Andrew Puchniarz

Poor gameplay design and extreme micromanagement that flies of the face of lessons learned during Kingdom Hearts overshadows the gorgeous visuals. While not entirely against the changes in story (I think it's a convoluted mess on top of an already convoluted mess), it misses the mark in clunky-unresponsive gameplay that was common in the mid-late 2000s'. Animations can't be cancelled, AI sits there without even building up ATB. While not "difficult", the game is tedious to play and caters to a level of micromanagement I only enjoy when playing games that are better designed for the concept, such as Dragon Age, Dragon's Dogma and other titles that foist you with AI companions. The combat isn't interesting enough for the style it's going for, and smashing square until you have ATB to do something isn't particularly interesting or engaging, especially when you have to manually do it for three characters. With a major patch, some of these things could be improved, but as it stands it's a lackluster feeling for anybody that games regularly for a hobby. I probably would have been more interested in this game in general if they remade the original with a ton of QoL features and enhanced visuals that was rewritten to sort of foreshadow this C-class anime level plot (again, not against it, but it's offering intense obfuscation and vagueness in lieu of competent writing).