The Shrine

I was on the fence but the demo convinced me to wait for a sale...

Aw crap!
Well, at least I get to save a few hundred bucks. I'm OK with the original FF7, but unfortunately, it hasn't aged as well as I hoped it would. It's not even the graphics or PSX-era production so much as the pacing. I'm spoiled by more recent games that give the player a lot more ability to dictate the pace and tasks; I found even FF8 significantly improved on this over FF7, but FFX even more so.

FF9 is the game I want to love because I like the concept and philosophy of it. I never really felt that one like any of the other FF games, even 12 and 13 - and I could go on and on about particular issues I have with both of those - but amidst all the crap, I found stuff to love about those. It's like Wind Waker, Mario 64, and Twilight Princess, games I wanted to like, but didn't find bangable.

Well, finished my first run through FF7 remake. I can give more thoughts later, but I enjoyed it. Not perfect, has flaws, but it was a fun way to revisit this world.

So.... When does the next one come out damnit?

Oracle wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 16, 2020 3:28 pm

Well, finished my first run through FF7 remake. I can give more thoughts later, but I enjoyed it. Not perfect, has flaws, but it was a fun way to revisit this world.

So.... When does the next one come out damnit?

Two years at minimum....which I think is entirely too long for what is essentially episodic content.

But here is the thing that really bugged me. We will probably be into next gen by the time Ep 2 releases, so its unlikely saves will transfer. Which means none of the extra shit you build up in ep 1 (materia, hard mode, etc) will transfer and matter.

And once thinking on that, it kinda got to my main beef with the game. Its on rails, as linear as linear gets. From story to materia to even gil and equipment.

I will admit the maps gave me flashbacks of FF13 :\

The nostalgic nerd in me found revisiting FF7 in greater detail fun enough to overcome my complaints. Hell, even the incredibly stupid factor didn't bug me too much, since I never really liked the original plot and a new direction is promising (note: but this was a really dumb/Nomura way to open up an alternative timeline).

I just don't understand what type of RPGs SE is trying to build nowadays. Either they go for pseudo Open World MMO type (ff15) or they deliver on-rail action games.

I wish they'd go back to RPG basics with this franchise.

Oops. Didnt mean to lock the topic. Sorry

I am still replaying the original (along with a few other FF games), but I’m looking forward to playing the remake down the line.

I’ve had a tendency to buy consoles for a game or two lately (PS3 was basically my FF13 console, Vita for portable Xenogears, Wii U for Xenoblade Chronicles X). I might do the same for FF7, but I want to ensure that the platform I get it on will have all parts. Though realistically, Midgar was my favourite section of FF7, followed by Costa Del Sol.


Anyway, how is the pacing? That, IMO, is the original FF7’s largest failing. Although, pacing issues don’t become a huge issue until the second half of the game, about the time of the Gold Saucer, and hit boiling point when Cloud is in lifestream lala land.

As a note, I mistyped lifestream as livestream like 4 times in a row. I need a nap.

The pacing, going off my memory (which the fact that it is already vague and partially forgotten speaks to how unimpressive I found the game, despite liking the setting), was fairly consistent. It does slow down a bit right after the intro/blowing up the reactor, but after returning with Aerith at a later point, it maintains a decent pace.

Oh by the way, I finally found a Final Fantasy post-6 that I can actually say I like. FF12 - the Zodiac Age.

I am really enjoying it. It feels like whatever team worked on the Last Remnant must have worked on this game -- because there are striking similarities. If anyone hasn't tried that one, definitely worth giving a shot.

I had to wait to make a post, after I 100%'d it and the post nut clarity wore off of course.

So the good:

Anything from the original game is fucking fantastic, the first mako reactor, Sector 7's plate falling, the Honey bee Inn, dear lord the Honey Bee Inn was my favorite part of the game. The Shinra Tower when that music track kicks in? Eeeeeeeee.

The characters are fantastic, I still love this particular cast of FFVII, they're my favorite, they're quirky and they're awesome, I love their development throughout the game, and Cloud isn't anywhere near done yet. I hope they can keep up the pace.

The battle system is also crack, I was a little iffy on it at first, and honestly didn't really try to figure too much out initially and brute forced my way through the game with potions, BUT for hard mode you can't use items, so using all the materia combinations and exploiting weaknesses, maximizing pressure, interrupting casts, increasing Stagger % etc etc showed the game has a ton of depth. I'd say the only downside is sometimes you'd enter a fight with just the wrong materia combinations and fights would drag on as a result because you just couldn't pressure properly, HOWEVER on the hard playthrough you're pretty much supposed to be strategic with your materia, so you can focus on the mechanics instead. The worst part about the battle system is air enemies without Barret in the party, those are just awful.

