Great game and easily one of the better FFs. While the story does sort of lose some of its luster when it drops the political conflict for the usual JRPG business of fighting god and his mindless droves of enemies, it's still compelling throughout with a cool mature atmosphere, a very likable main character, and very solid voice acting. The game was very impressive visually and thankfully the PS5 load times prevented another "slowly crawl through crevices while the next area loads" catastrophe like with FF7R. The soundtrack was also really nice and the boss theme in particular really got me pumped.
The combat could have used a bit more depth but it was still substantially enjoyable with a variety of satisfying eikon abilities to wreak havoc with. I personally loved tossing out tornadoes to shred encounters with a lot of enemies. The boss fights were also generally fantastic with a ton of really cool setpieces. The only really notable problem with the combat is the copious amount of boss/enemy reskins in the last 1/4th or so but to be fair a lot of them are relegated to optional content. I also would've liked to have a bit more focus on party members, like being able to level up their abilities as well. There's just so much focus on Clive that it's pretty easy to forget about the others which is a shame when you have a rad combat wolf.
The sidequests were close to being great since plenty of them contain some solid story bits and they're all fully voice-acted on top of the fun combat but they are let down by lackluster rewards. I was extremely annoyed to be completing endgame sidequests and getting my 500th useless meteorite or an accessory that reduces magic charge time by .2 seconds. The ability to sprint while in non-combat areas would've greatly helped as well with how much they make you run all over the hideaway.
The combat could have used a bit more depth but it was still substantially enjoyable with a variety of satisfying eikon abilities to wreak havoc with. I personally loved tossing out tornadoes to shred encounters with a lot of enemies. The boss fights were also generally fantastic with a ton of really cool setpieces. The only really notable problem with the combat is the copious amount of boss/enemy reskins in the last 1/4th or so but to be fair a lot of them are relegated to optional content. I also would've liked to have a bit more focus on party members, like being able to level up their abilities as well. There's just so much focus on Clive that it's pretty easy to forget about the others which is a shame when you have a rad combat wolf.
The sidequests were close to being great since plenty of them contain some solid story bits and they're all fully voice-acted on top of the fun combat but they are let down by lackluster rewards. I was extremely annoyed to be completing endgame sidequests and getting my 500th useless meteorite or an accessory that reduces magic charge time by .2 seconds. The ability to sprint while in non-combat areas would've greatly helped as well with how much they make you run all over the hideaway.