-Cleared on Expert-
Spoilers.
Most of my opinion was likely influenced from playing Rabi-Ribi recently along with playing the playtest. Overall, TEVI is a very fun game: it's not quite as good as Rabi-Ribi, but acceptable nevertheless.

Story: 2/5
Coming out of Rabi-Ribi, the story started off a bit interesting since it didn't seem like a lighthearted throwaway plot (not to say Rabi-Ribi's story was bad). Going to the relicts first more or less created that vibe. However, around the time I got to the last 2-3 chapters: the plot just becomes pretty forced. Alot of times I just wished that were options for multiple endings (more specifically a way to save some people) if I went to a certain region first or had a specific item in my inventory before continuing story (like a certain bell you get), but instead there seems to be no divergence in story progression. There was one point in the game that I thought a decision mattered, but I think it was just Roleo screwing with you to make you not explore more of the map to forget about some unexplored areas. By the time I reached the final area, some scenes pretty much had me thinking, "why in the world would you have any doubts at this point" or "the enemy isn't even trying to persuade you to give up." So, the story isn't outright offensive, but it definitely falls apart after a certain point from being too forced.

Gameplay: 5/5
Obviously this game was meant to be sold mostly because of gameplay and it's great. Playing the playtest made me assume that I had already ♥♥♥♥♥♥ my hands on all the sigils I'd be using for the main game, but instead there were plenty more to try out. For someone who played Armored Core VI, coming out of trying out mech parts and swapping them out for different encounters: TEVI gave me the exact same feeling when picking between using a loadout for general exploration, grounded bosses, or aerial encounters. Just like Rabi-Ribi, there would be plenty of times that I'd find a boss I like or disliked and then I'd make self-imposed challenges based on how much effort I wanted to put on the boss. In Rabi-Ribi it would be like, whether I wanted to clear the fight damageless (for achievement), no bunny amulet, or simply no consumables used. In TEVI's case, self imposed challenges could range from: limiting sigils, no consumables, no core expansion, no soul burst, I'm not quite sure about golden dodge but I guess that's an option too. Now, while golden dodge and core expansion are very cool new mechanics added to the game, I kind of wished that bosses counter played against these systems a little more. Yes, some bosses disabled core expansion: I think that's relatively good as is. Golden dodge on the other hand, while it is an amazingly fun way to play the game and maintain as much uptime on the boss as possible: I personally wouldn't mind more forced downtime or even better; more risks during during mechanics to make uptime scarier to maintain. The catacombs had that doom mechanic and the moment I got it: I assumed I'd be seeing a boss with that mechanic added in. Underworld Tyrant is PRETTY close, but by that point in the game, you pretty much build up so much break that it's not even a concern. In a sense, I guess I'm saying that due to all the system mechanics that let you bypass some mechanics of fights, while having no achievements to take no damage from bosses during the whole fight: it feels like you can just facetank some bosses pretty hard even on expert every once in awhile. Maybe that issue would be resolved when I play BBQ difficulty, but generally it just feels like a FFXIV raid situation where, "oh I got hit, I should've died or came super close to dying, instead I just got damage down debuffs." When I saw some achievements that were like, "witness X special attack," I was immediately thinking that some bosses would have instant kill mechanics if you got hit. Nevertheless, the bosses were mostly pretty entertaining all the way to the end. Moving away from battle, the game had a decent amount of exploration to do just like Rabi-Ribi. Due to the introduction of cross bomb and cluster bomb: it was entertaining to try to find all the items instead of expecting a 1:1 Rabi-Ribi exploration experience. I imagine plenty of Rabi-Ribi players were disappointed with the lack of hidden techniques to effectively explore everything in chapter 1 out the gate. I know you unlock some in free roam, but I feel like denying the experience of discovering an area for the first time with hidden techniques is a bigger loss of potential. There's probably much more to be said about gameplay, but this is what comes to mind right now. There were an enjoyable amount of Rabi-Ribi easter eggs in the game, and I was actually thinking of the chance that Erina and Ribbon would show up as a hidden boss, but I guess Illusion Alius will do for now... The easter egg achievement and the nostalgic bgm was REALLY good though. (Give us Erina skin please)

Graphics: 4/5
I mean, it's Rabi-Ribi 2. Not much else to be said here. Though, seeing the CG every now and then was really entertaining. Some attacks are way more prettier than others to see, like Amaryllis firing at you from the background.

Audio: 4/5
The music in this game is VERY good, but what makes this better than Rabi-Ribi especially after playing the playtest (which didn't have it): is the mental whiplash of hearing voice acting. I used the Rabi-Ribi voice mod for when Erina gets hit and simply hearing Tevi voice lines when dodging, attacking, getting hit just felt so shocking after hearing nothing in the playtest. The voice acting despite the lackluster story is really good. The only problem with the audio preventing it from getting a 5/5 would be that some long scenes with dialogue have no music playing whatsoever. While it is very motivating to hear Replica start playing mid dialogue, there were way too many moments where I'd expect to hear a bgm of some sort during a cutscene and nothing is playing at all, making the scene feel kind of awkward.

Game Time: 5/5
The main story would've probably taken me about ~16-18 hours without excess exploration. Given how there's going to be free DLC and probably more DLC in the future; this is good amount of game time while not dragging on whatsoever. TEVI - Is the order a DLC? and Vena Mode when?

Side Comments:
- I know they patched it once, but tornado spin has been accidentally inputted SO many times that it's potentially frustrating. I'd personally wish for an option to map it to a shortcut instead of being manually inputted. Ironically I use cross bomb so often with the manual input that I rather have tornado spin replace it as the shortcut instead. So I would actually just wish that some special commands were just mappable to shortcuts instead of an option toggling obscure input methods.
- I expect a chance of triple jump being enabled in the future with DLC or more bosses with a multi-jump mechanic like Malphage, but in spite of this: I wish hover could be activated by triple jumping instead of needing to hold up then jumping. The option to hover is so forgettable in boss fights that I ended up beating the game without hovering during bosses despite some boss mechanics probably wanting you to hover.

TEVI is 100% worth playing if you love metroidvania games. The freedom to move around may not be as good as Rabi-Ribi initially, but if you enjoy challenging boss fights with freedom on character builds: then the game will surely be worth playing.