Disclaimer: I am not a high-end raider. This is all from the perspective of a casual player. I played this game for 3.5 years. TL;DR this expansion sucks. I have actually fallen asleep going through quests in this expansion.

Coming back to this game (and this review) after 6 months to grind a bit for mogtomes---my opinion on this expansion has not changed much. Outside of raiding, there is virtually nothing new for casual players to do. Gameplay is still the 1231231234123-type gameplay we've known for years, and dungeons are still straight lines so your female au'ra dark knight can waste no time getting back to afking in Limsa in their dollskill-tier "goth" glam as soon as possible. It seems the developers have taken notice of that, as they're dumbing down old content and completely revamping PVP maps that don't need it because I guess the community is too stupid to look at their map for more than 5 seconds and actually PLAY the game. If they change up any of the Stormblood trials to compensate for the fact that trust AI is braindead, it will spell the end of any remaining fun content in the game.

There is little reason to log into this game every day. In fact, now that I think about it, I haven't seen any hunt trains whatsoever in the 2 years since this expack came out, and I played for a good year after I finished the main story. Yes, I am well-aware of their "we want you to play other games!" spiel and lots of people LOVE whipping that one out to deflect criticism, but that doesn't change the fact that the content they're putting out is sloppy and low-effort. New content can be beaten in a 2-3 weeks, maybe even a week if you feel like it, and the patch cycle is every 5 months. Who is this game even for anymore? Where is the longevity, the challenge? Casual players won't stick around for short-lived content and hardcore raiders won't stick around for half-assed raids. If FF16 isn't taking developers away like people deluded themselves into believing, what the hell are they doing over at Square??? WHY DID IT TAKE 10 YEARS TO ADD PHYSICAL/MAGIC ATTACK INDICATORS???? This is THE most profitable Final Fantasy game TO DATE. Where is the money going? Modders can fix up the game's horrendous UI (amongst other things) in a few days, but the developers drag their feet and claim "it's too resource intensive :/" when asked about QOL changes.

The story right now is just FF4 fanfiction, and quest design has gone down the tubes (it was never that good in the first place, honestly. I don't know how I put up with it for 2000+ hours). I'm not sure how many more "go talk to person A, talk to person B, report to person C and go back to A" and pseudo-stealth quests I can handle. Alongside this, the whole "power of friendship" theme is getting a bit tired. Using it as the main theme of Endwalker and now FF16 has turned it into an empty platitude and made the writing painfully predictable. I have no issue with this sort of story, but when it's poorly executed (like how this and 16 was) it starts to get grating. It's such a messy wrap-up of a decade-long story that it's actually incredible. They spent 10 years beating into our heads that summoning primals is bad and tempering is dangerous but at the end of 6.0 they summon Garuda and all the other primals to hitch a ride on our spaceship because who gives a single flying fuck about consistency anymore. I don't even remember WHY they summoned them in the first place. Aether supply, maybe? That's usually how they weasel their way out of bad writing. Things happen in Endwalker not because it's the natural flow of the story, but because the writers needed it to happen. For example, the threat of the Telophoroi is instantly negated within 5 minutes of MSQ because we just so happen to create this invincibility device that we just so happen have the ability to mass produce. Crisis averted! Zenos can also bodysnatch people for whatever reason. He had ample opportunity to throw the WoL off the nearest cliff or incapacitate a Scion, but no, he decides to just stand and stare at them like a fucking moron. God forbid we have any stakes in the literal end-of-the-world expansion, right?

In conclusion, after 3 years of this game, I think I'm ready to throw in the towel. Unless they drastically overhaul the gameplay system, the quest design, get better writers, and actually give Y'shtola a fucking character arc because it's been 10 goddamn years and she's still a cardboard cutout (and kill Thancred because he sucks), I don't think I'll be coming back to this game anytime soon. A shame that it ends like this because I really did enjoy the game prior to this expansion, but with the dumbing down of content, said content being formulaic, and the devs barely taking feedback, I don't see the point in dropping $15 to play this game anymore. I wouldn't mind a week-long subscription to be quite frank, since that's about the amount of time I play this game anymore. They already nickle-and-dime you for basic shit like changing your name ($10 btw) and transferring worlds, what's a $5 sub tier going to hurt?

If you read this far, thanks for sticking around, you also probably think I hate this game, and if you haven't played any FF games before, I would not recommend this as your first. It is nowhere near the other FFs in terms of quality, so play literally any other game in the franchise. Any criticism of this expansion, whether it be about the lack of content or said content being lackluster is always met with "Just play another game", or "Just do old content!" and it drives me up the goddamn wall. This is an EXPANSION, it's supposed to add NEW content to keep you playing. Telling people to just play old content defeats the purpose of an expansion pack and is also a blatant deflection of criticism. I don't really care if it's "kino" or whatever you lot describe everything as, Square isn't going to give you a sub discount for defending their milquetoast output. Maybe I'll actually sub again and go through the rest of the patches to write another review before Dawntrail, but I literally had to drag myself through the first few awful post-patches in 2022 before I just quit the game completely. It truly blows my mind that people praise this as one of the best JRPG stories ever written. Sure, if you haven't played anything else! Anyway, the music is the last remaining positive of this game, and even that is wearing thin. There's more to music than nondescript chanting vocals.

