If I wanted good graphics and stories only, I’d rent Game of Thrones or some animated series to watch. That’d spare me hours of button pressing exercise to defeat damage sponges that require 1 mechanic to beat: staggering by pressing simple skills on a 20-60s cooldown. Stagger makes the health bar depletes 50-100% faster. So it takes a skilled player maybe 10 boring minutes to defeat a monster, as opposed to a casual who would spend 20 boring minutes to defeat it.
No matter what abilities you mix, it’s just that. Stagger, do damage, repeat. I never equipped a single helper accessory, and it never got me close to losing. You’ll see a lot of players share the same experience.
There is no real customization. It’s as linear as a modern game can get. Even Action RPGs like God of War have more customization and RPG elements than this mainline entry of an RPG series.
P/S: I remember this meme where Yoshi P claims players don’t want classic RPGs, that they wanted something different. On the next panel it shows all the classic RPGs and JRPGs released this year that are all massive successes. Baldur’s Gate stomps on FF16