Solasta is mostly about rules and combat. But i dislike the artstyle. It has a pretty dull boring generic story. And the ambience is too much structural geometric for my taste. But i think is the limitation of the grid based system.
I haven't played Solasta yet, but I was following the development and I must say I have high hopes for their next game. With more cash from Solasta's success (that I expect), they could work out a lot of its flaws (you've pinpointed them quite well, I think), maybe move away from the grid system, improve graphics. My main hope for the next game is more story focus though.
But as for Solasta itself... honestly, I'm impressed that looking at this game makes want to play it. Me, who isn't a fan of "combat-first" and custom parties in cRPGs, and who hates TB. And the devs seem to work hard on improving the game; I'm curious about the "Winter Patch". As far as I can tell from the preview, the character models improved considerably.
