Final Fantasy VII Remake

[Dr Fear 1,268]

It's happening.

 

[Zepol87 9,185]

Hell yea!!! 

[Dr Fear 1,268]

I am last last one to see racism everywhere, but the Barrett character is 2019 is pretty amazing.

[bamachine 1,230]

This was the very first game I played, post college and post 10 year marriage. I bought a PS1(first console I owned since the Atari 5200) in early 2003 and this came with it. It was also the first RPG video game I played(played some D&D tabletop in college). It hooked me and I ended up playing almost every turn based RPG on the PS1 and the PS2. Played a few action RPGs on consoles and a bunch on PC. Also went back and played a bunch on emulators. So this game is both a treasure and a curse(hundreds upon hundreds of hours wasted?) to me.

[HornsOverIthaca 2,333]

[TankedBevo 2,482]

Fuck yes! I played the original all the way thru about six times as a teen and once more on a PC download a couple years ago. In all that time I've never been able to beat Ruby weapon 🤷🏾‍♂️.

 

Super stoked for the remake as long as the fight system remains turn based. FFXV was so fast paced I often couldn't follow where my player was and it got frustrating when trying to land combos 

[BoomMF 1,398]

.

[Viper 12,097]

Anyone watched the series on youtube from the kotaku guy that does a deep dive into the original Japanese game's script and how the English translation was lacking? It's pretty interesting to see how the rushed translation missed a lot of the nuance

https://kotaku.com/s/final-fantasy-vii

[BoomMF 1,398]

I thought general story and dialogue confusion was a feature of the series. Am I wrong?

[MillerEP 30,446]

 

[Continental Op 3,934]

I watched the Square Enix presentation and I just do not get the JRPG thing.  That Watch Dogs game looks pretty cool though.  

[Viper 12,097]

I watched the Longhorn All Access presentation and I just do not get the college football thing.  That ping pong game looks pretty cool though.  

- Continental Op, probably

[bamachine 1,230]

I am hoping that one of the announcements they mentioned in the conference will be a release on PC. I don't want to buy a PS4 for just one game.

[Viper 12,097]

I kind of doubt it. All the other FF remasters seem to be cross platform, but the FFVII remake will probably be a ps4 exclusive. Maybe they'll add a PC version when the 2nd one comes out 

[smokebomb 357]

Looks like they will be releasing FFVII on the Switch as well:

 

 

[Viper 12,097]

That's the old one, not the new one. It's best to think of them as completely different games just with a similar (same?) story. 

[bamachine 1,230]

Except this time, we will get the actual whole story that only the Japanese got before, also with better translation.

[Viper 12,097]

I hope so. They did introduce the E3 presentation by saying "Let's mosey" so maybe some of the bad translation will be kept?

[bamachine 1,230]

The one thing I worry about is the pre-order DLC summon materia. I hope they do not go the pay for DLC route with the more powerful materia. Also, if they cut it into three games, Part 1-Midgar(fleshed out to what they got in Japan originally), Part 2-open world up to after Nibelheim, Part 3-first visit to northern crater to endgame, each with 2 Blu-Rays worth of content, I think that will be enough. They said they were not sure how many installments would be after this one. I think three is quite enough.

Edit to add-I have heard that the missable characters(Yuffie and Vincent) plus their areas, are going to be mandatory this time(probably since they have been in their other FF7 projects). May still be some smaller missables like items and smaller areas.

Edited June 13, 2019 by bamachine

[drewcifer 33]

So I'm gonna have to buy a damn PS4 just to play this game again, 20+ years later, because... well, because.

I think I only played through it twice in college, but the second time I bought one of those strategy guides and tried to complete every last detail, like getting Aeris' level four limit break before she dies. That shit took forever.

But fuck yeah, I'd do it again.

[HornsOverIthaca 2,333]

I’ll miss being able to set character names.

 

[Viper 12,097]

On 6/13/2019 at 3:35 PM, drewcifer said:

So I'm gonna have to buy a damn PS4 just to play this game again.

Yes

https://m.ign.com/articles/2019/07/11/final-fantasy-7-remake-xbox-release-date-video-was-an-internal-mistake-by-microsoft

In a statement to IGN, Square Enix said "As previously announced, Final Fantasy VII Remake will be released for the PlayStation 4 on March 3rd 2020. We have no plans for other platforms."

