Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

[one-armed dwarf]

I have beaten every Queen's Blood player except the last one, who I'm pretty sure might as well be the Emerald Weapon of card players, you actually have to really go explore the world and do all those puzzles to theory craft an effective deck build against them, which I love. My Tonberry King suicide build isn't working out

 

Even though the game's ending is a stinky pile of poo, everything else about the game is so moreish. Like good crack

 

That said, I'm still not even clear what you actually get from Queen's blood. Don't tell me either, I'll let it be a surprise. Although it would stink if it doesn't integrate with other progression systems, the rest of the game is pretty cool about giving rewards useful for combat.

[DANGERMAN]

I've done everything bar the unique monster fight in the 2nd area, so now I'm about to start talking to people in the town area. Probably now over levelled for the story stuff, but I can at least quickly travel around the map now if I need to 

[AndyKurosaki]

Finished the Story, the last couple of Chapters seriously dragged on. Chapter 13 was nearly 4 hours long, and certainly outstayed its welcome.

 

Overall, I enjoyed it. I won’t be bothering with any of the other side content I haven’t done, as I’ve way too many other games to be playing. And as I’ve mentioned previously, this hasn’t beaten Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth for me, as that’s just a superior game.

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Well I'm just shocked that you passed through that chapter 11 dungeon without a single sweary post

 

Won all the Queen's Blood games, just have a few challenges in Gold Saucer left.

 

 

The deck what won, minor sidequest spoilers I guess. Pumpkin and sandhog boi mvp

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

You don't get any additional reward here beyond winning the shadowblood queen card (the one with a 20 rating on the far right, it gets buffed by other cards being debuffed but not eliminated). 

 

So it's not quite as good as Triple Triad, cause it doesn't seem to really integrate into progression mechanics as well. Beyond allowing you to grind challenges in the Gold Saucer for GP I suppose

 

 

[AndyKurosaki]

By Chapter 11, do you mean the 

Spoiler

Cait Sith dungeon? Where you have to chuck boxes using a really, really shit aiming system.

Because that chapter sucked, definitely. But I got through it with my sanity mostly intact. Though maybe that’s the antidepressants I’m taking 😄

[OCH]

Meanwhile, Six Hours in...

 

I like how they managed to make Kalm as brief as in the original game. While populating it with more than a dozen people. Aside from the fact I don't think all the "world building" references have merit (other terrorist groups, "republic" name drops?), I am enjoying the majority of this so far. If not for a greater emphasis on enemy weaknesses though, the combat would be extremely button bashy. Although I must admit, at time of writing, I have largely stuck with Cloud. Not really gelling with Barret or Aeris (my team).

 

A minor critique/improvement? The enemy encounters on the world map are significantly less than I would expect. Maybe this is just an early game thing. But the world seems a bit more empty than the original because of that. Speaking of the map... I've just reached the Chocobo Ranch! After exploring every inch of accessible map. From east coast to western mountains. Nice touch for Mog's house to actually physically exist and not just be a Gold Saucer thing. The obligatory item crafting section isn't as tedious as in Zelda though, which was a surprise. I've been at that nonstop and currently level six.

 

That's play session two down. Another critique I have being, perhaps due to enemy level at this point, Summons are somewhat pointless. The fact they don't do "their thing" out of the gate, limits their usefulness really. I can barely keep track of what's going on in the fight beyond Cloud as it is.

[Nag]

Barrett becomes an ATB battery given a few levels... he's pretty much a mainstay in my party when given the chance.

[OCH]

2 minutes ago, Nag said:

Barrett becomes an ATB battery given a few levels... he's pretty much a mainstay in my party when given the chance.

It's funny that I've got the same team I recall using for this part of the game in the original too. Tifa and Red were always benched until I did the latter game Limit Break grind. In the entire roster of nine, I can only think of four that I consistently stuck with for the entire game. Tifa and Red were never among that number.

[Nag]

Tbf Tifa can be an absolute beast in this too... I actually think in some ways Cloud can be a weak link.

[OCH]

I imagine she would be a better fit in an Action RPG. Of course, from what I understand so far. Limit Breaks work really differently in this. To the extent, I really need a gauge to remember they even exist. 😅

 

Played another hour and the first Remake characters have appeared. A robot boy with a DBZ scouter(?) and some comic relief "bandits" aka Team Rocket. Tropes that I wasn't impressed with. Ironically, given my due diligence regarding map completion. When the Chocobo and fast travel options opened up. I already had all the grassland travel points marked. Now I see how they are padding out disc one content, I know what to expect from this point on.

[AndyKurosaki]

I stuck with Tifa and Aerith, expect for sections where I was forced into specific choices. Red 13 is pretty fun. The only character I didn’t really like using was Cait Sith. His limit break never really seemed to do anything.

 

I loved how Yuffie is portrayed, especially her interactions with Barrett. That was fun.

[one-armed dwarf]

Cait Sith isn't bad, but he's the hardest one to optimise. His summon moogle and dive off moogle move returns ATB but it's hard to establish ATB with him in the first place without materia/synergy skills. So he loses momentum really easily, but if you know when to use these two moves (ride and dive), then he can keep pretty high uptime, if not then Cloud, Yuffie and Aerith have good synergy skills with him to get him going again.

 

He has cool tricks though, like if you hold the stick in a direction after doing the moogle mount attacks, he will do little side twirls and things to avoid damage so if you have the timing down there you can keep pressure up. You can use the moogle as a tank and use the cat as a very low mobility but still powerful caster (pretty hard to do without Aerith's wards I would say). He has cool party wide buffs, but they're random. He can cast spells while walking around on the moogle, the only one that can do that. He can have a huge luck stat, so massive crit damage and he can boost luck for others if you're all rolling crit builds. Most importantly, he has a scottish accent.

