Yuna’s reviews

It took me two attempts to get into this and I'm so glad I pushed through. The writing is unlike anything else in the medium. I played as a communist cop who was extremely confident and moderately suicidal and it made complete narrative sense. Harry Du Bois is the most human character in video games — not because he's heroic but because he's a mess trying to hold himself together. Revolutionary.

I scheduled my life around this game. When I wasn't playing it I was thinking about it — the characters, the next palace, whether I should max the Hierophant confidant before the deadline. The Kasumi route in Royal destroyed me in a Starbucks at 11pm on a Tuesday. The UI design alone is worth a case study. This is the template for what JRPGs can be at their best.

I grew up with the original so I was terrified going in. They could have made a note-for-note remake and it would have sold fine. Instead they made something new while genuinely respecting what made the original matter. The combat took two chapters to click for me. Midgar has never felt so alive. Aerith's voice acting wrecked me in ways I did not anticipate.