Final Fantasy VII Remake

[Andrew NDB]

Spent a few hours trying out the Final Fantasy VII Remake on PS4. It's got pretty graphics but it encapsulates everything I dislike about FF since X. Everything is just going from one end of one corridor to the next (with only the illusion of exploration), from one FMV sequence to the next. In fact, in some places if you try and walk down a different corridor than it wants you to, the game literally has a "warning" beacon and it forces you to walk the other way. Maybe things open up later, but I doubt it.

Admittedly, I enjoy the battle system more than I expected to. Though it's just more of the FF XV system. You can get through most of it by just mashing the square button.

[Candy Kappa]

The Midgar section of FFVII was pretty "railroady" to begin with. The feeling of open world didn't happen until you hit the world map.

I'm just 5 hours in, as playing video games is still really taxing. But I'm having a blast

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

The Midgar section of FFVII was pretty "railroady" to begin with.

Not this badly, or to this degree. I played a little further and when you're able to access the shops it appears to get a bit better... though again, only the illusion of roamability. Like, I take a random turn into an alley and there's no one to talk to, no chests or anything... just some cats.

[frank_one]

So what? Don't you love cats?

[AquaParade]

I agree so far. I enjoyed the game and world of FF7 as a child and even enjoyed parts of FF15, but despite how much I love the style and visuals of this game, I've been pretty bored throughout my play session today.

I feel like I'm going through the motions and have a total lack of agency. The combat is engaging, the graphics are gorgeous, the story is even quite well done for the genre....but something is leaving me empty. Maybe it will find its groove later on. Or maybe I've grown to used to the freedom of a typical western-rpg.

[Voltron]

I'm so jealous that you guys are getting to play this. I wish I had time. . .

I heard this was being released in chapters. How's that working out?

[Cure]

Originally Posted by Voltron

I'm so jealous that you guys are getting to play this. I wish I had time. . .

I heard this was being released in chapters. How's that working out?

This first part is only up to Midgar. No one knows anything about when the second part is coming, however. It's Square so I'm assuming it'll be another 10 years.

[Voltron]

Oh. It's got a Shen Mue thing going? So I should save my money and wait until I'm 70 when the anthology collection comes out. Got it.

[Andrew NDB]

Yeah, it ends with the end of leaving Midgar I guess... so we only get the first 5% of the actual game, and it took them 10 years to do so. And they're not even working on part 2 yet, they're waiting to see if this part 1 is profitable.

I really loathe modern day Square Enix. Just doubling down on continually the wrong things. They don't need to spend all of this time and money on making VII feel even more like a damn movie... just upgrade the engine, redo the FMV and maybe add 2 islands. That's enough. It should take 2 years maximum to make, and if it takes even a week longer, that means they're worried about the wrong things.

I think with FF XV failing (good, it was a BAD game for the same reasons with a dumb suicidal ending) they have left the FF business and are now in the FF VII business, long term. Because everybody loves FF VII, right?

[AquaParade]

Couldn't bring myself to finish this or play it at all over last week. I'm not sure if I'll finish it. What I've heard about the handling of the story near the end of the game does sound awesome, but I can't remember the last time a game felt like such a chore to play.
Everything outside of the excellent combat is not just boring, but tedious. I think I'll opt out of the last few chapters for now, but I'd even be willing to try it again on the cheap if they give it a makeover/directors cut down the line.

[Andrew NDB]

Tried to play it today. I guess I left off last time at some gate where I need to find... something to get through. I don't remember what I was doing when I left off (the risk when drinking a lot of vodka and playing video games at 4 AM). I wandered around by a lot of NPCs that I can't talk to and sort of lost interest in the game.

[Andrew NDB]

Much further now. I'm in Wall Town, doing the arena fights. So far I've died twice fighting the final opponent, a giant house called "Hell House." Which underscores a really STUPID part of the battle system. Even if I have a bunch of potions on me, it won't even let me use Item until I either whack at the Hell House a bunch of times (which just gets me hurt more) OR if I try and block a lot of hits, either way builds up the ATB meter. So I'm basically flailing around, almost dead, and it won't let me use any potions so I die.

