Impossible to capture in one paragraph all the reasons that this game - ostensibly "just" the middle chunk of a 50-hour PS1 game from 1997 - so dramatically captured my interest and attention for 120 hours over these last two months without waxing at least a little bit on time dilation and nostalgia and the fleeting nature but eternal significance of one's childhood and formative gaming years. So I won't fight it. Kind of wild that one of my favorite (but not even necessarily my absolute favorite) games of the late '90s has turned into my favorite games of both 2020 and 2024 so far, and all but a lock for 2027 or whatever year the third part comes out, spanning two console generations in the process. But forget the third part. I'm doing Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York in my head and picturing the year 2060, myself an old man, gleefully gobbling up 300 hours of Final Fantasy VII Remake Remade, Part 2, wondering if Part 3 will come out before I die, let alone Rebirth Remade, and still incapable of deciding whether it's better to take Tifa or Aerith on that Gold Saucer Skywheel date.

Oh and also, tight as hell combat system, smoothest action RPG I've ever played. This is how you combine mash-and-slash with menu-based battle inputs, people.