My copy is arriving on Thursday or Friday. Going to spend the whole weekend playing the first one and relive my teenage years with this magical journey.
This isn't exactly a bad thing. They could be doing what SquareEnix did with the SaGa series and used the gacha game to build interest, spread exposure of the series to newcomers and help bankroll future projects with the IP.
I wish preloading was a thing for everyone to access without pre-ordering or purchasing online. Then the Console would not allow you to access the content until the disc (key) was recognized and then it unlocks.