What an awful way to follow up Until Dawn.

Aside from some questionable voice performances, the game actually starts off okay and manages to build a somewhat creepy atmosphere. However the gameplay quickly devolves into slowly walking down identical looking hallways with the occasional jumpscare or qte. All of that builds up to an embarrassingly underwhelming climax showing just how poorly conceived the story was. Not sure how much of that was due to the decisions I made but I certainly won’t play it again to find out.

This game really nails it's presentation. From the detailed city, to the large variety of vehicles, to the music and radio broadcasts, it lets the setting of prohibition era America really come to life.

Unfortunately that’s where the good pretty much ends. The story starts off okay but becomes the most predictable gangster fare imaginable, while still managing to feel fillery despite how short it is. Couple that with janky driving and some of the most uninspired gunplay I’ve seen in years, all playing in smooth 30fps on the ps5 and you get a game that is sadly a lot more forgettable than its solid foundation deserves.

Improves on Remake in all aspects.

The combat feels more dynamic and varied due to the synergy interactions between characters and the ability to customize your party which makes it still just as fun after 80 hours as it was when I first started playing. Storytelling feels tighter and much of the more fillery stuff has been relegated to the expansive list of side missions. By tying each of these to one of your companions and their relationship to you it also makes completing them feel more meaningful than it did in the first game. The colorful cast continues to be excellent and I found myself loving the new additions of Cait and Yuffie more than expected, while the deeper characterization of Sephiroth adds more weight to the central conflict. The many open areas are full of memorable locations and the impressive list of different enemies types to fight meant that even the repetitive world intel quests never became boring to me. All of this is accompanied by what continues to be one of the greatest soundtracks of any video game, parts of which can be played on the in-game piano.

Finally, the minigames. While none of them quite reach the depth you would find in a Yakuza game, the amount and quality of what is here is pretty insane. From the Mario Kart-esque Chocobo-Racing, to the 2D Brawler, to the nightmare-inducing workout competitions, to dolphin-riding, to the obligatory deck-builder, that is by far the best of its kind in this type of game.

Overall, one of the greatest titles I’ve played in recent years, and I can’t wait for the conclusion to this trilogy.