Such a hot mess in so many ways that it's almost inconceivable. The story is terrible, the music is mediocre, the pacing is awful, the performances are horrible, the writing is disastrous and the structure of the game is mind-bogglingly bad. The one and a half stars are for the wonderful combat system and what little I enjoyed of the camp this game has in droves.

I've been doing a series replay and have been platinuming all the games as I go and will continue to do so, but I'm not platinuming this one. Not because the platinum is hard (FFIX and FFX were much tougher), but because I don't feel like playing more of this game. This is by far the worst mainline Final Fantasy game and it's not even particularly close, and it's definitely the poster child of games I tolerated as a child but can't stand now.