That's how I describe this game. However... its also a tad barebones. The elements are there, but most are depth of a puddle. A good example is the maps and their secrets. The map design is often pretty weak, lots of locations are filler content (collect a music record... wtf?) or extremely small and there is very little in the way of trash mobs to kill.
I didn't think the game is too bare in most spots. I felt like it avoided the "carnival of side content" feel, where a game's story is so bare that it uses that side carnival to hide it. I really dislike when games feel that way because it makes the main game feel like far less of a game.
The gameplay itself doesn't feel shallow either. Not the combat, not the gameplay loop, not the character building (this is actually pretty good and extensive for JRPG standards, although it becomes absolutely broken later).
It is indeed true that a number of side areas are a single screen for a music record, but since the world map has a ton of locations as it is, I didn't feel like they were simply attempts at filler. If anything, they felt like a nod to the fixed camera angles of PlayStation era titles.
Some of them did merely hold a single chromatic enemy, yes, but I felt like this was better than having them all on the world map. There were plenty of large dungeons, so some smaller ones was okay with me.
If I felt like there was one area where the game was bare, it was in the amount of world map encounters. There were way too few. Then again, I'm one of those weirdos who loved prancing around Final Fantasy IX's world with its infamous encounter rate and grinding battles.
I started at 9/10, I'm slowly backing down to 7/10. Still good. But when the inital varnish comes off, what remains as really good is mostly the voice acting/dialogue story elements. Combat system is also quite good - but feels underused. Gestrals are brilliant
I'm the opposite of this. I almost thought the reactive based combat would become frustrating enough to turn me off from what was otherwise a honeymoon phase with the game, but as the game went on, it actually grew on me. And I'm absolutely terrible at dodging still, let alone parrying. What happened was a combination of getting better than I was at the start, and the game giving you more avenues to succeed later on. Early on, you prance on into that meadow and go "oh hello you...
*checks name* Chromatic Lancelier, do you fancy a battle?" only to get laid in the dirt over and over and over again with almost no options to customize against it besides dodging your way to victory. Later on, you can customize to compensate for that. You get stronger/more numerous revives, along with so many picto abilities too (like getting AP when people have a turn, when they die, when they get revived, or having people play immediately when revived, etc.).
The JRPG customization side absolutely shines later on and you get the choice to build your team in a way to compensates for a lack of dodging mastery. It does come a little slowly though, so I feel like the early game difficulty is a bit overtuned if you're not adept at dodging. I avoided the first many chromatic enemies because they were too difficult, and by time I went back to them, I basically few hit them with no effort. Neither avenue is fun.
Also... whats with all the weird invisible walls everywhere, and getting stuck on random shit while walking around? Its clearly Unreal Engine in that sense, and it comes off as poor gameplay; the whole party movement, both on world map and locations... major nuisance. Its all graphics no substance, basically, the areas you walk in. Most of it is just a corridor with a few dead ends on the sides to get your 'secrets'.
I didn't run into this as I was able to infer where the developers intended for us to go/not go early on, partly due to familiarity with the era of the genre they were taking inspiration from, but you're not the first person I've heard bring that up.
As for the map design, I'm happy with it. I would have been dissatisfied if it was completely open world (worlds of that scale create their own problems that need solutions I don't tend to like), and I would have been dissatisfied if they were complete labyrinths too. I think they balanced map design well considering the era they were taking inspiration from.
Overall, I'd say it's slightly overhyped but at the same time it also warrants the majority of that hype. It's probably true that people are giving it such high praise because it exists at a time where turn based JRPGs are fewer outside of indie affairs, but even if there was a healthy offering of them, this would legitimately be a 9/10 or 10/10 example of one. The best ever in the genre? I don't know about that, but it's at least "one of" the best, and it's certainly the best in a long time. For this to be a studio's introduction (!?) it is embarrassing the likes of Square Enix/Final Fantasy, so I understand where the bit of overhype is coming from. The biggest hesitation I have against all the hype is the declaration that it is "the solution to fixing turn based JRPGs" because that makes it seem like regular turn based battles (without the reaction-based "Dark Souls-esque" part) are in need of that thing to fix it. I don't agree with that. While the combat in this game did grow on me over time, and while I now couldn't imagine this game with any other combat... this isn't what
all turn based JRPGs should emulate. That part aside, I do think it warrants most if not all of the praise it's getting.
Oh, and I feel like the difficulty is a bit too high early on. It gives a bad first impression, especially those who aren't skilled with the reaction-based part of combat, and it's probably why so many people are complaining about it.
Its also completely unclear where to go besides the main quest, but its good fun failing on almost everything on the map right now