Final Fantasy VII

[bellow]

Dude! It could have been a forum playthru ?

 

I hope u aren't gonna be this tardy for the upcoming FF9 run.

[Rikzilla]

Hey man, it's on my girlfriends clock, not mine ?

 

 

When is the FF9 run happening? I might be down for that.

[bellow]

July ??

 

Hey, I've got trials of mana and Xenoblade chronicles DE on pre-order.

 

Plus, if there's the usual summer drought I reckon a good few forumites might jump on board - even known quitters like @Maf

[Rikzilla]

Spoilers for the end of Disc One:

 

Spoiler

 

[OCH]

? Brilliant!

[one-armed dwarf]

I downloaded a thing called 'New Threat' last night, a gameplay mod for the PC version of this. I don't know I'll stick with it as I've sort of realised over time I really don't like going back to play OG FFVII anymore, but there's some interesting stuff in it all the same. One thing is it gives each character some sort of special trait in battle. Cloud gets a thing called 'Limit Boost' which makes his attacks more powerful if other characters use limit breaks. Barret gets 'stacks' to his defence or attack each turn depending on whether he is in the back row or front row.

 

Also the mod is quite hard. I had to use a few potions against guard scorpion. Potions heal 300 HP so that's a lot this early on.

 

Again not something I'll stick with probably, I'm sort of pinging between lots of stuff during lockdown as I've well and truly rinsed the Remake by now and don't have anything left to do in it. This mod also includes a fan translation which from the looks of things only alters certain lines, so it's almost like another remake really. Pretty ambitious project.

[Rikzilla]

Sat with my girlfriend who's playing this for the first time. 

 

She's on her way to Junon so I told her to get Yuffie and talked her through how to get her, and I managed to answer all the questions correct from memory. I can't remember my own phone number, but I can remember how to convince a sneaky ninja to join the party.

 

Anyway, my girlfriend instantly identified with Yuffie (shes Japanese, has similar hair and eye colour, etc) so put her straight in the party.

 

I haven't told her anything about Yuffie so looking forward to seeing her face once we get to Wutai, nyuk nyuk nyuk.

[OCH]

I really liked all the initial set up they gave to Yuffie. Then they just drop it all after Wutai? Both Vincent and Yuffie suffered a lot in their limited development. I think mostly because they were secret characters, so you couldn't really structure potential chapters around someone who you might not even encounter at all. It is a shame really. Especially in Vincent's case. As everything from Dirge of Cerberus to Advent Children really butchered his original characterisation.

[Jimboxy]

From this point forward, can we please use the following thread for all general FF chat, so each game thread doesn't descend in to wider chat about the Final Fantasy games. 

 

From this point forward, off game discussion about wider Final Fantasy games will be deleted.

[Rikzilla]

Girlfriend is making pretty good progress.

 

She's almost done with Mt Nibel and is absolutely tearing through enemies thanks to my grinding during episodes of Elementary.

 

She has Yuffie and Vincent already which is cool, but considering she's being as thorough as she is she's missed 2 of the 4 Enemy Skill materias.

 

We'll probably have disc one finished by next weekend ?

[OCH]

What level Limit Break does She/You have for Vincent (assuming he is in the active party)? As a certain boss in that area is designed to punish you if you only have his level one Limit.

[Rikzilla]

Don't worry about it, he's not in the party.

[mfnick]

Made a start on this, not got far at all just escaped that part with Aeris. Already liking it much more than XV. Love the speed up and no enemy options. Will help a lot when grinding or just want to explore or get to that next save spot. I’m going to resist using it most of the time though so I have the original experience for the most part. and don’t intend of using the max health option unless the game screws me over for it having just the equipment or something as old games can sometimes do.

 

Speaking of which, with few spoilers as possible (I’ve not played this and know nothing of the story really apart from that Aeris part) can you advise which party members I should focus on and which materia is good to use and who not to give them to as I’ve heard some party members can leave and take the good materia with them??? Just some general things I should know so I don’t screw myself over. 

