Lot of mixed feelings about this one. I don't even know where to start, I think i'll talk abou the things i like first.
The OST is impeccable in this one, the way the songs make you feel ties really well with the themes of the game, light, darkness, hope, and a really epic magical feeling overall, some of my highlights for this one are: The Nautilus, Doga and Unei, Priestess Aria and The Boundless Ocean. The OST especially shines on the Water Temple/Kraken segment which are by far the best moments in this game, the atmosphere, the battles, it's all brilliant and really enjoyable.
The difficulty of this game is inconsistent, the early game just feels miserable, everything is scarce, you're trying to understand what the job system is, and you can barely win battles (not to mention those terrible mini/frog dungeons), mid game, when you get out of the continent, your characters have a decent level with their jobs, you have decent spells and can win most of the fights, this is where the game is at it's best, though some fights like the Salamander required some grinding it was not that bad compared to others thing that will come later.
Late game was just a shitshow of unbalanced encounters, like, you're in a dungeon, you can kill all the enemies that you encounter, but then some minutes later you have to fight Doga and Unei, back to back, I grinded a lot so I could win the fight (admittedly I was kinda underleveled, especially when you want to try a new job but they start at level 0).
Of course, the worst offender regarding difficulty in this game is the final segment, to put it briefly, you have to traverse 3 whole dungeons with the hardest enemies in the game, fight 4 bosses and then the final boss (not counting mini bosses), you can't save the game (thank god you can quick save at least) and can't buy items (kinda), one of those 4 bosses I mentioned was the Two-Headed Dragon, for this fight, I didn't even grind, I HAD TO CHEESE IT, yeah, I used two vikings to draw the attacks and two ninjas using all my shurikens, all of the attacks one shotted my party members, it was terrible. But the absolute worst bullshit was the final boss, FF1 and FF2 final bosses were so fun, I don't know what happened when they made this one, it has only one attack that two shots my whole party and sometimes the boss for some reson steals a turn and my party dies out of bad luck, I genuinely thought I couldn't beat the game with the jobs I chose for my characters and without shurikens that apparently everyone uses to cheese this boss, but after more grinding I could barely, barely win the boss.
Although not bad, the way the story is presented is also kinda inconsistent sometimes, you get a glimpse of lore at the start when the game mentions the crystals, and light and darkness but at the continent the game feels much more like a TTRPG, you just go from place to place solving people's problems without much of a direction or incentive to do anything, and for some reason that place is pretty linear too, I thought that the whole game was going to be in the floating continent, but when you get The Enterprise to fly and get out of the continent is really amazing, you feel that there's a world to explore, even though it's a bit empty at the start, it's still something new and amusing, the game's story gets much more well developed throughout the game, mainly at the late/end game when you discover more about the world and how it works with the balance between the forces of light and dark, how hope affects it, it's pretty neat how the story is tight, I don't think it's better than FF2's but I can really appreciate it.
