Is it discount Gundam in terms of philosophy ?  No, I see where you'd get that, but I suspect the person who wrote that didn't really look too hard at the side missions. There is a great diversity of content there. I daresay the consuls you get in the main storyline are some of the worst.

The combat is really good and the gameplay is what I'd expect of playing a whole party in an JRPG in real time. Graphically, it's very good, though, indeed limited by the fact it's on Swich.

My biggest gripe with it is that it's easy to get overleveled and not get any more job exp, which is barely explained, if at all. You get the ability to levels down as you finish the game, but it would have been nice to have it from the start.