{{I have not yet done NG+, which I understand recontextualises things a fair bit, so I fully acknowledge this may be a very premature review - but I think it's worth writing down my thoughts for now so I can see how they change later}}

Like the Fabula Nova Crystallis subseries in general, this is a rather messy game. It throws out a lot of really interesting concepts - military academy students pushed into all-out war, a world where the dead are erased from memory, a darker and bloodier FF story - but ultimately the execution really holds it back.

And it's a shame, because I don't think any of its actual plot beats are necessarily bad or missteps (although Aria coming back to mourn the enemy General near the finale is incredibly random). But the game just doesn't utilise any of them effectively.

Why does the game open with 10 minutes of cutscenes mourning some random redshirt we have no context for? Why is the transition from fighting the war against Milites to the apocalypse done in like 2 lines of exposition? I think the most egregious case of poor execution is Machina - his anger and grief over Class Zero letting his brother die is understandable, except this is a world where dead people disappear from your memory. Now, you can interpret it as really him projecting his worry about losing Rem onto the brother he doesn't really know; he's worried he can't trust her with Class Zero either. Fair enough, but it's still a really generic plot beat, and one that doesn't really benefit from the whole amnesia angle anyway. It's a waste of a premise.

Now, there are ways in which I think this game's fragmented narrative works, or at least has potential to work. In a way it kind of mirrors the weird callousness born of forgetting the dead; the way Milites is so casually disposed of so the game can move onto the apocalypse is whiplash-inducingly rapid, but it kinda embodies the way everyone in universe is so quick to just completely forget the vanquished ever existed. And there are enough hints here and there that this is not really a story of black-and-white morality that the lack of cohesion kinda makes sense; Class Zero aren't active agents, they're just weapons of war. And the finale kind of alludes to this with the insistence they need to find their own path, although I think having this end with them dying horribly seems... not conducive with that theme.

I think also the lack of characterisation for the main cast is understandable given so many characters; Class Zero is kind of characterised collectively, with a bit of special focus given to Ace, Rem, and Machina.

I'm well away this is all stuff NG+ will probably pick up to some extent. But I feel like the first playthrough has fundamentally flawed enough storytelling I'm not optimistic NG+ it's going to be an improvement; if it recontextualises the story it'll be through brute force exposition and not because it suddenly turns the fragmented original into a work of genius art. But I'm open to being left a fool here.

It does frustrate me though that Type-0 potential to be a really interesting take on FF that's darker and gorier and tragic, and yet it really doesn't live up to this. It's the kind of game where I think had they leaned into the atmosphere it could have been forgiven a multitude of sins; after all, FF8 is as messy but my favourite FF game simply because it has an unrivalled Vibe.

But for all the fact that this is the FF game where all the characters end up dead and you see a chocobo bloodily murdered in the first few minutes... it doesn't feel like a genuinely darker game. It doesn't even feel like a tragedy; Class Zero dying feels like a random attempt to go for the feels, not their logically inevitable fate, and ends up paling next to something like FF10. The blood and gore aren't quite superficial enough to make this game feel like an embarrassingly childish attempt at maturity, but they mask what is really not a super sophisticated narrative, IMO.

That aside, I liked the gameplay a fair bit. Killsight is a fun mechanic and I appreciate the way it actively rewards paying attention to enemy attack patterns; 'do more damage for paying attention' is always more fun than 'take more damage for not paying attention'. Magic is also satisfying to use.

I feel like the game has an odd problem, especially later on, where if you're not perfectly skilled at hitting Killsight it can be less hassle to just normal attack bash to death. But I think it's not really meant to be a difficult game once you get used to it, and most of the difficulty is within the Expert Trials. I also felt there wasn't much incentive to experiment with different abilities, given A) a normal attack on Killsight will usually suffice, B) if not, magic probably does more damage, C) you only have 2 slots, shared with magic, and you can't change them on demand through a mission, and D) they are all niche enough you have to really bother to figure out when they're useful. I'm sure my experience was poorer for using them and expert players are laughing at my noobishness, but it's a bit weird I got through the whole game without really finding them that useful.

The free time academy/exploration stuff is also just strange. It feels like you have too much time and have to go out of your way to chew it up. I'm sure people going for 100% completion or all the expert trials felt differently, but it just feels very lame in comparison to, say, Persona.

The use of a world map was also weird. I feel like it would have been totally fine for this to be a purely mission-based handheld game like KH Days and the inclusion of towns and dungeons felt tokenistic. I did actually enjoy the RTS battles though.

All in all, this game has enough interesting ideas and is enjoyable enough I certainly wouldn't call it bad, but it is a shame that (at least on the first playthrough) it doesn't reach that potential. I don't see myself doing NG+ for a while since I'm a bit tired of this game lol but fingers crossed it changes my opinion somewhat.