tl;dr bad story saved by great animation DISCLAIMER: I did not know that this was based on a game before watching this. There is probably a lot of background knowledge I don't have that would have made this a better film to watch. The movie starts with a really strong opening. 1st there's some exposition on the setting which is kind of boring but needed but then it goes straight into an action scene where you see what is essentially the apocolypse. After this strong opening it then goes straight onto introducing the main protagonist of the movie. It does this all in a way that feelsnatural and the pacing flows well.

I will avoid spoilers here but from here on out the pacing changes in a janky and inconsitent way. It goes from really slow scenes to ramping up the speed to where it can be a little difficult to keep then going right back down to moving like a turtle.

I won't give a direct spoiler for the ending however if you do want to watch this film you may want to skip the rest of this paragraph. The ending is probably the worst "power of friendship endings" since soul eater and that's pretty impressive considering soul eater had high school kids beat a villain that literally god couldn't.

The saving grace of this movie is literally everything else. The animation is stunning, the CGI fits in well (that's right actual good use of CGI in an anime deserves a watch just for that). The music was well done, voice actors did a great job.

in conclusion if you watch this don't expect much from the story but you will enjoy every other aspect.