Including the mainline series?
Yes, but I haven't played all the mainline games, and I'm not the biggest fan of the mainline series.
Boy do I have some questions for you.
How long did it take you?
Was the language barrier ever too difficult for you to proceed?
How does the combat change as the game progresses?
And finally, do you see yourself dropping back in the world to make more items and shit? What about the extra modes? Do they tug you back in as well?
No idea how long it took. Doesn't seem to be any sort of in game timer. I want to say 30~40 hours but I don't know for sure.
I spent 54, 47, 44, and 31 in game days on the respective chapters.
I can read Japanese so the language is not an issue.
The combat doesn't really change. You are using your sword/hammer to attack monsters.
There are some items you can use though to help you out, like a cannon which I would use for fighting large monsters, or a vehicle you can drive into enemies (which was a little OP in my opinion).
I am tempted to go back in and free build. Each chapter you beat, the recipes you learn in that chapter can be used in the other mode, so I kind of want to unlock a bunch of recipes and then go building.
I also want to try platinum-ing the game in the future, but that depends entirely on whether all the challenges have to be completed on the same playthrough or not (if somebody knows please inform me).