I’ve played every mainline FF1-12, couldn’t finish 3, beat 15, and went into this blind.
Outside of the 10% of spectacular moments, this was just so incredibly bland. I’ve never skipped cutscenes in a game before and I did that for the last 15 side quests.
Gear upgrading was pointless, exploration led to absolutely no secrets or purpose to do so, combat was praised early on as amazing but it felt like mash attack + wait for cooldowns. They removed all status effects and even elements of magic, again I know the “reasoning” for this but it’s just made things more and more basic.
Marlboro spits on you, no consequences but damage
Cast fire on a bomb, pure damage, element means nothing
And locking hard mode behind ng+? Let people decide what mode they want, not everyone wants to spend 50 hours on a game which is too easy just to play it at a level they’ll find engaging.
I found this game to be wholly forgettable which is a shame because I really tried to go into it with no expectations.