Lack of pause in offline mode is just dumb, especially in a game with time constraints being the driving force behind it.

Not sure how I ended up in the game... but a few days ago I got my 3-year emblem and I think I missed only 2 days over those 3 years.
I'm in the game mainly for the story, love the hell out of it.
The soundtrack complements it nicely.
As for the gameplay itself, well.... it is a gacha with surprisingly deep and complex mechanics.
As for the monetization - you don't need to pay at all, I only buy the counter passes and occasional quartz to accelerate things a bit.

IMO the game is perfectly balanced in everything it does.

Audio aspects - great, they add to the atmosphere even tho the music is probably not going to haunt me.
Visuals - can't say a bad word about them.
Combat - pretty simple, but fun, requires at least a bit of skill.
Rest of the gameplay - nothing to write home about. The inventory/datapad thing could be better, more intuitive and faster (waiting time for opening inventory is meh), but it does its job decently. Lack of handholding and minimap forced me to use notepad a lot, so it surely isn't a leisure experience, but it did feel nice in the end.
The atmosphere - this is where the game shines. The mist of not knowing anything slowly (very slowly) disperses and it feels you with more and more <insert feeling... not sure which one tho>
Main story - well, there is some, but it feels so tiny comparing to the massive lore.
The lore - so yeah, I'm not a fast reader so I can estimate that reading everything the game had to offer took me at least a few hours. If you want to get the whole picture (which you should) then you need to practically 100% the game and read a lot.

All in all I feel satisfied after finishing it, but I wouldn't mind a DLC or a few (story,, combat, maybe more lore)... or a sequel... They did leave a nice big window open for a second perspective and a second set of spheres...

Seems I love Creeper World in any shape and form ^^