 

[drewcifer 33]

It was a statement, not a question. 

[bamachine 1,230]

Do not watch the latest trailer. While everything looks good, they show a bunch of stuff I was wanting to see when I played the game, rather than see what it would look like before I got my hands on it.

Another case of too much show in a trailer.

[Pimphand 5,732]

On 5/22/2019 at 6:04 PM, TankedBevo said:

Fuck yes! I played the original all the way thru about six times as a teen and once more on a PC download a couple years ago. In all that time I've never been able to beat Ruby weapon 🤷🏾‍♂️.

Super stoked for the remake as long as the fight system remains turn based. FFXV was so fast paced I often couldn't follow where my player was and it got frustrating when trying to land combos 

Two things....

1) Ruby Weapon fucking sucks but I can't imagine he or emerald will make it into the remake. I don't know how you could have such heinous enemies in an action RPG. If the chocobo racing b$ where you have to successfully guess who will come in 2nd place to win the prize is in the game then I am out. That shit was so aggravating. I remember finally getting the KotR materia thinking I could finally fight Ruby only nope you gotta out 500,000 AP into this thing to be able to cast it 5 times in battle to even have a chance 😂. That was one of the more soul crushing video game beats I had over the years.

2) Speaking of action RPG I am pretty sure we are just getting FFXXII aka FFVII + FFXV. Ihope I am wrong and it is way better I am just sure that expectations are gonna do it no favors 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Pimphand

[Dr Fear 1,268]

On 2/11/2020 at 10:30 PM, Pimphand said:

Two things....

1) Ruby Weapon fucking sucks but I can't imagine he or emerald will make it into the remake. I don't know how you could have such heinous enemies in an action RPG. If the chocobo racing b$ where you have to successfully guess who will come in 2nd place to win the prize is in the game then I am out. That shit was so aggravating. I remember finally getting the KotR materia thinking I could finally fight Ruby only nope you gotta out 500,000 AP into this thing to be able to cast it 5 times in battle to even have a chance 😂. That was one of the more soul crushing video game beats I had over the years.

2) Speaking of action RPG I am pretty sure we are just getting FFXXII aka FFVII + FFXV. Ihope I am wrong and it is way better I am just sure that expectations are gonna do it no favors 

[ulukinatme 1,763]

I have a sneaky feeling that they're going to water this game down by breaking it up into 3 installments and releasing it as piecemeal.  It was already a damn perfect masterpiece, they didn't really need to fuck with it.  All it really needed was some updated graphics and sound maybe.  If this turns out like Final Fantasy XIII I'll be rather disappointed.

[smokebomb 357]

Gameplay looks pretty impressive. 

[HornsOverIthaca 2,333]

Friday.  Woo.

[ulukinatme 1,763]

[Finkle_Is_Einhorn 35]

I’m halfway through. They did a really good job expanding on the original characters. Knowing what happens definitely pulls at the heart strings even more. Not the biggest fan of the new characters/villains they added.

Fighting system is still growing on me. I feel I tend to hack and slash with Cloud and ignore everyone else. Trying really hard to use other chars do build up ATB. Still kind of miss the turn based system.

If anything it’s more than worth it just for the nostalgic factor. This game got me into video games and I must of played it well over 5 times.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bamachine 1,230]

Thanks to COVID, FedEx was late in picking up my copy gfor shipment. I am getting it tomorrow(well today technically).

[ulukinatme 1,763]

On 4/12/2020 at 1:32 AM, Finkle_Is_Einhorn said:

I’m halfway through. They did a really good job expanding on the original characters. Knowing what happens definitely pulls at the heart strings even more. Not the biggest fan of the new characters/villains they added.

Fighting system is still growing on me. I feel I tend to hack and slash with Cloud and ignore everyone else. Trying really hard to use other chars do build up ATB. Still kind of miss the turn based system.

If anything it’s more than worth it just for the nostalgic factor. This game got me into video games and I must of played it well over 5 times.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm about halfway through too I think, maybe a little less.  The new characters and villains definitely fall a little flat.  The extra stuff with Biggs/Jessie/Wedge was good.  Visually the game is absolutely stunning and the musical improvements have been nice.  Voice acting for the most part has been top notch.

