It's been 3 weeks since I got to the second (second?!?!) time jump, and I haven't yet found the urge to jump back in.

The game essentially starts over at the halfway point, forcing the player into a tutorial-like state of game play. We must learn the new rules of this new world, meet new characters, and have blandly obvious conversations with too many NPCs. Also, Jill and Clyde haven't changed clothes in 5 years and that's just bizarre.

It was at this point I also realized how repetitive the combat had become. Dodging and any sense of strategy becomes pointless when you can just cycle through Eikon abilities endlessly.

I thought I'd appreciate the darker storyline as compared to other Final Fantasy games, but the writing very much comes off as a Game of Thrones ripoff, where death and violence are misinterpreted as mature storytelling. This ultimately let's down the women of the cast (all 3 of them) - Jill is an empty vessel of a character with nothing to say, she just follows Clyde and speaks up when background information is needed. Benedikta falls into the trope of a woman abused by men/the patriarchy (we even see her threatened with r*pe) until she no longer values human life. Then there's the queen, who I haven't met yet since the big betrayal, but the story relegates her to being an absent evil figure. I'm sure she has motivation, but I'm not holding my breath for anything groundbreaking.