Just finished this too.
I think the main areas where it definitely falls short of PST is the characters and lack of humor. I would also add pacing as the game feels like it is too much “only reading” even when compared to PS:T which always had random fights here and there between the walls-of-texts to break up the monotony. Tide is 95% town crawls.
I think I only did like 5 fights the entire game and I think only 2 or 3 are required because the plot demands it. And those plot “fights” were a breath of fresh air (except for the time the game essentially soft locked in the middle of a long ass fight during an AI opponents turn…end your turn you son of a bitch AKA always the worst bug in turn-based games!)
The lack of interesting characters is the real killer though. That was arguably the best thing about PST. One character has a nice twist right at the end of the game but all their backstories(or lack thereof) and personalities and quest lines are kinda meh and I couldn’t care less.