The simple and cheerful world looks beautiful and offer appealing real time combat. It just oozes non-stop charm!
I usually prefer more substantial side characters, but the recruitment system really adds some fun game play here. There are a lot of characters in the world, and you can get most of them to join you so you can choose them for your battle party. You only control the main character, Jack Russell, as the other party members are AI controlled, although you are able to learn commands you can give out to have them do what you need or want them to instead so you can some tactical control.
So, as I said, I ended up doing two full play-throughs of the game. See, there is a major decision you have to make about half way through the game, and so there are basically two separate games from that point on. I did one option the first time around, and had made an extra save spot so I could go back to play the other option right from there. However, once I finished the first play though, I opted to just start all the way over with the New Game+ feature which lets me keep some items, money, and skills from the first play through.
I put around 40 hours into the fist play-through, but did so in under a week. Which is very quick for me, but makes since this game really drew me in with its charm and fun game play. After my second play through, I had logged over 92 hours into the game and was really drawn into recruiting as many characters as I could the second time around.