[Andrew NDB]

Beat it now. At the end... when you're about to leave Midgar you go into a black hole and an alternate dimension (or something?) and fight Sephiroth. And it's like the end of the original game suddenly.

Wtf is this? This is like more Advent Children garbage. Willy nilly.

[Mad Dog McMutt]

Ff7 is my favorite game of all time, but I have no interest in playing the remake.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Mad Dog McMutt

Ff7 is my favorite game of all time, but I have no interest in playing the remake.

The remake is a great game. Has my favorite combat in an RPG ever. I just can't believe how fun it is to play, and the real-time switching between Cloud/Tifa/Barret/Aerith is great too. So glad they didn't keep the remake turn-based.

I have about 52 hours in the game. I'll probably replay it on PS5 eventually since we get that one for free. And of course the Yuffie DLC would be paid content, it's probably going to be $20 which is about the standard price for DLC. It'll probably be 6-7 hours long so it'll be worth it.

[Leo656]

I just have a bad feeling that by the time they get to the actual "end of game" content, it'll be on the PS8.

Like when they first announced this project YEARS ago and said it was going to be released in "episodes", I figured alright, I'll wait it out and eventually they'll release a "Deluxe Edition" or whatever with all the chapters in one set. But it's becoming pretty obvious that's never going to happen. And that's got me pretty discouraged and making me not even want to bother with it. I don't want to play one chapter or episode or whatever every two or three years, I just want to play the "whole" game in one shot.

This is a very cynical strategic move by Square/Enix, and probably Sony too. After FFXV, they pretty much figure that they can't "sell" Final Fantasy unless it's Cloud and Co., since that's all anyone responds to. So they found a way to stretch FF7 over about a dozen or more games' worth of content, and voila, they're promised multiple multi-million sellers over the next decade-plus, since it will be at least that long before they actually get to the stuff that was on Disc 3 of the original game. Furthermore, with each release being a timed exclusive, Sony sees their PS sales go up.

I'm sure it's a fun game, and I really liked the original a lot, but the way it's being done has really turned me off to it. I skipped the PS4 entirely because almost every single other game I wanted to play was on Xbox One, which I ended up getting first, and I didn't feel like dropping another $400 on a console just to play two or three exclusive games. As it is, this project feels like a massive overreach that's being done for the most cynical corporate reasons and I don't like how they're handling it.

[CyberCubed]

FF7 is basically it's own spinoff series seperate from the rest of Final Fantasy now.

The first remake takes 45-50 hours to beat so it's definitely a long complete game. The current idea is it's being split into a trilogy, with the second game coming around late 2022 or 2023, and the third part sometime after that. And of course some other various spinoffs like mobile games and extra stuff is coming out too.

I'm all for it. I lost interest in the main series, like Final Fantasy 16 is coming out this year and I have virtually no interest in it, but I'll buy all the FF7 sequels.

[sdp]

Might never get finished, the remake underperformed and any second part will only sell less.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by sdp

Might never get finished, the remake underperformed

Did it?

https://www.slashgear.com/final-fant...enix-07632536/

“the highest selling digital release on the PlayStation platform in Square Enix history.”

[sdp]

I believe it got stuck at around 5 million copies while the original sold over 12 million. Another SquareEnix property Shadow of the tomb raider sold 4 million copies and SquareEnix doesn't seem to know where to take the franchise anymore since each Tomb Raider game has sold less than the previous and even the reboot was reported to have underperformed with only 8 million. It isn't the 90s when selling over a million was a success. And FF7 was supposed to be their "huge hit" with decades worth of people asking for it. FF and JRPGs aren't as big anymore and SE likely wanted it to be much bigger than what it did. Like Sonic the Hedgehog 4 never got Episode III perhaps it'll be the same with FF7, especially with how long they planned on stretching it out.