So I played this for a few hours in total and the game isn't really clicking with me so far (forgive the unintentional pun). For the record, I'm not extremely far in I think, but I've already gotten the boulder smashing ability, beaten the tree boss, and explored a lot of the Endless Maze or whatever it's called, and found several tablets and diary entries, as well as played around with several different guardian spirits.
So far, the game absolutely lacks any challenge compared to Ys games like Oath or Origin or even Napishtim - I just steamroll my way through everything, never lacking in money, experience or equipment upgrades. Ys's enemies and bosses are, imho, much more challenging and interesting, even early on. I could gimp myself by not upgrading I guess, but that would defeat the hack and slash nature of the game. Speaking of which, I've never been a fan of Diablo so this game's less action-ey and more click-clickety-click combat compared to Ys isn't terribly exciting for me either. No idea why anyone would say this has better combat than Ys, at least as far as the Ys games in the Oath engine are concerned.
Got several healing potions and a few of Char's picnic baskets too, which I never use. I feel like this game really needs a harder difficulty setting - or you need to play it without upgrading too much.
The writing is also a bit too dull. You might say it's the same in Ys, but actually I find Ys's writing to be pretty good, with plenty of amusing and lighthearted moments and an occasional funny line. Not so much of that here.
I'll keep playing because it's definitely not bad, though not as great as I expected either. I just hope it becomes more interesting and challenging later (but even if it does, the point of this post is that I've found the first few hours fairly lackluster).