Metaphor: ReFantazio - Part 2 (No Commentary)

A casual first time playthrough of Metaphor: ReFantazio, Atlus' new big budget JRPG which strays from their usual fare of going for more modern/post-apocalyptic style in their games, this one just goes for a more standard fantasy setting but as usual with their games things seem to get a bit weird.
In this part I go through the Mausoleum which I suppose could be considered the games' first "proper" dungeon which uses the games' standard gameplay loop and yeah it does seem like very reminiscent of Persona 5 more than anything in terms of all that, its got the calendar system, personality stats you can increase, I guess some manner of social links to increase the power of your personas/archetypes, the dungeons got safe rooms and its heavily built around managing your resources in the sense that you can only fully restore yourself by leaving the dungeon and as such having to spend more of the calendar days in the dungeon instead of outside boosting yourself, though compared to Persona 5 it does seem like you're getting a whole lot more resources including MP restoration items so I can see the thing breaking even earlier in comparison IDK.
Battle gameplay so far has been just as surface level as I feared coming from SMT5, hitting enemies with the elements with the big weak symbol and making them not have a chance to act is the only real facet to it, sadly, I stand by that press turn is not a good system and it's just been getting worse and worse with each game that has it, hilariously enough the battles don't ultimately even matter since it seems like you don't even get a customary smack on the wrist or anything if you end up losing one (which only really seems to realistically happen if you get ambushed on the field), you're just sent right back on the field with the enemy gone and statistics back to where they were as if the battle never even happened. Like, why? What's the point? Even the big boss battle ended up being very similar to the Persona 5 ones where it's just a massive blob of HP so it gets to do its little cycle of moves over and over again, there's not really much to it, maybe it gets better later but so far I'm throughly unimpressed by the battle gameplay, I guess it's snappy at least and as unengaging as the battle system itself it, it makes me mind a little bit less that so much of it is tied to the action part on the overworld. I theoritically like the class system and the like but when its in service of such a weak battle system I do find it tough to care.
Unlike with SMT5 however I've so far quite enjoyed some of the other aspects of the game the dungeon exploration here is miles better than the awful open areas in that game, it's very cinematic and filled with events which doesn't really offer much in ways or replayability I'd imagine but it works for a first time experience, but what really has me hooked is the world and the story, I quite like, it's like a standard fantasy world, but really REALLY wacky. I love all the weird character and enemy designs, the musics been great, it's a bit of a sensory overload though sometimes when there's so much going on in the screen.