It truly frustrates me to give this a negative review because you were "THIS CLOSE" to creating a masterpiece, but stumbled at the goalpost so often that it became tediously mediocre instead.
*Absolutly horrible translation that ruins any and all immersion and interest in the already convoluted plot https://pastebin.com/g6tVLPQ1

*The plot almost being phenomenal but is constantly ruined by inconsistencies, needless mystique, plain bad writing and lack of dedication to themes and direction.

*So many awesome equipment pieces, but you're stuck with the exact same character apperance from start to end since none of your armor pieces visibly change how you look...-Aka. No outfits only reskins. Enjoy looking at the EXACT SAME MODEL for 20+ hours.

*Health + mana pots are consumables, fast travel items are consumables, mana regen depends on consumables... I hate consumables.

*So open worlded that you spend 95% of the game dashing around, trying to figure out where the heck you need to go.

*5-10 min walks from checkpoint to bosses just to get instakilled, fun.

I wanted to wait until I was a few hours deep in the game to review it--generally, AFTERIMAGE is a pretty solid Metroidvania, and I have been enjoying it a lot. The skill system is very customizable and the world is surprisingly expansive, and it's an easy pick-up-and-play sort of game, for the most part.

There are a few bits that aren't as tight as they could be--there's a lot of precision jumping puzzles that need precise jump timing and they can feel a bit mushy at the wrong time, and occasionally the beautiful art gets in the way of discovering the next objective. Also, the story is a bit of a jumble, but that's expected with a plot like this.

So far, the pros outweigh the cons and I've been enjoying it, and I'd recommend it.

Confusing plot, talent system doesn't add any flavor to anything, pretty boring experience overall