Honestly, it has it's moments, but overall the game feels like it tried to sit on two chairs at once (action combat and JRPG) and then fell off both.
Good:
- Cinematic fight moments are absolutely beautiful. This might be FF with the most glorious basic magic effects and summons.
- While spaced incredibly wide apart, there are some great emotional beats.
- Conceptually cool Blue Mage style magic system that you can mix-and-match to suit your playstyle.
- The moogles are cute in this one!
Mixed:
- Overall the story has an incredible premise and beginning, falls off in the middle, then picks up at the end. Unfortunately, there's 40-80 hours of "the middle".
- Splendid voice actors with horrible voice direction. Dry, often apathetic, line reads misplaced as realistic or bleak. It's just not entertaining to listen.
- You have a decent amount of abilities to unlock and no reason to ever swap from the six you're using because element-typing means nothing.
- An interesting, personable cast of characters given no banter or breathing room to be appreciated. I'm not even sure the "love interest" couple is aware they are supposed to be in love most of the time.
- Most non-MSQ dialogue is not fully voiced or animated, which makes the game feel incomplete.
- The lore and worldbuilding are incredible. But it's all in an in-game encyclopedia of hundreds of analytical, dry paragraphs. Feels incomplete and lazy.
- Eikon fights are REALLY AMAZING TO WATCH. Not fight. But watching them is cool.
- When the emotional scenes or character cast is given time, it is masterfully done and enjoyable to witness. It's just infrequent, which is frustrating when you can see the potential it had to be great.
- Interesting world-building in DLCs but the pacing is at odds with the urgency of the main quest at the point they're introduced.
Bad:
- Linear upgrades and crafting path that feel meaningless. Exploration and sidequests tend to reward materials for this boring equipment structure.
- Stilted, dry dialogue that's also too slow to get to its point most of the time.
- You are allowed 3 solid facial expressions per chapter and no more.
- Cutscenes are often split up by minor 30-second walking sections or needing to interact with an item, making the SKIP button save you almost no time.
- Characters often don't believably care about urgency, emotions, or even their own sidequest introductions.
- Sidequests feel pointless, often used to showcase how bleak the bleak world with the bleak MSQ is coping at the given story bit. The despair and disinterest eat away at what could have been poignant discussion on why we fight to survive when the world falls into despair. It often feels like you're just being kicked while down or wasting time that could be spent saving the world. Too many quests end on what I would consider a "failure" condition or misery.
- Your "party" (if it can be called that) has no customization or banter, nor do they do meaningful DPS or support, making me wonder why they exist at all. The voicing they provide enroute to objectives is typically "oh, its that place we're walking toward" and "we should hurry".
- Dungeons are linear combat gauntlets leading to boss fights that are HP sinks with stagger meters that induce phase changes (instead of letting you benefit from the stagger).
- The Stagger Meter era of Final Fantasy has become incredibly stale conceptually. Do button that builds meter. Do button that increases stagger damage. Do button that does most damage. Repeat.
- One-button QTE events replace a meaningful combat system for some of the bigger fight scenes, reducing their value and intent. I don't feel powerful. I feel like I'm watching the game play itself anytime something cool happens while also being unable to fully appreciate cutscenes because I have to watch for the QTE events.
Unforgiveable (DLC SPOILERS):
[spoiler] - WHAT DID YOU DO TO TONBERRIES [/spoiler]
[spoiler] - WHY ARE THEY LIKE THAT. [/spoiler]
[spoiler] - OH GOD IT'S LOOKING AT ME. [/spoiler]
