Do you like the recent Trails games? I tried the oldest, and found it a mountain of reading, like a light novel.
IMO Trail in The Sky (the oldest to ME), was one of the best, although admittedly they use the same exact world map for part 1 and 2 and playing both in a row you really notice it, but they have alot of content you can miss and even carries over if you get 100% completion to give you really nice perks starting the second.
The battle system is almost identical with the quarts and CP based skills, if not a bit more complex (confusing at first, but intense once mastered)
The story in those games after you get past the beginning is much much better than any of the newer ones, but this is one of the ones unreleased in the west previously and ported by fans (or at least started that way), so I only know as I'm playing and I've obviously been a bit overwhelmed to bother much with gaming.
To answer your question simply, I didn't get as drawn in playing the new ones such as Cold Steel, I have beat part 1 and 2 but I'm still just sitting somewhere in part 3 and I decided to play this one instead...already the old style humour in the story has me more interested than that games better graphics and free movement on the field did.
I am a fan of both, but I believe the older ones (which these are based on) are actually better as far as story goes, where the new ones have more free exploration which allows for more optional content and better ways to hide optional content.
The novel you mentioned is what makes the classic games...and this is worse with a "voice over" , but if you can stand it, a hilarious scene lol.
The much shorter version, which actually takes some of the humour from it tbh...
forget fully automated, its already a problem.
