I feel like I'm a crazy person, but I just couldn't enjoy this game as much as I feel I should have. It's so well put together and has so much charm, but the whole time I was playing it I was just kinda bored.

I think that a lot of this stemmed from me not enjoying the ability/equipment system in this game. Having to think so much about what to equip when was just a headache and kinda killed that satisfying sense of progression that you usually get from RPGs. On top of this, I'm not very partial to ATB combat so that didn't help, but it felt even less fun in this game than others. Not really sure why, just how my experience was. Also, for whatever reason, the story never managed to grip me like it did in the previous FF games I played despite me really liking all the characters and the themes being stuff I'd normally connect to.

I still had a decently good time with it, but I'm really sad that I wasn't able to enjoy this one as much as it seems everyone else does.

The music was definitely fucking awesome tho

An overall great experience that's full of highs and lows.

When this game is good, it's a masterpiece with great story-telling, fun and engaging combat (just make sure to swap the party leader every once in a while to keep it from getting stale), and grand visual spectacle (how they managed to get environments this expansive in a Wii game is beyond me). When it isn't, it's a grindy nightmare where it takes hours just to find and start all the side quests (which are pretty much all monotonous fetch/kill quests btw) in an area, never mind completing them. I swear this game would be 10 times better if they added a sprint button or increased the walking speed without needing to use a gem slot.

But if you stick to the story and avoid side quests with a 10-foot pole, I think it really is something special.