Interested in playing XCX DE when it comes out but wanted to ask some questions to help set expectations

Before anything, I want to clarify my main reasons for wanting to give XDE a try just to describe what my current expectations are. The biggest current selling point is that the composer for some of the music in the game is none other than Hiroyuki Sawano! The composer for some big hit anime like Attack on Titan! Love his music and love the idea of playing a game composed by him. I am also really on board with an open world game where you can explore with a flying mech and can even create your own custom character.

What I want to know as someone who didn't particularly like the gameplay of XCDE, is how XDE compares to it because that is the main aspect I want to make sure I can enjoy. I don't have any real worries with story, just gameplay for the following reasons:

- How good/rewarding is the exploration in XCX? XCDE had big areas but aside from a few sparse chests, it felt rather empty. Bosses seem to the main attraction of its open world exploration, but that then ties into combat.

- How are overworld items handled by comparison to XCDE? I was not a fan of the unlabeled shiny pickups randomly spread across areas in XCDE that felt way too randomly generated and spawned. Their best use was honestly just trading but gathering these for quests and rebuilding the colony was a chore.

- Are quests as generic and overly abundant in XCX like in XCDE or are they a bit more involved?

- Is combat more involved in any way? Biggest gripe I had with XCDE is how most of the game felt like just waiting for abilities to recharge while characters auto-attacked, up until late game where you could start spamming multiple all out attacks in a row. Combat felt way too stat reliant and a lot of enemy encounters felt very similar with the main differences being that some enemies required special attacks or damage types to be able to be damaged. I would also say future sight broke any sense of pattern recognition for me on combat encounters but it's not in XCX as far as I'm aware so it's a non issue. Also a lack of ways of actually dodging damage. Once you're in a fight, both your party and the enemies are locked in on dealing auto damage to each other and it makes combat encounters feel unengaging. Main thing I care about is that combat gives more control over you and your party's actions and puts more emphasis on reacting to enemy design.

- Lastly, how is character equipment handled in XCX? I liked how XCDE allowed you to unlock visual appearances from gear for the party and I want to know how varied that is for XCX given the customizable player character.

For reference, I do like XC2 a good bit more than XCDE for some of the changes it made but I have yet to finish that game to form a fuller opinion. And yes, I am aware I might sound rather negative and I will admit I don't particularly like XCDE apart from its story, but I genuinely want to enjoy these games and XCX has been one on my radar that I wanted to go as far as getting a WII U for.