a LOT of misconceptions about this game

yes, this is a mobile gacha (you pull for weapons, not characters)
no, this is not a proper remake of the compilation games (also it's VERY incomplete)
is it pay2win? yes and no (see below)

here's a quick rundown of all the thing you need to know (port/graphics/outfits are good, i won't write about them):

• - Story Mode: at the time of writing, this game covers the og ff7 story up to junon, crisis core story up to banora and there are 5 chapters of the exclusive First Soldier (Sephiroth) story (and so far it's pretty bad, not even worth watching on youtube). The story is adapted in forms of "chapters", which are a mix of narration/battle/dungeon "exploration". Now, all of these are very well done, EXCEPT for the midgar part of of ff7. it's so rushed it's laughable, and it really leaves a bad taste in your mouth. so if you only care about seeing the og ff7 story remade with good graphics, then this is an easy skip
  
• - Gameplay: this is DEFINITELY the best part of the game. that said, 90% of content can be done with recommended auto-equip and on auto-battle. BUT, if you try tackling content above your power level, that's where this game shines. you'll need a perfect understanding of team building mechanics in order to make a team that potentially COULD beat the boss you're facing, and then you have to actually beat it on manual, by memorizing enemy attack patterns, optimizing atb usage (of all 3 characters in real time), and again, having a a VERY deep understainding of battle mechanics otherwise you won't pull it off. Dungeons add 1 more layer of difficulty by making you find the optimal route, taking the optimal upgrades, managing item usage, etc... Basically, at that 10%, Ever Crisis becomes a skill-based "puzzle" game, and this is where it REALLY shines (finally beating the hardest boss after 10h+ of retries felt better than beating any boss in any souls game for reference).
  
• - Monetization: the monetization is GOOD. basically this game is design to NOT let you spend money on it by making everything ridiculously overpriced. for reference, if you want to do a 10-pull on weapons you need to spend like $15. but if you consider all the free gems, free pulls, free tickets, etc... in practice you do 2+ 10-pulls per day on average FOR FREE, and it's been like this from the game's launch (for reference i did 4000+ free pulls in total). this game is VERY generous when it comes to free stuff (and the odds for gold weapons are very good (7.5%), and you only need 1 copy of some of them to clear most of the content).
  so what's the point of spending money? there are none unless you are a whale who wants to catch up with the power creep within a week. of ALL the content, the only whale "exclusive" things in the game are 3 cosmetic banners icons and 5 cosmetic profile banners (also 5 cosmetic wallpapers but those are relatively cheap). that's literally it. and most of those are from the first 3 months of the game's lifetime, because now a f2p player can clear ALL the content (assuming he started playing on launch).
  the only other exception is that you can't get ALL the gears with the free gems, but you can get something like half of them (basically pull only on arcanums and crossovers), so it's more than okay for gameplay purposes since those are the only really "good" ones.
  also a lot of reviews are talking about aggressive popups, but those will mostly go away after the first few days so they are not an issue at all.
  
• - QoL mechanics: this is the biggest offender. this game doesn't value your time. stuff that should be done with 1 click (like all the daily mission) require at least 30m DAILY. also you can't skip fights even if you are 10x stronger than the enemy. auto-equip is GARBAGE for anything above your power level, the companion ai is super annoying (remember those manual fight i wrote about where you need to manage atb of all 3 characters? that's half the battle, fighting against you own AI to prevent it from doing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥). also there's other UI issues that STILL haven't been fixed after 4 months, even if everybody keeps complaining about them (not being able to batch-convert materials, auto-resetting equip on extra fights, no retry button, the whole materia ui, etc...). this stuff has no excuse

tl;dr:
gacha fan and ff7 fan: recommended but you'll need to invest a lot of time in order to "get good"
not gacha fan but an ff7 fan: give it a try. if you'll manage to endure the first week, you will probably enjoy the daily grind
gacha fan but not an ff7 fan: skip it, there are better gachas
not gacha fan and not ff7 fan: obvious skip

technically my verdict is "mixed", but i'm leaving this review as positive since i assume most people interested in this are already fans of FF7 universe and it's kinda sad seeing them missing out because of few popups and blatantly unfair reviews...

