This review contains spoilers
A huge, densely packed, amazingly presented game. There's so much in here that even if not everything is quite someone's taste, they're sure to have a blast with the rest.
The world takes the forefront here. Taking 20 minute pitstops from the original game and turning them into huge, fleshed out, beautiful zones is a wonder and doesn't feel like padding or filler in any way. Tasteful changes with the context of the rest of the Compilation's existence, like Cissnei showing up in Gongaga, or the addition of Roche to really drive home degradation, are really cool to see as well. On the side activities: there was a moment where I found something that looked cool, but had nothing happening there yet. I was initially a little disappointed, since it felt like it wasn't possible to really explore and make cool discoveries on your own. But when I said that made the game world feel not super open, a friend made the comment that it's more like a checklist that you can optionally go through as you take in the zone, and that actually shifted my view a bit. I did enjoy all of the individual activities at least enough to full clear every zone as soon as it was allowed, and only by the very end was I getting a little tired of them (climbing feels pretty bad though). I think these open world sections could have been spread out a little better too, but it wasn't a huge deal. One other note is that the party interactions are some of the best parts of the game, and while you get plenty during the main story, exploration is pretty silent in comparison. I wish the party had more to say as you wandered around on came across certain locations.
Other side content, like minigames, is of course an enormous part of the game too. This is one of the biggest impressions I have from the original game, and I thought Remake was already following up well here, so this was really cool to see maintained as a huge part of exploring this world. Not all of them quite hit (Aerith Cactuars was a bit painful), or maybe they had slightly too high goals for just how many minigames there are (especially with Round 2 of many of them dumped all at once in chapter 12), but I enjoyed clearing all of them. Cactuar racing was probably my favorite, that's a whole Mario Kart with a bunch of course variety and music as a little side mode in this already massive game. Queen's Blood was also a pretty fun game that earned its "premiere sidegame" status for the most part, those the visuals could have had a little more flair. Quests are also a significant step up, none felt super plain or phoned in and it's cool to see each sort of spotlight a party member as a companion.
The combat is just great overall. Remake was already great here, and synergy abilities are a fun way to encourage controlling different characters even more. Every character is fun to play to the point where I like getting forced into certain parties for sections with characters I was underusing. There's a lot of systems, but nothing (pre-postgame sims) is so demanding that it requires mastering every system simultaneously; you can sort of pick and choose what to ignore. There's a ton of room for player expression too. I watched a friend play briefly and it was super cool to see that he chose basically none of the same actions as me and played with a completely different style that also totally worked.
The follow up to Remake's ending was sort of what I was most looking forward to all game. Most of the time though, the game seems content to let it lie under the surface and just straightforwardly play out the plot of the original game. This recreation was executed beautifully and was a joy to play, but it did leave me wanting more than the handful of 3 minute long Zack crumbs we got sprinkled throughout + hints at deeper happenings like the Tifa Weapon scene. Of course, this all comes to a head in the contentious final 2 hours of the game. I'm not as sour on this as others seem to be, but I also don't really feel like it left me satisfied as a big fan of Remake's changes (and I'm sure it wouldn't leave Remake haters satisfied either). I guess we'll see in 2028 or whenever, but since Rebirth didn't quite follow up Remake-specific points in the best way, I don't totally trust part 3 to do more than have us go to Northern Crater, collect Huge Materia, have some very odd modified Mideel/Lifestream sequence where Cloud re-figures out who Zack is despite fighting alongside him briefly already, and then have the entire party fight Sephiroth at the edge of creation again. Regardless of all this, I like that there's still open endings and things to speculate, but I wish it had been spread out better throughout the game and told more clearly. Being lukewarm on this section doesn't really spoil the other 98 hours I spent on my main playthrough.
On characters, I just want to say that Cait Sith had the biggest glow up by far (though they're cowards for pronouncing it that way), and Yuffie was a little too one note for how prominent she was, which was a bit of a let down after how great she was in Intermission. Also, what was the point of Reno being gone for almost the whole game?
And finally, the music has to be commented on. There's some amazing stuff here, with plenty of variety. The straightforward recreations of originals (Cosmo Canyon) are beautiful. FF7-themed mixes of classics (Battle on the Big Bridge) are great. Totally original compositions (Tseng & Elena fight, which continues the cool idea of each Turk having a musical "character") are amazing. Is every single song a 10/10? Probably not, but there's very little to complain about (slightly too many chocobo remixes), and this is one I'm sure to pore over and enjoy even more after the game. The one negative comment I have here is about how frequent musical changes happen as you go around the world in a normal exploring cadence. Maybe you get on a chocobo, maybe you walk by the moogle hut or Chadley, maybe you enter or exit a town or fast travel or get in the buggy, but all of these can disrupt what you're hearing, and it makes it a little difficult to fully immerse in the world. In Gongaga I would sometimes slowly walk around just to keep the atmosphere going, which was great when I gave it room to breathe. Cosmo Canyon (the town) was large enough that this was also maintained (aside from near Chadley), and this worked super well.
Overall, while not the most perfect game in existence, this is an amazing game that I was glad to have 110+ hours melt away in. I went for full completion in almost everything (have not finished postgame Chadley sims or Hard mode on most chapters, but pretty much everything else) and am excited to see where this trilogy takes us for its conclusion.
