I don't even know where to start. This game was on my wishlist when it was announced. I had never played a serious turn based game before. This game had be immediately hooked in the first 30 minutes. The set up is so phenomenal. I hadn't been this hooked into a game like this since when I played cyberpunk for the first time. The writers pulled no punches setting up this world. This game's world is absolutely beautiful. There are times you just stop and look at the world around you. And theres small pockets of areas all across the world for you to explore. The characters are some of the best written characters I have seen in a game. You can increase the relationship with the different characters into Act 2 which gives you all sorts of insight in their backgrounds. Don't skip these. The combat is also really really fun. I am not really a turned based game kind of person. But this game did it really well. Its engaging, you can do different builds with weapons, perks, buffs, attack abilities, who is on your team and more. The transitions between act 1 to act 2 and act 2 to act 3 were absolute masterpieces. Going into act 3 I actually thought I was finishing the game when in fact I was still in act 2. There are so many moments in this game that will make you lose your mind or get absolutely floored. There's collectibles that expand the story even further if you choose to do so. There is very little bloat in this game. Mostly every achievement contributes to the story or the world in some way. There is 1 or 2 exceptions. But besides that this wasn't a slog to get all the achievements. I found myself actively trying to complete all of them and explore every area. Completely 100% the game. Getting into fights on purpose made it even more fun. If you decide to try to do all the achievements or simply just explore you will find some of the best fights in the entire game. They are hard and a pain in the ass, but when you beat them, it is so satisfying. Not only that some of the hardest bosses in the game tie into the story in some way. There are two endings. I recommend loading a previous save so you can experience both. Once you finish this game you will be sitting in amazement and reflect on what the heck just happened playing this masterpiece. This is my game of the year no questions asked.

I wish there was a middle of the road option for whether I would recommend or not for this game because that is what this game is. I have never played any final fantasy games at all. My only exposure has been the remake of FF7 which is part one and this title. As a whole this game should be better than the last game. But I don't think that at all and I was severely disappointed. I really loved the story of the last game and was done really well. It was more linear and engaging. Yes there were side quests but they didn't make up most the content for the game. This game, the side quests and mini games make well over 50% of the game. It sucked. I wanted to 100% this game. I plan on 100%ing the game. But parts of this game are so frustrating, annoying, and unnecessarily slow it makes me not want to replay this game any time soon. I've been burned out. This game is an open world game. The traversal is okay at best. For some reason square enix still can't figure out how to implement a jump button instead of a traverse button. I have lost count on how many times I could easily jump down from a place but the game wouldn't let me. In terms of the mini games there are so many at times I felt like I was playing mario party and not final fantasy. If they wanted to make a game like that make it a separate experience. In order to 100% this game you have to max pretty much every single minigame. Finish every difficulty and all. Because there is one achievement that requires you to do everything to unlock these trophies in game. Once you have them all then you get the achievement. Maybe I over did it, but I wanted to do everything. The first two sections aren't too bad. But once you go to the other regions there are times you want to throw your controller against the wall. Whoever made the jungle region later in the game should be fired and never work on a game ever again. The golden saucer is what really introduces all the mini games. I want to say the number of mini games put in this game is well over a dozen or more. Possibly 20. Also Chandley is given more dialogue than any other character in the game if you do everything. This is frustrating because he never shuts up ever. Every time you need to do some of the side activity he always starts talking. Like dude shut up. It also doesn't help that he made a female ai that continues to talk for no reason and also never shuts up. If they make the third part of FF7 I pray that they give us an option to mute them. There is not. So if you want to do everything in this game you have to deal with Chandley and his stupid AI Mai talking. There was a mod that muted them but it doesn't work anymore. RIP. It was bad enough I had to take my headset off quite a bit. I hated Yuffie in the last game and now shes a fully fledged party member in the game. She's just as annoying. One of the chapters, I believe chapter 9 is one of th e longest chapters. This becomes annoying when you get to the end of the game, the last three chapters and final moments and boss fights happen in the last 45 minutes of the game. Why they couldn't have shortened some chapters and kept the end ones paced more, I do not know. This game has so many problems compared to the previous title which had virtually none. The performance is atrocious for what this game is. It looks no different than the first game and somehow performs worse. In terms of the story it is pretty good, but is completely overshadowed by all the side stuff, mini games, and unnecessary side quests. I shouldn't have to bring a chicken back home with a canister for a side quest. Yes that is a side quest. If you want to 100% the game you have to do all the side quests. The game is only 25% story, 15% traversal, 10% boss fights and fighting challenges, 25% mini games, and 25% fetch quest go here go there stuff. It is a very unbalanced out of wack game that falls short of what the first game was doing. They could have easily just spent all the time they did on those stupid mini games and put it towards the actual story. I really tried to like this game a lot. Maybe the experience will be different when I just play the story on hard mode and nothing else. But the aspects of the game that are frustrating are still there. The character development is good, parts of the story is good, the combat is greatly improved, but everything else makes this game hard to enjoy fully. And even after 92hrs I still haven't completed everything.