I played this game solely from my desire to play through every mainline Final Fantasy game. Out of FF I through V, this game took me the longest to complete. Not due to difficulty, but there were several points at which I put down the game to play later, but just did not have interest in coming back. I feel I never would have completed it except for my desire to go through every mainline FF game. That said, once I completed it, I think it wasn't a BAD game, it just wasn't a GOOD game. I think it was longer than it needed to be, and while I love the job system, it feels like there was a lot of imbalance in that some job / ability combinations were insanely strong and others insanely weak. I think it wouild be more fun if there wasn't such a wild discrepancy between the job builds.

I played this game solely from my desire to play through every mainline Final Fantasy game. Given the amount of people that state this is their favorite Final Fantasy, I am disappointed that I did not enjoy it that much. I feel like the music and job system were better in FFIII. The ATB bar is cool, but not "new to me" but I get that it would have been revolutionary at the time. I do enjoy that there is some semblance of a story with each character having a class/job tied to them, but it just didn't sink it's hooks into me. I also completed the old 3D version also released on PC with the After Years "expansion" of the game, but I really have no interest in visiting it.

Have played this game since 1.0. I really enjoy this game, it has it's ups and downs, and has changed so much over time (as most MMOs do) so I will give a breakdown as I see it now (patch 6.2) with my /playtime being "Total Play Time: 176 days, 10 hours, 6 minutes"

I will review this in the style of GamePro magazine, because why not:

Graphics: 4.5/5 - this game still holds up in 2022
Sound: 5/5 - some of my favorite video game music is from this game, and yes I have blasted the soundtrack while driving
Control: 4.5/5 - I have been playing so long I don't even remember if it was hard to control at first, but I do know it feels better than WoW does, and has controller support.
FunFactor: 4/5 - I go though periods of really enjoying the time I spend in this game to neglecting playing for days or sometimes weeks. But I always come back... always. Also one of the best stories in any game I've played.