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Genre

JRPG • ATB Combat • Party Based • Top Down • Fantasy • Retro • Remake

Gameplay

Being a classic JRPG the gameplay is mostly simple. You explore the world from a top down perspective, and get into random battles in several areas where the combat is based on back and forth strategy where you control multiple characters.
You control a party that ranges from 1 to 5 players. Most of the time you will have a party of 5 players. Each player character has a different skill set based on their class. There is not much in terms of customizing your own party due to the technical limitations on the original release of the game so you won't be able to freely switch out classes and instead be forced to play as a variety of classes that switch periodically as characters are reassigned to the party based on the story. You are going to have the most access to a Paladin class with the main character. Most of the time though the party will be well balanced though with strong attackers, magic casters and support/healing classes on hand for battles. Overall this part does feel like a step back from earlier Final Fantasy games unfortunately. I can understand the why, but it's just not something I liked. A personalized party would have been something I preferred.
Battles use the at the time of original release the new ATB (Active Time Battle) system. This system is similar to the traditional turn based system used in earlier Final Fantasy games with the main difference being in that turns are timed in battle making the player have to think quickly on their feet each round. You can change the timer in the options menu to be slowed down if you wish, or even made faster. And for people who are not fans of ATB, while you cant completely disable it, you can set it up to stop the timer when you are in submenus or select an attack to give you extra time to think things out. You can also set up auto battles that remember the last option chosen for each party member and automatically executes them. This makes grinding much faster and easier.
You can also make things easier (or harder) by enabling or disabling enemy encounters (story related fights and bosses will not be disabled), and also toggling an XP and GIL earned multiplier. This can be changed from 0.5x all the way to 4x.
Outside of battles you will wander around different overworld maps either on foot, or by means of transportation that include things like a hovercraft, various airships and chocobos. You will along the way explore the usual dungeons, castles and towns. Talk to people, search for loot, buy gear, and do things to progress the story. There are also plenty of optional side objectives to enhance your party overall. Some of them can be accidentally skipped and not become obtainable after certain events happen. So if you're looking to do a completionsit run, a guide would be recommended.

Story

I will try not to spoil anything major with this part and just say that the story overall is decent. It's your standard old school good vs. evil fantasy fare. You play the entire game as a disgraced character named Cecil who must redeem himself also while trying to save the world which is under threat from the big bad. You band together with several different characters along the way who walk different paths which all ultimately lead to the same goal which is to save the world. There's betrayal, drama, humor, sadness, and all the typical story beats you can imagine a lengthy rpg to handle.
My main issue with the story relates to the gameplay limitations mentioned above in terms of party. Due to limitations, party swapping was not allowed, so a LOT of characters will get tossed out of the story for very long periods. I won't say what happens afterwards to them. But in the how they are tossed out, it felt very forced and immersion breaking a lot of times. Like some last minute sloppy write ups were done just to get them out of the way to introduce new party members to play with. So basically for a lot of characters, don't get too attached to them. And prepare to eventually roll your eyes and say "This again?" several times.


Graphics

The pixel remaster project from Square was done to remake the first 6 Final Fantasy games with new enhancements but while not sacrificing the overall look of the original titles. With that said, the visuals look faithful mostly, but also superior in some aspects. If you're looking for a game with high fidelity visuals, this is probably not the type of game that will interest you.
Overall I personally think it looks great. And the nice little touches like improved backgrounds during battles, higher sprite count and better colors make things overall look like a nice albeit slight improvement over the original without taking too much away from the original. One of the bigger changes I think is really cool is the mode 7 style view when you fly around maps in the airships.
The game also gives you an option play with a retro filter that tries to simulate scanlines which also adds a sort of subtle blur effect simulating old televisions. It looks nice overall, but the scanlines do look a bit funky on some things like the hud map and text boxes.
Speaking of text boxes, one of the biggest complaints at launch was the new text. And rightfully so. Luckily since release Square has listened to fans and added in option to switch to classic text. So no need to mod it back in!

Audio

The audio overall is very nice and mostly faithful to the original. Originally the game included only a newly arranged score for the game, however post release Square Enix added in the SNES music as well giving players the option to choose which they could listen to while playing. This is a great feature. I personally played the game with the newly arranged score, and honestly I think I preferred it this way. But you can't go wrong with either.

Controls

Supports keyboard as well as controller. And you can customize controls for both in game. Keyboard controls do give you a lot more in terms of remapping, whereas the controller only allows you to remap the 4 face buttons for some reason. I personally never found the need to remap, but it's there for anyone who prefers to switch things up.
Overall the controls are very simple.

Steam Deck

Works perfectly on the Steam Deck. I did a majority of my playthrough on there without any issues.

Ultrawide

Does support ultrawide mostly without need to modify anything. There are some very tiny pillarboxes. Not the usual thick ones you see that fill in the gaps for a 16:9 image on an ultrawide display. These are much slimmer and nowhere near as much an eyesore.

Extras


Music player that lets you listen to the full arranged and snes quality soundtrack for the game
Beastiary that allows you to view all enemies after you encounter them within the game
Gallery with 90 pieces of artwork for the game


Technical Issues

None

Overall

Overall I am okay with this entry. It's not top tier Final Fantasy, but it's not the worst either. It's a good medium ground FF game. The story does tend to suffer a bit from technical limitations which also brings the gameplay a step back. But neither is game breaking. In the end it's a still a fun outing for a classic FF game.