 

But mainly, it's his crits, he can fuck things up if he gets one. Red microphone is his best weapon I think, even though it only has two materia slots, cause you can add 200 luck onto him while mounted. But generally the idea is randomness/volatility, cause he's all about fortunes and uncertain outcomes init

 

 

This is my fave composition right now, Tifa on point building ATB with ATB assist and back to back combos, with Aerith putting down wards for massive spell casts, and Cait Sith to say things like "i'll clobber you ye wee bawbag". He's my favorite character in the game, though in the meta I think Yuffie and Aerith are the strongest ones.

[Maf]

You make the depth of the fighting in this game sound really fun, but I also have a feeling I would never be able to figure it out 

[OCH]

Side Quests: The Game 2.0

This part, is giving me the same vibe as Tears of the Kingdom. In story terms (ala Chapter 2), I just got a Chocobo and am headed to the marshlands and Midgar Zolom. But.. I don't like leaving blinking lights unattended. As an aside, there are no little red numbers on my phone via texts or emails. Can't stand it.

 

Anyway, so at the ten hour mark, I've finished the Grasslands side quests. Once again, I can spot the Remake characters from a mile away. Even new to Rebirth characters don't stick out as obnoxiously as these. The bandits sequence is over? (hopefully) and aside from one Queens Gambit side quest, the others were hunts or fetch quests which were thankfully brief. Also helped by having all fast travel locations unlocked beforehand. Still sticking with Barret and Aeris for the moment. Although I don't really get what I'm doing with Aeris' abilities, wards etc? I did see her Healing Wind limit break. Which isn't as flashy as I was expecting.

[one-armed dwarf]

The combat makes more sense if you approach it like it's a RTWP system, like Baldur's Gate, or more appropriately Kotor perhaps. Though even there it's quite different cause you 'speed up' your next turn yourself with the actions you take in between ATB, where it's honestly a bit more of a Dark Souls thing (when is it safe to do my charge up attack).

 

Rebirth is deeper than Remake but also more permissive, more attacks give you hitstun armour and can be animation cancelled with other actions, so they do allow you to play more 'brainless', but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You can also use the free 'synergy' skills to move characters around, they basically teleport to you to do the teamup moves so you can exploit the ways enemies commit to attacks and fuck around with them like that.

 

In general though this game is an excellent balance of the number crunching, status effect considering, party composition balancing aspects of a good Final Fantasy game. I would actually compare it to something like FFXII (Zodiac Age, not original), or FFXIII, in terms of how rewarding it is to think through that stuff. It is definitely the best playing one in the series and goes a long way to helping me not-quite-forgive-but-overlook the parts of the entire package that don't work for me.

 

Here's a fun one for Aerith's wards, OCH, radiant ward makes her spellcasting invincible, dragon does no damage when it hits her

 

Spoiler

 

 

But you're not wrong about sidequests, that its what this game is, but I think its systems carry it really well. But you kinda have to be into the way they work.

[OCH]

I wondered how they would get around the old PHS system of the original? While this doesn't have the entire party management system of FFX, technically everyone is present. Chapter 3 was my first Forced party situation. I'm glad it did really. Tifa is a fun character to control and much as @Nagsaid, it actually makes Cloud feel like a worse option.

 

Then came the new approach to the Midgar Zolom. I kept expecting something environmental, much like the RE4 lake monster. It wasn't that but, it was a fun boss fight. I knew the iconic image had to be there somehow. Even if it did lose some of it's original impact without that framing. At this part of the original game, less was definitely more when it came to following in the wake of Sephiroth and not actually seeing him.

 

Currently in the Mythril Mines. Just beatdown the Turks and cue the next padding section party switch. Finished the grasslands 100%, even got Titan. Which wasn't all that hard really. I like how they try to give him some importance, when he was one of the lesser initial Summons. Not that I'm really using any of them that much yet. Nothing seems to last long enough for them to be of any real use.

[AndyKurosaki]

Yeah the Summons were a mixed bag for me. Some boss fights they didn’t even become an option until I’d almost killed the boss, making them pretty pointless. In a couple of the tougher fights, they didn’t even bother showing up at all. That’s why I stopped bothering to unlock them after I got Titan and Alexander, I just didn’t feel the need to.

That, and anything to stop interacting with bloody Chadley 😄

[OCH]

1 hour ago, AndyKurosaki said:

anything to stop interacting with bloody Chadley

I get that. Him and "Mai" being the kind of irritating anime trope characters that I really don't like.

 

I think the Summons would have been better as originally portrayed. One context activated spell. Limit the use, as they do here. But just summon them, they do their thing and leave. Simple. 

[AndyKurosaki]

I was skipping through all his dialogue after only a few hours. He’s an insufferable bell-end. Do literally anything, and he’s calling you up going “Oh hey Cloud, I see you’re doing something. How about you blah blah blah blah blah”. 
Mai isn’t much better, but at least she only chimes in when you’re doing one of her challenges, or going against an “epic” monster. All she does is go on, and on, and on, while you’re in the middle of a combat situation. I didn’t listen to a word she was prattling on about, as I was too busy trying to avoid getting killed. 
 

Actually Square Enix, can you seriously dial back these two morons for the next game? As they both suck.

[HandsomeDead]

I just saw the Barret part of the game and was wondering how this would go down.  While I think both of the games so far have been good at using the technology to deliver on the dramatic moments I think they whiffed this one, which is a shame because it's harrowing in the original.