Tyler Donaldson

Ignore the critic reviews stating that it's a stale teen horror drama. They're not wrong, it has strong horror and drama elements but it's not stale. It's a pretty solid movie that would have been better served as a 9 part Netflix series. More time to devote to each character and their arcs would have really helped make this more palatable. But being what it is, the movie is pretty good and enjoyable. The fantastical elements are pretty well done. The characters are well presented (some come across better than others both due to writing and performances). All in all, if you go in expecting a masterpiece you'll be disappointed. But if you go in open minded (regardless of being a fan of the comics) you'll probably walk out feeling surprisingly entertained and a little sad at the lost potential (and lack of potential sequels/follow up).

Hate writing this review but feel compelled to. This game starts out pretty strong. Great dedication to expanding and building the characters, even secondary and tertiary characters. They added a couple of okay background characters too. Beautiful visuals despite some eyesores in the background. The music is great if often mis-used or even inappropriate for some scenes. Then you start playing it and realize how the side missions are all the same and there really isn't anywhere to explore or much to do during the exploration parts of the game. [Edit: Also, the "expanded" Midgar was not expanded at all. Mostly just 3D conversions of the already available sections from the original. No new areas added. The only "expansions" to areas were mostly small rooms and side alleys.] There's also some curious additions to the story that are hard to ignore, then impossible by the end. One thing of note was throwing Sephiroth right into the action by the middle of the game. No mystery or mystique or buildup to him. Suddenly he's just there being Sephiroth without explanation but also without any buildup or foreshadowing or anything. The hardest parts for me to overlook, not counting shadowy things flying around for some reason, had to be the scene's where the group is hurrying to an objective and stops to have long-winded exposition and dialogues about... not really anything at all. This happens multiple times throughout the game too! Hurry to save our friend? Hurry to save our hometown? Nah, that all can wait while we talk about ghost-kids or some other nonsense. Kills the immersion and mood and feel when in the middle of racing to save lives they constantly stop to talk to one-another about anything else. I wanted to love this game. I was ready to. I want to even like this game. But I can't. There's not much to do, there's little customization outside of your weapon upgrades and which weapon you want to use after leveling them all up. By the end it wasn't fun and I was rushing to get through it so I could play something else. That's the best way I can put it. 2 out of 5 for doing Tifa and Aeris and Red XIII pretty well, but not much else. Oh, and Sephiroth's whole design and voice acting was garbage. And Barrett sounded like RDJ in Tropical Thunder. Pass on this game if you are a FF7 fan on the fence about buying it.