Final Fantasy VII Remaster/Remake

johnny_ultimate

Ah it’s just simultaneously simplistic and over-convoluted: silly anime gibberish in a very Tetsuya Nomura sort of way.

Retr0gamer

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Ah it’s just simultaneously simplistic and over-convoluted: silly anime gibberish in a very Tetsuya Nomura sort of way.

It's worse than that. If you've played Kingdom Hearts you'll know what it really means.

It means they're going to spin their wheels and release countless spin-offs and other guff in this FF7 world and not finish the games.

And the ending was also garbage.

I've skimmed most of this thread by now. Did you play this in the end retro?

Retr0gamer

Deleted User wrote: »

I've skimmed most of this thread by now. Did you play this in the end retro?

Waiting on the PC release but had a look at a lot of the stuff in the game including the ending.

I actually don't mind the ending being so bad as the combat sounds like it's more than solid. But still... it ain't good.

Zero-Cool

Just to balance this out a bit, the game is class, combat is brilliant, characters are great, ending is a bit mad but I liked that it went off the rails. Went straight back in for a 2nd playthrough on hard and picked up the platinum, would only do that on games I love. Can't wait for some news on Ep 2, hope won't be waiting as long for the first!

RedXIV

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Can't wait for some news on Ep 2, hope won't be waiting as long for the first!

I know we had to wait 5 years for the first part but I was kinda hoping to hear SOMETHING about Ep2 by now. I know there have been one or two interviews but I want some sort of a timeline! or a screenshot or two!

I thought it was good overall. Probably about 7/10. Randoms unformatted thoughts:

Probably about twice as long as it needed to be. Tons of "dungeon" sections didn't need to be there at all. I felt like my time wasn't being respected at all. That ridiculous slow robot hand puzzle comes to mind. The plate being dropped was one of my favourite parts of the original. I was completely swept up with rushing to the top to save everyone. There was an enormous sense of urgency. They completely butchered that. I couldn't believe when they cut to Aerith saving Marlene.

I realised very early on that the side quests were garbage so didn't do any after the first area.

The music is just fantastic. Loved all the remixes. All the familiar motifs coming through at various points.

The characters are okay. Tifa and Barrett are pretty terrible. Tifa is like a horny 14 year old's fever dream. I can't stand overtly sexualised characters in video games. Barrett comes out with ridiculous lines throughout. Both characters come into their own when their backstory is fleshed out which is beyond the scope for this game. As such, neither develop in any satisfying way. Cloud does develop from his cold merc exterior into someone who cares. Biggs, Jessie and Wedge are fantastic. Red is brilliant. His quieter demeanor is far better suited to the seriousness of the world he inhibits, in contrast to Barrett and Tifa. Hojo is fantastically fleshed out. Him putting his face up against the glass looking at Aerith is perfect. The turks are really good. Shinra President too. Basically, any character that took a more serious approach resonated with me. Sephiroth is pretty bad in this. I can't remember an awful lot about the original. They tell you absolutely nothing about him in this. His entire character is his theme song basically. Decent tune though to be fair.

The voice acting along with the dialogue is very poor imo. I don't remember the original being so heavy on the anime tropes but in retrospect I think it was always like that, it was just hidden from me as it was all in text. The mood is completely different when you have goofy characters saying stupid dialogue. Once you accept that, it really is great in places.

The combat is fantastic. I think the fight against the house is the first moment I really appreciated the complexity of it.

Didn't think much of the ending. I knew it was over at Midgar so was expecting an abrupt meaningless ending at best. Hearing how terrible it was, I was expecting something crazy to happen like Cloud gets killed. Since nothing like that happened, I don't get the controversy. Confused about who Zack was. Far too much is left to the sequels. This doesn't feel like a self contained game which is part of a trilogy. It feels like a third of a game.

Retr0gamer

RedXIV wrote: »

I know we had to wait 5 years for the first part but I was kinda hoping to hear SOMETHING about Ep2 by now. I know there have been one or two interviews but I want some sort of a timeline! or a screenshot or two!

FFVII - Zack's chains and zippers of memories
FFVII - 356/2 days
FFVII - Nightmare Drop Distance
FFVII - Birth by waking by.

You've got all them to go before you get FFVII episode 2 on your PS8.

one armed dwarf

I'm not expecting to hear much of next VII parts until we're at least getting close to seeing XVI release.

