approaching a game as massive as this without any experience in the world of JRPG was obviously daunting right off the bat, (a remake of a very well beloved and legendary game has a lot to live up to in not only the eyes of fans, but for people like me who have only heard the good word.) i knew it was something i wanted to at least attempt. expecting to quickly be thrown off by typical RPG characters, or a dense combat system i wasn't prepared to understand; i was quite surprised to find myself hooked pretty much right from the get-go. battle mechanics that bordered the line of challenging yet very readable and understandable to someone like me who's often easily distracted by walls-of-text about weaknesses, strengths, and overwhelmed by multiple inventories of optional abilities to maintain. an ensemble of characters and that play perfectly into this odd tonal balance that almost always works – it can switch from self-serious, to parody; embracing that pure gamey-ness, but somehow never once breaks immersion of that uniquely 'FINAL FANTASY' experience. an ambitious epic that only ever faulters when the rigid level design shows it's seams; some of the open map layouts and hallways aren't particularly interesting to traverse at times, leading me to get a bit fidgety when areas ran overly long. though luckily not enough for me to completely abandon the game due to my impatience.

i did take a couple months break between chapters 14-15 – mainly a personal change in life, but coming back i was definitely far less interested in beating a long list of side-missions towards the end before entering a very linear trajectory in those final 8-ish hours. i ended up skipping those little quests, which up until that point i'd gone out of my way and completed upon discovering a new area. part of me thinks i just wanted to finish the game now that REBIRTH was out, so i can't blame REMAKE for making me speed towards the end; yet on the other hand even when i attempted some of these missions i found quite a bit of frustration in having to travel through a pretty narrow "open" world between each sector, which was far less fun than helping out the folk in a new town like the previous quest-sets. plus, i did slowy become less invested in experimenting with materia and abilities by the end – which i sort of regret with the nail biting final boss requiring me to have plenty of defensive and healing abilities at the ready, but that's totally my fault and my own experience returning to the game.

apart from some naturally annoying video game moments, i was real chuffed to beat this one – with my partner to witness me as i questioned what was going on before the credits rolled no less.