The Presentation is also on point, the graphics are fantastic, picture Advent Children....but it somehow looks way better. There's some pop-in now and then for background textures, but it didn't bother me too much since the focus is on the talking characters. Oh and those talking characters are actually lip-synced in English...and the English voice acting is fantastic. The townsfolk also talking about you and the world changing around them is A+

The bad:
Japanese JRPG level design at Square is kinda trash, I just don't understand how we keep getting these long corridors and backtracking and it's just not engaging, the combat system helps you forget it, but it really stands out especially in the last 1/3 of the game.

Speaking of the last 1/3 of the game, the padding is pretty bad later on. I don't mind some of the game's padding, there's an entire chapter dedicated to a character that was only a minor character in the original game, and some minor side quests between major events BUT some of the stuff near the end is just egregious(I'm looking at you Sewer system). At one point I was just ready for the game to let me finish and see the ending. Your tolerance of the padding really comes down to how much you love the game's combat, and I loved it, so I tolerated it, but I'm not gonna pretend the padding wasn't noticeable or good in every case.

The mixed:

The story which is just full spoilers(I dunno why but the spoiler BBCode doesn't work for me, I can't even read Kali's)

The plot ghosts, at first I thought they were just setting up that they're there so we have something to kill so we can break the plot and save Aerith, but then we kill them at the end of the game, so they're gone...and Zack is alive...in another timeline? Wat? Also they really blew their load on the Advent Children Sephiroth fight in the end right before you fought the 3 dudes from Advent Children and Bahamut?! I fuckin loved it, but at the same time how you gonna top that going forward? lol

They threw me for a loop, but honestly I loved too much of the game to really be bothered by it, also it re-conceptualizes the entire game to me. Since now we know Sephiroth is a fucking time traveler from the Advent Era(He had the 1 wing already), so that intro at the very start with the dirty bird is most likely him, which explains why Aerith freaks out in the intro when she didn't originally(yeah it's that kinda stuff you notice on that 2nd playthrough) and the plot ghosts are bothering her from the get-go. There's just a lot going on, and somehow it all works cause the planet in FFVII is fucking weird and has anti-bodies that turn into giant robots and eats people that gives it strength and all sorts of goofy shit going on.

Anyway, the FFVII Fanboi in my gives it a 15 outta 10
The objective video game playing adult gives if a 8.8 outta 10 for late game pacing issues and suckass Japanese level design.

Eric wrote: ↑

Fri May 01, 2020 11:56 pm

The story which is just full spoilers(I dunno why but the spoiler BBCode doesn't work for me, I can't even read Kali's)

Yeah, I noticed spoiler tags didn't expand for me, but I figured it was just because I usually use an unsupported browser (IE). You can cheat and quote someone to see em -- but I will try to avoid using them from now on (doubt I can fix it as a mod).

I think I just spoilered one word --"Whispers".

As for your review -- I kinda agree with most of it, but think maybe the fanboy rating is leaking into your non-fanboy rating of 8.8. Like -- the combat is really shitty. Yes, it gets slightly better later on (and for hard mode), but your team AI is still utter shit and fights can be a slog through inflated HP.

Speaking of which...hard mode ...item disabling ...chapter select... it all just kinda screams of lazy and uninspired implementation / padding.

I agree, nostalgia will play a huge factor into how much you like the Remake pt 1. Though I would be curious to hear how a fanboy, that hated the changes, feels about the game.

I agree, the combat could be better, strategically.

If they found a way to make you have to deal with things outside of raising the hp of the bosses, like if the boss had more mechanics pop up on hard mode, if there was precise positioning you'd need to take up more often kinda similar to the Scorpion Tail or the hype beam later in the game, or focus firing or adds, etc.

Your team AI is trash, but at least they don't take extra damage and guard 99% of the time, haste-all helps them fill ATB when you're not controlling them. I think Square was more worried about them dying when you're not controlling them like in FFXV vs them just being passive like in this game, I think being able to command them with more agency would have gone a long way, like being aggressive and/or spending ATB, but I also think they wanted you to be active in the combat too so the fights didn't just clear themselves?

That being said I still had -fun- with the combat in this game, which is what I find most important for all its flaws. The foundation is solid to me, and i hope they improve it for the next 2 parts.

Note: I'm not messing with broken spoiler tags and font sizes. Definitely spoilers included, read at your own risk.

I also hit the 100% achievement mark a couple days back. I was dragging my ass before completing Chapter 18 on hard (wanted end boss fight on hard to be my last achievement), as I had to finish Dressed to the 9s. Didn't help that I had to repeat chapter 9 another time to get the last manuscript because of the split quest lines.

Eric's post echoes a lot of my feelings.

On Kali's comments: I disagree that the combat system is crap. And honestly, hard mode made the fights fun - they don't slog as long as you have the right setup, and regarding AI - I'm just happy the AI doesn't get itself killed all the time, that's good enough for me. I feel you are SUPPOSED to be switching characters a lot, so I felt pretty effective with all characters.

