I'm a little over 20 hours in, upper Junon, and I feel like I'm playin' frickin' Mario Party, not a Final Fantasy game. So far, good story but the gameplay itself feels like it's more a collection of minigames than it is about the core combat and exploration. The card game, stealthing chocobos, the tower thing from remake, the frog thing, now I have to put together a dance troupe?!!! Dude, so far this is not the "masterpiece" people are making it out to be, it's like a giant quick time event. As much as the story has been decent. I'm NOT HAVING FUN. The combat is pretty decent...when you actually get to do it...but half the time you aren't. The outerworld areas aren't really as open and ripe for exploration as they first appear. They literally added a character that's more annoying than Chadley, to the point that Chadley flat out says she's annoying. And yeah maybe you can turn both of them off, but why is n she even in there? It's not "terrible". It's just...not...great and...not...fun for a lot of the play time so far. And yes, some of the mini game stuff is optional, but too much of it is not optional.