I found this game to be maximalist in both the best and worst ways. In some ways, expanding in detail on some key relationships was quite fun. I enjoyed the deeper dig into Barret mostly, as well as Cloud and Tifa's relationship (though that fumbles a bit with some of the post-Gongaga scenes). On the other hand, it's an open world game with towers and dozens of minigames, and repetitive exploration. I don't want to press triangle three times at a lifestream vent anymore.

There are so many good pieces to this game that don't cohere for me. The visuals are stunning, with some great direction on the look of key areas. The music is great throughout, with such a diversity of styles and genres. Some of the minigames are great (though I don't love Queen's Blood as much as everyone else seems to). And lastly, the combat remains quite good, much like in Remake, and the additions to it are fun.

Despite that, I felt the whole game was wheels-spinning, which in fairness, was the case of this section of the game in the original FF7, but there are two major problems with that: 1) this section in the original took 10-15 hours to get through and not 60-100, and 2) the previous game, which I quite liked, promised a change of fate at its conclusion, which is not seen at all throughout this game. We have a few segments where we play as Zack in a doomed universe, and a few minor changes to plot points, but otherwise 95% of this game plays out exactly as in the original.

The ending as well seems unable to decide what it wants to be, and is just a tease for Reunion in 3-4 years. I was anxiously awaiting this game after Remake being a great surprise, but that won't be the case for the next one.