Or maybe the PC/Xbox version will have some sort of preview of it, like a hidden ending for 100%

seandotcomm

Just a heads up, the FFVII remake Orchestral concert in The Albert Hall in London went onsale today.
Wishful thinking it'll go ahead probably ( June 4th 2021 ) but I grabbed some tickets anyway, I'm sure it'll be rescheduled if needs be

Shapey Fiend

I'm at Reno and Rude at the top of the dish support and completely out of items, ether etc. Am I best off just restarting for checkpoint?

Creamy Goodness

Shapey Fiend wrote: »

I'm at Reno and Rude at the top of the dish support and completely out of items, ether etc. Am I best off just restarting for checkpoint?

Are there any Shinra boxes around? They sometimes contain MP shards. You can smash them, save and load for them to re-spawn.

RedXIV

Shapey Fiend wrote: »

I'm at Reno and Rude at the top of the dish support and completely out of items, ether etc. Am I best off just restarting for checkpoint?

I'd argue that they CAN be beaten at this point if you have the right materia set up. aerith's prayer for example can be good for cures. And if you're using Cloud's punisher mode on reno, and you get used to his patterns, he can certainly be beaten with minimal impact to your own vitals.

I'd push on if I were you

Kiith

Any word on the pc release yet?

Retr0gamer

Kiith wrote: »

Any word on the pc release yet?

It says ps4 exclusive until April 2021 so presume that's when we wi get the pc version.

Gamer Bhoy 89

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

Looking forward to playing this soon as I never played the original (JRPGs have never been my thing but I'm getting into the more modern takes). Final Fantasy 15 was my first in the series and despite all of its problems I adore that game.

Data disc install time is ridiculous though.

It's class. If you played FFXV first then you'll be right at home with the combat on this one. It's a little more linear though, but FFVII thrives on its story/characters/gameplay than it does its scale, at least this one does anyway (still waiting to see what they do on future instalments)

goon_magee

Late to the party with this post, but agree that anyone who enjoys XV (I also loved XV despite it's glaring issues in parts) will likely enjoy the VII remake.

Combat takes some queues from XV as above, and both games place a huge focus on the relationship between the characters/party (probably my favourite element of XV).

VII is definitely a more linear experience, but there is still a fair few diversions and side quests along the way. I hope Part 2 keeps it just as linear as the weakest parts of VII for me were the parts that felt padded out, a problem which I think would just be exacerbated if the game was to go open world (but again, I loved XV so probably wouldn't be heartbroken if a more open approach was taken!).

Zero-Cool

goon_magee wrote: »

Late to the party with this post, but agree that anyone who enjoys XV (I also loved XV despite it's glaring issues in parts) will likely enjoy the VII remake.

Combat takes some queues from XV as above, and both games place a huge focus on the relationship between the characters/party (probably my favourite element of XV).

VII is definitely a more linear experience, but there is still a fair few diversions and side quests along the way. I hope Part 2 keeps it just as linear as the weakest parts of VII for me were the parts that felt padded out, a problem which I think would just be exacerbated if the game was to go open world (but again, I loved XV so probably wouldn't be heartbroken if a more open approach was taken!).

I know I asked this before but what about going the other way, from 7 remake to XV? Is the downgrade in combat very noticeable?

goon_magee

It's definitely a somewhat easier/more simple experience, but I wouldn't call it a downgrade necessarily.

You don't have anything that resembles the ATB system from VII so the battles tend to be much more action oriented. It all plays so smoothly and looks so flashy though that I almost appreciated the simpler approach as it lets you soak in the spectacle.

Definitely worth a play anyway in my view; I played at launch and loved it, and started again recently with all the changes and improvements which have been made along the way. A lot of those early gripes with regards pacing, gaps in the story, lack of switching between party members etc. have all been addressed via free updates or the paid DLC's.

If you can get a cheap copy of the Royal edition I'd definitely recommend!

Zero-Cool

I have the royal edition free with ps plus so definitely gonna get to it at some point. I played it at launch but couldn't really get into it, didn't really like the combat but never gave it a proper go. Seeing a lot of XV stuff pop up on my social media for some reason though and tempted to give it a go.