I absolutely hate the combat system so far, it's just about awful imo.  It almost reminds me of when Bethesda was asked circa 2007 why they didn't jump into MMOs.  Todd Howard answered that they were a company that made RPGs with stories, and they didn't feel like they could do those things well in an MMO environment.  Fast forward 10 years later and Bethesda released Elder Scrolls Online which has been kinda "meh," and they delivered Fallout 76 which has been a turd so far.  Similarly, Square Enix has tried to turn the Final Fantasy franchise into a hack and slash Action genre.  The character AI is about useless when you're not directly controlling a particular character.  If you get attacked while using an ATB you can kiss that action goodbye because it tends to get wasted.  It's not the end of the world if it's an ability that uses 1 ATB, but if it's Aerith using her signature Prayer Materia (AOE Heal) for 2 ATB?  Devastating, especially considering you've wasted a possible life saving healing opportunity.  It's a major flaw with this system.  This issue is on top of any possible status ailments that can rob you of action, like Sleep or Paralysis.  Lord help you if you get into a fight with 3 Venomantises and Cloud is put to Sleep, and the 3 enemies gang up on low defense Aerith while she tries to wake him up or heal herself.  

Other than the flaws in the ATB system, I don't care for all the button mashing.  It serves no purpose other than to build ATB.  Action games tend to have combos and button sequences that make the combat more engaging and effective as you master it.  There's none of that here, you're just mashing the Square button until you've got enough ATB to do something actually useful.  Unfortunately whatever character(s) you're not playing as tend to generate ATB painfully slow and they often don't have enough action to get you a heal when you need it most.  There are a few ways around this like Auto Cure Materia, but even that has stipulations and limitations.  What this game really needed is some form of Gambit system like FF XII to give the AI more direction when you're not in charge of a particular character.  

There are other flaws with the system, like the fact Summoning Materia is nearly useless, or the fact that the "All" Materia has been removed, but honestly the combat is just not that good at the end of the day.  It's certainly flashy and fast paced, but it gets old fast.  I realize there's a "Classic" mode, but it's not the original combat style.  It's just some sad excuse, a sort of compromise between the existing style and the original.  It does the attacking and guarding for you, leaving little for you to actually do other than picking the occasional ability.  Given the popularity of Dragon Quest 11 and the fact they've worked on this project for 5+ years, I honestly have no idea why they couldn't just implement a true old school turn based combat system like in the original game.  It's obvious that people still enjoy the strategy with that gameplay style, and it wouldn't have been that hard to implement.  This issue is going to dog Square Enix throughout this series if they don't correct it, and Metacritic scores are already showing the game taking a hit compared to the original.

[Pimphand 5,732]

4 hours ago, ulukinatme said:

What this game really needed is some form of Gambit system like FF XII to give the AI more direction when you're not in charge of a particular character.  

This x1000

I literally was coming here to post this exact thing.  It was one of my many complaints about FFXV too was the characters are just stupid/lame when you are not governing what they do but even in FFXV you could still dictate some of their mechanics more easily.  I do not rotate characters very well in battle as the context cycling does a number on me.  Also I would like to never call Square Enix's code AI as there is no intelligence to be found 😉

The only thing I didn't like about the gambit system in FFXII was I would set my own gambits and then just roll into battle and let them go to down unless it was a major boss battle.  I think the real answer lies somewhere in between where you ignore the gambits when the player is in control of that character but enforce them when they are not.

[ulukinatme 1,763]

7 hours ago, Pimphand said:

This x1000

I literally was coming here to post this exact thing.  It was one of my many complaints about FFXV too was the characters are just stupid/lame when you are not governing what they do but even in FFXV you could still dictate some of their mechanics more easily.  I do not rotate characters very well in battle as the context cycling does a number on me.  Also I would like to never call Square Enix's code AI as there is no intelligence to be found 😉

The only thing I didn't like about the gambit system in FFXII was I would set my own gambits and then just roll into battle and let them go to down unless it was a major boss battle.  I think the real answer lies somewhere in between where you ignore the gambits when the player is in control of that character but enforce them when they are not.

