Final Fantasy VII

[OCH]

Also worth noting the stylised/chibi polygon look of FF7 was an aesthetic choice. Final Fantasy 7 didn't always look like the one we all know, after all.

 

 

[mfnick]

I got used to the graphics really quickly. Sure some of the backgrounds look absolute, blurry ass but but it’s not bothered me at all surprisingly. 
 

I don’t know what you’re doing with the combat, not meaning to sound elitist or disrespectful or anything like that at all. But I’ve not had a full party wipe in 17 hours and didn’t use my first Phoenix Down until after 10 hours or so. Maybe try messing about with the ATB - change it to wait or something? 
 

Shame you’re not enjoying it much so far because this is the first time I’ve played it and I am proper adoring it. Can genuinely see where the hype comes from. It’s honestly starting to knock on the door of my top 10 of all time I’m loving it that much. 

9 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

People say giving unsolicited advice is a dick's game but because I am a dick I will say the player can use cure magic out of battle to heal also, not just potions.

Also this. That’s what I did straight away. Cure inbetween every fight if needed. You have plenty of MP for it. Especially at start before you get the 2nd and 3rd versions of attack magics. Make sure you put the all materia with restore too for easy battle healing. 

[DisturbedSwan]

What difference will changing the ATB to wait make @mfnick? It’s set on Recommended at the moment.

 

I just didn’t really pay attention to the Scorpion at the beginning and attacked it whilst it’s tail was up which wiped me out ?. A Hell House caused me to use a Phoenix Down on Aerith. I am admittedly shit at an awful lot of JRPGs, I had to turn Remake down to Easy at points and finished P4, P5 and TMS #FE all on Very Easy, I just love the stories but suck at the combat basically, unless its action based or I can grind a fuck ton then I’m ok. 
 

I just can’t get over the graphics, I think if I was playing it on the Switch it wouldn’t be as much of an issue but playing it on a TV how bad it looks just becomes more apparent. 

 
I will definitely do that @one-armed dwarf, I learnt earlier there were cheats so I should be ok. I get really anxious I’m doing things wrong in games sometimes, especially with old games and especially JRPGs. 

[Jimboxy]

I'm sure one of the resident 7 sages will chip in shortly, but I think 7 is on of the games that if you just want to see the story, you can't really stuff it up too much. It's only if you are going for things like master materia, all the ultimate weapons and shit like that where you can go wrong early on in the game. It's worth pushing past the graphics, as it is a really good, fun game with some great characters that you won't have seen in 7R and some really great, memorable scenes as well. It's not that long either, if you're just concentrating on story, you can probably clock it in 30-40 hours.

[one-armed dwarf]

The rough edges are the translation (it's Cloud's fault you hit the scorpion when the tail was up, not yours) and some of the mechanics, but I think it's one of few games I could genuinely describe as genuinely kind of beautiful as a whole (others including original Nier, BOTW).

 

It's really worth pushing through, tho I think even on the graphics side the only thing that's hard to get used to is the gourad shading they use on everything. Almost no textures anywhere. But some of this stuff looked weird even then, there is a reason the trailers for FFVII are all just of its CG cutscenes.

 

The Remake is also good but it doesn't come close to the original for me. This isn't purely a nostalgia thing either, I would happily recommend the RE remakes over the originals. But OG VII was something else.

[mfnick]

14 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

What difference will changing the ATB to wait make @mfnick? It’s set on Recommended at the moment.

I may not be 100% right but it stops enemies attacking you while you select which enemy you’re going to attack or while you’re searching through your items for the one you want to use. Where I am now I’ve got pages of items so finding the right one can take a bit, especially since it doesn’t surface which item does what from the name alone. During this time enemies can hit you on active which can easily mean a dead character while you’re reading item descriptions. Pro tip - press the back button to get item descriptions during battle. I didn’t know that at first and when you don’t know that hyper cures something like sadness, it can be very difficult to sort ailments.

I had another good session last night. 

Spoiler

 

Aeris is dead ?. I knew it was coming but still shocked me, didn’t realise I was so close to it. I was also surprised by Cloud almost doing it, I wondered if it was him at first (I knew Aeris died but didn’t know how). Glad it wasn’t. I quite like the twist that Cloud is basically a clone and creation of some kind of Sephiroth and Jenova. I’m surprised that doesn’t appear on more ‘best twist’ lists. I had no idea, just thought Sephiroth must have had some mind control stuff in that Mako they put in him. 
Im up to the point now where Cid is the leader following the Godzilla Weapon attack and I’ve lost Tifa as she’s looking after Cloud due to him being basically brain dead. Man, this game goes some places. I’m assuming I get them back at some point??? Don’t tell me though.

Ive stopped the mega materia train, got another 2 to stop if I’m right. 

