I started playing
And... that sure is an interesting game.
Yes, it looks like Octopath Traveler and all, but it really isn't a Chinese clone beyond the similar visuals.
The combat is more akin to Live A Live with grid movement+ATB... but also an optional real time mode where everything happens at once, incredibly useful to make the boring parts go faster (and melt your face in seconds if you use it against enemies beyond your team), no random encounters but visible enemies with a rough estimate of their strength (and some ambushes too), no XP of any sort but only skill points to upgrade the very, very large skill list to find and learn all over the world, cultivation skills coming with stats, the others with passive bonuses, tons of materials for crafting and almost every NPC carries stuff around that you can get by sparring them...
But it also has a straight up open world (mostly, with some story limits), factions to side with, tons of companions to recruit with their stories and quests, and some important choices to make all over (including screwing you out of some of it, this is not a game to 100% without a guide, but then that's the point of factions and different endings...).
I'm really surprised at how... rich it tries to be. Sometimes it feels like Gothic, sometimes like Suikoden, other times like Mount&Blade... really odd feeling to play a game that is unique by being reminiscent of so many other games - sometimes in very different genres.
Sadly, you can see the cracks fairly fast, as it's not really trying to tell a complex story, the main character is really bland, and the balance can get really out of whack real fast with how open it is - nothing stops you from running around to get broken skills and recipes, grind enough points and materials to max them out and then roll over large parts of the game.
It sure is entertaining. Oh and for once in a Chinese RPG, the English translation is really good. There's still a lot of terms that will be a bit confusing if you don't know wuxia, but at least the mechanics and story are quite straightforward so it's probably a lot more approchable than games like Gujian or Sword&Fairy.