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, if you got really good at setting up Gambits in FF XII you could let the characters completely fight the battles for you without input and they would dominate.  That certainly took a lot of the difficulty out of it, although I did find some challenge in tweaking builds and configurations to make the most efficient setups possible.  I completely agree though, between the extremes of "No competent AI" that we currently have in this game, and the opposite spectrum of a fully functional "Gambit system" I think some kind of happy medium in between would have really made the combat more enjoyable in FF7R.  The AI is just too passive as it currently stands.

[Pimphand 5,732]

Yeah you had to tinker with the gambits a ton early in FF12 as you were unlocking abilities.  Once I was able to get to trial level 49 and farm 3 ribbons I was able to remove most of the debuff removal gambits and could focus on just offensive & healing gambits and from that point forward I really only had to tweak them when taking on the elite hunts, super bosses, or crazy trial levels.  It was nice just letting the characters go to town on my behalf but I do think keeping the player more engaged in combat is more appealing overall.

I still haven't gotten far enough into FF7R but my initial impression was that the move to using the Unreal Engine was a massive improvement over the flaming trainwreck that was Luminous Studio but that overall they still faceplanted character battle strategy.  Honestly you'd think it would be pretty easy to come up with a base gambit system for each character that involves more than simply sporadically doing the pissant weak attack even if it wasn't fully customizable by the player.
 

[Finkle_Is_Einhorn 35]

I’m glad other are sharing my concern with the fighting system. The AI is too stupid to build ATB points by themselves which forces you to cycle repeatedly between your characters. By the time you can actually use them it’s almost a given someone needs to be debuffed/ healed. I would always start boss battles out with haste, regen, barrier in the days but it’s next to impossible to buff people with this system. The fact that it cost 1 ATB to use 1 potion doesn’t scale correctly when compared to other abilities that cost 1 ATB. Also, using high leveled spells, moves, limit breakers only for the enemy to go into a pre set animation/movement and your skill completely missing is setting up for broken controllers.

They are going to need to do a massive overhaul to the system if they are to proceed with part 2 which they said was already in the works. Fingers crossed their can be a patch to the AI because they are useless if you don’t control them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pimphand 5,732]

Yeah when I played the demo when it was first available on the PSN store I was like "man the combat is painful surely they will fix it after everyone complains about it"

Then I downloaded the game after paying for it and nope it's 100% the same and a trash fire.

Like it makes me miss the combat from FF15 and I didn't think I would ever say in my life I missed something about FF15 but hey at least we cannot jump which means there is nothing as horrible as the Pitioss Ruins to contend with so perhaps that's a win.

Note: I still haven't played the FF13 series of games but I will get around to it fairly soon because once I finish the remake they are the only main series games I haven't gotten the platinum on yet

[ulukinatme 1,763]

Fuck that Hell House fight.  What garbage.  I was really hoping the new combat style would grow on me, but I seem to find more holes and frustrations with it the more time I spend.  

I couldn't finish FF XIII, at least the first one.  I don't remember any issues with the combat, I just thought the story was kind of lame and boring, and I didn't care for the characters a bit.  I never played the XIII sequels.  FF X was probably the last one I really enjoyed, played the hell out of Blitzball too.  XII was okay, but it did feel like things were going downhill a bit by that point.

Edited April 15, 2020 by ulukinatme

[Pimphand 5,732]

17 hours ago, ulukinatme said:

Fuck that Hell House fight.  What garbage.  I was really hoping the new combat style would grow on me, but I seem to find more holes and frustrations with it the more time I spend.  

I couldn't finish FF XIII, at least the first one.  I don't remember any issues with the combat, I just thought the story was kind of lame and boring, and I didn't care for the characters a bit.  I never played the XIII sequels.  FF X was probably the last one I really enjoyed, played the hell out of Blitzball too.  XII was okay, but it did feel like things were going downhill a bit by that point.

So I am nearing the Hell House fight myself.  I finally decided to sit down and grind it out.  Basically I feel like this is more of an Action Role Playing Movie than a true RPG.  Yes there are levels and skills and what not but the amount of cutscenes is off the charts even by SqEnix FF standards.  Not that it's a bad thing but overall the thing that shifted my combat annoyance was basically making Barret the leader so when we dropped into combat I controlled him out of the gate because it seems like the AI does the worst job with his character by ignoring the whole long range aspect.  If it's just a bunch of trash enemies then I switch over to Cloud and bang away.  Other than that I issue the periodic commands to do Triple Slash.  It is far from perfect but at least now I don't have the exasperating "WTF are you doing?" as Barret stands around watching the flying enemies dance around bits.  I still haven't figured out what to do with Aerith.  She does at least pack some punch compared to OG FF7 but her actions are so slow it is maddening.  Tifa much like Cloud the AI does the least bad job with so I typically let her be other than the occasional skill.

