I tried the demo of the game and gave up, felt the combats rather bad and felt the UI tedious. Didn't finished the demon played only a part.

My feeling is the combats can't become better so skip it is the right choice. Right? Wrong?

Combat is quite interesting in this game with it's ray system and I found it fairly enjoyment, but not great. It basically comes down to the same strategy each battle and is really the most unimportant aspect of the game, only there to prevent you from progressing too fast. The UI will always remain tedious.

The best thing about the game is the true random open world "anything can happen without any warning" feeling. I guess it took me a while until the game really hooked me, but this was the reason.

But I can understand this game isn't for anyone... or the majority of people. I just like games like these (I'm a big Akitoshi Kawazu fan).