Unquestionably GOTY for me. It's also the best game I've played in years. I am not a diehard rpg player but have played plenty since the 90s. I describe it as a love letter to the best jrpgs made, but without the long drawn-out stories.

I haven’t even hit act 2, but I am having a really good time.

Playing on expeditioner (normal) and have been having fun with the combat system - some boss fights require practice.

Soundtrack is incredible. I find the soundtrack a little loud compared to the voices on occasion, however, and had to turn this down a smidge.

The story is also well set up in Act 1 from what I can tell.

as someone who hates turn based games, and heavily dislikes JRPGs and this game has both...

yeah it's still amazing, even just the story, character writing, and world building can carry you through at peak investment in the game, for people who actually like the core mechanics it must be even better of an experience (thank god for storymode)

imo go watch the first ~10min of a silent gameplay (to watch the cutscenes)

Just the first 5 min truly show the love it was put into the game. The character writing, dialog and atmosphere put to shame FFVII rebirth

I was initially put off by the character graphics and combat system, but yes it is a good story game. Other people have explained the good parts, so here are some of my personal complaints:

• There are some really dragged out cinematics. It seems like they tried to fit some of them to the music, but didn't have anything more to animate, so sometimes it's really long lingering or circling shots.

• After certain quests, you end up "having" to spend a long time checking in on companions. And depending on your order of quests, this can happen several times in a row. So it can take out of the quest-flow a little.

• There's basically no map. There is an "overworld" map that is very crude and basically just shows "land, sea and major points of interest". Theres nothing when you're in a point of interest. So some areas can be frustrating to navigate, even when they're not supposed to be.

• There are parts where characters seemingly make odd or rushed decisions and act as if you should know why already. Almost as if some parts were cut and they forgot to compensate in all related sections.

Personally I'm still not a big fan of the combat, and play mostly for the story. So I'm on story-mode difficulty with mods that increase resource drops and dodge window(it does not deactivate achievements).

It is definitely in my Top 10 games of all time. I haven't settled on a final placement yet. It's a beautiful piece of videogames-as-art, the story and the characters are well written and acted and the plot itself is very compelling. The world building is interesting and engrossing and the music boasts one of the best Video Game OSTs of all time, without a doubt.

There are some minor niggles, sure. It's not literally perfect. It's unfortunate that you can easily make yourself so overpowered you miss cutscenes in the final fight if you don't consciously gimp yourself.

But other than that, none of the minor niggles really detract from the impact of the core experience, which is super super strong.

Woah, no need to throw shade at Rebirth. Both EX33 and FF7Rebirth are amazing games and I really enjoyed both.

My favorite game on a long long time.
It's amazing.
It would be lying to say it's perfect and has no flaws but it's damn close!

It's pretty good, although I think the hype is a bit over the top. The game is well done, enjoyable, and plays a lot like a modern JRPG (think Persona 5 and others).

YMMV, but dialog and pace on Rebirth are killing my enjoyment. I just arrived to gold saucer and I cringe on every conversation. EX33 is just what I needed.