There is so much to love about this. The great (for the time) voice acting allowed the story to hit home in a way that previous FFs didn't, the gradual discovering of the world of Spira was great (especially given how it tied into the story later on), and the combat system was very polished.

The ridiculous minigames really soured me on the experience though - it seemed like they were going for tedium and frustration more than for any sort of rewarding challenge. And not including skippable cutscenes before difficult boss fights could be seen as naivete for the original, but given that the remaster still doesn't let you skip cutscenes that's just criminal. Also, looking back on it now, two of the most-loved game mechanics didn't seem to work all that well for me.

The sphere grid offered plenty of menu-crawling, but very little of the customization that usually comes with it (I mean, you can decide to send Lulu down Yuna's path halfway through the game, but that means no more high level black magic for you!). Also, the switching of party members was a nice touch but I wish there had been more nuance to it than "see enemy, switch to character who can hit its weakness". As it was, many battles felt a bit like a chore because I kept trying to switch all my characters in for a turn so that they would all gain AP.

Oh well, if you read all my gripes above, know that it's coming from someone who is pretty fussy over their gameplay experience. But this is one of those games where you can play it just for the story, and even if you dislike the gameplay it will still be an exceptionally good game worth your time.