After beating the Remake, which has become one of my very favorite games in recent years, I dipped into both this and the unenhanced original. The way you have to interface with the game in the original almost makes it a whole different experience, and I could understand someone preferring playing it that way if they're used to it.

This enhanced version adds a lot of small changes to controls that can drastically speed up the combat and exploration, and the significant bump in rendering resolution gives it a faithful but legible look on modern screens.

The thing that is most impressive after playing the Remake now and exploring the station in this is not only being bale to further appreciate how great the remake is, but seeing how much this game did well and got perfect from the beginning.

Particularly had a great time in the first hour or so, not because I didn’t enjoy the rest of the game, but because of the experience of the game’s difficulty. Often in a jrpg (this ain’t a “j” game but… clearly there’s some Mother here) you might have to grind a bit against weak enemies to ease your progression. In Hylics there’s a bit of openness to progression, so everyone’s experience might be a little different. Mine personally was getting my hylic kicked any time I ran into an enemy , eventually cowering my way around and avoiding them I amassed enough money to buy an item that spared me the blind status and I could fight my way to recruiting the first ally, which greatly improved my chances. Something about the experience of starting out beneath even being able to grind against the first enemies is going to stick with me.