I’m Begging You To Give Final Fantasy’s Most Underappreciated Game A Second Chance In 2025

screenrant.com:

As a lifelong fan of , I give every game in the franchise a chance if I can get my hands on it. That included games that didn't receive as much praise as others and even ended up being criticized for the style or gameplay direction it took. However, I think it's time to give another chance and see that it's an underrated gem that didn't deserve the criticism it received.

's main story focuses on a group of characters who are brought together because of a purge happening on Cocoon, which is supposed to send residents who were in an area believed to be exposed to a Pulse Fal'Cie to Pulse. Sanctum, the government of Cocoon, views Pulse as an evil place and that coming in contact with anything from Pulse is enough for the government to see the affected people as tainted, which leads to them finding a way to remove those people from Cocoon. This time, a group of characters decides to fight against Sanctum.

The opening design of is not that different from the first part of , where the characters are in a position that makes them hated by the ruling party of the location where they start. In, that's Midgar, but in, it's Cocoon. I remember reading a lot of complaints about players not getting far into the game because they didn't like how linear it felt during the first section on Cocoon. However, the setting for that section basically requires that the design is relatively linear.

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While on Cocoon, the characters that make up your party are being hunted by soldiers because Sanctum believes Pulse has tainted them, and they want to prevent that infection from spreading to the rest of Cocoon. Therefore, it makes sense that you're incredibly limited as to where you can go because there's a manhunt happening, and you're at the top of the wanted list. Aside from making sense of the narrative, the linear opening is a tutorial on playing