Final Fantasy VII Remake - OFFICIALLY RELEASED!! (No Spoilers)

[Warden of the North]

Am I crazy or do they play Cosmo canyon music while in the sector 5 slums chapter 8 part? (Like in the town part) I changes when you venture out tho.

I heard it on a radio or in a shop somewhere

 

[Metroid]

I heard it on a radio or in a shop somewhere

I feel like I keep hearing it all over
I duno. Haha

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Aerith was officially introduced into the game (not the 1st chapter thing)....Wow. This chapter has all the feels, and the music, that damn music...

 

[TheDoldrums]

My copy FINALLY arrived from Amazon after pre-ordering 4 years ago.

Now to find a way to constantly play it without turning my family against me.

 

[Emperoreddy]

While companies like EA and Ubisoft are guilty of sacrificing gameplay and fun over a solid gaming experience for the sake of profit, has Square ever made that trade-off before? Legitimate question, because I just don't think they focused on making both old and new fans happy just for the money with FFVII Remake. I think the creative issues I've seen throughout the game come from Nomura being in charge, and not from the suits at Square. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've never thought Square was up there with the EAs and Ubisofts of the world.

I plan on playing through the original FFVII shortly after finishing the Remake, which I'm very close to doing. Since I haven't played the original, I can't comment on your second point and on if it's a good idea for Square to take the story in a different direction. I'm only able to comment on what I've played so far.



If it helps, I went back and played FFIX about a year ago and was able to get through it just fine. I imagine VII will likely not run as well or be as optimized, but I don't think the age will prevent me from playing VII. At least not if there's still a good game hiding behind the remnants of past technology. If it's closer to IX than X, I should be good. X is where the series completely lost me for a while due to both the narrative and gameplay departments, and I unfortunately missed XII because of this.

The biggest issue with the original is its ugly as sin. The graphics have aged really poorly.

It has other issues as well like the translation being wonky, and the maps can get a bit confusing, but by and large the game play itself holds up well.

I never felt the combat dragged and most encounter rates were fair. The summons can get long, but not as bad as some later games got (8's get really ridiculous)

The plot is well paced too. It's not perfect and has its fair share of Japanese wonk, but it doesn't get bogged down in filler (remake is guilty of that)

By and large 4 and 6 are superior products overall, but 7 is what it is for a reason. I don't think you could just plug any FF in that release spot and have the same effect. I don't think FF8 does nearly as well as 7 if their release order was flipped.

Outside of DQ, SE has gone downhill and continues to live there. The writing in their more recent titles are junk. Nomura and Nojima are hacks.

Gameplay wise things are better then the hallway simulator drudge of the 13 series, their action RPG stuff plays pretty well including this game, KH3, and even 15. Its still not perfect though.

I think overall KH3 was a shit show and FF15 was really meh, so I would rank this ahead of them both, but I would put the newest DQ game ahead of this as far as SE's best game this generation.

 

[Warden of the North]

I still have a soft spot for XII. Elements of the Gambit system would have improved the usefullness of the the non-player controlled members of the party in Remake. Late game they are very useless. It doesnt need to be as in depth, but a couple more auto moves would have been nice.

 

[S E P H]

So I started it today and got a couple of questions...

- I was blown away by everything thus far - beat Chapter 1 - , but it is pretty linear as of now. Does the game open up a bit later on? I am not talking about "open world", but is the city like explorable in a way and you can choose whenever to start a mission?

- Any advise on the camera work? Not hating at all, but is there a way for it to swing around faster? Or do you lot have any custom settings you'd recommend for me concerning camera or controls in general?

- How many characters can you eventually control in the party?

Thanks.

 

[Shareefruck]

So I started it today and got a couple of questions...

- I was blown away by everything thus far - beat Chapter 1 - , but it is pretty linear as of now. Does the game open up a bit later on? I am not talking about "open world", but is the city like explorable in a way and you can choose whenever to start a mission?

- Any advise on the camera work? Not hating at all, but is there a way for it to swing around faster? Or do you lot have any custom settings you'd recommend for me concerning camera or controls in general?

