Final Fantasy VII Remake (NO ROCHE SLANDER)

[Maf]

This was going quite well and I thought I finally got the hang of it. The sewers were quick and no trouble unlike last time I did it

 

Bit this train ghost boss has put me right on my ass again. I can’t even get past phase 1

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

I remember not really liking the Turks fight on the tower. It's too dark and you can't really play the game properly with all the flashing effects.

 

I like to play these games clean, but can't when it's like that.

 

You really should change the camera settings, I don't know how it doesn't cause you a headache. Super up close with all the screen judder

[Maf]

Yeah, I gave up being able to do the the last phase of the Turks fight well, simply because I couldn't really see what was happening. 

 

Get on my back if you like but I think this game has huge issue with being hit off screen. Especially for enemies who's attacks come out in 0.3 frames like the propeller soldiers (and it's important to dodge). 

 

The more I play and understand the game the more I feel like mechanically it's pretty sound but the actual design of the bosses is pretty terrible. Maybe I'm just that bad at the game but I don't see how anyone can pull off these fights good first time. It's a game that gets better when knowing what to do, but the game should be easier to read. It's so trial and error, which I don't mind, but it's too much  

 

Also this game just has a couple of not very good things about it. Firstly the lock-on drives me up the wall.

 

The Assess Materia is unbalanced. Like every fight I use Assess, read the info, immediately back out and start again. I don't know what they should do but I would almost like it if Assess filled out info just by trying stuff*. It feels silly the way it works, as it's basically free, and but forces a reset

 

*But the game is already super trial and error, this could make it much worse. That would also mean the strategies would need to build upon themselves, where I think basically every boss fight in the game requires a different approach - which is actually a positive overall. But it doesn't work well with assessing and battle info

 

The strategies to the fights are hyper specific but there's a lot of randomness to the small elements of fights, and things like bosses just doing whatever they feel like makes it really annoying as it gets in the way of the plan. Like some attempts are just dead from the off because a boss just does something it doesn't usually do until later, like Reno with his grab move for example. 

 

I know it doesn't read like it, but I'm actually not having a bad time with the game. I enjoy sitting there and figuring things out and executing the plan when I've got one. 

 

The core/foundation of the fighting I think is pretty fun. But there's all this stuff around the sides or on top of that core that really get in the way. 

 

Also some of the heavy story moments in this game are good, but WTF happens between chapter 6 and 12? It almost feels like nothing happened and it's pure side story and filler. The last boss fight I had last night was against a big, purple, alien looking monster and on the 60th try I stopped myself and was like hang on, what is going on? 

 

My vague recollection of FF7 is not helping. I can't remember what's the same and what's not (Except obvious things like the black ghosts). I can't tell if this game would make any sense if you've never played FF7. It feel like a lot of the story is designed to tease things in the future, but if you don't know how that goes, does any of the small cues like Aerith staring off in to the distance, Sephiroth giving vague hints, and the interruption of the black phantoms work? I dunno 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Well you're not wrong in reading the game as trial and error, cause it is. I've picked Rebirth back up again and am currently chewing on an arena fight in the last sidequest which has me theorycrafting a build and strategy for each of the five fights in it. I was gonna post about it in that thread, when I figure it out, but it sort of skirts the line between satisfying in its crunchy strategy-making/build-building and annoying in its requirement to make that strategy through a sequence of hopeless failures, especially in Rebirth's case where enemy tells are much more ambiguous and fast. It reminds me why I did not complete all its content, tho I think I will before part 3 comes out

 

The DMC games, DmC included, do a thing where enemies don't initiate attacks from off screen* except with very specific exceptions (fuckers who teleport). Which is super exploitable in DmC and DMC5 cause they have a modern camera that you can move around and 'turn off' the AI of certain enemies. FFVII doesn't do that but again I think it's cause it's more like a RTWP action game, and you're supposed to use the pause to look around a lot. I won't argue though that doing that feels very natural or strategic, it's more like a strange bandaid for the hybrid of systems they have smashed together. But realistically, things happen too fast to feel like you're playing well if you're in active mode most of the time.