BloodBath

15 is ok. The storyline and characters are awful though. 7 remake is a masterpiece compared to it. A lot of fun to be had in the open world but overall it's not worth the time if you really want to complete everything it has to offer unless you are really struggling for something new to play.

nix

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

The reason why I'm concerned though is because I'm at the start of chapter 2 now and...I don't mind a linear game but is this dark, depressing, little dungeon place going to dominate a huge stretch of the game? Would like to get to a more open areas and preferably with some light!

Thats the game pretty much, even if you skip all the side quest junk, its just massive amounts of tedious dungeon padding that goes on forever, with a combat system that gets boring and repetitive fast to get through a story that for me, was just one big disappointment after another.

The characters look great but sound terrible... mostly, the key locations from the original look fantastic for the most part, The church, Aeris house, wall market, Shinra HQ, the rest is terrible padding.. Its 5hrs of the original stretched into 30+ hours with nothing major really added, it was really noticeable and a massive chore to get through..

But then some people loved every minute of it, so who knows!

If you have had enough of the padding by the time you get to wall market.. Just know, it gets far worse..

RedXIV

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

The reason why I'm concerned though is because I'm at the start of chapter 2 now and...I don't mind a linear game but is this dark, depressing, little dungeon place going to dominate a huge stretch of the game? Would like to get to a more open areas and preferably with some light!

You get sections in daylight if it's just brightness level bothering you, then don't worry, you'll get some good moments too but to be honest, the darkness that was atypical with the slums of the original game is definitely more prevalent here.

I think if it's a case of you're worried about the actual length of the "dungeons" in the chapters, then what Nix says above will be true, you'll definitely feel it in later chapters, 17 in particular hit me hard and I love me some FF7. There's a lot of padding of similar looking corridors and similar fights.

Regarding potions, you'll find yourself adapting quickly to the battle system and you won't need them as much. There's a reason items are disabled in hard mode



For a news update: Apparently there is an annoucement around this on the 13th at the online concert for FF7:

Motomu Toriyama shared the news via the Square Enix Music Twitter account on Monday, which was translated by Final Fantasy fan Aitai Kimochi.

“In addition to the performance we have a special program planned as well,” Toriyama said. “There will be a few things about FF7R that will be revealed only during this concert. I will also take part in this program, so please tune in!”

The FF7R Orchestra Concert will take place on Saturday, February 13 at 5pm Japan Time (8am GMT) and will only be available to Japanese residents who have paid for an online ticket. That considered, it seems unlikely that the news Square Enix is planning to share will be significant.

Rumour and speculation suggests it could be the expected annoucement of PC/Xbox ports as the timed exclusivity ends or potentially a PS5 upgraded version. Can't imagine much else coming in this format.

Greyfox

nix wrote: »

with a combat system that gets boring and repetitive fast to get through a story that for me, was just one big disappointment after another.

Wrong, the combat system is superb, better than any other FF game. Not sure what you expected from the story as it follows that part of the original very closely

nix

Greyfox wrote: »

Wrong, the combat system is superb

Its not wrong, its an opinion, one i strongly disagree with..

Greyfox wrote: »

Not sure what you expected from the story as it follows that part of the original very closely

This however is wrong, they change a lot, more and more the closer you get to the end, especially the end.

Sephiroth_dude

I don't think they changed it but I think what they tried to do was expand it and flesh it out . I loved the game personally, loved the new take on it.

johnny_ultimate

The battle system is a lot of fun.

Some good character writing aside, though, FF7R manages to dilute all the original story beats through aggressive, overextended expansion of every little moment from the original game. Remake is a game nearly devoid of good pacing - not just the terrible dungeons which kill the game’s momentum stone dead, but a story that sacrifices the snappy pace of the original and just becomes a total slog.

There’s little sense of urgency when it takes you nearly half a bloody hour to rush up a collapsing tower, fighting a dozen grunts on every floor. Cool set pieces that were over and done with in minutes originally often take up at least five, six, seven times as long.

Padre_Pio

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

The battle system is a lot of fun.

Some good character writing aside, though, FF7R manages to dilute all the original story beats through aggressive, overextended expansion of every little moment from the original game. Remake is a game nearly devoid of good pacing - not just the terrible dungeons which kill the game’s momentum stone dead, but a story that sacrifices the snappy pace of the original and just becomes a total slog.

There’s little sense of urgency when it takes you nearly half a bloody hour to rush up a collapsing tower, fighting a dozen grunts on every floor.

I'd like to see a mod that edits the story down.

Too much pointless dialog.