 

 

Can’t wait to see where it goes from here. 

[Rikzilla]

31 minutes ago, mfnick said:

Pro tip - press the back button to get item descriptions during battle. 

 

 

Mate I've been playing this game for 23 years and had no idea that was a thing ?

 

Also just to add to the Active/Wait discussion. If you use Regen while set to Wait your health regen will constantly pause when it's the enemies go, of you have it on Active it will constantly regenerate and is one of the most OP spells you have. The counter to that is any ailment spell an enemy casts on you while on active will constantly count down (30 seconds is 30 seconds), however when set to wait the countdown will pause during the enemies turn giving you more time to cure it.

[mfnick]

I stumbled across the back button trick! Was just trying buttons to see if I could figure out what ailment one of my characters had in a fight. Glad I did! 
 

Thanks for the heads up on Regen. Didn’t realise that at all.

[OCH]

The only time I would advise 'Wait' for ATB is against the superbosses. Otherwise you will be dead before you've even set your commands.

 

@mfnick Go Back to Mideel. Before finishing your current sidequest...

 

Spoiler

The upper platform on the left. Walk around outside the building and tap the action button until you find Something. Take it to the door behind the shop cashier. Be honest. Also if you haven't, tickle the baby Chocobo behind the ears.

 

[spatular]

On 06/05/2020 at 22:12, DisturbedSwan said:

I just didn’t really pay attention to the Scorpion at the beginning and attacked it whilst it’s tail was up which wiped me out ?. A Hell House caused me to use a Phoenix Down on Aerith. I am admittedly shit at an awful lot of JRPGs, I had to turn Remake down to Easy at points and finished P4, P5 and TMS #FE all on Very Easy, I just love the stories but suck at the combat basically, unless its action based or I can grind a fuck ton then I’m ok.

 

i've just started this and did the same with the scorpion, i thought it told me to do that, anyway beat it second try. i'm the same usually play on the easiest mode on any turn based combat. only thing like that i was ok at was into the breach as you can play it more like a block puzzle game.

 

not really got into this yet but only just started so going to stick at it.

[OCH]

I must admit it is quite fun reading through people playing this for the first time. 1997 was a long time ago now...

[mfnick]

3 hours ago, OCH said:

I must admit it is quite fun reading through people playing this for the first time. 1997 was a long time ago now...

Apart from Rikzilla’s partner though I’m the only one who likes it so far  

 

Anyway. I completed it last night!!! Personally, even after all this time, I think it’s a masterpiece. Fully deserving of its praise and accolades over the years. After recently also playing FFXV I really think Square need to seriously go back and look at what made this so good. Hopefully the Remake means they will going forward. The story and characterisation is so much better and more interesting with Infinitely better pacing. 

@OCH I didn’t see your message till after I went to Mideel. What happens out of interest?

Spoiler

 

When I went there I went straight to Cloud and Tifa then all hell broke loose and as you know you can’t exactly explore it like you could previously after that happens. 
 

From this part the game goes into even higher gear. It was amazing, it was just constant new and exciting shit happening and everything was going at full speed from then onwards. Loved it. Some of the story beats were excellent and I genuinely loved finding out what happened regarding Zack, Tifa and Cloud back at Nibelheim. 

 

 

Did get a bit of a difficulty spike at the end though which was slightly annoying. I’d had some difficult battles but as I said I never felt I had to grind. But the very last section was a killer. Ended up back tracking a little for a few levels and items, that x3 speed up really came into its own here though, I gained 8 levels in no time at all. Went back gained a couple more reaching the same spot and got through it. But I was expecting to have to grind loads to get through this with how old it was so the fact I only had to do it for about 15-30 minutes at the end isn’t bad at all! 
 

If it wasn’t missing some Quality of Life stuff we expect these days - such as better surfacing what ailments your characters have (probably would have used manual for it back then) and obvious graphic issues (although some of the later backgrounds did still look surprisingly good) I would have given it 10/10.

 

As it is.

 

9/10 

 

Also I decided to get a few easy achievements after completion. I completely missed

Spoiler

Vincent. Gutted! He seems well cool, had a few quick battles with him and I love his limit break. Wish I’d got him sooner I probably would have used him instead of Barret. I used Tifa and Aeris then Barret and Tifa after Aeris died. 
Getting Tifas limit 4 was worth it too, I don’t know how you’d know to play the theme song without a guide though. But the letter explaining her surviving Sephiroths injury was a nice point. Going back to Nibelheim after finding out Clouds past provided a nice little cut scene too. 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Spoiler

Vincent kinda sucks imo, for whatever reason his damage output is unusually lower than the rest. Or at least that's how I remember him.

