So much more my shit than the first game was. Just total earnest mayhem, time travel shenanigans and heartfelt relationships. The gameplay is so much tighter, the story way more original and fun, the characters more exciting, and an ending that genuinely blew me away.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the gamer dudes didn't like this one, but this is probably one of my favorite Final Fantasy titles. What an insane improvement, loved basically every second!

The new remaster is absolutely horrible, ugly cutscenes and non-functioning multiplayer, just a total wreck worth avoiding at all costs. However this is still one of the most endlessly replayable games I've ever touched. There's some kind of secret sauce here that has kept me hooked since birth. The 10 hours I'm logging here is only for the Switch version, because I genuinely have no clue how much time I've spent on this over the years.

For some reason, I always had trouble wrapping my head around the combat, but man, what a world to live in for a while. I really like all these characters, and the insane nonsense of the story really won me over. To call this bad is just odd to me, as it isn't doing anything other Final Fantasy games don't have worse examples of. I think it's quite good even! Now onto XIII-2, which from what I've heard, will be much more my style.