One of the few games that I played a demo of and afterwards bought the full game, even have the cd and manual still left! Kinda curious to give it a try now after reading this, if only to see what I still remember...not 10€ worth curious, but when it's on sale over at GoG, I might pick a copy.
Getting your old CD copy to both install and run on a modern OS is probably more hassle than it's worth. Aside from GOG the game is on Steam, where I picked it up on sale a few weeks ago for $1.99 which is a pretty good price. The only problem is that there are multiple EXE files and configuration EXEs for different builds-- this game comes from the days where games had to be built from the ground up separately for either 3Dfx and DirectX. You actually want the 3dfx version because the game comes with a glide wrapper which can allow you to play at HD resolutions (although the menus remain super low res, which can cause some problems)
As polarizing as Sticker Star was for fans of the series, Paper Mario: Color Splash doubles down on its most frustrating elements and makes them even worse.
Was it polarizing? Everyone I've heard speak about sticker star were beyond unified
Final Fantasy 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 13-2, Lighting Returns, and Tactics all let you have a substantial amount of control over how your characters develop; which in the worst cases just means every character functionally does the same exact thing. This is particularly obvious in FFVII where the only real distinctions between the characters are how OP their weapons are and Limit Breaks.
7 has a lot of sidequests, you seem to be complaining about it not being non linear enough as opposed to not having sidequests.
It has minor arcs within the main plot, and a handful of one-off optional things (like the Weapons) and annoying timesinks (Chocobo breeding) but I mean things like Wu-Tai where it's a whole self-contained adventure you find by exploring. To be honest it was pretty shocking when I got the airship in FF7 and it didn't really open up any new areas.
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