 

There's no story really in Remake or Rebirth cause they just turned each act of the original into separate games and sort of lost the brilliant pace and structure of it, so it's daisy-chained by these bombastic nothings which might hint at things which may get addressed in a game that comes out 5/10 years later. A lot of it feels like it's fueled for engagement via theory-crafting, but I think in the process gets lost in the sauce and leaves aside the strong story-telling principles that the story used to have, especially wrt pacing. 

 

It's not about telling deep, complicated stories but stories which have moments which rise and fall, and have a sense of momentum and development. Which aren't just frivolous buzzwords, it's easy to lose interest in a story which isn't built this way. Remake constantly feels like it's stalling for time, and Rebirth doesn't naturally have big moments to build a story around cause it was originally a chapter about developing characters' backstories while chasing Sephiroth, and was supposed to complement the other two acts. So it's just a big lala theme park adventure (which I still like, gameplay wise, but still)

 

* Which has an interesting impact on the HD versions, which go from 4:3 to 16:9.

 

edit but again, to repeat my repetition, you should really check the camera settings. The defaults are way too close so it only increases that issue

[Maf]

Ok, I’ve hit the hardest part of the game and that’s this final round of pull-ups mini-game 

 

I can’t jump the wall without doing it 😭

 

Why, god, why? We were on a roll 

[one-armed dwarf]

Well you don't need to do all the rounds just the main one

 

On PC indie used cheat engine and did 999 pull ups, beat that

[Maf]

I managed to do it just now. Trophy acquired. Not sure what else there is to do before end of chapter 14. Done all side missions, done all colosseum fights, done all Charley fights. I have one more battle intel to do to level up the materia. Maybe it’s worth grinding in the colosseum for that? 
 

Or I could just jump the wall. I think I’ve missed music discs anyway, so no point trying to get 100% now 

[Maf]

The cutscene with Aerith vs Hojo is brilliant. She only sits there silently with little eye shifts and squints but that made me like her more than anything else in the game so far. 

[Maf]

Why am I fighting nemesis from RE3 what is this thing 

[Nag]

I'm trying to think who you mean with this but I'm coming up short...

[one-armed dwarf]

I bet I can guess what button he's pressing though

[Maf]

It’s the thing in Hojo’s lab

 

No, I beat it, not too bad

 

Man. When the fucking music is blasting and the team are all over doing special attacks and kicking everybody’s ass this game is really cool

 

One thing I never realised the full power of when playing this the first time is how good materia is. Fights I had issues with before, Tifa is doing Fira-All and just whooping. 
 

Anyway, officially in to new content. I’ve never seen anything of the game beyond this. I quit just before this boss last time back when this game came out 

[Maf]

What on earth happened at the end of that game. 
 

It took me over 40 hours to beat it! I don’t even know if that includes all the times I spent resetting fights.

 

I have a lot of ideas about what happened at the end and yet I don’t really know what happened at all

 

That game was cool. I really liked it. There are so many problems with it that drive me mad right to the end but I can’t deny it was fun. 
 

I want to get the platinum but what should be next. Crisis Core Remake or Rebirth?

 

I need food and a think. I’ve been playing this all fucking day 

 

The game was going really well. Then I got to that fight at the end where you have to fight the 3 things and they turn in to a dragon. I’m sure it’s meant to be a real test of everything you’ve learned throughout the game and I didn’t understand at all. That was pure clusterfuck and a terrible way to end the game 

[mfnick]

11 minutes ago, Maf said:

Crisis Core Remake or Rebirth?

Crisis Core. It’s not that great but sets up a lot more story beats for Rebirth. At least watch the cut scenes if you don’t play it before heading into Rebirth.

