It's not a bad VN overall. The story was short. There are a few endings you can aim for, it involves responding and acting in different ways. The artwork is really nice, characters and sceneries are well drawn. The characters themselves weren't great, they felt somewhat flat, I found them and their dialogue repetitive at times with no real progression in terms of personality. Still I'd recommend trying it out on sale.
While trying to get into the Legend of Heroes series, I decided to start with Trails in The Sky. Both first chapter and second chapter are great. This game, the first one has a slower start but the second one is much faster paced - I'd definitely recommend getting them together and playing them one after the other. The first has fewer 'sub' chapters and you should be ready for the slower initial pace. This initial bit is the world building, character introduction and story setting. The game picks up towards the end and proceeds full speed into second chapter. Don't let the graphics put you off as it did me initially, the real strength is in the charming world, its characters and the relationships formed. You'll need to devote a decent amount of time to the game as it has an easy to understand combat system with some slightly more complex parts which can be overcome. The music is catchy and sometimes can be real earworms! I also wanted to point out that the controls are simple and well optimized for a mouse OR keyboard - in fact you can pretty much do everything - interaction, combat, movement - just with the mouse. Or if you prefer just use the keyboard. The turn based combat is fun and there is a lot of flexibility with the 'sepith' system. It allows the main characters to be magic based or melee or a healthy mix of the two. For anyone looking to get into JRPGs in general or just craving another JRPG to get into this is a great start.
Like many others and possibly yourself I had my doubts about the 'look' of this game. I managed to get this as part of a free unlock during a sale and this turned out to be one of my favorite games. It's a walking simulator, with gorgeous sceneries and relaxing puzzles. There is a very minimal story though it's mostly left to your interpretation. Performance wise, it wasn't so great - with a GTX 1080 Ti I'm still unable to get 60fps at max settings, disabling a few of the options did help with the framerate though. However none of that got in the way of the gameplay and the enjoyment. Definitely recommended.
