A beautiful looking game, and a game that comes across as stronger than many of the games inspired by it.

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The game has a big focus on the diorama aspect of the stages, setting each one up like a little theater scene, and very expressive sprite pantomime acting, leaning in to what gave FF so much identity with the SNES sprites. Characters coming in from offstage and having great characterful animation while a scene plays out on a nicely decorated stage never stopped charming me, and I think it’s one of the games greatest strengths.

The music really grew on me too, I’d heard it out of context before and never felt much for it, but it ends up fitting the game well.

The writing is also remarkably terse and effective compared to all the purple-prose-choked scripts that plague every game inspired by it. The main story itself is mostly standard fantasy beats but the execution is confident and compelling, only somewhat hampered by the awkward translation (though it’s still perfectly readable outside very optional backstory menus). The game also ends very strong, I was very impressed with that final scene, just great stuff.