This game goes hard. I did like 50% of the game and it took 54 hours (for me) to complete the main story. The combat is engaging, the music slaps, and the story is great though but there are some pacing issues around chapters 9-10 imo but its not a dealbreaker. One thing though is that sometimes it feels as if you are overleveled, I just wish the game in general was slightly harder. There is pretty much only one difficulty spike that I can think of which if you have played the game you know about but its a really cool fight so I'll give it the pass. Also the game has like 5 other half games inside of it which is a little crazy.
You can play this game without playing the previous ones, you just might be a little confused when the game makes a semi-big deal about returning characters.
8.5/10