I need to write a full review sometime, but just look at posts about this game, they'll largely be mine anyway.
Major strikes against this game:
* Some of the most annoying and bullsh*t minigames you'll ever see, required for the Platinum trophy in their hardest modes -- I beat at least one level of every minigame, but there are approximately 20 different mini games that all require different skills and just no.
* Combat is a mess. At any given time, you're trying to track your characters' positions, your enemies' positions, the ATB gauge for up to 3 characters which is how you can use special abilities, the Synergy Gauge for those same 3 characters, their HP and MP, their Limit levels, and whether the particular enemy that you're facing is about to use a move you can block or can evade or it turns out to be unavoidable but the game uses the same icon for evade as it does for unavoidable. Press square to attack. Hold square to start a combo. Press circle to dodge. Press square after dodging to shoot a blade beam. Hold square after dodging to lunge immediately to your enemy even if they're in midair. Press R1 to block (watch your timing). Hold L1 and press one of the face buttons to use a pre-programmed shortcut (but RIP if you get into a fight and wish you could change which commands you have on shortcut). Hold R1 and press one of the face buttons to use a Synergy Action if you have one unlocked with your current teammates. Press X to bring up the command menu where time slows to about 5% speed and you can then pick an action, spell, item, or Synergy Ability, but you need ATB for the first 3 and two of your characters need Synergy points (earned by spending ATB) for the latter. It's all just so much. Too much.
* The extremely obnoxious and will not shut UP Chadley. Seriously, if they patch in a "disable Chadley" I might give it an extra star, he's THAT annoying.
* The plot is confusing having finished the game. I thought I understood what was going on, but now I don't.
* Minor things not taking off a ton but still affecting enjoyment: audio balance is way out of whack. Seriously had to drop music volume to 4 out of 10 to be able to hear the dialog, and I can still hear the music just fine. Performance mode runs smoothly but looks like crap (they just patched this today, I didn't change it yet to see). Graphics mode looks nice but there's still some weird brightness quirks going on. The in-game calibration is bad and doesn't help you figure out the right brightness.
OK maybe that is more of a full review than I thought. Look, I didn't hate the game, but I'm really disappointed because Remake was amazing and I really enjoyed getting the platinum there. I'm going to play the 3rd one when it eventually comes out, but I probably won't pay full price and I'm going to go in expecting to just finish the game, instead of complete it.
