Totally new player here. The difficulty curve and game flow in the early game is a bit questionable. I'm liking that the game is completely open world, but there are a few gameplay consequences.
First of all, if you want the most out of the story, it makes sense to pick up all the characters ASAP. Doubly so because most characters seem to have something to say for the early quests. It's a minor thing, but for people who don't want to miss companion chatter, it's a bit necessary to meta game.
I didn't have much trouble dodging monsters and getting the majority of characters so far, but there isn't really a smooth curve with enemy lvls. Early game monsters in the forests like bees and plant ladies just destroys you. Some monsters in the elf forest does AOE damage to wipe your party. There is no AOE heal available. And if there was, it would probably have cost 100 MP based on what other skills cost. The 3 mages you fight to get Chiyo was absurd and required the silence skill and some luck.
Now comes the funny part. Character balance is really... well... It's kinda balanced, but not in the way you'd expect. Everyone sucks equally lol. This MC is a support character that heals and debuffs attack with TP and self buffs with his meager MP pool. The combo attack costs an absurd 45 MP when his MP pool barely hits 100 by lvl 20. And it seems to basically just be a 2x damage attack. Tsubaki does ass damage. Paladin dude can tank a bit and that's it. All mages are paper thin with mage equipment giving no physical defense at all and their HP being super low. Thief and archer are decent with their random target multi hitters. I actually loved the character concepts/skill sets that results in more or less unique companions in battles. I just feel like the game was balanced with end game characters in mind. The MP costs just doesn't make sense in the early game.
I'm sure eventually, after you unlock all the skills and get higher tier equips, the parties will kinda fall into place. At least that's my assumption. The early game curve is just really off though, imo. I'm using Iron equips and using the limited skill points to play around with the parties, but can't land on anything that really clicks.
That said, this game balance is way preferable to the usual mindless RPGM shit with no challenge at all. I just feel like maybe the dev focused too much on the end result and didn't quite think of the early game progression. Maybe it's the side effect of open world exploration, but the issue is that there is no real indication of newbie zones. Dungeons right next to the main city had lvl 20 slimes and such. Game design and balance is such a tricky beast, especially when you give so much freedom to the players.
Overall, I think it's a great game, but some fine tuning would make it exceptional. It reminds me a bit of The Last Sovereign, except that game had perfect balance due to the dev having complete control of the progression the player will go through.
