Final Fantasy VII Remake

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KSubzero1000
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by KSubzero1000 »

(I still empathize, big time. :( )
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OldBailey
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by OldBailey »

KSubzero1000 wrote: May 5th, 2020, 2:15 pm (I still empathize, big time. :( )
Thanks, it does sting a little! Still a miracle it exists at all though and if nothing else it's given me some cracking music that I'll listen to for years to come. Could have been worse :lol:
rob25X
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by rob25X »

They really should have released the whole game in remake form instead of chopping it up, taking risks mixing things up and generally making a mess of things by the end. After playing the demo I was set on buying the game day one but after reading the comments here and hearing about a part 2 and possibly more I'm put off buying the game now until it's price drops. The demo was one of the best gaming experiences I've had in years but now I think getting the 1997 version on PS4 would make more sense (it's only £6.50 on sale now). It's been about 20 years since I played FFVII, revisiting the game in it's original entirety is now a lot more appealing and a much cheaper option too!
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Stanshall
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by Stanshall »

It's a brilliant game, flawed, flabby but extreme highs.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by DomsBeard »

So I finished it last night. Before I spoiler hide everything I think the soundtrack is probably the greatest video game soundtrack I've experienced, as a massive fan of the original soundtrack which I have listened to every week for nearly 25 years it takes some amazing songs and elevates them in such a way I didn't think possible.

So I'll get my grumbles out of the way:
Spoiler: show
Side missions where overall crap and pointless, I only enjoyed doing them in the wall market section. I understood they were padding where before there was random battles but yeah it wasn't fun.

Red XIII in my original run was one of my mains so to have him not selectable was criminal to me, I would love to know why this was a thing in the remake, he's bloody there from when you find him.

Difficulty. I only died twice on my normal play through. Once vs a couple of bombs in the Don Corneo battle arena bit and the first attempt vs Sephiroth. Maybe muscle memory for the original. helped as I spread my material between everyone so I never went into a battle having snookered myself.
What I loved:
Spoiler: show


1. The balls to change the story

Didn't expect this at all and in the final boss battle the nods to the original and Advent Children are mental. What is going on?


2. Attention to detail. The random stuff that you didn't realise mattered.

The Material guy lying down in his shop in Wall Market, that crap van they used when escaping from Shinra HQ, sneaking out of Aerith's house being exactly the same are a couple of examples. You could imagine them easily cutting Cloud dressing up in 2020 but it was there and superbly done.

3. Combat

The perfect mix between selecting moves and letting it play out. Setting off Barret doing x then Tifa doing Y back to Cloud.

4. Boss Battles

Great homage to all those, the build up to Air Buster was superb. Choosing how to weaken it before it. My favourite was Abzu 2 purely down to the soundtrack or was it Hellhouse. Had a few backs to the wall with one character left and fought my way out.

5. Cast

Always gutted when I lost Biggs, Jessie and Wedge originally. Having them and their influence/story fleshed out was amazing. Losing Jessie was hard again 2nd time round.

Turks were superb as per although I always imagined Tseng to be older.

The main cast were exactly how I imagined they would be in this. Glad they didn't dial back Barret in 2020 with his OTT about the planet.

6. Soundtrack. Breaking my heart right now I don't have a way to listen to it legally. On the waiting list for the CD release. I was buying tickets for the concert at the Royal Albert Hall on October 30th till that thing happened.
So happy with it, glad it exists and need to know when part 2 is out.

Ironically on my Switch playthrough I saved just after when this finishes so looking forward to carrying that on.
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James
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

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Been playing FF7R over the weekend. This is my first time playing any Final Fantasy game, though (weirdly) I've seen two FF films (Spirits Within and Advent Children). :?

With not really having played (m)any JRPGs, and the immense time sink that most seem to demand, I've never felt the urge to try a Final Fantasy game up until now. But with this one I gave the demo a go, and really enjoyed it.

I'm up to Chapter 9 so far, and finding that I'm having to overcome a couple of hurdles that are definitely impacting my enjoyment somewhat. The first one I knew to expect; for anyone steeped in the series, I know that tonal shifts between intense melodrama and goofy/irreverent humour are a part of the charm, but it's always been something I found jarring as often as endearing. Sometimes it works for me (Ghost Trick, Metal Gear), but often it doesn't (Phoenix Wright, Yakuza,... Metal Gear), and the same is true here. Sometimes it hits really well, but other times it's lifting me right out of the moment.

Something I hadn't expected to struggle with was the hack n' slash/action side of the combat. I'm not finding the combat itself too tough at all, and am enjoying it quite a bit, my problem is with expecting that I should be able to dodge and block my way out of damage in the way I would/could with a Bayonetta or DMC game. I know the combat in FF7R is a hybrid, but on the surface it plays enough like a third-person action game that I find myself discouraged every time I have to heal, like I'm doing something wrong whenever I block instead of finding a way to completely mitigate or avoid taking damage.

These things aren't spoiling the game for me by any means, but they present mental hurdles that I'm having to persistently remind myself not to get hung up on. Not really looking for advice or anything, just one thing I had expected and one thing I hadn't considered might be a barrier to a series/genre newcomer like myself. :mrgreen:
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OldBailey
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

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I'm glad you're enjoying it but those are very valid criticisms and I completely agree even as a series veteran. I found the tonal shifts much harder to swallow when presented at this level of fidelity Vs the more abstract visual style of the original. The voice actors do the best they can but I wasn't very impressed with the localisation either and found most of the dialogue incredibly cringe worthy, especially the more irreverent moments.

