This is a gacha game. Never indulge a gacha game, not even to "try". They exist solely to get you hooked, and then steadily raise the bar on your expected efforts and investment until they find the threshold of insufferable, just to try and force you to buy. Exploiting fomo, fostering investment fallacy, and baiting group mentality, it's all here.

If you were hoping for this to be the definitive FF7 remake experience, it is sadly not that. The story skips around as it pleases, leaving in only chunks of the juiciest dungeons to explore and a fragmented handful of story beats that completely skip all the travel, minigames, and flavor between locations. Cutscene decisions have been rendered completely inconsequential and skippable, no one cares if you give the flower to Marline or Tifa, it does nothing. And only a fragment of the actual story is available to begin with. You'll have to wait a year or two for the live service to slowly churn out one new "chapter" at a time-- chopped into a hundred bite-sized pieces, of course. Naturally, any parts that weren't already seen in FF7 ReMake will appear exclusively in low-quality AI upscale, instead of actually being "remastered" to a meaningful degree.

If you were hoping for an engaging multiplayer experience, this is also not that. While online co-op technically exists and is beneficial, the gameplay boils down to "hope you've grinded power numbers in the specific attack types you need for this boss" and it's better played by the Auto button rather than actually giving it your time and attention to play manually.

If you were hoping for a casual slot machine you can throw a couple dollars into for a quick dopamine rush as you hope for something good, this game wants over $15 USD per spin, straight up. And bombards you constantly with limited time offers regardless. It's petulant.

If you were somehow hoping for a game that will stand the test of time and make you feel good for all your time and effort spent on it, I'm sorry to remind you that this is a live service. You do not own your save data, and it will be shut down at any time, even if they didn't finish the story yet. Any progress you do make will inevitably be a moot point anyway, as the weekly updates perpetually churn out new events to grind, new goals to reach, and new power to obtain. You will never be on top for long, because the entire game is fundamentally designed around incrementally making everything you own slowly become outdated and worthless as the power creeps steadily and inevitably. Nothing in this game will be special or unique, every single weapon will immediately already have two different variants upon release, just to give the same weapon to multiple characters in case you prefer one over the other.

Why are you even reading this? Go ahead and fight four hundred Scorpion Sentinels in a row if you don't believe me. Grind to level 50, and watch as the level cap gets raised by 5 every month until they reach their favorite numbers 99 or 120. Max out a weapon, only for two new gacha-only weapons to appear that outclass it with every event. Carefully farm synthesis items and generate Materia in every sigil, every element, and in both Magic and Physical forms, while the game cycles through focusing on each in turn, until eventually they introduce a NEW type of Materia for you to grind all over again.

This is not fun. This is just busywork. Something "pretty" you can idly poke at while you wait for something real to happen. That's all it's good for. And even then you'll want to keep it muted or the same three songs repeating constantly will drive you up a wall.

Great gacha game, reminds me of FF Mobius (missed that game). You can play the game without spending any money. You will lose out on outfits and some weapons but ultimately you have alternative weapons you can build. My only complain is that it is too grindy sometimes, but I understand since it is a strategy/kinda-rpg type of game. I also hope additional story is added faster.

##Good##
-mechanics
-story elements
-friendly f2p gacha game
-graphics
-promising story additions, looking forward to a "remastered" Before Crisis story in EC.

##Bad##
-too grindy
-takes a while for new story quest to be added in the game
-some weapons feels the same
-need more Limit Break options.

Can't wait for advent children and other before crisis stories to be added soon.

Sad money grab (free to play game yeah right) and when do you play the game, its all menus and cinemas!