Originally, there was another review here. I am updating it as my thoughts on the game are changing.

If you want a tldr: I *really* wish there was a way to give a side-thumb to a game. Though I'm hoping that eventually, enough updates and bug fixes will come to be able to lift that thumb to recommending.

The game oozes with charm, you know it, you see it, you've seen the trailer, it is self-evident and instantly apparent.
The haggle card battles are about 25% of the game, the system is super neat and fun to play around with and to upgrade your deck as you find cards that fit your strategy better.
The VN / Dating sim part is another 25%. The characters are beyond charming, the animation-work is stellar, the writing is sound, each character's musical theme is a treat to the ears. It is never a bad time hanging out with anyone, and if it weren't for potion-making, it'd be such a relaxing experience just talking with these new friends.

But as you might've guessed from that last paragraph, the potion-making system is mired with very apparent, glaring issues. And when the game is split 25-25-50 in favor of potion-making, that drags the experience down.
The inventory is a total first-in-first-out mess, neither sorted nor sortable, and unfortunately, the main shop works on the same rules as far as I can tell. The ingredients aren't placed in any logical manner, and just happen to be whichever order you gave them to Quinn in.
Too many ingredients are unwieldy to the point of uselessness. If its total magimin contents are an odd number, or if its magimin type spread corresponds to no potion recipe, they might as well just be clutter in your inventory and loot drops.
And overall... Both the potion-making and ingredient collecting are tedious, complex work that just require you to crunch numbers so you can access the other half of the game. You have so many things to do on every in-game day that everything slows to a frustrating slog. The first 10 days will pass in a flash, but as more and more things are thrown at you to take care of, as the numbers on the ingredients get more complex to work with, the time it takes to just *do things* balloons up over the course of the game.
And when you feel like your real life time is so necessary to just get any amount of progress done, the charming animations and "hello", "goodbye!" barks from characters all end up feeling like a test of your patience. If you have to make potions, that's 20 minutes agonizing over your cauldron. If you need to go to town - which you should very much do at least once per ingame day - that's easily 30 minutes going from shop to shop to talk to everyone and do all the things you need done, especially expeditions for ingredients, which are vital and time-consuming. And then the game throws more cauldrons at you for more concurrent potion-making. And then you get plants for another source of ingredients to micro-manage. And then you get aging barrels to maximize your gold gain. And the game adds more, and more, and more onto you, and you're just expected to keep up.

And that 25-25-50 ratio dips, dips, dips further. The balance is unstable, and the potion can't brew.

Originally, there was another review here. I am updating it as my thoughts on the game are changing. If you want a tldr: I *really* wish there was a way to give a side-thumb to a game. Though I'm hoping that eventually, enough updates and bug fixes will come to be able to lift that thumb to recommending. The game oozes with charm, you know it, you see it, you've seen the trailer, it is self-evident and instantly apparent. The haggle card battles are about 25% of the game, the system is super neat and fun to play around with and to upgrade your deck as you find cards that fit your strategy better. The VN / Dating sim part is another 25%. The characters are beyond charming, the animation-work is stellar, the writing is sound, each character's musical theme is a treat to the ears. It is never a bad time hanging out with anyone, and if it weren't for potion-making, it'd be such a relaxing experience just talking with these new friends. But as you might've guessed from that last paragraph, the potion-making system is mired with very apparent, glaring issues. And when the game is split 25-25-50 in favor of potion-making, that drags the experience down. The inventory is a total first-in-first-out mess, neither sorted nor sortable, and unfortunately, the main shop works on the same rules as far as I can tell. The ingredients aren't placed in any logical manner, and just happen to be whichever order you gave them to Quinn in. Too many ingredients are unwieldy to the point of uselessness. If its total magimin contents are an odd number, or if its magimin type spread corresponds to no potion recipe, they might as well just be clutter in your inventory and loot drops. And overall... Both the potion-making and ingredient collecting are tedious, complex work that just require you to crunch numbers so you can access the other half of the game. You have so many things to do on every in-game day that everything slows to a frustrating slog. The first 10 days will pass in a flash, but as more and more things are thrown at you to take care of, as the numbers on the ingredients get more complex to work with, the time it takes to just *do things* balloons up over the course of the game. And when you feel like your real life time is so necessary to just get any amount of progress done, the charming animations and "hello", "goodbye!" barks from characters all end up feeling like a test of your patience. If you have to make potions, that's 20 minutes agonizing over your cauldron. If you need to go to town - which you should very much do at least once per ingame day - that's easily 30 minutes going from shop to shop to talk to everyone and do all the things you need done, especially expeditions for ingredients, which are vital and time-consuming. And then the game throws more cauldrons at you for more concurrent potion-making. And then you get plants for another source of ingredients to micro-manage. And then you get aging barrels to maximize your gold gain. And the game adds more, and more, and more onto you, and you're just expected to keep up. And that 25-25-50 ratio dips, dips, dips further. The balance is unstable, and the potion can't brew.