I'm with you in that FFX was one of my all time favorites.  I really liked 6, 7, 9, & 10 and I was cool with 8 once I got the paradigm shift about not leveling and using the junction system at least until they went into space and then that whole bit completely lost me.  I do miss turn based RPGs the last one I played was the South Park games and I really enjoyed the Stick of Truth especially where they did the 8-bit Phantasy Star & Dragon Warrior throw back once you reached Canada.  Obsidian really does make good games which is why I'm looking forward to Outer Worlds next even though it's an action RPG.

I think once I set aside my expectations for FF7R and just enjoy it for what it is which is adding additional context to the old tale I find it less grating than I did initially. If I keep expecting the best game ever then all the flaws drive me crazy.

[ulukinatme 1,763]

I just hit Chapter 14 last night, trying to take my time getting everything.  Looks like there's a bit of a break here to do side missions and stuff, so that will keep me occupied for a bit.  I agree that Barret is probably the worst character from an AI perspective.  I tend to play Tifa the most though because I find her Chi Martial Arts attacks to be the most enjoyable.  Barret gets a few abilities late game that make him somewhat more enjoyable though.  I won't spoil the Hell House fight, but I'll just say that I spent probably 15-20 minutes on that fight because it had a certain mechanic to it and I wasn't setup fully to take advantage of it.  It also doesn't help that he has a secondary mechanic which makes the fight pretty tough and long on it's own.

The combat system could be alright, but there's just too many issues for me to fully enjoy it.  Basic attacks only serve to build ATB, and unlike other Action games there's no button sequences or combinations to master to make it more enjoyable, it's just mashing Square.  I can't tell you how many times I'll lose an ATB all together because an enemy will attack a character in that window between selecting the ATB and the ATB actually firing off.  It seems like anytime you incur damage during that window it will completely wipe out your attack along with the ATB, it's a real annoyance.  Something else that's been bugging me lately is the Stagger mechanic.  It could have been really good, but it's a headache more than anything during boss fights.  You can spend several minutes building a boss's Stagger gauge, getting extremely close to maxing it out, only to have some cut-scene interrupt battle and completely wipe the entire thing out.  What a fucking tease!  Why even waste attacks and MP building Stagger if you don't get an opportunity to use it? 

If you enjoy old school turn based JRPGs, you may want to check out Dragon Quest XI.  That was the last decent Square Enix game I played and I thought they did an excellent job with it.  The game starts out slow as it introduces you to the world and characters, but it really opens up in Act 2 and gets even better in Act 3.  Aside from being turn based, the combat will probably remind you a bit of FF X as you can swap out characters during combat once you have more than 4 party members.  Here's a humorous, but well done review from Tim Rogers on the game:

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by ulukinatme

[Pimphand 5,732]

I just finished Chapter 9 and yeah that Hell House battle sucked. I am already not looking forward to the hard difficulty playthrough but I guess at least you can break out Bahamut as a summon next time through.  I actually ran Aerith the entire battle and reduced Cloud to healer.

I bought Dragon Quest several years back and it is on my backlog as I have always been a fan back since the Dragon Warrior on the NES days. I just got the wild hair that because the remake was coming out I wanted to get as caught up on FF as I could.

I'll move Dragon Quest up to play as soon as I am done with the Remake and then tackle Outer Worlds. God only knows when I will get to the 13 trio but I will do it at some point 

[ulukinatme 1,763]

10 minutes ago, Pimphand said:

I just finished Chapter 9 and yeah that Hell House battle sucked. I am already not looking forward to the hard difficulty playthrough but I guess at least you can break out Bahamut as a summon next time through.  I actually ran Aerith the entire battle and reduced Cloud to healer.

I bought Dragon Quest several years back and it is on my backlog as I have always been a fan back since the Dragon Warrior on the NES days. I just got the wild hair that because the remake was coming out I wanted to get as caught up on FF as I could.

