Had a speed replay of this using the remaster speed ups and boosts, and it made me marvel at 14-year-old me for getting through this without guides, because I felt like I must have been missing some obvious with upgrading something, because I was so underpowered. I was obviously under level because of the nature of the playthrough, but I shouldn't have been that much lower.

Anyway, the main reason for playing again was to see how the story holds up, and there is a lot that I really like here, the themes and emotional depth, and cast of characters work very well.

I do think the fact that it's a ps2 games holds it back quite a lot though. There are some very strange directional choices, most scenes have this oddly slow stilted pace to them, or just odd bits of extraneous dialogue. And some very poor acting for some of the characters. It's a shame because the heart of the story is one of the series best, but this stuff does get in the way for me.

It does also feel like an unusually brief story for a FF game. I remember thinking the same at the time but playing it this way really did emphasize that there's not that many twists and turns along the way. Really did surprise me when I realized I was already in Zanarkand. I know it has some very extensive side and super boss content to explore, and it would have been good if some of that stuff was more integrated into the main story.