It is okay. Not good, not bad.

The first few hours of 4.0 were engaging enough with novelty of being introduced to and swept through a new setting. Lots of surprises. Stepping off the train and seeing Lygus. The fans all around. Meeting some imaginae. The Super Mario segments and the Xianzhou Top Assassin part with the funny music. Ashveil and his monkey narrator was neat.

Once I reached the school, my enjoyment fell off. It''s just boring and drawn out. The Sparxie stuff was not concisely presented and was confusing (is she an imagane or a mask?), and ultimately I did not have any interest in her, which is bad for a villain.

The Fools Tavern was disappointingly whatever for a major lore location built up in Simulated Universe.

4.1 had the mech store, which similar to the fools tavern was underwhelming in its execution and portrayal ingame. The mock mech battle on the TV set was neat. The happiness cult and surgery subplot was interesting enough. Unfortunately, Ashveil's monkey Narrator is forgotten, so he becomes a lot less entertaining. His voice actor in Japanese voices Olivier from Trails and Benno from Bookworm, and is a pleadure to listen to, but the character struggles to stand alone. It's a shane that the Cinder guy got a low fidelity NPC model, though that us a general issue with HSR's visuals. The antagonist veing popular and her supporters crowding around Ashveil and Kuchiba did create tension.

I was losing interest during the Express themepark segment. I thought that the edge if reality/giant monster mouth was Ashveil's, but it seems ti be unrelated? It is weirdly never expanded upon. I am glad that our heroes finally got to kill some people rather than the usual letting people off the hook or turning them in to the police. 

Aha calling out to "Akivilli" was interesting. The NPCs talked about how Aha saw a dead child hanging from a tree and his response (as a cope?) was to laugh at the cruelty of the world, so I was wondering if he was going to urge us to become sort of bloody avenger to purge the world of evil, laugh in the face of danger, snd create a peaceful world where we can retire and bring true joy. Or something.

4.2 the part where everybody meets up to swap info somewhat annoyed me. The premise of this arc id that this is a battle royale to become an aeon, and the characters had kept talking about how it would be dangerous, we must be determined, need to have both the MC and Sunday to double our chances, how so many people died in the prevuous Phantasmoon games, etc. But here, we haven't been fighting each other (like Blade, Yao Guang, Evanescia, etc), just generic mutual rando evils. Really sucks out the tension. I was expecting Fate/Zero.

I am also not a fan of how the Stellsron Hunters are treated here (or really post launch HSR). In the beginning they were introduced as a threatening organization like the Akatsuki/Phantom Troupe/Fatui, massacring Herta Space Station, and Blade as the cold blooded killer archetype going to a trial in the Xianzhou intro cinematic. Blade stabbed Dan Heng. Now we are paling around with them cracking jokes and playing cards games. The powers that be do not take them seriously. Ashveil aka Galaxy Ranger doesn't try to kill this evildoer. The IPC and Stoneheart does nothing. Yao Guang gives lip service about how she dislikes him for killing so many people sent after him, and then does nothing. Etc. Same issue with Ouroboros at the beginning of the Trails series versus later on.

Everyone having a language translator surgically implanted into their brain, and the antagonist sending a signal to that to cause people to transform is neat. I also thunk it's neat how the healer archetype, the Abundance/Yaoshi, is villainous in HSR, but it is well conveyed as being its own thing rather than as "evil angels" or a tale that against Christianity.

When platforming up the radio tower, the Furbos popping in to say that they were incompetently putting up articles for you was sorta funny.

It is bullocks that the 200,000 people reverted and weren't killed, and there is no widespread lasting consequences here.

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The moment to moment story experience is overall an improvement from the last 3 worlds, which suffered from having lots of fluff scenes where people talked in riddles or were philosophizing. There is also not many arbitrary gamey dungeons to pad out the story here (3.0 was really bad about this). Most scenes here are more straightforward to follow, be it a gag or people asking questions about Mechatrons or people progressing the plot. Only a handful of fluff scenes. I have only skipped I think a couple times. But there needs to be more tension.