Normal mode is, in my opinion, far too easy once you realize you can just go nuts with items, you really never run out of critical/good ones.

Eric: Flying monsters are irritating, but Aerith is also pretty good at dispatching them with her Soul Drain and spells. In those stupid battles with just Tifa and Cloud, Tifa was my go-to, just because she can manage to stagger a lot faster.

Something I really liked in this game: Summons aren't an I-WIN, but they are still super cool. I really like how they approached these.

Now I'm just waiting to see how they fuck this all up in the next games. Please say we don't have to suffer a Zack-related prequel before they advance the FFVII Remake story further...

And as far as the story goes: This is definitely all just an elaborate excuse for Aerith to live. I'm sure they'll throw other changes in, but Aerith is the impetus. Seven seconds....

kali o. wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 29, 2020 7:30 pm

The pacing, going off my memory (which the fact that it is already vague and partially forgotten speaks to how unimpressive I found the game, despite liking the setting), was fairly consistent. It does slow down a bit right after the intro/blowing up the reactor, but after returning with Aerith at a later point, it maintains a decent pace.

Oh by the way, I finally found a Final Fantasy post-6 that I can actually say I like. FF12 - the Zodiac Age.

I am really enjoying it. It feels like whatever team worked on the Last Remnant must have worked on this game -- because there are striking similarities. If anyone hasn't tried that one, definitely worth giving a shot.

How does it compare to the original FF12? And how far are you into it? (because the original game changed significantly in quality after the first 10 hours or so). The first 10 hours has that Vagrant Story-like feeling of detail and excellence, but the last 40 hours was half-baked. FF12 (the original) suffered significant development problems, with the designer (Yasumi Matsuno) effectively having a nervous break-down and quitting Square about half-way through development.

As a side note, nervous breakdowns were commonplace at Square from about 97 to 2004. Square wasn't adjusting their schedules and budget well enough for the massive new requirements in their dev process at the time. That's the major reason for the exodus that occurred in this period, beginning with Mitsuda after Chrono Cross - he was hospitalized during the development period due to overworking. He didn't work with Square again for over 15 years.

Eric wrote: ↑

Fri May 01, 2020 11:56 pm

Japanese JRPG

Sorry =)

Julius Seeker wrote: ↑

Mon May 11, 2020 1:36 am

Eric wrote: ↑

Fri May 01, 2020 11:56 pm

Japanese JRPG

Sorry =)

Pfft, quoted by somebody that hasn't played the weeb JRPGs from the West!(Some are actually good lol).

Haha. Well, we can have our Japanese Japanese Role Playing Games I suppose.
But honestly, I don't like the JRPG label; it's inconsistent with everything in that it's a mix of a genre and the location in which the game is made, and RPGs seem to be the only types of games that have this weird labeling. We don't call Street Fighter a J-Fighter, for example.

Anyway, on when the original FF7's pacing falls apart, I'd like to make an amendment and say it happens after leaving Costa Del Sol. The story and gameplay are fairly solid up to that point, with the exception of the infuriating Junon Harbour Dolphin. Also, Junon Harbour is slow to move around, but it's more the exception than the rule for this point in the game.

So, solid first third or so of the game, and then it loses a lot of its soul in the second two-thirds. First thing to note, is much of the atmosphere that makes FF7 as special as it was is lost in the later portions of the game for the most part. Things begin to feel a little repetitious in the plot. And IMO, by the time you leave Costa Del Sol, about 85% of the interesting stuff in the game is behind you. There ARE strokes of brilliance scattered throughout, though. But it's not at all certain other FF games where I find there's about equal amounts of interesting content from beginning to end.

Final Fantasy 6, 8, and X, IMO, are the most solidly paced games in the franchise. One thing I particularly like about FF8 is the pace is very user-dictated. There is a ton of stuff to do at every step of the way from side quests, to magic and weapon crafting, to material gathering, to card gaming, and customization; it has some of the most open-ended set of mechanics of any FF game, ever. While I like FF4, the level grinding in that game is significantly more annoying than FF1 and FF6 because of the linearity of the systems in the game; while FF1 and FF6 have more directions to take (although, both games are midgets in the company of a giant when compared to the amount of different directions FF8 offers). But basically, if you like sandboxy type games, FF8 is probably more your speed with FF6, FF Tactics, and FFX also being a lot of fun. While the more linear fans will probably like games like FF7, FF9, and FF13 the best. FF7 DOES give the illusion of a lot of customization, but I find the gameplay is very linear, and actually requires a TON of level grinding in order to get anywhere in it.

And FF9 is well... FF9, it's a nice little game, but more like the FF Mystic Quest of the Playstation, not a terrible game. I can't really think of anything to say about it except that it's VERY slow, generic, linear, and fails to shine in any area because everything about the game seems to have already been done in a better and more interesting way. IMO, an overhyped FF Crystal Chronicles game.