Holy hell, this a massive turnaround from the main game. It's gone from a tedious, overlong mess that accomplishes so much less than it's source material, to a compact, well-paced, genuinely fun adventure.

Let's start with some improvements from the base game. For one, everything just feels much faster. You get randomly stopped far less, story sequences are much tighter, even the little animations are snappier. The dungeon designs don't have much more depth than the base game dungeons, but the pace is so much better that it isn't much of an issue. I'd still like to see the environments get more complex. The combat also has some subtle improvements. For one, Yuffie has a robust moveset that gives her a ton of range. She is more fun to play as than anyone in the base game, and working alongside Sonon is a clever way to recontextualize the party-member management from base game.

Also, the side content has improved. Fort Condor is simple but fun, Box Breaker was genuinely tough and very fun. Some of the side stuff is still a bit dull.

Some issues still persist. As I said earlier, the environments could use a bit more complexity. Some enemies are obnoxious to fight, and a few attacks feel poorly telegraphed. It's also too brief to leave much of an impact, but being too short is much more tolerable than being too long.

All in all? Pretty fun. If Rebirth continues with this game's changes, it might be great (and it sorta seems like it does?). Maybe this is too optimistic, but I do think these developers care. When they don't need to make a 30 hour epic out of a prologue, they can make something good.

Hoo boy, this is one hell of a mess. I'm baffled it got the overwhelmingly positive reception it did, as I see it as an abject failure both as a remake and on it's own merits. Occasional glimpses of brilliance are snuffed out by a mountain of wasted time.

Let's start with the few positives I've got. Music's good, and there's a metric ton of it. Although it does feel a bit generic in terms of sound. It's all very orchestral, and while it sounds good, it lacks the sheer atmosphere the original music had. The characterization for the main cast is great. Cloud is a complete dweeb as he should be, and Barret is a joy to watch. He makes every scene he's in so much more fun. Also from a tech perspective, this game is a marvel. It looks insane and the sheer amount of detail is nuts.

And now we're onto the problems. Let's start with combat. While it feels weighty, and swapping between the characters frantically can be quite fun. But the issues come in with defense, primarily. The dodge roll is not invincible, which is not automatically a problem. The issue is that many moves just don't feel like you're SUPPOSED to dodge them. I'll press the button at a time where it looks correct, I'm visibly out of the way, but I get hit regardless. I get the impression much of the damage in this game is intended to be unavoidable, much like the original JRPG. This ends up being very frustrating in an action context. Getting the timing right on an attack and dodge only to be hit anyways feels awful. Something else that feels awful is crowd control. Enemies can just bat you around left and right, and you can get blown off course by a random projectile thrown by an enemy with barely any tell. Ranged combat also sucks. The best option is usually offensive magic, which isn't very engaging to use. You might also play as Barret, who is so dull to play as. He just shoots without much variation or satisfying weight to his moves asides from an occasional big blast. Aerith is in a similar boat, limply firing projectiles that makes her a slog to play as.

Speaking of a slog, that's what the whole game feels like. Every single action feels so artificially slowed and padded to turn what was originally an introduction into an entire game. You randomly get stopped for the game to pan a camera at something and let the characters explain what you're looking at. You stop to slowly duck under some rubble. What should be a bit of gameplay is a drawn-out cutscene. Everything just feels slow, and it gets draining by the end.

Sometimes the facade of the game works. Sometimes you get something that's exciting or interesting. But those moments get beaten into the ground when a neat idea becomes five minutes of just hitting the same enemy over and over without much challenge or interest. And that's without getting into the issues of the narrative.

The story is a complete mess, to be expected from a game that tries to turn an intro into a complete package. It doesn't introduce much of anything that's new and substantive. Instead, it pads and over elaborates. The original midgar's story makes you want to see more of the city, while this makes me never want to go back to the junkyards and factories that define every location in the game. Characters like Sephiroth are treated like some legendary icon, with the assumption that the player already thinks they're cool and threatening. But if you had JUST this game, he's some lame-ass guy who shows up and says "hahaha you are cringe Cloud" and then vanishes, without much intrigue. And of course you gotta fight him. It feels less like a retelling of FF7 and more of a wack fanfiction version. I don't mind them doing something different, but don't try and justify it through this weird whisper nonsense. Just un-apologetically do something different. This destiny nonsense just makes everything feel forced and pointless.

In short, this game sucks mega ass. Maybe rebirth is better, I sure hope it is. Maybe intermission is a bit better. I'll get to that soon probably. But this, this right here? This game that got so much praise and love? This is a fuckin mess. It's a disaster of horrible pacing, stupid decisions, and an end result that feels like it tends to completely miss what works about the source material despite occasional glimpses of something good.

SMT V is very much a game of extremes, things that are very fun and cool, and other things that are exceedingly lame.

The combat is great here, with the variety and constant danger SMT is known for. There's an absurd amount of bosses to fight that all work at least a bit differently. It's hard to get tired of fighting stuff. There are some oddities that make some fights get samey, and it gets very easy to shatter the balance.

Exploration is alright. Sometimes it can be fun, but you spend a LOT of time in differently colored versions of what feels like the same map. There are dungeons, but they are pretty lackluster in comparison to what you'd expect from this series. Even when you have interesting gimmicks, they just don't get used.

The music and presentation is pretty good. The new designs are mostly cool, and the music is as good as you'd expect from these games. There are some performance issues, but it's not that bad.

The story is complete ass. It feels slow but develops basically nothing. It kind of gets in the way of the atmosphere too, which is also dampened by everything just being a desert.

Overall a fun game, with a lot of weird little quirks. Hopefully Vengeance takes this promising format and turns it into something stronger.