It's fascinating how divisive opinions are on minigames and pacing.

You describe that chapter as horrendous and can't even grasp why it was made this way. I thought it was great. I don't like being bombarded by nothing but action or story, so these silly pauses are something I really enjoy and appreciate, they help keeping combat and story fresh when you return to them. Most minigames are like 5 minutes of fun and are skippable anyway; some drop cool items but they're completely optional.

One minigame I disliked though is the main one: Queen's Blood. It just felt quite random and dull to me. Seems to be everyone's favorite, but not me! That thing is a poor man's Triple Triad, just like the FF9 card game.

Maybe it's a genre thing that FF fans love or something, all I know is I signed up for an epic adventure saving the world; irritating minigames and menial tasks that have nothing to do with the overarching narrative just weren't fun to me. It just felt like padding and I got bored of it.

This is one of the complaints I came across that put me off getting the game. By association,I didn't get the first game. So, there's absolutely no hope that I'll ever get the 3rd, especially if the same complaint happens again. At this point, I don't think I even have the time investment to want to play parts 1 and 2 just to get to part 3. 

Something we agree on. Remake was one of my favorite games ever (top 20), Rebirth with all the minigames was disappointing (doesn't even make top 50). I would understand if Remake had a ton of minigames, that Rebirth would too, but that wasn't the case. Remake was focused and quite enjoyable, I expected similar with Rebirth and it was just completely different. 

Yeah I really liked Remake, so I expected more of the same from Rebirth, just with a bigger world.

Turns out it wasn't for me, too much bloat.

I found this online, now I want everyone to see it. lol

Have you played FF16?

I have, though not all of it, it was one of those games where I got distracted partway through when a new game (in this case Prime 4) came out and never got back to it. I did think it was good from what I played though, for the most part.

Now that Aerith is outta the way its time for Cloud to make the moves