The game has an amazing story that spans about 50 hours. (Definite bang for your buck.) It has a really fleshed out world with great characters and houses. It also has a "Active time lore" option built in which really helps if you sometimes forget who is who and which house is which. This is amazing and sometimes really necessary because of the big scope of the world.

The combat is fun and has a lot of different replayability. There are lots of abilities and possible builds which you can dive into.

There are some graphical glitches here and there (flickering of assets like grass and stone). And it can be pretty annoying. (I use a RTX 3080 so its definitely not a hardware issue.) I hope they patch this soon because this can break immersion.

I would definitely recommend the game if you enjoy story driven games.

Final Fantasy. One of the most well-known JRPG games to ever exist. Creating a remake for a game that tons of players see as their ‘childhood’ or connect to on a deeper level is probably one of the most difficult challenges for a developer. Yet Square Enix went for it. The creation of the Final Fantasy VII Remake. But not a complete remake, a mixture of a remaster with a little remake sprinkled on top.
I had never played any Final Fantasy game before this one. I went in as a complete layman. This review is written without any knowledge about the storyline, characters, planet, universe. So, keep that in mind.

Story:
The storytelling in this game, which sometimes feels like a movie where you are playing the protagonist, is marvellous. This is to be expected from a story driven game, but the way it makes you care about the world and its people, is just impeccable. You want to learn more about the planet and universe, the good, the bad and the ugly.
As someone who had no idea what this story was about, I must admit that there were times when I had no clue what was going on. And I must also admit that I still don’t understand everything. Yet this does not bother me in the slightest. This is part one of a trilogy which will fill these gaps no doubt.

Combat:
The real time combat system is a great way to bridge the gap between normal combat and turn-based combat. I was never that much of a fan of turn-based games (although I’m learning to love it) so this was a great way to interest fans from both types of combat. The switching between characters is flawless and gives great opportunities to assist your party members and fight enemies.

Bugs:
Although this game has been out for a while, I found an annoying bug that hasn’t been fixed over the nearly 2 years that this game has been released. Your screen just turns white during combat or while exploring. I have found dozens of posts on Reddit and the Steam Community about this issue. The fix is quite simple: Open menu, enter photo mode, leave photo mode. Although this is quite straightforward, its something that can be bothersome.

Future:
I’m looking forward to playing the next chapter of the remake. The story has me invested now. The game feels smooth and polished and I do hope Rebirth is going to be the same way.
I have also started playing the original FFVII game now and I love how they added certain character-arcs to remake.

TLDR:
If you are interested in this game, I would buy it. Though I find 80$ a hefty price, it can be worth its money if you enjoy the genre. Personally, I bought it on sale and it was one of the best purchases of late.