>>13263528I've recently finished the story mode, here is my impression so far:
(I've only played Blue Rescue Team and Gates to Infinity, so excuse me if I mention anything that was already present in any of the games inbetween)
I honestly don't know if the DLC is necessary to have a full experience. The main story utilizes maybe 8 different dungeons at the most, but you're constantly unlocking new dungeons for independent missions/exploring, sometimes at 2 or 3 or even 4 brand new dungeons at a time.
You build your own "Paradise", which is basically building your own shops and placing upgrading them as you wish. It's very affordable and gives you a little more motivation to do those independent missions, since you're paid mostly in building materials.
No hunger meter. No hunger meter. No hunger meter.
I suppose the only "downside" is that it's full to the brim with story cutscenes, and these cutscenes last FOREVER. I felt that it was extremely text-heavy compared to the earlier games, because the story mode usually follows a "mission -> cutscene -> mission ->cutscene" pattern with almost no time for you to just do whatever you want.
And as far as the main story missions go, there is a very noticeable drop in difficulty. In the postgame you can play harder missions in all kinds of different ways, but in the main game I don't think I had to trek through a single dungeon that was deeper than (B)15f. No Sky Tower in this game. And even then, the story-related dungeons have depositbox/saving checkpoints in almost all of them.
So when you pair the drawn-out cutscenes with the low difficulty, it felt like you were spending a roughly equal amount of time actually playing and then also reading text.
Even though that sounds like a big no-no I still find it to be very enjoyable.