[one-armed dwarf]

You don't have to worry about characters taking materia away. The only thing that can happen is if a character leaves.. uh, 'permanently' they will keep their armour and weapons if I recall. You wont' need to keep that weapon but maybe watch what armour you give to a certain character at a certain point.

You know which character I mean lol.

 

Materia is pretty basic in VII. Just try and get a good spread of all elements and have All->cure on somebody. OCH will roll in now and tell you about a whole lot of enemy skill stuff but tbh that stuff doesn't matter much. VII is one of the easier FFs

[OCH]

Character-wise, the game is also pretty arbitrary. Barring what you know about Aeris, any party member can be anything in this. Some have better base stats for certain things, but the differences between them don't amount to a great deal. Unlike the specific job based Final Fantasy's, 7 is pretty much who you like the look of. The only real difference between them is the Limit Breaks. 

 

Personally, I didn't really like having Tifa or Barrett in my party, long term. Aside from plot specifics, I just never found either particularly fun to play as. But it is all down to preference. Just enjoy it and be thorough. Some places you only get to explore once and the game won't tell you that.

[bellow]

I think I rotated the characters until late in the game, keeping everyone at a reasonable level. Not absolutely necessary, because the game is low difficulty, but characters do get 'locked in' to the team in certain chapters.

 

It's a great game though, looks awful, but plays fast and just as fluently as modern games in the genre, like Octopath T. And even though I only played it recently I often think of how I could go back and make a better fist of it.

[Rikzilla]

I'm having a great time watching my girlfriend play through this. She's just got to the Temple of the Ancients so making some progress.

 

She's clocked in around 24 hours so far. It's great to see it played at a slow pace again. I've played it so many times over the years I just kind of auto-pilot through it now, but she has no idea and it's great.

 

She also knows nothing of the story twists so I can't wait to see her reactions.

 

[mfnick]

Thanks for the info.

 

Put a few more hours in, reached Kalm. I’m absolutely adoring it so far, I can see why it’s so highly revered. I think it holds up even now as I’ve not played it before and I can feel myself starting to really love it already. If I’d have played it back in day it would have completely blown my socks off. How much they get out of so few polygons is seriously impressive. 
 

Im genuinely surprised how dark it can get at times too.

Spoiler

Having that plate fall on a entire village was pretty strong,

rare a game does something like that. Really impactful, I love it. The variety has impressed too. Maybe it’s because I’ve come from FFXV which basically just has you ‘kill 5 enemies’ or ‘walk to these 3 spots’, or ‘take over these identikit bases’ for 15 hours+ but I’ve been very happily surprised by what I’ve done and the pacing of the first 6 or so hours I’ve played of this. So far I’ve

Spoiler

dressed up as a woman to gain access to a pervert, rode a motorcycle in a road rash type sequence, been part of a entire village being destroyed, blown up 2 reactors, gained a lion thing party member, followed a bloody trail of a headless thing through some offices and had a Prince of Persia style past story sequence. To name a few. 

It’s all been vastly more interesting and enjoyable than the whole of XV for me so far. I’m liking the materia system too and think the way you can link them is really smart. Already starting to really like some of the characters as well. 
 

Only issue I’ve come across so far is that sometimes it can be difficult to tell which parts of the scenery you are meant to be walking along and interacting with. But this is just a age thing and it’s not actually created any problems it just leads to a little stumbling about at times.
 

As an aside I’ve also realised going back to a old game like this just how much games have conditioned us to follow dots on a map and waypoints these days and no longer pay attention to what characters say or actually look at surroundings. I kept expecting one to pop up when I collected key items or was advised where to head next. It’s made me think & I miss games not being so ridiculously hand holdy. Saying that, I do prefer pointers to being hopelessly lost though, 

[bellow]

If you're playing on switch (possibly the other consoles, but i dont know for certain) you can activate markers for exits and such. It was probably less of an issue on the old CRT.

[Rikzilla]

That feature is available in all versions of the game, PS1 included.

 

I think you just press Select (so - on Switch)