Yooooo, this that FINAL fantasy? This is a game I was so excited for; I absolutely love DMC, and I’m a passive fan of Final Fantasy (this is actually this first mainline game I’ve finished…some day FFVI my love), so I was excited to play it! But then it came out, I played like 20% then stopped. I got distracted, a new sonic game came out ok??? But I finally sat down and played it over the course of about 10 days and it’s pretty good! Starting with the gameplay, because it’s way simpler to start with, it’s good. The action gameplay is nowhere near as in-depth as a DMC5 or even 3, but it’s still fun. The basic mash square then press triangle sometimes gameplay never changes, there’s some timing based things you can unlock but I guarantee you will never use them. The best thing I unlocked was a downward mid-air thrust, and if I timed it right I could initiate it twice mid-air which felt gooooood. That’s about the extent of the basic sword combat tho. The eikonic abilities you can use in conjunction help a bit. They’re cool and do big damage, but the end game just revolves into mash square while waiting for them to charge. My final load out was Ifrit with Ignition and Flame of Rebirth, Garuda with Impulse and Wicked Wheel, and Titan with Raging Fists and Upheaval. I used Ramuh a bit until I got Titan, used some other Ifrit abilities at first, barely touched Shiva and didn’t even look at Odin. I got access to Odin so late that I didn’t even care to use him. However, this isn’t the only part of the combat. The Eikonic battles go CRAZY. Phoenix, Garuda, and Ramuh are all pretty good, Titan changed my life, Bahamut changed my afterlife, It’s bullshit that Odin didn’t get one (although he as a whole didn’t feel important…more on that in a bit) and Ultima was also VERY fun, but I’m kinda sad his design was just big dark Ifrit. I died laughing when they dropped the ultimate fuck you bomb on him and Ultima just walked off tho. The combos in these fights are even more limited, and honest to god it’s just boring, but THESE are good because of the spectacle and QTEs. That’s why you really play this game as a whole, the spectacle. I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s like DBZ and Asura’s Wrath had a baby then fed it crack. Like seriously, that Bahamut fight is legendary and whenever it ended I just had to sit and think for awhile. The game really does peak there, you should play this game just for the Bahamut fight. I played that and thought “so this is the power of the PS5”. After that the story and gameplay kinda falls off. Let’s talk about that story. It’s got a fantastic hook, you want to know who killed Joshua, why Annabella is such a WHORE, and want to see more of the world. For the first 2/3rds it’s really good, you see the world, meet all these cool characters and fight these cool bosses. Clive is a great MC, Cid is a great mentor (tho he dies too early), Jill is cool, though I wish she showed off some more, Lord Byron is my favorite, Joshua is cool, though I wish he got reunited with everyone sooner and it’s kinda hard to take him seriously when half the time he has ketchup mouth, the villains are all really gripping and you can understand why a lot of them are doing what they’re doing, except Annabella, FUCK that whore she is the worst and they did a fantastic job making me DESPISE her shit eating grin. There’s a share of characters that suck or could’ve used more though. I love Gav but wanted more of him, Mid is possibly the worst character in any RPG I’ve played for awhile (anytime she’s on screen you know you’re gonna have 2 hours of bullshit to do. She makes the pacing in this game grind to a halt.), and Barnabus felt like he was tacked on last second. I didn’t really have any reason to care for him, I don’t fully get why Ultima chose him to hunt Mythos, his boss fight sucks (though the set piece of him in the split sea is great), I don’t get his whole thing with his mom, etc. I have a feeling one of the DLC will be about him, maybe him before he went Akashic? We’ll probably also get the Leviathan fight in that, I think he killed Leviathan and somehow erased him. The ending is where most of my problems come in. The twist that Ultima wanted them to destroy the crystals is so obvious, Ultima is so basic that it almost feels like parody, they build up how Clive can’t do this alone but then he gets teleported away and DOES do it alone, the final convo with Clive and Ultima dying is just like the final convo in Xenoblade, like perspective and all it’s kinda crazy, Clive in the final fight literally saying “this is your final fantasy!” made me fucking CRY laughing, and when the skip happened at the end and JOSHUA LITERALLY WROTE A BOOK CALLED FINAL FANTASY I just lost it. The performances of the whole cast made it still good and believable though. It’s impressive how most of this game is voice acted, even the side quests (on the topic of those, I only did like 3 so I don’t have a lot to say. They’re fine.). The music as well, is great the whole game through. I wish the Eikon fights didn’t mostly all use that one song tho. The Titan fight has this one BANGER track, why not have more? Oh and last thing, supremely funny that due to the focus on slavery in this game, there is not a drop of melanin in this game. Anyway, It’s good overall, but could’ve used a little more time in the oven. Could’ve been great, but could’ve used a biiiiit more time. Still recommend!