I decided to dive into this series after a friend recommended it to me. And I decided to start from the beginning. Initially, I felt very lukewarm towards this game. I was not underwhelmed, because I didn't really have any high expectations to begin with, but it was not really that impressive up until the second to last dungeon, which was where I was beginning to have a LOT of fun with this game. The main reason for this is probably the combat. It works really well, and even though it does at most times feel like a glorified "spam x" simulator, it felt satisfying to get incredible combos on enemies, which really started happening once you got to that point in the game. But the thing that kept me going so that I could reach that point in the first place was definitely the music. The soundtrack has to be in my top 10 list, because every single song is just so solid. I loved all the world themes, all the battle themes and so on, my favourites probably being "Night of Fate", "Hollow Bastion" and "Forze del male". Yoko Shimomura has gotten a huge upswing in my personal rankings list after having played this game. The best part gameplay wise was the final two areas, with the exception of a particularily bullshit fight thrown in literally the room before the final boss. I think I died more in that room than to any actual boss in the whole game. I didn't bother to do a lot of the extra content, so I never got to fight Sephiroth or any of the other optional bosses. I don't think I would want to 100% this game, as it seems to require a lot of grinding, and grinding is very frustrating in this game. I definitely noticed that I was a bit underleveled for the final dungeon, but it was pretty fine with the exception of that one fight. The story felt coherent and satisfying to follow, and I really liked Maleficent as an evil force throughout most of the game. She had such a perfect voice in my opinion. The game does have its fair share of goofy moments (no pun intended) though, usually through the stupid stuff Sora does in certain cutscenes, but I thought those moments were funny, and certainly didn't made me dislike the game. I had a good time with Kingdom Hearts, and I am thankful that I played the Final Mix version, as I heard that the original didn't have the option to skip cutscenes, which would have been incredibly annoying against some of the harder bosses. Definitely give this game a shot if you like hack n slash games with RPG elements!