Fair point. That actually sounds really useful, especially against

Spoiler

the Failed Experiment boss. I keep getting my ass beat by the mobs who immediately cast sleep. Now I can provoke them with Barrett (who has Warding + Binding Materia), and woop ass with Tifa.

 

You guys think Normal is challenging? Really?

One of my main critiques of the game was it was too easy. There's exactly one boss on Normal that isn't and is just a shitty experience because of the combat system, but everything else you can basically mindlessly hack and slash if you have the right materia.

On that, Magnify aside (obviously), Steadfast Block is the best Materia in the game. Get it, max it, learn to love it, especially if you intend to play on Hard or beat the one boss I was eluding to earlier.

To be fair, this may not include the last two bosses. I was thoroughly over the game by the end and just put it on Easy to power through it and finish.

 

I thought most of the boss fights were comfortably difficult mechanics wise, and several were very frustrating (hell house, abzu, reno and rude, failed experiment, specimen,, rufus). I didn't spend much time grinding materia or leveling at all, so I was at the minimum battle capacity for pretty much every fight. Enemies hit like a truck.

And on that note, didn't you mention early on in the thread that you maxed all your materia as soon as arena was open? I am not surprised you felt the difficulty level wasn't very high. Sounds like you went through most of your first run way overleveled and overprepped.

Lots of trigger reflexes and micromanagement was required to get me through several of the tough fights, and I died several times on a few boss fights before I learned the strategies and attack patterns. It was no souls/bloodborne/tsuhima/ninjagaiden bullshit, but few games are that difficult.

But all that aside, also maybe consider that people have varied levels of arpg reflexes / gaming skill and try not to be elitist about it?

 

Maxing levels and materia doesn't really do much. You should note, I didn't max everything until after Hell House.

There's also no super powerful, high AP materia that makes the game easy. The elemental magics are insanely powerful and super quick to max. Sp only really affects the power of the stat up materia in a meaningful way, and even then there's literally only one boss in the game that made me care about stacking HP UPs, and he's optional (and stupid).

Hard mode introduces a few changes that make the game 'harder,' but I just found it tedious and I didn't enjoy the game enough to want to do it.

As long as you have your type advantage bases covered and are scanning judiciously, 90% of your fights should be spamming them with their elemental weaknessess and focus strikes, switching Cloud's stance then going to town (provided they don't just die before stagger, like they normally do).

Oh, and Steadfast Block is incredible.

 

I'm getting better at the game to the point where it's not really frustrating now. Reno and Rude at the pillar was still something that I basically just bumbled through and happened to win. Still have no idea of how I managed to knock Reno down fairly quickly, because it mostly looked to me like I was getting my ass beaten the whole time. Finishing up the last of the side quests and getting ready for the climb to Shinra HQ now.

And fuck that ghost boss in the train graveyard. The rest has been entirely manageable since my previous post (which was right after Airbuster, who annoyed me to no end with the stun to Big Bomber combo). Aside from Leviathan, who basically packed my shit in. I think I was a bit underlevel for her when I tried to do it at 23-24. Will try again before I move on, now that I'm nearing 30 and have quite a bit more health on everyone (and a decent enough magic weapon for Cloud that he can heal competently).

I have to disagree with the notion that levels don't make a difference. Aside from increased health, leveling grants weapon upgrade points and those are pretty damn important in my estimation and experience with the game. Also, having max level support materia (things like Elemental and Magnify, Prayer, stat boosters) do have a large impact relative to lower level versions of the same.

 

7R is like ordering a burrito from my favorite Tex-Mex place.

I know I am going to love it, and for the most part, I do. Maybe they put more black beans on the burrito than usual or they used a different brand of limes for the guacamole. Small-but-noticeable changes, all in all. And thankfully for me, I happen to love black beans and lime in my guac.

Then I get to the last bite, and it's a heaping helping of sauerkraut. What is this sauerkraut doing in the burrito? I didn't order this!

Sure, some people love sauerkraut. Some people might even think the sauerkraut is a huge plus that elevates the entire experience.

Those people are pants-on-head crazy.

If you've come with me this far on my extended metaphor, let me get down to brass tax: Graphics good. Combat system good. Music amazing. Expanded little touches like all of the slum chatter, the Jessie mission, and the Wall Market stuff are just what I wanted from a modern remake -- adding to and expanding on the original in a way that fleshes out the world without trampling all over what made it work in the first place.

The sauerkraut is inserting Sephiroth into the narrative far too soon and far too aggressively and those godforsaken plot ghosts. Good Lord, the plot ghosts. They actively worked against me in enjoying this game. They're not fun to fight, and they don't really add anything to the story. If you want to change the story, just change it. Don't make a story about changing the story when that's not what anyone wanted or expected out of a VII game. What were they thinking?

