Well in this case its both a souls game (which rarely have a story upfront enough to consider) and fucking Journey to the West for the trillionth time (meaning it can't do anything new or unique).

But based on the extreme focus both the marketing and the reviews are giving to the "presentation" it almost certainly is bogged down by cutscenes and other story elements that slow the gameplay loop down, which is a thing many soulslikes fail to compensate for.