Outside of atrocious port (it's REALLY bad), game is just empty.
Combat is alright, but has a lot of problems: on defensive side, push-pull mechanic is cool, but I don't think it's possible to react to changing colors, which turns the game in rock-paper-scissors (perfect parry is cool, tho - hard, rewarding, not a solution of combat but a part of it, insta kills are sick, and it works as a fail safe if you get your guard broken); on offense, it has its moments, but it's very mashy in not a good way - a lot stance combos do not work (high stance forward heavy in back heavy is not a true combo, so why would I need it if enemy can hit me in between hits?), so, a lot of times, you just spam lights.
World is empty and is not interesting to explore. Jobs are boring and a lot of dedicated job givers have only two jobs that might not rotate, so you can do a repeat of a job the next day (MAYBE they have more jobs, but ones that I found gave me two jobs max).
Game promises you a non-linear story that really loose, but I really didn't like the story progression.
On my first playthrough I was roleplaying as "free samurai, who doesn't have a lord and just wants a good fight", so I tried really hard to not join any clans. I probably missed a story event while playing, and only way of progression left was to join a clan (I think I could just play without joining, but I wouldn't have any story events), so I did. Maybe because of the way I'm playing, maybe because game's progression is ass, but I didn't really even explore this clan's route, I didn't speak to side NPCs etc. before getting an ending. Basically, my playthrough was: running around, doing boring jobs and fighting minibosses (which, I admit, was fun and fitting for my roleplay), but almost zero story. The finale was good, if not for the infuriating save and death system: this ending has a really huge battle (one miniboss, A LOT of small enemies, one miniboss), and you can save only outside the castle before the finale, so if you die, you need to: watch a death animation, mash through a menu of my playthrough's stats, and from the main menu load the game and run from a save point to the finale trigger. Agony, straight agony.
Then I tried a second playthrough. I wanted to go a "farmer" route: be a pacifist, avoid conflict, be a good little boy that helps the village. After the second day "inklings" (the story events) stopped spawning - only ones that left on the map were the ones that join me to the clan. I really did try to not miss any village-related events, but now I'm stuck in the purgatory, it seems: I can only do boring jobs, talk to NPCs and sleep (and, of course, join a clan).
Two times I tried to roleplay a certain way, game gave me a middle finger. Not denying it, maybe it is my fault, but it's kind of wierd that every time I try going not completely on the rails (which will turn the game into "fast travel to inkling-watch cutscene-go to another inkling"), a "open-world game" goes limp and rejects me.
I REALLY tried to enjoy this game (I rage quitted a lot, but still returned), but game doesn't want to me to enjoy it. Idk, maybe I will try again, this time going directly by the book, from story event to story event (it will not fix an empty world, however), but, for now - what a mess.