 

I love the ending to FFVII. They just leave it dangling there whether or not humanity got sacrificed by the planet to allow life to flourish once again (reason why the WEAPONs attack humans is the planet sees them as large a threat as Sephiroth, it doesn't discriminate). The scene of Midgar overgrown with vegetation is my favourite closing shot of any game ever.

 

I don't know what letter you're talking about tho, I thought I knew near everything about this game lol.

 

[mfnick]

Spoiler

 

Yea the ending is fantastic. I’d assume there would be a very small number survivors, maybe Cloud and his team as they know what can happen, can warn future people and tried protecting the planet (for their own selfish reasons which I appreciated them admitting to) who need to learn from this going forward type of thing. Plus by the time humanity could do that damage again the planet stream thing would be strong enough to kill them all again. Maybe this would be their (our) last chance. 

Seeing Midgar like that was a fantastic shot. I assume it’s Red at the end with the pups? He had that eye scar if I remember rightly. Part of the reason I think maybe Cloud and his team survived if red did. 
 

The Tifa letter is a small part like I say when you get her limit 4 from the piano. Her trainer writes a letter for her explaining what happened to her and how he kept her alive using cure until they got proper help. 

 

 

[OCH]

RE: Mideel

Spoiler

You find an old key on the ground. Take it to that door in the shop and ultimately this gives you the Curse Ring. One of the best accessories in the game, albeit with a manageable caveat. 

Scratching the White Chocobo behind the ear after feeding it some greens (Mimett, if memory serves), gives you the Contain Materia. The second strongest Green Materia in the game, after Ultima.

 

RE: "Finishing" The game.

Spoiler

Ultimate Weapon - The one that flies around the map. Did you kill it?

Chocobo Breeding - Have you started the biggest mini-game?

The Superbosses - Have you seen either of them?

The Gelnika - Did you find it?

 

[Rikzilla]

Regarding "finishing", why you gotta be a pedant?

 

Let him enjoy his victory ffs.

 

@mfnick Really glad you enjoyed it, dude. There's still plenty to do if you want to stay in that world a little longer. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Don't forget to collect 99 of every item as well ?

 

@mfnick

Spoiler

Yeah ok that letter sounds familiar now, I think it was Zangan or someone?

 

Will you be watching Advent Children? It's not as bad as you might have heard.

 

[Rikzilla]

You should definitely watch Advent Children.

 

And play Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus ?

[mfnick]

Gutted I missed that Mideel stuff, would have really helped by sounds of it. Oh well. 
 

Re Finishing

Spoiler

I didn’t know anything about the flying weapon. Even after looking at end game stuff online. I tried the underwater boss. Killed me almost immediately and I couldn’t get the Ruby one at Golden Saucer to spawn. Gave up after 15 or so minutes. 
Chocobo breeding doesn’t interest me at all. So not doing that. 
What’s Geln ika? 

 

Id love to spend more time in the world but not just to grind. I don’t think anyway, I’ll spend a bit of time doing it and see. I would like to do the extra bosses if it doesn’t take too much time grinding. But got Remake on its way plus X which I want to play as well. Guess it depends if Remake arrives today... 
 

@one-armed dwarf

Spoiler

yea that’s the one. Something like Zangan but not 100% on the name. Definitely began with Z though lol. 

 

Don’t know about the extra stuff like Advent Children, only heard terrible things. Don’t want to potentially ruin what I feel about the story and characters. I’ll do a bit of research. 

[OCH]

I wasn't being even remotely pedantic??? I was referring to the post-game content by implication, which was hidden within the Spoiler Tag, but whatever ?‍♂️

 

Anyway, moving on, @mfnick

 

Spoiler

I forget exactly when the trigger is, I think after the barrier over Northern Crater falls? But Ultimate Weapon is flying around the world map. You engage it multiple times by ramming it with the Highwind. By the final encounter, you get one enemy skill out of it - Shadow Flare - and Cloud's ultimate sword - Ultima Weapon. Plus access to a previously gated area near Cosmo Canyon. Which gets you the Summon Typhoon. A personal favourite.

 

Fair enough, at least you gave Ruby and Emerald a try. They, plus a random enemy encounter in the tunnels under Junon, are all part of a sidequest that gets you all four Master Materia and a Gold Chocobo. Which by that point is quite a redundant reward. It comes more down to bragging rights than anything else.

 

The Chocobo mini-game is very time consuming, much like the Battle Square. You would need a guide though, as there are a lot of specifics about where certain breeds of Chocobo are and the right nuts and greens to feed them to produce the right offspring. Note: The Chocobo mini-game in FF9 is a lot more fun and a lot less intensive.

 

The sunken Gelnika is a crashed ship that can be found with the Sub. Basically the hardest non-final area of the game with some of the most challenging enemies. That ultimately gets you Cid's Level 4 Limit Break. How many of those did you find by the end?