Finished this yesterday. I have some gripes, but I must say the ending really picked up and made for a very interesting final stretch.

Some gripes:
(SPOILER)Never did Shadar come across as particularly threatening. Sure, there are some brokenhearted lot, but excluding the nightmares the common folk were all easy to fix. I wouldn't think of him as a villain set out for mass destruction, but more of a thief or fraud who's making some people's lives a bit miserable. The villain-laziness is grand in this one; "yes I will finish you later" or "you linger a little longer" until of course it's too late. Shadar is one clumsy villain.

The puzzles; holy Kuni some of them are terribly designed. I hate the fact that the game does not let you think for yourself for just one bit. It suffers heavily from the Okami virus where redundant dialogue ruins every moment where you think you can figure something out by yourself.

And last but not least there is a lot of filler. It took me 45 hours to beat including doing quite a lot of sidequests, but all that redundant dialogue and fetch quests make some parts of the game a real chore. And that is also why the world doesn't feel like it's threatened; people go about their business like there's nothing going on. Someone is supposedly trying to destroy the world but here I am collecting feathers for some lass' swimsuit.

Some props: (SPOILER)Final stretch is epic. Cool plottwists, a hidden villain rises to the stage, some mindgames and a bit of psychedelica make a grand finale. It might be a case of too little too late because some filler parts have little to none value to the story, but having a grand finale is at least something.

Micro managing familiairs and forging weapons is pretty fun. There are a lot of challenges and hidden battles which make exploring worth it.