Had a go for an hour and change today and first impression is that, contrary to the description, it IS quite grindy.
The text is well written, the art is very appealing, there’s a lot to like but it felt hard to find my footing at the start of the game.
I explored the mansion, read all the things then got to exploring the world. Since I picked Charm as my starting stat (felt like a tough choice, but adequate since the ability to recruit looked like a central concern) I gravitated a lot towards working in town. getting 30-45 gold even on the “good jobs/successful skill checks” doesn’t leave a lot of time to explore the game itself, when you burn through 20 a day.
But that also got less relevant when I couldn’t really do anything outside due to stats. 1+1 doesn’t really seem to enable you to pass any tests, so first order of business would be to bulk myself up but, +1 stat requiring 6 servants felt really harsh when my impression from the hypnotist just walking all over my 3+1 charm was that I’d need at least 5 in any stat I wanted to have any chance of being useful. That’s 6 servants for Charm and 24 for each other stat and servants aren’t that easy to come by outside of the detective quest. Having to rely on triggering the right event and, also, maybe succeeding a check.
So yeah, not sure if I ended up missing something, selecting “hard mode” by accident or whatever but the game felt like it would demand A LOT of time to allow me to settle.
Also: Consider adding some “mash skip” protection when the player is then presented with an option. I selected things by accident quite a few times. None of them were too much of an issue, but it’s a bit annoying