First time I played I didn't even notice the bunch of pixels on the screen was supposed to be a character and went ahead without even recruiting Shadow before the ghost train part.

To me it looked like a burnt tree.

And I didn't think about waiting at the very last second for Shadow to save him either before using a walkthrough either.

Great game. But definetly ''keep the walkthrough open as you play'', at least for your second playthrough, to see all the content and characters you missed.

The one thing I am abivalent about with ''save / recruit everyone'' is Celes saving Cid ( a rather tricky task ) after the Apocalypse, as if you don't save Cid, it's a deeply sad and very well made tragedy.

I usually use save-states to help me heal him, but I'm glad I didn't know about that the first time I played.

In modern divershitty games though, either mod-away the divershitty, or let me get rid of all the woke trash I don't want in my party.