Got 15% of the trophies in the first 2 hours, and I didn't even get the one for driving the car yet.
Actual impressions:
The game starts by letting you do a combat tutorial and I think there's another tutorial about dialog or something, I dunno skipped it. Then there's a quasi playable section with no setup of any kind, some nice particle effects, names for your dudes and fade to black. Another cutscene with no context and almost no information, then fade to black. Another quasi playable section where you push the car, some banter and then it pans up and shows you the name of the game and Florence and the Machine plays. After that what you get into is a more fleshed out version of the start of the really old demo from last year, your car is busted, it'll get fixed, go do some stuff to kill time.
At this point you're pretty much free to do whatever, aside from the fact that you don't have the car or any gil. You can take on hunts, peruse shops, wander the countryside etc etc. In a lot of ways it reminds me of The Witcher 3, although unlike that game it actually lets you get out and start exploring a lot quicker (the above stuff takes maybe 10 minutes?).
The game has a decent number of sub-systems as well. There's like 8 different tabs of things to spend AP on for both in and out of combat skills. There's your normal equipment stuff, magic fusion, each characters special sub skill, car customization etc etc. The growth systems look sorta shallow but its really hard to tell after only 2 hours. I think after completing a bunch of hunts, 2 story quests and 1 side quest I had only hit level 5-6 and amassed maybe 200ish AP (possibly less). Also pretty much all systems have really light FTUE, essentially just a couple of quick text boxes that give very brief intros to the systems. None of the usual modern game stuff where they force you to go through every step while someone narrates it. It was kind of nice that it isn't over bearing like that.
Exploring was generally pretty fun. You can ask dudes at the diners to put stuff on your map, but I also discovered a bunch of stuff just by walking around. I had one great "oh shit" moment where I tried to get some ingredients and aggro'd something 30+ levels higher than me and had to run away. I wish foot travel was a little faster and that it was easier to figure out what I can and can't scale, but that's a quibble I have with almost any open world game.
Given that it's a 30+ hour RPG you can't pass judgment on the combat after 2 hours, but I'll say that there's nothing in the first 2 hours that will change the minds of anyone who didn't like past demos.
The best thing so far is absolutely the random conversations and reactions you and your bros have while walking around. The first time I used magic (lightning) was incredibly entertaining for the unintentional consequences it had.
There's already a lot of fan service stuff for long time series fans, from remixes of certain musical themes throughout locations, to the fact that you can outright buy soundtracks from other games to listen to in the car, to the pixel art versions of your characters used in shop menus.
Overall I want to play more, but since I'm a quasi responsible adult I'm going to bed instead.
I should note I watched the animu on Youtube but have not yet watched Kingsglaive.