The main plot of this game is you have a time limit (one year) in which to get 3-5 recommendation levels, gather enough experience & items to make a high-quality alchemy item, and raise your level high enough to beat a final boss battle.... plus travel to the farthest corner of the map.
You get 365 in-game days to do this... in a game that takes 3 in-game days just to walk across town.
Your map fills in as you go (so you can walk clear to the upper-right part of a map just to find out you need to be at the bottom-left and also there's a huge mountain range in the way so good luck).
There is no fast travel between maps. (After the game you get the equivalent of a flying mount, but... still no fast travel)
The main plot of the game includes "quests" like "wait 2 weeks" (exCUSE me?!?)
The main plot of the game requires you to spend like a month and a half in this port city building a boat. You spend several days sailing the boat across the lake.... only to get a cut scene telling you to GO BACK and do more work in order to get the rec letter from that town. (wHY GOD)
Unlike Sophie, you can only have 3 party members at a time and can't access the others unless you go all the way back to a town's inn.
There are tons of little side-quests but the game is designed so that you CAN'T complete them all and finish the game on time. (Whyyy??? who designed this??) You have to just make a full-on sprint through the main story, ignoring EVERYTHING, including entire towns that aren't furthering the main quest line, just to make it in time. You can go back and finish the rest of the quests when you're done? I guess?
UGH just, all the way through, this game was frustrating, tedious, and stressful. Searching for help online brings you to one million condescending gamer nerds who tell you it's totally easy to beat the game with tons of time to spare and anyone who struggles with it must just be garbage.
Buuut.. unless you're going to use guides and walkthroughs LIBERALLY, you can't even tell what direction you're supposed to go on the map. The main town you're aiming for isn't even listed on the map, so it's completely possible to end up dozens of (non-fast-travel-able) map screens away from your destination and think you were going the right way the whole time. And they tell you the people handing out rec letters are "in towns" but they're only in SOME towns, not listed on the main map or explained to you via quest dialog anywhere. I mean... one guy gives you a fake letter, and one of them lies to you and says they're not an alchemist and are just taking advantage of you cause you're gullible, and your sister tells you to stop doing their quest line?? lmao... like it's actually possible to miss their letters entirely, even following the plot.
ANYWAY. There's challenging and then there's... this whole mess. I beat the game with the bare minimum stuff and got like a C- on the final test LOL. I went around doing the other quests for a while but I just got mad at how weirdly this game was designed that you can only ENJOY the game's content AFTER you beat the main storyline, that I just... UGH. No. Throw it away. bye.
