Now you’ve gone and pissed me off, Square. A hundred hours of playtime. Surely a stamp of approval? An indication of time well spent?
Square, your greed led you to convert a gacha game into a standalone single-player product. This will be my first and last purchase of such a thing. Could it be done well? Possibly. By you? No.
There were plenty of cool ideas here. The base building and the eight-player team roster are welcome changes, and I hope they are iterated upon and carried into the next title. However, the talent and hours wasted here should have been allocated toward Octopath 3. I have no doubt it would have sold better and been well worth the extra year or two of development time. Instead, we got this lazy mobile game port.
Almost every aspect of this game is a downgrade, minus the two mechanics I mentioned. The art and asset design are a step down. One of the biggest tragedies is walking away from this without a single "earworm" from a series known for its magnificent soundtracks and battle themes. Truly a loss.
7/10 was my genuine vibe as I neared the end of my playthrough. Despite the downgrades, nothing was truly offensive, and I enjoyed my lengthy time with it.
Until... it all hit me at once. I woke up one Saturday morning knowing the closing act was near. What followed was unforgivable: eight hours of the most abysmal dungeon designs, tacked on at the end like an afterthought. At that moment, the predatory aspects of the gacha experience hit me: padding—so much padding—meant to provide a false sense of value.
Your dungeon designs for the final two areas were uninspiring and offensive. I opened my maps to see 25+ unobtained chests and mini-bosses; my OCD could not ignore it. I pressed on, but by that point, I no longer cared about the story. I skipped and skipped. Those eight hours are the length of a standalone title like Miles Morales. How long would it have been if I actually engaged?
Who in their right mind would keep listening when the "payoff" is to be punished by lazy map and puzzle design? Also, I never want to play an RPG with random encounters again. It is a poorly aged mechanic that I simply ignored, but no longer. My taste and tolerance have changed, and it’s all thanks to you, Square.
Then you had the audacity to make us run through every nook of Wishvale, thoroughly illuminating all 30+ units. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that portion alone felt longer than actually recruiting them through the story. My experience soured dramatically. You’ve done it; you made something so mind-numbingly boring that I got flashbacks to Monster Hunter: World scoutfly investigations.
6/10. I will not be recommending this to any of my friends. Never take this route again. It only brings pain.
