I ended up stopping rather early because many things about it were starting to make me very uncomfortable over time. I was,, kind of enjoying myself I feel half the time. The lovely ~next gen~ presentation, a level of genuine aesthetic fidelity that actually gave power to how scenes evolved, rather than feeling fleeting or weightless. Combat for the most part kind of rode that roller coaster too, being technical and combo-y and rather fun to mash. It's not deep enough for me to personally come back, not as far as I got anyway, but the functions of it were kinesthetically lovely, and I liked to optimize where I could. Also the general vibe was making me really like,, two of the characters. Clive in particular, which I feel is probably obvious, as the narrative certainly favors him by design. But he feels really human, very much at odds with a sense of broken adolescence and vengenace and multiple levels of emotion he lets pull him and be earnest with. Side quests especially make that apparent, and those are all good I liked those!! They're fun and hammy and Worldbuilding and feel a kind of neatly alive in a way I like about 7R's sidequests but with just more of that flavor here (also especially the way Clive acts in response he's so cute).

There's also Cid, who's kind of just hot, but like, really really hot. His smoked-several-thousands-of-packs voice had me off my talons a little, you know? And there's that very YA ooo he's dealing with some demons in the dark but he's holding strong OOOO.

But, to dig down on something, 'favored by the narrative'. There is a stringent commonality on who is actually 'favored', at all times. The first time I felt rather taken aback is with Clive's mom, a scene where she is clearly disfavorable of him, and then further when the dad is not just keenly aware of that but practically works around the ~crazy uncaring figure~. And then WOW it turns out she's spoilers sleeping with him still for political gain and didn't really care about any of them. Oh and the other girl lead we've seen so far is sleeping with guys in a way she doesn't enjoy for political again. Oh and Jill is there in an explicitly subserviant role to the family, even if she is family. Oh and next time we see her she's in chains and smacked down to the ground before we free her. Oh and next time we see Benadiktra or whatever it becomes a thing that Cid knows about and she's soooo bad to herself and her body. Oh and there's more violence against women scene to scene. Oh it's NOT stopping??

Yeah it's gross I don't feel good about it. The further I went the less charity I had. The more time I spent away from it around like, chapter 6(?), the more I didn't feel good about myself and what this game might be for. It's not like I couldn't push aside some of this stuff and jive with the dudesss rock a little,,
So I sat through the whole story on youtube because I wasn't planning on spending too many hours on it, just needed peace of mind. Like maybe it gets better? Maybe what I feel is just some negative nanny while everyone else is enjoying themselves! Not the first time it's happened really.

I got to the Garuda scene and promptly lost what remained of good will. Almost closed it out but kept going just to see where it ends.

I shelve it now instead of dropping because I know, I love final fantasy too fucking much. Maybe I'll read someone's thing that opens up a whole new door for me for it, or something. But until that time comes I detest this shit. God awful FF. Do NOT go down the rabbit hole further trying to justify the development somewhere (this lead writer made Heavensward?? What the fuck happened??), you might find out shit like this https://twitter.com/aitaikimochi/status/1688248192968912896?s=20