Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is a fine game.

It's short enough that most of issues can be swept under the rug or tolerated.

The story's decent enough, it tries to paint a wall of grey moral situations but sadly never fully explore the dilemmas that could be brought out of them. There are four party members available in this game. I ended up having the two characters that I initially disliked grow up on me (Kalden and Tiziana), as they had decent character development. The other two felt neglected and/or just plain boring, even though they were initially interesting when introduced. I totally DESPISED the ending.

The combats are fun as you unlock more abilities through story milestones. The game is relatively easy, even when playing on the hardest difficulty. I liked how, for a party-based real-time rpg I did not have to use tactical mode often to win battles. The drawback to that meant that fights were relatively simple and ended up being repetitive toward the end, being limited to 4 active abilities per character.

The skill tree has decent customization, and as the main character you get to pick an element for which you'll get some unique abilities that differ from those available to your allies. There's also an 'Ink' and 'Engravures' system, which, honestly, is rather bland. You'll also come across multiple masks throughout the game which let you change you or your allies' ultimate abilities. Most of them are terrible, but finding one that was better than the initial mask was somewhat rewarding.

There is a new game plus mode available after finishing the game, but due to the game's linearity and repetitiveness, I have no interest in trying it at all.

TLDR;

[+] Completely voice acted.
[+] Game is pretty.
[+] Customization through: Elemental Brand / Skill Trees / Masks / Inscriptions & Engravures.
[+/-] Combat is fun but 'Normal fights' gets easy and repetitive toward the end of the game.
[+/-] Story and characters are interesting but some characters/arcs lack development.
[+/-] Game is relatively short [~12h].
[-] Game is completely linear
[-] The ending is completely boring

Buy it on sale.