a LOT of misconceptions about this game yes, this is a mobile gacha (you pull for weapons, not characters) no, this is not a proper remake of the compilation games (also it's VERY incomplete) is it pay2win? yes and no (see below) here's a quick rundown of all the thing you need to know (port/graphics/outfits are good, i won't write about them): [list] [*]- Story Mode: at the time of writing, this game covers the og ff7 story up to junon, crisis core story up to banora and there are 5 chapters of the exclusive First Soldier (Sephiroth) story (and so far it's pretty bad, not even worth watching on youtube). The story is adapted in forms of "chapters", which are a mix of narration/battle/dungeon "exploration". Now, all of these are very well done, EXCEPT for the midgar part of of ff7. it's so rushed it's laughable, and it really leaves a bad taste in your mouth. so if you only care about seeing the og ff7 story remade with good graphics, then this is an easy skip [*]- Gameplay: this is DEFINITELY the best part of the game. that said, 90% of content can be done with recommended auto-equip and on auto-battle. BUT, if you try tackling content above your power level, that's where this game shines. you'll need a perfect understanding of team building mechanics in order to make a team that potentially COULD beat the boss you're facing, and then you have to actually beat it on manual, by memorizing enemy attack patterns, optimizing atb usage (of all 3 characters in real time), and again, having a a VERY deep understainding of battle mechanics otherwise you won't pull it off. Dungeons add 1 more layer of difficulty by making you find the optimal route, taking the optimal upgrades, managing item usage, etc... Basically, at that 10%, Ever Crisis becomes a skill-based "puzzle" game, and this is where it REALLY shines (finally beating the hardest boss after 10h+ of retries felt better than beating any boss in any souls game for reference). [*]- Monetization: the monetization is GOOD. basically this game is design to NOT let you spend money on it by making everything ridiculously overpriced. for reference, if you want to do a 10-pull on weapons you need to spend like $15. but if you consider all the free gems, free pulls, free tickets, etc... in practice you do 2+ 10-pulls per day on average FOR FREE, and it's been like this from the game's launch (for reference i did 4000+ free pulls in total). this game is VERY generous when it comes to free stuff (and the odds for gold weapons are very good (7.5%), and you only need 1 copy of some of them to clear most of the content). so what's the point of spending money? there are none unless you are a whale who wants to catch up with the power creep within a week. of ALL the content, the only whale "exclusive" things in the game are 3 cosmetic banners icons and 5 cosmetic profile banners (also 5 cosmetic wallpapers but those are relatively cheap). that's literally it. and most of those are from the first 3 months of the game's lifetime, because now a f2p player can clear ALL the content (assuming he started playing on launch). the only other exception is that you can't get ALL the gears with the free gems, but you can get something like half of them (basically pull only on arcanums and crossovers), so it's more than okay for gameplay purposes since those are the only really "good" ones. also a lot of reviews are talking about aggressive popups, but those will mostly go away after the first few days so they are not an issue at all. [*]- QoL mechanics: this is the biggest offender. this game doesn't value your time. stuff that should be done with 1 click (like all the daily mission) require at least 30m DAILY. also you can't skip fights even if you are 10x stronger than the enemy. auto-equip is GARBAGE for anything above your power level, the companion ai is super annoying (remember those manual fight i wrote about where you need to manage atb of all 3 characters? that's half the battle, fighting against you own AI to prevent it from doing dumb shit). also there's other UI issues that STILL haven't been fixed after 4 months, even if everybody keeps complaining about them (not being able to batch-convert materials, auto-resetting equip on extra fights, no retry button, the whole materia ui, etc...). this stuff has no excuse [/list] tl;dr: gacha fan and ff7 fan: recommended but you'll need to invest a lot of time in order to "get good" not gacha fan but an ff7 fan: give it a try. if you'll manage to endure the first week, you will probably enjoy the daily grind gacha fan but not an ff7 fan: skip it, there are better gachas not gacha fan and not ff7 fan: obvious skip technically my verdict is "mixed", but i'm leaving this review as positive since i assume most people interested in this are already fans of FF7 universe and it's kinda sad seeing them missing out because of few popups and blatantly unfair reviews...