I finished the game at last. Gameplay and bosses were terrific. The music was good, not top-notch next to other FFs but great compared to most games. The visuals were amazing despite the inconsistent framerate in performance mode and the motion blur in graphics mode.
The story went downhill FAST from around the second time skip onwards, worsening further towards and including the ending, and made me miss FF12 so much. I'd say this is a top-two FF in terms of gameplay but a bottom-five in terms of plot. Also, it genuinely might be around dead last in terms of female characters.
Some things felt unfinished or low-budget too (the late areas, animations in sidequests, lack of voice acting for some dialogue).
Overall is not as good as the SNES/PS1/PS2 FFs (alright, maybe it matches 4 and 8) but it's such a dramatic improvement over 13 and 15 in most areas that it's hard not to argue SE finally found its way with FF again, all flaws aside.
I'll give it an 8/10, the same score I gave TOTK last month.
