This is the first mainline Final Fantasy game I've ever completed, having only played the Remake, and it's easy to see why this game is so beloved. The characters are cool, the music is great, and its a fun world to explore. Most of the story is presented in the same mode you traverse the world— super deformed versions of the characters on top of painted background images, often from a dramatic angled perspective. The doll like characters give most of this game an almost puppet show feeling, since you're mainly viewing these characters in a diorama mode. There are also more realistic/anime proportioned character models used in battles, and even more realistic versions of the characters used in special cut scenes, which can be genuinely cinematic. The combination of all these styles is fascinating—the variety would be unusual in live action and even animated films, but its taken for granted in video games. It gives the story and presentation a unique air.

I had some problems with playing the game—while the materia system is unique, I found designing and shifting loadouts to be tedious, and it wasn't until late game that the combination system really became interesting. The combat itself I found boring and tedious—there are so many long animations to watch, and the status effects are just annoying and mostly amount to waiting for more animations to be over. I kept waiting for the combat to get good, and while it never really did, my characters were so powerful by end game that battles at least didn't take very long. Still, it was never bad enough to make me throw in the towel, and I'm glad I saw the story through.