The world takes the forefront here. Taking 20 minute pitstops from the original game and turning them into huge, fleshed out, beautiful zones is a wonder and doesn't feel like padding or filler in any way. Tasteful changes with the context of the rest of the Compilation's existence, like Cissnei showing up in Gongaga, or the addition of Roche to really drive home degradation, are really cool to see as well. On the side activities: there was a moment where I found something that looked cool, but had nothing happening there yet. I was initially a little disappointed, since it felt like it wasn't possible to really explore and make cool discoveries on your own. But when I said that made the game world feel not super open, a friend made the comment that it's more like a checklist that you can optionally go through as you take in the zone, and that actually shifted my view a bit. I did enjoy all of the individual activities at least enough to full clear every zone as soon as it was allowed, and only by the very end was I getting a little tired of them (climbing feels pretty bad though). I think these open world sections could have been spread out a little better too, but it wasn't a huge deal. One other note is that the party interactions are some of the best parts of the game, and while you get plenty during the main story, exploration is pretty silent in comparison. I wish the party had more to say as you wandered around on came across certain locations.
Other side content, like minigames, is of course an enormous part of the game too. This is one of the biggest impressions I have from the original game, and I thought Remake was already following up well here, so this was really cool to see maintained as a huge part of exploring this world. Not all of them quite hit (Aerith Cactuars was a bit painful), or maybe they had slightly too high goals for just how many minigames there are (especially with Round 2 of many of them dumped all at once in chapter 12), but I enjoyed clearing all of them. Cactuar racing was probably my favorite, that's a whole Mario Kart with a bunch of course variety and music as a little side mode in this already massive game. Queen's Blood was also a pretty fun game that earned its "premiere sidegame" status for the most part, those the visuals could have had a little more flair. Quests are also a significant step up, none felt super plain or phoned in and it's cool to see each sort of spotlight a party member as a companion.
The combat is just great overall. Remake was already great here, and synergy abilities are a fun way to encourage controlling different characters even more. Every character is fun to play to the point where I like getting forced into certain parties for sections with characters I was underusing. There's a lot of systems, but nothing (pre-postgame sims) is so demanding that it requires mastering every system simultaneously; you can sort of pick and choose what to ignore. There's a ton of room for player expression too. I watched a friend play briefly and it was super cool to see that he chose basically none of the same actions as me and played with a completely different style that also totally worked.
The follow up to Remake's ending was sort of what I was most looking forward to all game. Most of the time though, the game seems content to let it lie under the surface and just straightforwardly play out the plot of the original game. This recreation was executed beautifully and was a joy to play, but it did leave me wanting more than the handful of 3 minute long Zack crumbs we got sprinkled throughout + hints at deeper happenings like the Tifa Weapon scene. Of course, this all comes to a head in the contentious final 2 hours of the game. I'm not as sour on this as others seem to be, but I also don't really feel like it left me satisfied as a big fan of Remake's changes (and I'm sure it wouldn't leave Remake haters satisfied either). I guess we'll see in 2028 or whenever, but since Rebirth didn't quite follow up Remake-specific points in the best way, I don't totally trust part 3 to do more than have us go to Northern Crater, collect Huge Materia, have some very odd modified Mideel/Lifestream sequence where Cloud re-figures out who Zack is despite fighting alongside him briefly already, and then have the entire party fight Sephiroth at the edge of creation again. Regardless of all this, I like that there's still open endings and things to speculate, but I wish it had been spread out better throughout the game and told more clearly. Being lukewarm on this section doesn't really spoil the other 98 hours I spent on my main playthrough.
On characters, I just want to say that Cait Sith had the biggest glow up by far (though they're cowards for pronouncing it that way), and Yuffie was a little too one note for how prominent she was, which was a bit of a let down after how great she was in Intermission. Also, what was the point of Reno being gone for almost the whole game?
And finally, the music has to be commented on. There's some amazing stuff here, with plenty of variety. The straightforward recreations of originals (Cosmo Canyon) are beautiful. FF7-themed mixes of classics (Battle on the Big Bridge) are great. Totally original compositions (Tseng & Elena fight, which continues the cool idea of each Turk having a musical "character") are amazing. Is every single song a 10/10? Probably not, but there's very little to complain about (slightly too many chocobo remixes), and this is one I'm sure to pore over and enjoy even more after the game. The one negative comment I have here is about how frequent musical changes happen as you go around the world in a normal exploring cadence. Maybe you get on a chocobo, maybe you walk by the moogle hut or Chadley, maybe you enter or exit a town or fast travel or get in the buggy, but all of these can disrupt what you're hearing, and it makes it a little difficult to fully immerse in the world. In Gongaga I would sometimes slowly walk around just to keep the atmosphere going, which was great when I gave it room to breathe. Cosmo Canyon (the town) was large enough that this was also maintained (aside from near Chadley), and this worked super well.
Overall, while not the most perfect game in existence, this is an amazing game that I was glad to have 110+ hours melt away in. I went for full completion in almost everything (have not finished postgame Chadley sims or Hard mode on most chapters, but pretty much everything else) and am excited to see where this trilogy takes us for its conclusion.