I'm 26 hours in and I'm loving this game a lot. Seriously it's giving Vespiria competition for my favorite Tales game. I like pretty much the entire cast and I definitely enjoy that Sorey isn't a complete moron. I enjoy how this feels like a more personal adventure since it's just the two human characters with Seraph support. Seraphs as a battle mechanic are also really cool because you get to use your entire party in encounters (I dislike having idle characters in my party).
I haven't had any major issues with the story so far. Sure maybe they take serious issues a bit too lightly sometimes but it's a jrpg after all, they're all kind of like that.
Edna is the best character of course, but I'm enjoying Lailah's terrible puns way too much... I know, I know.
So yeah, as I expected, the negativity surrounding this game was way overblown. Alisha was a typical boring princess character anyway and Rose is wonderful, so suck it haters
As for negatives I don't really like the skill equip system. I generally enjoy skill fusing in other games but the way you need to create unions and keep track of a bunch of stuff just to upgrade gear is a huge hassle. So much so that I've pretty much said fuck it and just end up half assing my gear. It seems like with a few tweaks it would be a lot better but the way it is now is not great. I'm sure there's more depth if you're into min-maxing and grinding for the right drops, but I'm not.