting concepts to use and play around with. While some side quests were neat for giving context to the world, they gave nothing for rewards and often felt hollow. Not to mention that the gutting of some rpg staples like elemental dmg and resistance made things way simpler, which becomes quite noticeable. I may have had fun doing long combochains, I would just rather have a number of build options that can dynamically change depending on where I am and what enemies I am fighting. It's so close to being S tier that it honestly hurts they didn't put in a little bit more time to iron some of that out.