The entire final sequence felt like something out of Kingdom Hearts II instead of Final Fantasy VII. I get the sense that Nomura is directing this game more as a character designer than a storyteller. He likes cool characters doing cool things and doesn't seem to understand nuance or tension or the slow burn. Who has time for things like subtlety when we can shove Sephiroth down the player's throat as soon as possible? Doesn't he look so cool in these shiny new graphics!?!?!?!?!? ISN'T IT COOL?

FF VII Remake took me from 5000% excited for Remake part 2 to about 1000% excited. I'm sure I'll play that one, too, but I will spend the entire experience dreading another mouthful of sauerkraut.

 

Maybe it's because I never played the original and my expectations for this game were really low (thanks to FFXV and KH3) but the ghosts and the changes to the story didn't really bother me. I enjoyed the combat mechanics, the story, and especially the characters. I loved all the little conversations the party had between combat and I especially loved how Barrett went from not giving two shits if Cloud was knocked out in combat at the beginning of the game, saying things like "You gotta be kidding me" and "I ain't paying you for this", to genuinely caring about the guy with little lines like "Come on, I can't do this without you" and actually addressing him by his name instead just calling him "Merc". I actually grew a sot spot for the big guy and I hope there's a scene in part 2 or 3 where he's reunited with Marlene.

What I absolutely hated about this game was the forced walk alongs. Like, holy shit, why can't these sections of the game just be relegated to a cutscene? Do I really need to walk at a snail's pace to rescue Marlene? How the hell is this fun and who was the dispshit that suggested these parts be actual gameplay? It took me back to the horrible endless hallway crawl of FFXv's Chapter 13. These little nuisances make repaying Chapter a chore. You wanna get to the combat but you're forced to play an unskipable cutscene.

Overall, this game is definitely worth the $60 I spent on it but it could've been wo much better had the trimmed some of the fat from this game and given us better side quests to make up for the time lost from removing playable cutscenes.

 

Well, I finished my playthrough. Honestly, the game got a bit too easy towards the end. I was mostly just stumbling through the final battles and was never in any danger of losing, and I don't think I was particularly overpowered (level 40 at the end). The bike boss was the only thing that gave me a hard time, and even that was just a matter of realizing the need to brake to avoid certain big attacks. The last battle seemed unnecessary from a narrative point of view. Whisper Harbinger had all the epic feel of a final boss without the Seph encounter tacked on at the end. I agree with the previous post that any combat against him should have been saved for later installments.

Don't really care for having one certain person back around in this new timeline. I think it diminishes Cloud's stock as the hero. But we'll have to see what comes of it, I guess.

 

I finally got this game, been playing it for ~7 hours a day, and just finished it a few minutes ago in 46 hours.

The game was ...better than I expected. I had heard so many negative things about it, and I went in with extreme prejudice against it. As I expected, I didn't like a lot of the new stuff, but overall, it was a solid experience. Most importantly, it felt like a complete game. Not quite as long as I'd hoped, but definitely better than I expected.

A super cinematic spectacle. That's FF7 in a nutshell, imo. Great graphics, decent music, chock full of dramatic Hollywood cliches like hanging by an arm, letting the villains monologue and escape, just standard drama shit.

The ending was super wild.

Spoiler

From what I gathered - there are three timelines? The original FF7 timeline, the FF7R timeline you play through, with Sephiroth, Aerith and Cloud having memories from the future, or their spirits travelling back in time, or however you want to explain the timey wimey nonsense, and finally a third timeline we created at the end of the game, where every good guy is alive. I guess Sephiroth initiated it all, since he's got inexplicable magic powers like that, Aerith knows most of what's going on since she's a Cetra, and Cloud gets like 5% of what's going on. Zack being alive was a huge surprise, and who knows what the fuck is going to happen in the future. The timeline is definite getting huge changes - I'd bet on Aerith staying alive this time around. The truth about Cloud's memories is going to be revealed way earlier, too, what with the way they kept highlighting that part.

The worst part of the game was Sephiroth being constantly pushed into your face. The worst scene in the game is that early Sephiroth mental trauma flashback after you bomb the first reactor, when you crawl through the plate after him. Jesus, that was terrible. In fact, every Sephiroth scene in the game save for the very final battle scene was bad. And the original Sephiroth used to be one of my favorite FF villains. They definitely pushed him too hard to the forefront. And what was up with all the creepy lip shots?

Otherwise? Eh, a lot of padding. Sephiroth and the fate ghosts were the most egregious by far. Oh, and Cloud's mental trauma flashbacks. The narrow corridor slow walk sections were terrible (loading screens?), but overall it was a pretty fleshed out version of Midgard, even if the game was super linear and you couldn't backtrack at all.

