The other thing I forgot to mention concerning the combat is something BoB mentioned, which is how he liked the fact the game makes you pay attention, but I disagree that this is a good thing.

The issue I have is that normal battles just aren't engaging. Most of the time I'm just paying attention to the Stagger counter while occasionally glancing at the party health to see if I need to switch to a medic. So much is going on the screen, half the time it's hard to follow. XV has a similar issue where combat almost felt like you were watching one of those old cartoon fights where everything disappears into a giant dust cloud as fists and lightning zap out of it. So nothing is really happening during combat, but you have to pay attention in case the enemies decide to gang up on the party leader. So combat gets a bit more tedious and boring for me because it's not engaging enough to hold my interest, but I'm forced to pay attention anyway. Random Encounters feel like school work to me, and it is draining.

Boss fights can alleviate this, but there are surprisingly few in the game so far.