A game I was done with a good 15 hours before it was finished and which I've only become more done with the more time that passes. Absolutely at its best when it's acting as a non-stop comedy adventure flying between wildly incongruous tones in this goofy road-trip cat-and-mouse chase. The characters? Charming! The jokes? Funny! The thrills? You better believe they're thrilling! Unimpeachable combat and constant amusement park minigame switching makes for a cotton candy delight that borders on transcendent and at moments had me convinced it was the best game ever.

Problem with cotton candy though is that you put it in water and realize: oh it's actually nothing. Rebirth is packed to the gills and yet completely empty, gutting the original's story for sophomoric multiverse shenanigans that flatten any emotional or thematic depth. Worse, the game is too scared to actually do anything with the new ideas it does have, constantly pulling back at even the slightest glimpse of genuine intrigue until the entire game is rendered a purgatory of non-movement. Nothing happens! Please let something happen!! The dungeons are a bore and just about every other event is so blatantly shoehorned in to fill for time that even if you ignore sidequests and mainline this thing, the pace is genuinely baaaaad. Just the most "too much" game I've ever played, maybe.

So yeah, loved it at points, gave me a dull headache at others, and is spoiling like milk in my brain. (Yuffie great tho--they did justice to my girl)