LogFAQs > #966025564

It's the weakest game in the series, still good overall.

Music: Amazing, as usual

World/graphics/exploration: Gorgeous as usual; worst one for exploration, though (stuff locked behind field skills; the whole disjointed world setup where you take ships between titans and there's no actual transition)

Story: Starts off weak, gets even worse, then gradually pulls itself out of its own nadir (chapter 4) and by the end is finally good.

Voice acting: Most is ok, but Rex (main character) and Tora (early party member, and you won't have a 4th to swap him out for, for a VERY long time) are absolutely fucking atrocious. So much so that I'm mentioning it as its own topic.

Combat: Needlessly complicated is the best way to describe it. You're basically painting by colors (elements) and then using chain attacks to break those colored orbs for massive damage. That's like the entire combat system. But they obfuscate and add so much fucking terminology and other pointless crap that it'll confuse the hell out of you if you don't look up how it works online. I didn't like it. One of the blades you can get from the DLC, Elma, gives you a 2nd option for how to fight that's more fun.

Other gameplay: Extremely tedious bull shit. Blades are mostly acquired via random gacha mechanics that requires grinding for core crystals that will often yield nothing but junk. Leveling up blades' skills is both a chore and necessary for field skills, some of which are mandatory to advance the story later on. Mercenary missions are just an annoying side thing to toss your many spare blades at so they have something to do.

The prequel story (Torna: The Golden Country) that's included in the DLC is vastly better. Voice acting and characters are way better. No gacha bs. No merc missions. Blades are playable too, and the game implements a "switch attack" to change between them that's important in combat (used to topple and such, plus you can heal damage taken if you switch at the right moments). It's literally better than the base game in nearly every way.