I rented this from a Hollywood Video so many times that they eventually just let me buy the game from them. However, I never actually finished the game. Controls are very slippery, some levels are way too long, and when trying to switch rails you have a 50/50 chance of flinging yourself to your death.

The music is incredible and I think this is the peak of what a Sonic world should look like. Frontiers should've taken a few (or a dozen or more) pages from this game.

Despite all of the flaws and the PS2 version regarded as the worst version of the game, I still can't bring myself to get rid of my copy.

The concept of a safe room no longer being safe is a cool idea, and I liked the story, but unfortunately the second half of the game falls totally flat on its face. Inventory management is annoying as bullets and health items don't stack for whatever reason, and trying to drag Eileen around while dealing with multiple enemies is frustrating. Backtracking through the same levels is a bit annoying, and making Walter only chase you through the Prison and the Forest removed any tension. I think the Building level was the absolute worst, though, because it involved a lot of running around, checking every single door (there's a lot of them!), and trying to avoid enemies in tight corridors on top of manhandling Eileen's limping self through it all. It also drags on for longer than it should. Most areas in the game are just straight up empty and I don't mean void of enemies, I mean there's literally nothing to interact with or read. Boss fights and puzzles are far and few between. Don't be like me and mash the A button to get through dialogue though, or else you'll accidentally take Walter's doll.
Probably the scariest silent hill game, and I like Henry even though he's literally just a guy. Overall kind of a slog but I'm still glad I played it. 9 times out of 10, most of the people who hate on it have not actually played this game.
Definitely not the pile of steaming dogshit trash that people make it out to be and it's still way better than the other SH games that came after it. Silent hill 2 elitists DNI.

FF7 isn't one of my absolute favorite JRPGs, but it's up there so of course I had to pick this up. I don't have a lot of experience with the FF7 compilation outside of reading a spin-off novel, and watching Advent Children once about half a decade after I played the original game.
They somehow managed to take a 5 hour section from the original game, expand it to a 30-40(?) hours and made it really fun. I can't say I was convinced with Jesse's character rewrites though, she didn't have much of a personality besides being horny for Cloud and that got so obnoxious after 5 minutes that I changed the voices to Japanese because I was playing it around family.
Wasn't a huge fan of the final boss and how Sephiroth is way more involved, but I guess this is a game for FF7 fans instead of newcomers. I also didn't like the lack of gore in the Shinra office. Following the trail of blood throughout the building in the original was scary, so when the blood got replaced with purple goop I was a bit disappointed.
I know a lot of people are tired of FF7 for obvious reasons, but I'm actually quite interested in where the story is going. I still don't believe they'll keep Aerith alive though, that would be boring. If they pull a fast one and kill Cloud though I will laugh for days.

What would you do if you were standing over your kid's grave, mourning him and reminiscing about the memories you have of him, and your new wife next to you says "I want you to cum in me and impregnate me". What would you say.

Actual review: Extremely sloppy story, for example why does Ethan have blackouts? Oh it's a cut story element! Leave the cutscenes in, make your bad story even more confusing because who gives a fuck! Characters are paper thin and talk to themselves CONSTANTLY (fuck you Cage for damning us with this trope). Madison is a journalist, apparently, but it's only mentioned once and then she's Ethan's sidepiece for the entire rest of the game.
The color palette ranges from a dark grey to grey-brown. Better enjoy that opening cutscene because they're the only vibrant colors you'll ever see in this dogshit game. Voice acting is mediocre, nobody can seem to pronounce origami right. Dialogue is terrible. Overall garbage game and I truly wonder how Cage was allowed to have a career after pushing out said piece of garbage and I immediately ignore the opinions of those who say this is good.

Hey, did you like the atmosphere and setting of the first game? Did you like the fusion of RPG and horror mechanics? What about the unique story? Music? If you enjoyed any of that, then go fuck yourself because this game throws all of it away to be yet another shitty reskin of a Resident Evil game.

This game sucks. I am usually able to get over enemies attacking from off-screen but with the tank controls (which I am not a stranger to) and fixed camera angles it's really not fun. The fact that if you forget to put healing/MP items on your jacket, you've boned yourself if you run low on either stat and have to kill yourself to restart, because MP doesn't regenerate like in the last game for whatever reason. You can blow up enemies with a tactical nuke within the first hour of the game but god forbid MP regenerates on its own. Genius move, Square.
Maybe I missed something in the """tutorial""" (if you can call it that) but lord what a dreadful mechanic. The only good thing about this game is Aya's design. What a wet shit of a game, thank god I only paid $10 or so on PS3 and not $100 like some suckers will.