The early and late parts of Shinra HQ were better, but the middle part sucked. They removed the blood trail (or replaced it with purple gloop), and the bestiality mention. Censor a lot of the stuff to keep a lower rating? Meh. Hojo's experimental lab felt like a filler dungeon, too.

The combat was weird. I'm still not sure if I like it or not. They went for a weird action and turn based hybrid, but I don't think they quite nailed it. The game was kinda on the easy side, too. I got one game over, Tonberry aoe paralyzed and then one-shotted everyone, which was kinda cheap. The boss battles... they were long and exhausting and felt like boss battles, but they weren't overly punishing or difficult. The final bosses were super easy though, which was unexpected. Counterstance OP.

A spectacle with a holy shit ending. It was fun and immersive to play through, despite hating most of the new story stuff. Better than I expected, though I prefer the original FF7. 8/10.

 

I was a pretty big fan of the music if you exclude the dance minigames.

My hope is that all the future games have the same amount of alternate timeline scenes as this one. I am fine if they have one scene showing this is the crazy shit that would have happened if Zack lived. Not ok with them interrupting normal gameplay for it. Fortunately, I am pretty sure they aren't going to go that route because that is going to be hard as fuck to explain to people what is going on without having some form of Narrator explanation. The only way would be for a character to explain alternate times, and if that is going the plot has gone completely off the rails from the OG.

I think Square was in a tricky situation. Sephiroth is to video games what Darth Vader is to movies. Even if you never played the OG, you most likely could recognize him just from video game pop culture. You can't just have him show up for 1 scene at the end and that's it. People who know nothing about FF7 would be really confused about where he is.

That I agree with. He should have been used less, but he still needed to make appearances.

Yeah those are the loading scenes. Thankfully the next part will be on PS5 and the loading hallways should be gone.

They did add in a suggesting a rape baby factory mention though.


I started a replay of the original last night, and one thing I noticed was there is a scene where Wedge starts questioning Barret about when he is going to get his mission pay. It also had multiple scenes where Avalanche just assumes Cloud is going to keep working for them when they start talking about Sector 5 reactor, and Cloud doesn't do anything to discourage them from thinking that. Not really a good or bad change, just different, and I don't know why.

 

Platinum in 83 hours. Easy. Hard mode was easier than normal 90% of the time. Knowing boss tactics helped a ton.

Game was definitely worth the money, even if my motivation kinda puttered out during the last half of my second playthrough.

My only game over was the boss Tonberry during my first playthrough, haha. That sucker was harder than Bahamut + Ifrit.

 

FF7R getting a free ps5 upgrade with everything you'd expect.

More importantly there's dlc. Basically ff7r 1.5 it looks like with Yuffie (in adorable moogle cosplay) and some other Wutai OC doing spy stuff in Midgar.

It wouldn't totally surprise me if this was cut content from the original. Her not being in the game felt noticeable given the increased focus on Wutai.

 

There was rumors of Yuffie stuff that got sidelined during original development, along with a more in depth Crisis Core backstory feature. I imagine this is that content.

Really looking forward to a fast-paced ranged/ninja Yuffie gameplay style. Barrett and Aerith are too slow to be a really enjoyable ranged char.

 

Aye. I basically never touched them. Aerith got used to power level from memory and that's it lol...

Yuffie looks highly mobile and quick hitting like you'd expect. She didn't use her shuriken as ranged in combat though, only in exploration.

 

Maybe I'll take another look at this with the PS5 upgrade - I never even got to the second reactor mission on my first run through. I loved the characters etc. but the actual gameplay held zero interest for me. Normally I'm motivated to power level and grind but I just didn't feel that with FF7R, I think because I know that when the sequel comes out you'll be starting from scratch anyway, so there's not much point in investing a lot of time in maxing out your characters in this one.

 

In its defence, it holds up really well as a stand alone game. I didn't even think about the sequel while playing.

The combat fell off a cliff for me though.

Btw, another bizarre announcement that went under the radar:



'It's a chapter-structured single player game covering the whole of the FFVII timeline - including the events of the original game and the FFVII compilation titles.

This includes Advent Children. Phones only atm.

 

FF7 Rebirth in 24 hours motherfuckers let's goooooo.

Spoiler: Claudia Strife tho

I will never recover from Cloud's Mom being a stone cold baddie. Also, fuck that piano minigame in the demo. Also also, the walkalongs are back (feelsbadman). Also also also, if they're gonna kill Tifa, I'm going to lose my shit.

 

I already have the copy downloaded and ready to go. Reviews seem to be all positive and the game should be massive.

 

I'm 3 hours in. First impressions: combat is massively improved and it's just bigger in scope than Remake in every possible way.

Having an absolute fucking blast.

 

Tifa in bikini.