I have never played the series so the setting and characters make little sense to me. It seemed just like a random side story with the dwarves and lots of robots. I did like that the cutscenes were much shorter which makes things a bit more mysterious compared to the extremely cutscene/exposition heavy Ivalice raids.

Mechanics were a bit different but nothing too outrageous after learning. The raid felt like it went by very quickly with less running between bosses and less trash? Maybe thats just me.

The final boss music was pretty and was lucky enough to get the orchestrion on my first clear.