When seeing people criticize this game I always see them talk about the dream world segments and the gameplay in general, which is justified because those are both insufferable and make this game an absolute chore to play. The gameplay lacks any depth whatsoever and becomes an absolute slog to play almost immediately. Dream world in general has a similar issue in being a complete slog with the dialogue being extremely dull and the segments being way longer than they have any right to be, this game is about 20 hours long but dream world makes it feel like 50.

What I don't see people talk about is the dumbass story with some of the most fake character interactions & dialogue I have ever seen in my life. Like brother there CANNOT be people who say this game's story is realistic when years of unhandled trauma are handled immediately and the main cast goes back to being friends with no problems whatsoever, obviously there's still the drama with Omori & Basil but that extends past that immediate friend group. I'm talking about the main 4 characters here, which is the main focus for the majority of the game and is resolved immediately. Even fucking Shark Tale had a more realistic conclusion between Fish Man and Mob Boss Shark and all they said was "We cool". The Dialogue after said issue is resolved is bland as hell and falls flat on its face with most of it just being them reaffirming the fact that they are friends, gj Omori, this is how real people act I think.

The real meat of the plot is so edgy and stupid it honestly circles back to being funny, Black Space and the real twist behind Mari's death are SO fucking dumb man, how do people take these seriously I need to know. Surely real children would see that beloved sister died and say "Ah man I don't want my friend to get in trouble gotta frame it as a suicide", very real and relatable traumatic experience thank you Omori this is definitely not edgy garbage trying to be something deep.

Wait everybody told me this game sucks why did it actually rock, this shit was awesome.

Obviously there's a good bit of negatives, for example the combat, but I never really cared for FF combat in the first place so this wasn't really unexpected, helps that for the most part it really isn't a slog outside of a few sequences (mostly Lightning and Hope hallway lmao). The story itself is also kinda whatever and REALLY likes to throw a ton of fantasy jargon at you which makes it a lot more confusing than it actually is. But also this is very much a game where the story is second to the main cast so I don't mind this point all that much.

Now lemme just get the best point out of the way, these characters are fucking awesome. I LOVE SNOW, the fact that he's ALWAYS playing the hero, being the positive presence in the party while also being the most childish mf in existence, such a fantastic character, also has a great dynamic with basically every character in the game which helps a lot. And he has a fucking motorcycle, that's the coolest shit ever. Sazh kinda goes without saying, I'd be surprised if anyone playing this game didn't adore him by the end. His dialogue's extremely fun and he has some of the best moments in the game, also he's a dad, we love dads. Sick car btw. Despite the constant moaning, Vanille is also really good, I mostly like her due to how great her dynamics with other characters are (especially Sazh that was REALLY good), and that's perfectly fine, dynamics usually make characters to begin with. Even Hope who I was really iffy on ended up to be great, yeah he's annoying at the beginning of the game but he gets a huge glow up past a certain point in the story, his development is fantastic and his dynamic with Snow is even better with him taking after Snow in a lot of ways. The cast just feels like a big family by the end of the game and that's great, especially when EVERYONE in the party has their own motives and aren't just following the MC because they're friends, it's a pitfall a lot of games tend to fall into and I'm extremely glad this game didn't do that. My only gripes are Lightning and Fang feeling super under baked, Lightning's case is especially unfortunate considering she's the main character and I tend to enjoy female characters being hardasses (Zero Drakengard 3 my beloved) but Lightning & Fang really don't get much meaningful dialogue and that's sad considering just how good the rest of the cast is.

It doesn't need to be said but this game is BEAUTIFUL, the pre-rendered cutscenes look incredible and still look better than basically anything today, which is insane. There's also just so many phenomenal setpieces like the entire Sazh and Vanille sequence in chapter 8, that shit was magical, it's such a great sequence that'll definitely sit with me for a while. The entirely of chapter 7 is also fantastic, y'know the one where Snow saves the day by pulling up with his sick ass motorcycle and takes out like 50 soldiers with it, awesome sequence. I especially adore Snow and Hope during this sequence and how Snow constantly trying to play the hero completely backfires on him as he's just saying the worst things possible to Hope, it's a fantastic character moment for both of them and another great sequence that'll sit with me for a long time. FF13 has a LOT of good shit like this and I love it for dat, awesome game despite the obvious flaws.

Snow is badass/10

This game is so weird because most bad games are bad due to jank or lack of polish or whatever, y'know just normal stuff like that. But everything here feels very intentional. The shitty unintuitive sticker system and combat designed around it. The "puzzles" which either involve hitting something random with a hammer, finding some random "thing" sticker that the game likely doesn't tell you about, or some other random obscure solution (intentionally sink in quicksand lmao). The obscene amount of backtracking and level redoing. The bosses being tedious health sponges or dying immediately because you brought the right thing sticker. The boring and uninspired settings reminiscent of 2d mario games alongside the lack of any unique NPCs. The AWFUL "partner" character. The annoyingly heavy reliance on the paper gimmick despite every other Paper Mario game using it as a nice aesthetic. These are all TERRIBLE design choices but not one of them doesn't feel intentional. I'm almost convinced that Nintendo hates Paper Mario fans so much that they hand crafted this game to be the worst shit ever.

People always (fairly) rag on this game for random encounters quite literally being a detriment and there being no point to them, but I'd argue that's the best part about the game. Combat here is so unenjoyable and if you were forced to actually fight random encounters it'd be SO much worse. Because it's pointless, I can just run away from everything and save myself the headache. Yeah the run button barely works and is just RNG dependent but like anything is better than having to sit through all of the random encounters.

Also bowser doesn't even have a line of dialogue here like wtf man he's the best Mario character have some respect.

Also also people who think this is disliked because it's different from the other Paper Mario games are weird. This game is genuinely terrible even if you haven't touched a single Paper Mario game. If you say this is overhated I'm stealing something out of your house.