It's great, but uneven. The art and music are top notch. The overall story is pretty good, although certain stuff can definetly shatter your suspension of disbelief if you don't resonate with what the game is going for. Like, I enjoyed it a lot on an emotional level, the ending made me do some introspection for a couple of days after so it definetly did a lot right, but I did say "this is some cheap bullshit" a couple of times during my playthrough. Character writing quality can vary quite a bit, but it's not really anime. Same thing with the humor.

I wouldn't say the whole game has pacing issues, but there's a certain part towards the back third that definetly overstays its welcome, it starts really slow too, and it will take close to 20 hours to beat so it will inevitably be boring at times.

W.r.t. combat, I'd say it's the same deal as Persona where a fairly standard gameplay loop is enhanced by good presentation. While the dungeon crawly parts can be enjoyable, the game definetly feels more comfortable as a collection of memorable set pieces than a RPG.