First time playing this game and while you can tell that the combat is compromised from the original DS version, what they cooked up here manages to mostly capture that same spirit and ended up really clicking for me in its own way once I got the right pin loadouts going. But the real standouts are of course the aesthetics and the story.

Love the character designs and especially the music. While sometimes hearing the same vocal themes over and over can be a bit grating, I appreciate that they seemingly understood this and didn't stick to one set theme for any area of Shibuya or every single regular battle as most JRPGs would. Instead, the entire soundtrack (outside of boss fights, which fittingly have their own unique tracks) feels like it could pop up anywhere at any time, like you put a favorite album on shuffle. I also really appreciate how much the game remixes its own vocal tracks, again often for boss fights or for special in game days, which makes them that much more impactful in the same way a reprise in a musical can be.

The story also worked surprisingly well for me. Somewhat typical shonen fare especially at first - which may be a sticking point for some but which I love when executed well, and this is! Characters have lots of personality, big goals, go through major arcs that give them new outlooks on life, all the good stuff right there. The plot knows exactly how to create stakes and pull the rug out from the main cast at the most cruel times which feels genuinely impactful. One minor complaint is that the cutscenes are clearly extremely limited by budget, and while I think they did a great job with what they had you can feel that the ambitions of the story they wanted to tell could have been enhanced by improvements to the presentation in this aspect. Even with the changes to the controls in Final Remix making things feel frustrating in the early game, I'd still recommend this to just about anyone.