While there are a few things that could certainly have been done better, I believe the game does much more right than it does wrong. I'd be happy to recommend it to just about any action game fan or fellow degenerate. Thoroughly exploring the game on advanced, I think a first playthrough ran me about 16-17 hours while a NG+ run to finish out the achievements only added another 2 hours or so to my play time. I would have been perfectly content to have paid full price, but it's possible some people disinterested in exploration and item collection or some more skilled players might not be fully satisfied with the price to time ratio they might get.
Combat is quite good, pretty well thought out. The mesh of ranged and close combat works well. You've got four base types of magic; your ranged attacks, all of which are very usable throughout the game for different ranges/purposes. For each type of magic you also have a chant/charge attack which takes some time and mana to ready. In addition to the charge attack itself there are some different effects you can gain just by holding that charge before using the attack or letting the meter run out, such as strengthening your melee attack, for example. What really elevates the combat is that you can fill your mana or otherwise that chant meter by either closely dodging enemy attacks, parrying enemy attacks, or through physically attacking an enemy with your staff. This creates some really satisfying combat cycles of chanting then dodging, parrying, and/or melee attacking to build charge while taking pot-shots with magic in-between charge shots. If you get good you can speedily max your charge repeatedly and totally ruin enemies which is just really quite fun.
The primary downside to the game has probably got to be the somewhat lacking common enemy variety and boring designs. The majority of the enemies more or less just look like some shadowy figures. There's four different varieties of these basic enemies, each of which has a couple palette-swapped versions. These alternative versions usually are different enough attack-wise I guess but nevertheless it is kind of lame they couldn't get a few more unique enemy designs instead, especially given just how basic they are. There is another I believe 7 basic enemy types which have better designs, 2 of which also get a palette swap.
I found the story enjoyable, although I'm not really a fan of the method by which much of it is told. Although the basic story of Nobeta is told normally via events throughout the game there's much more to be found surrounding her story as well as the world, and the boss character's stories both through items found in game whose only purpose is to provide lore, and through some extra manga which can be unlocked. Although the manga is unquestionably well made, experiencing the full story through the game itself would obviously have been much more preferable. But then there's the issue that this manga is also heavily censored in the game (there are official uncensored versions uploaded) for whatever reason, which leaves me a somewhat conflicted since although it's not ideal, I'm still glad they were able to provide a full version of the story one way or another.

While there are a few things that could certainly have been done better, I believe the game does much more right than it does wrong. I'd be happy to recommend it to just about any action game fan or fellow degenerate. Thoroughly exploring the game on advanced, I think a first playthrough ran me about 16-17 hours while a NG+ run to finish out the achievements only added another 2 hours or so to my play time. I would have been perfectly content to have paid full price, but it's possible some people disinterested in exploration and item collection or some more skilled players might not be fully satisfied with the price to time ratio they might get. Combat is quite good, pretty well thought out. The mesh of ranged and close combat works well. You've got four base types of magic; your ranged attacks, all of which are very usable throughout the game for different ranges/purposes. For each type of magic you also have a chant/charge attack which takes some time and mana to ready. In addition to the charge attack itself there are some different effects you can gain just by holding that charge before using the attack or letting the meter run out, such as strengthening your melee attack, for example. What really elevates the combat is that you can fill your mana or otherwise that chant meter by either closely dodging enemy attacks, parrying enemy attacks, or through physically attacking an enemy with your staff. This creates some really satisfying combat cycles of chanting then dodging, parrying, and/or melee attacking to build charge while taking pot-shots with magic in-between charge shots. If you get good you can speedily max your charge repeatedly and totally ruin enemies which is just really quite fun. The primary downside to the game has probably got to be the somewhat lacking common enemy variety and boring designs. The majority of the enemies more or less just look like some shadowy figures. There's four different varieties of these basic enemies, each of which has a couple palette-swapped versions. These alternative versions usually are different enough attack-wise I guess but nevertheless it is kind of lame they couldn't get a few more unique enemy designs instead, especially given just how basic they are. There is another I believe 7 basic enemy types which have better designs, 2 of which also get a palette swap. I found the story enjoyable, although I'm not really a fan of the method by which much of it is told. Although the basic story of Nobeta is told normally via events throughout the game there's much more to be found surrounding her story as well as the world, and the boss character's stories both through items found in game whose only purpose is to provide lore, and through some extra manga which can be unlocked. Although the manga is unquestionably well made, experiencing the full story through the game itself would obviously have been much more preferable. But then there's the issue that this manga is also heavily censored in the game (there are official uncensored versions uploaded) for whatever reason, which leaves me a somewhat conflicted since although it's not ideal, I'm still glad they were able to provide a full version of the story one way or another.