[one-armed dwarf]

Crisis Core is pretty bad imo but I'm basing that off a 15 year old memory of the PSP version or whatever. Maybe watching the cutscenes is the way to go there but even knowing everything that occurs in that game, I don't think it's that important. It might end up important for part 3 maybe.

 

Honestly I'd try out the hard mode in this, you might lock into the game mechanics a lot more with NG+. The first boss is scaled a little incorrectly for hard mode but they level you up super fast so it stops being a problem quite quickly. It's easier than a normal mode playthrough, while at the same time giving you more things to win with.

 

But it's also probably a redundant exercise when the sequel is right there and steps up the complexity from Remake. Rebirth is a harder game to figure out.

[Maf]

Ok, thanks, I thought that would be best to do next

 

Aw, this platinum is complicated. 
 

So after 10 minutes here’s a very basic idea of what I think happened 

 

Spoiler

Sephiroth has somehow realised they live in a multiverse, and their version of reality is doomed. Because at the end he says him and Cloud are standing at the edge of creation, he looks up at entropy/the end and asks Cloud to fight it with him. Considering there are so many different things in this Remake compared to the original. My feeling is that Sephiroth knows this reality isn’t right and if he doesn’t do something, they’re cooked

 

However, it also seems like Aerith knows this as well. But understands that’s just the way things are and is happy to accept it. But after learning that Sephiroth is going to change everything, which will result in the planet and everyone dying, she decides to help Cloud and co and step in to defeat Sephiroth because she knows “he is all wrong”. So either Sephiroth kills everyone which is bad or she defies Destiny which is also bad but less bad?

 

Then at the end she casts some white magic spell that lets Cloud and friends go through to the Whisper dimension where they can kill the Arbiter of Fate and are then free to chase Sephiroth with no interference but the risk is they can muck up the whole order of things because now nothing is set 

 

Which the game ends on a few notes showing everything is different now as characters that should be dead are alive. Notably Zack? They very clearly don’t show him die so the old adage applies. No body, no death

 

That’s the best I can make of it right now. They did it in the most confusing way possible. 
 

I also understand about the Whispers but the fact they won’t let the characters die really destroys the stakes right up to the end. Even when Cloud is hanging off the Shinra building it’s like…well they’ll just cushion the fall won’t they? 

 

[Nag]

What a shit fucking story... tbt.

[one-armed dwarf]

Spoiler

That sounds like a very comic book way of looking at it. Personally, I hate what they are doing with the stories in these games. Not that I mind they are changing it but that it feels written purely just to fuel theorycrafting at the weird plans that the characters know that we don't know. I'm not into this type of storytelling at all

 

But I think your take on things could be right, I dunno. These are very Marvel coded Remakes of FFVII I feel like, well the Marvel movies at least.

 

[Maf]

If what I’m saying is anything close, I don’t mind the concept. I just think it’s told really poorly, and slowly. Most of this game doesn’t have anything to do with the last 2 chapters and then the world almost literally explodes and it’s like…REALITY 

 

This might be a reach, but one thing I will give them is if like me you only recall certain bits of the original game then in a way I was very much like Cloud constantly stopping, scratching my head going did this happen or is this new? Did I do this before or did that not happen like that? 
 

That might be giving them too much credit, but it’s real for me

 

At some point I’d like to watch a video that goes through all the changes from original to Remake because I was very confused at certain points 

[Maf]

“So long, Underplate. I hate you, too”

 

🤣 I didn’t catch that first time. Might be one of Barrett’s only good voice lines in the game because I really dislike the voice direction with this character 

 

I started to understand this on normal but on hard, oh, Material is super powerful, huh? So far haven’t found MP to be a particularly big issue. But feeling that I might want to swap my character’s weapons to whatever gives them the most MP for big boss fights. Also starting to level all HP/MP/Magic Up Material I can because to get the Platinum they’re are some brutal special fights.

 

So far, no sweat, though. Think the next big boss fights is the Air Buster so we’ll see how that goes