Freed from the shackles of traditional video game structure, the FF7 team went so far above and beyond that it's hard to fathom. No one is coming to this game without having played the original or Remake, so the heavy lifting in terms of story and characters is already accounted for. The game instead focuses its ambition entirely inward, creating the most expansive and compelling game of the AAA Open World Action-Adventure RPG genre -- by embracing Final Fantasy 7 to the highest extent.

They took the winning formulas of FFVII Remake's battle system, and overlayed 100 hours worth of quests, minigames, and exploration that consistently surprises and delights. While some elements may feel a little like chores, it never feels compulsary (unless you plan to 100% the game). Instead all of this adds up to constant new experiences that add color to the world. Even just walking through a new zone, seeing all of the unique assets created for the game makes you feel like you're feasting on the most premium digital world ever created. The most impressive thing about this is that the team didn't need to do any of this. They could have had a strict chapter structure like Remake with smaller cities a faux open world, and we all would have accepted that. But instead they wanted to make something vast and worthy of the ambition of a Final Fantasy Game. It's not a perfect game, but even when things don't quite works.... it works! It's the most imperfect game I would say is a 10/10.

Of course having such a big game take place in the first half of the second act of FF7, the story's stakes and character development is limited by default. There are of course plot twists and the big question everyone is wondering about what will happen to Aerith. It was obviously a challenge to keep a sense of forward momentum and keep the big conflict at the top of mind, but I think they did succeed, even when they made choices to delay some plot points. There is a lot of repetition but still feels well paced.

Part 3 still has a tall task ahead of itself, especially with the ways that this game raises the stakes above Remake. However I do have faith and I think we will all look at The FF7 Remake Series as a real pinnacle of long-form storytelling.

i wasn't really sure how much i liked this and then, when i got to the bonus levels, i realized that i was disappointed that there weren't more. so yes i did like it!

i do feel like there's a little bit less to the game than there appears to be on first glance - the world map is pretty but kind of empty, the side content in waddle dee town is either not spaced out well or is pretty skimpy (or both), and there are so few actual levels. but those levels are so joyful and fun, so it evens out.

and there's a sense of excitement here - last level is the most obvious example, but it really feels like the devs are having fun with the contrasting tones of cute-kirby and apocalyptic-environment. it's got some real kingdom heartsy klonoaness going on, being very approachable but still a video game-ass video game at heart. good stuff.

Now that I've 100%'ed FOAMSTARS, I have a new perspective. Splatoon and Foamstars have 98% of the same ingredients, but FOAMSTARS’s sulfates and parabens leave you with a less volumetric, healthy looking shine.

FOAMSTARS is the first game I’ve played which is designed entirely around selling people a “season pass” and it’s very informative about how these games work and why gamers are so angry at them all the time.

The honeymoon period was great, largely because it’s a decent game that’s ""“Free”"". What was a pick-up-and-play game with the promise of something new after every milestone has gotten less exciting now that it takes approximately as long to find a match as it takes to play the game. When you’re waiting almost 6 minutes to play a game that has a 6 minute timer but usually lasts 3-4 minutes, I don’t think it will be around long. Considering the game came out less than 2 weeks ago, I wouldn’t expect to be playing it in 2025.

At this stage the game is all about player engagement. They do this by dangling a list of 40 unlockable items that are changed out every 5 weeks. The first 15 levels were easy and fast to get, But slowly and surely, the grind got longer to the point where you probably need to play for 15-20 hours to unlock everything in a given “season pass”. This is a pretty unreasonable thing to ask of a normal person. So I think they give you the best items at the beginning (new character if you pay) and the middle (around where exp grinding gets annoying), and something at the end (new character if you don’t pay) that it makes you feel like you’re missing out on something of value if you don’t organize your life around the game. For players who do pay for a $6 season pass, their reward for the grinding is in the form of a skin which retails at an absurd $45 USD. It's all artificial value, they could have just sold that skin and everything in the season pass for $6 and it wouldn't seem like a "deal". People are buying and unlocking these things, even though everyone looks the same when they’re covered in foam.

For those of us who don’t want to fork out $6 a month to play the same game we’re alerady playing for free, you miss out on “content”, mostly in the form of emotes and junk skins like new colors of your surf board or your weapon or a neon light that appears on your back. These are even more trivial than the character skins, but I don’t think people actually care what these rewards are or do, it’s more that they are unlocking something for a hard day’s work in the foam mines. It’s like a transactional relationship between the player and the game.

Meanwhile I paid $40 USD for Splatoon 3 and can safely say unlocking stuff in that game isn’t the focus. The actual gameplay is why you’re there, and the cosmetics are just nice to have and largely forgettable. I am sort of ‘working toward’ getting better dualies but it’s so that I can play the game better, not just so that my character does a unique fortnite dance in the select screen. There’s also much more thought put into its single player and alternative game modes. Having the peace of mind that I’ll be able to put down Splatoon for a month, a year, three years and still have a complete experience is far preferable to the idea that if I don’t play the game for 20 hours this month I won’t unlock Mel T. as a playable character.

I never played or had interest in a live service game before and suspected it was bad, but the reward incentives seem like a very an unhealthy way to spend one’s time. I think I will wash my hands of Foamstars…. without soap.