Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

[OCH]

I am looking forward to going back to it. Especially considering I've forgotten where I was? I think I was just about to go to the Gold Saucer🤔

[Nag]

I won't be going for the Platinum... that's for certain. 

[OCH]

I'm back!

Immediately, yes I just arrived at Gold Saucer last session. Also, immediately: the tonal whiplash from playing a traditional FF (Six) to the opening "dance" number of this area. I audibly said "what the actual fuck!?". No, I was not impressed. As an aside, Dio was exactly how I imagined he would look in 3D. Voice? Not so much.

 

I forgot what kind of influences have crept into FF in the ...30 years between 6 and 7R. The Opera House sequence in the former is weird and charming. This whole sequence felt like a waste of game budget.

I actually wanted to turn the game off and download another classic FF (5). But, then Cait Sith entered the cutscene and I was relaxed, smiled and went back to playing.

 

 

Correction: after the next weird Zack "dream". I saved and turned it off. I'm not in the right frame of mind for this section right now. In truth, I don't like this part of the game in the original. Subsequent playthroughs, I sped through it as quickly as possible. The return trips to the Gold Saucer have value. The first one? I'm just waiting for the desert part to happen. It's definitely a part of the game I have to be in the mood to play. I'm not right now.

[OCH]

I'm going to have to do this section in short bursts. On the plus side: All of the mini games in the Gold Saucer are a lot better than the original. Not Star Fox was my favourite.

Back to the minus': Corel Prison. The sequence leading upto this point had a distinct, dark tone. That has been discarded for anime tropes. Again. The break from it to play something else, might have been detrimental. Up until now, I thought the padding of Costa Del Sol was the worst this game had to offer. I hope this section is over quickly. I'm feeling less inclined to play Rebirth the longer it goes on.

[OCH]

On 25/03/2024 at 22:37, OCH said:

But scenes like this are making me think the devs of these games don't know what made key moments in the original work? 

Spoiler

Right again... 😔

So now this whole section has become my least favourite part in both the original game and remake. The boss fight was ..fine. Dyne's redesign is a bit too generic and muted in colour palette. The dialogue of the original wasn't exactly Shakespeare. But at least it wasn't too melodramatic. Unfortunately the case here. The waves of generic Shinra really shatter the tone this scene is supposed to convey. The last words of Dyne in the original (as above) also have more impact that a single word uttered to replace them. I finished out the session at this point. There was a cutscene with what I assume is another generic robot boss en route. But I needed to go do something else, something fun after this.

[OCH]

So last night I finished Chapter 8. Easily the worst chapter in the game for me so far. Looking at the game objectively, at what "new" things it brings to the table. It fell flat. But now, in Chapter 9, I feel better: 

While I'm not overly keen on the accent. Mechanically, Cat Sif is one of the most interesting characters in the game so far. I'm currently still roaming the desert with the buggy. Might eventually make my way to the next area. But for the time being, I'm in no rush. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I picked it back up again and am doing the 'brutal' and 'legendary' VR challenges with Chadley. The legendary ones require you to beat 5 rooms of enemies solo, and are pretty hard and require you to theory craft materia comps. Brutal is with a full party, but they seem even harder, so I figure the legendary ones are good at learning the strengths of each character so I'm doing them first

 

I beat Yuffies so far, picked her first cause I'm kinda bad at knowing what she's good at. Now I'm doing Cait Sith, cause he's a really hard one to figure out too. I'm watching this video and it shows how cool and unique his moogle stance stuff is, the way he can easily dodge out of combos and parry while doing other actions (this scorpion fucked me up)

 

 

[OCH]

So I got through the Gongaga reactor dungeon yesterday. Next stop: Cosmo Canyon.

 

I'm thinking it's time to stick with the story chapters and end this sooner rather than later. The narrative of the last two chapters hasn't impressed me. The good will garnered by Junon is fading very quickly. The Yaoi lingering glances between Sephiroth and Cloud have me laughing more than anything else. The plot (and writing) of the original wasn't exactly Shakespeare. But would be deemed so in this universe...