I'll move Dragon Quest up to play as soon as I am done with the Remake and then tackle Outer Worlds. God only knows when I will get to the 13 trio but I will do it at some point 

I was completely not setup right for Hell House.  I was trying to level other materia at the time and so I was missing some elements.  I struggled to do enough damage during the short windows of invulnerability.  I ended up restarting the fight because I was burning through my stockpile of consumables when I try not to use any...ever.

I would definitely play Dragon Quest XI and Outer Worlds before the 13 trio.  Dragon Quest will be longer than Outer Worlds if you're the kind of player that likes to do everything.  Even if you're not, Outer Worlds is shorter but still an enjoyable game.

Edited April 16, 2020 by ulukinatme

[bamachine 1,230]

I just finished my first play-through. Overall, I give it about 3.5 stars out of 5. Loved the music and the way it transitions. Love the voice acting and most of the dialogue. Like the way they flesed out all our known characters from the original game, including the villains. I played the original around 10 times but never really felt the loss of Jessie, Biggs and Wedge(I guess now it turns out we only lost Jessie). I just felt bad for Barret. This time, I had to take a fe moments after each of the Biggs and Jessie scenes on the pillar. The only scenes that hit me that hard in the original was the end of the Cave of the Gi and the certain scene in the city of the Ancients.

Those positives aside, the reason this does not hit 4 or 5 stars, most have been mentioned in here, fuck the hell house doible fuck the freeway mech(my only two game overs) and the dumb non-controlled party AI. Also, while I like many of the added "flavor" characters, Roche was worthless. I liked what I call the "Three Stooges" aka dumb bandits and other characters like Leslie and the Angel of the Slums(obvious as she was). All of them added flavor, Roche added not a gotdam thing. Also, the ending was a bit out there, in a game that is known for it's out there stuff.

My final tally for this first go, 44 hrs, lvl 39 and my damned fingers hurt. Still, glad I played it.

Edited April 16, 2020 by bamachine

[Pimphand 5,732]

My disdain for Roche stems entirely from the whole motorcycle dancing nonsense they had him do. Like what the ever living fuck? Swinging a sword from a motorcycle is bad enough but this shit is just theater of the absurd nonsense that adds not only no value but negative value 😂

[ulukinatme 1,763]

I found the motorcycle fight quite enjoyable.  There's a certain art with the way he dances on the vehicle, it's poetry in motion...no, it's a bunch of fuckin' hogwash   If characters like Roche are why they had to break the original masterpiece of a story up into multiple game titles...they could have just skipped him.  I didn't need Roche, chasing cats, and darts to bog down a wonderful game.

[ulukinatme 1,763]

I'm thinking the ATK ability is damn near useless in this game.  After playing around with various weapons and redoing some skill points, it feels like dumping everything into Magic Attack is far more beneficial, especially since most enemies have a weakness to one element typically.  It especially comes in handy if you have the Magnify Materia linked to a Heal, it's a super powered Prayer that only costs 1 ATB.  I still keep at least one weapon maxed on ATK, like Tifa's Metal Gloves (Her Martial Arts abilities do hit decently hard, especially the later abilities), but for Cloud and Barret I'm focusing more on MAG.  

Edited April 16, 2020 by ulukinatme

[Pimphand 5,732]

I mean they started talking about the remake in 2015 right? At least that was when I remember hearing about it for the first time.

So in approximately 5 years they managed to cover the first quarter of Disc 1 from the original game.  At this rate of production with all the bread and filler we will finally wrap this up in 2057 when I am 80....

I hope the Ruby Weapon battle doesn't rely on reflexes....

Edited April 17, 2020 by Pimphand

[ulukinatme 1,763]

49 minutes ago, Pimphand said:

I hope the Ruby Weapon battle doesn't rely on reflexes....

Squat competition with Ruby Weapon.

[Pimphand 5,732]

So I just saw that in order to get all the manuscripts for Cloud you have to beat Hell House not once but twice on hard difficulty.

The Art of Swordplay Vol. IX is tied to completing the Shears’ Counterattack side quest on hard

The Art of Swordplay Vol. X is tied to completing the A Dynamite Body side quest on hard

Those two side quests are mutually exclusive and you cannot get both in a single play through.