I'm with you on the combat too. The visual presentation tries it's hardest to convince you you're playing an action game which makes the ineffective roll and stodgy block mechanics feel cumbersome in practice. The fact that the over animated player characters flip and spin all over the place makes accurately gauging the correct moment to deploy them difficult too.

I think the game has bigger, more fundamental problems but these issues really grated for me too.
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James
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

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Been up well past midnight the past couple of nights playing FF7R, so it's definitely getting under my skin.

I've also been watching the MinnMax Deepest Dive series as I complete each section of the game, which has only helped me appreciate more of what the game's doing, both versus the original, but also to differentiate playthroughs. The first part of that video series is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_TWmB1ofGM

Got into Chapter 14 last night. Fair to say the run of Chapters 10-13 was intense. And also left me wondering what the people of Midgar think The Plate is. They seem to have as little idea as the people making the game do. There's an entire city on top of The Plate, right?
Spoiler: show
It seems bizarrely easy to drop a section of the plate, both for the people living under it and on it. Equally bizarre, especially from a Shinra perspective, is that the potential casualties mentioned are solely those in the Sector 7 Slums. The only rubble seen, aside from some generic metal and concrete debris, are the buildings of the Sector 7 Slums. What the heck happened to all of the people/buildings on top of the plate? Why can we even see a single hint of anything that just got crushed by an entire section of the city up top? It's utterly ludicrous to me that anything remains, much less the Seventh Heaven bar sign and actual survivors of any kind.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by DomsBeard »

Might be wrong but I'm pretty sure
Spoiler: show
Sector 7 was undeveloped above so they could drop it. In the original you never went back there. The cutscene was chilling at the time and worth checking out
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Alex79
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by Alex79 »

There are definitely more questionable moments than that in the original game, like why did it suddenly turn in to a real time strategy game when you got to that first village after Midgar :lol:
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Stanshall
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by Stanshall »

For all of its foibles and flaws, this is the undoubted beaming highlight of the year so far for me, and one of the very best games on the PS4 behind Bloodborne and MGSV. I also love how it dared to incur the wrath of some of the most rigid, steadfast pricks on the planet, by taking their expectations and daring to slide them down a grid. Massive respect for anyone who does not defer to the precious fans. Express yourself and welcome the consequences.
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OldBailey
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

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As much as I disliked the game overall, I have to give the developers credit for having the guts to make such drastic changes. I wasn't against them mixing things up but in practice I found most of what was added eye rollingly bad. Hard to be annoyed about it though, they certainly had a vision and stuck to it! Who would've guessed that a Final Fantasy 7 remake would be so polarising.
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NoMoreSpearows
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by NoMoreSpearows »

Hard to imagine it's not polarizing when
Spoiler: show
it turns out to, in fact, be a sequel masquerading as a remake.
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James
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by James »

Finished the game last night. I'm going to be thinking about this for a long time to come.

I'm open to being dissuaded, but I'm thinking of playing through original FFVII to see if it changes my read on what's happening, particularly in the last few chapters. It's a weird situation where I feel there'd be merit to playing through the entire Remake series without having played FFVII, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that the ending of this game represents a good point to go back and play the original. To elaborate...
Spoiler: show
I get the sense that going through Sephiroth's portal and defeating Destiny might significantly change the original events from here on out, so knowing what happens in original FFVII won't necessarily lessen the surprise going forward. I dunno.
Anyway, I'm really glad that I decided to play this. For any of the stuff that did bother me, overall I had a blast and the story and combat really sucked me in.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Post by DomsBeard »

James wrote: May 22nd, 2020, 2:25 pm Finished the game last night. I'm going to be thinking about this for a long time to come.

I'm open to being dissuaded, but I'm thinking of playing through original FFVII to see if it changes my read on what's happening, particularly in the last few chapters. It's a weird situation where I feel there'd be merit to playing through the entire Remake series without having played FFVII, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that the ending of this game represents a good point to go back and play the original. To elaborate...
Spoiler: show
I get the sense that going through Sephiroth's portal and defeating Destiny might significantly change the original events from here on out, so knowing what happens in original FFVII won't necessarily lessen the surprise going forward. I dunno.
Anyway, I'm really glad that I decided to play this. For any of the stuff that did bother me, overall I had a blast and the story and combat really sucked me in.
I'd recommend it as
Spoiler: show
several things were changed prior to that too


I've just carried on my save post Midgar on the original and it is 4 hours in(the 3x speed helps).
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OldBailey
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Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake

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I say go for it. I imagine a lot of the new stuff in Remake is fairly incomprehensible if you're not familiar with the original's story, I can only imagine that will be even more so in the next part. If you enjoyed this one, I think you're enjoyment of future releases would only be enhanced by having full context.

It's so different from the original anyway the notion of story spoilers potentially taking away from the experience of Remake seems almost like a non issue to me.

Plus, I think you'll know by the time you reach the point where Remake ends if the game is for you or not. You can always pack it in and wait for part 2 🙂
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