this is a game of very high highs and painful lows. for every motorcycle chase or insane boss fight, there are equal slow moments in both the story and gameplay that slowed the games pace to a painful crawl, to where even someone like me who hasn't played the original yet can tell that this is dragged out. however, uematsu went hard with the ost and those last few chapters besides some confusing story elements went IN so most things are forgiven