FINALLY FINISHED THE MAIN STORY
105 hours. Havent played a game this long since Persona 5
My thoughts
What I like about the game:
-Combat is excellent. There's enemy variety, the fights are challenging at various parts of the game. Each character has a unique style (though i hate playing with Cait Sith. He stinks), and the materia system lets you customize characters so you can play a certain way. The new synergy system further deepens the combat with new synergy attacks and special moves that have certain effects the more ATB you use
-Very indepth story.
-Likeable characters
-Might be the best looking game to come out on PS5
-The boss fights are AWESOME. I especially loved fighting the Turks. Those were some of the best battles in the game
-Chapter 12. Outside of the one-on-one fight, the chapter was awesome from start to finish
-Dodging in this game can be done without equipping a materia to it like in Rebirth
What I didn't Like
-Biggest gripe: TOOOOOO MANY MINI-GAMES. Pretty much all of them outside of maybe 2 were unnecessary. The complaints about the game feeling bloated from minigames is definitely one i agree with. There were so many mediocre/forgettable minigames (Glide de chocobo, Moogle chasing, Cactuar Crush, the Tifa Ab Crunch game, 3D Brawler (AWFUL), G Bike, The Space Invaders Game at the Golden Saucer, The Red 13 Soccer Game, Gears and Gambits, Fort Condor (Abysmally bad game, and u have to play each one 8 times to get the photorelic), and playing the piano is ass. The Chocobo acquisition games kinda stink also
-Platforming was a little clunky
-Queens Blood final boss. She uses a broken ass card which breaks the rules inherently by placing that card on the map before the game even starts. I had to make a new deck just to beat her
-Cloud's Punisher mode in this game isn't as good as Punisher Mode in Rebirth IMO
-That stupid jellyfish enemy that dodges everything and u have to wait for it to attack to damage it. Apparently u can cast Silence on it, but i dont wanna use a materia slot for one single enemy
-CAIT SITH is trash. I get that he's a buff ally kinda character, but i hate using him. They shoulda made Vincent playable instead of that trash ass feline
-Traveling to intel points in Gongaga and Cosmo canyon is a chore
All in all, this was an excellent game outside of the mini-games and a few nitpicks. However, I'm not sure if this is better than Remake. It's a strong 9.2/10 for me. Great game, and I will replay. Right now I'm AP farming to max out my materia. Now that I'm done with the main story, I gotta finish the Gilgamesh quest and the difficult Virtual Reality battles.
I can't decide if this is my GOTY or ReFantazio quite yet