I enjoyed most of this game but other aspects just kinda fell through for me, and fell through hard. This review does NOT include the DLC, which will be reviewed separately once finished.

LIKES
- I really enjoyed every side quest. It actually felt like I was in the world and doing things to help others. The usage of dynamic locations added to this, such as the loss of Lostwing.
- Clive was a great character and a great protagonist. In some ways he subverted the "stoic and cool manly man" which were fun, like how he wasn't afraid to show his emotions or cry.
- Specific banter between Clive and certain characters. Cid and Gav really stole the show. I was worried about how boring it would be post-Cid death, but Gav picked up the mantle. Byron, as well.
- The fights were pretty fun. Note that I did play on Story Focused, so they went a little too fast and I didn't get to see many mechanics. What I did see was fun. I may do an FF mode run so I can actually get good at the game.
- The scenery! It was vast but not empty. Again, the dynamic locations helped. Controlling Ambrosia was a little difficult, though.
- Most music. I don't think this was Soken's best work overall, but the music that stood out really stood out. I felt kind of bad for always having Reflections playing in the Hideaway.
- A lot of the side characters. I really liked Charon+Goetz, Tarja, and Quinten. Not including Dion, who was top favorite for me...
- Enjoyed the return to high fantasy. I will never play ff15, and it's going to take a lot of convincing for me to play even ff7.
- The English voice acting. I initially selected Japanese voice acting, and I am decidedly not a fan of FF14's English cast. However, during the prologue I decided to give the English cast a try, and I'm very glad I did, especially in time for the Ifrit vs Phoenix scene.
- Torgal:)

DISLIKES
- The ENTIRE LAST FEW SCENES!!! Everything after Ultima's death was a HUGE letdown. I understand what the ending was doing or WANTING to do, but it did it extremely poorly. I feel it might have been more story-relevant to have Clive be selfish for once and use Ultima's power to bring back Joshua. The ending was so ambiguous that it actively harmed the narrative and story.
- Seriously. I couldn't even be sad over Clive's death because I was too mad at how it was going about the ending.
- The ending deserves three negative points because I hated it that badly. There was no emotional payoff whatsoever. Sure, there's no magic or Eikons, but it also kind of felt antiethical to Cid's legacy, to Clive's whole goal, which was to help people to not think of Bearers as lesser for being Bearers.
- Like, sure, everyone is "the same" now. But not in the way Cid dreamed of it. What a weak resolution. I don't think Clive really did anything positive.
- Besides, okay, there's no magic, but the Bearers that have been branded are still branded. What will happen to them? People don't even know how to start a fire by themselves. Like Clive said, there will still be war and suffering and everything, so what did he do this for?
- God. I just really hated the ending. My hatred of it completely overshadowed every other negative, but I'll list them still.
- Continuing with story related negatives, I hated the 5-year timeskip. There was no reason for it to be 5 whole years. I hated we didn't see Clive's reaction to realizing Joshua was still alive (which made their actual reunion scenes sort of weak). Legitimately nothing happened in those 5 years, and it fucked the pacing up. Like you're telling me Hugo did not managed to capture Clive at least once, not even taking into account it took him 5 whole years to figure out Cid = Clive? You're telling me Clive didn't look for Joshua in those five years, even though Joshua's death haunted him for thirteen? I get that Joshua, in the end, had a second (?) Ultima inside him, but it seemed baffling that Ultima just kind of didn't do anything for five years, either. It really messed with the pacing until Hugo's death, I think, and I see no reason it couldn't have been 1-2 years instead.
- I wanted to like Jill so bad. Unfortunately, I don't think the writers liked her much either. She seemed like an afterthought, like she was written just to be Clive's girlfriend, and she suffered as a result. Almost none of her dialogue seemed realistic. I think all the time about how she kind of just Was There during Cid's death. She was kind of Just There for the majority of her scenes (what little she got). Her arc wasn't even good—it was just a weaker rehash of Clive's. She couldn't even have her own struggles. :(
- Facial animations were very, very weak and bordering on uncanny valley. You can especially notice this in the in-engine animations (ie not the pre-rendered scenes, though it's still present there), where all characters have, like, 2 expressions: Neutral and Slightly Mad. There was a scene near the end with, I think, Mid, who was giddy and excited and happy, but her expression on the screen was decidedly just a slight smile. It kind of sucked seeing as the scenery and combat animations were so good, and the models themselves were very good, but then the models didn't feel like real people half the time.
- Switching between Eikons was difficult in battle. I like to think I'm actually not HORRIBLE at games but I spent the better parts of battles and boss fights looking at the lower right of the screen in order to make sure I was hitting things correctly.
- Every piece of text was SO small. I got mad that I was having to use the zoom function on LITERALLY EVERYTHING I'm not EXAGGERATING!!! that I just put a chair in front of my TV and played 2 feet away. And I still had trouble seeing things.
- Why was Vivian necessary??? Not as a character but with her mechanics. I liked the character thought map but I felt it was insanely reductive to have her give me "lectures" and make sure I was completely up to date on everything going on with the other mechanic. The politics were not even that convoluted to warrant this.
- Honestly, every death of a major character, INCLUDING Cid, felt forced. Every reaction to it. I wish we had more time with Cid before he died, because Clive's reaction seemed out of pocket. He didn't spend that long with Cid, and the time he did spend with Cid was mostly spent telling Cid he wasn't going to work with him. Just realized I straight up forgot about Barnabas. He could have been really great as a mini-boss but all of his stuff was offloaded in like the last 20% of the game. Not even a side quest about him posthumously or something. My knowledge of him came from Tomes and Tomes alone. Then, as evidenced, he's almost immediately forgotten about.
- I'm still thinking about the ending and how bad it was. Wow. I've played many games with ambiguous endings or even endings that kill the protagonist (Drakengard 3 is my favorite game, after all), but? This was so weak. It was a nothing ending to me.
- The ending also goes weak as hell re: The Undying & Jote waiting for Joshua + Harpocrates waiting for Dion, as well as Dion's entire redemption. It kind of spit in the face of Dion's redemption, even, especially with the quest for him and the flower. Nothing ending!!!

Anyway, I enjoyed this game and the world and characters and setting. I was willing to give this a 4/5 at first but then the ending just, kind of ruined it entirely. Really disappointed. Hopefully the dlc will give me some sort of actual, genuine closure, seeing as the actual game didn't do that whatsoever.