- How many characters can you eventually control in the party?

Thanks.

Basically, there are a few areas/towns/sectors that you settle into story-wise which function as completely open hubs to explore at your own leisure and do side quests in before irreversibly continuing with the story, and they're interspersed between the linear missions. How many of them you complete affects outcomes in the story, but beyond that, they're kind of just uninteresting fetch quests and the purely linear stuff is the actual meat of the game.

There are four primary controllable characters and one non-controllable guest character (and maybe some pseudo-guests), but you'll control at most three at a time. They're really well balanced characters that each have very distinct play styles, IMO.

Not sure about camera movement, but changing the camera distance to 3 instead of 1 is an absolute must, IMO. The default is way too close and chaotic.

 

[syz]

First playthrough: "I wish I could just have Tifa and Aerith all the time."
Hard mode: "How am I supposed to win without Barrett?"

 

[S E P H]

Basically, there are a few areas/towns/sectors that you settle into story-wise which function as completely open hubs to explore at your own leisure and do side quests in before irreversibly continuing with the story, and they're interspersed between the linear missions. How many of them you complete affects outcomes in the story, but beyond that, they're kind of just uninteresting fetch quests and the purely linear stuff is the actual meat of the game.

There are four primary controllable characters and one non-controllable guest character (and maybe some pseudo-guests), but you'll control at most three at a time. They're really well balanced characters that each have very distinct play styles, IMO.

Not sure about camera movement, but changing the camera distance to 3 instead of 1 is an absolute must, IMO. The default is way too close and chaotic.

Thanks a lot my friend.

 

[Warden of the North]

First playthrough: "I wish I could just have Tifa and Aerith all the time."
Hard mode: "How am I supposed to win without Barrett?"

Aerith isnt very useful late game. At least I havent been able to make her useful.

Healing spells take way too long to use.

 

[syz]

Aerith isnt very useful late game. At least I havent been able to make her useful.

Healing spells take way too long to use.

Healing accessory + ATB ward + prayer is pretty good but it's not as good as just perpetually preventing everybody else from taking damage like Barrett.

 

[Warden of the North]

Not exaggerating, have at least 30 megapotions for the finale.

Elixers too. I somehow missed that they were available at vending machines, at least late game. Not sure at what point they appear.

 

[Warden of the North]

The guy who voices Geralt in Witcher would have been great for Red XIII

 

[Tw1ster]

The guy who voices Geralt in Witcher would have been great for Red XIII

I actually thought he was voicing Sephiroth until I looked it up. Wasn’t exactly but there were a few time’s when Sephiroth spoke that made me think it coulda been Geralts voice actor

 

[syz]

Ok uhhhh the "live forever with Barret" strategy from before didn't work for Chadley's last request. Needed Aerith to be able to pump out that much damage.

 

[Papa Francouz]

The biggest issue with the original is its ugly as sin. The graphics have aged really poorly.

It has other issues as well like the translation being wonky, and the maps can get a bit confusing, but by and large the game play itself holds up well.

I never felt the combat dragged and most encounter rates were fair. The summons can get long, but not as bad as some later games got (8's get really ridiculous)

The plot is well paced too. It's not perfect and has its fair share of Japanese wonk, but it doesn't get bogged down in filler (remake is guilty of that)

By and large 4 and 6 are superior products overall, but 7 is what it is for a reason. I don't think you could just plug any FF in that release spot and have the same effect. I don't think FF8 does nearly as well as 7 if their release order was flipped.

Outside of DQ, SE has gone downhill and continues to live there. The writing in their more recent titles are junk. Nomura and Nojima are hacks.

Gameplay wise things are better then the hallway simulator drudge of the 13 series, their action RPG stuff plays pretty well including this game, KH3, and even 15. Its still not perfect though.

I think overall KH3 was a shit show and FF15 was really meh, so I would rank this ahead of them both, but I would put the newest DQ game ahead of this as far as SE's best game this generation.

I can handle old and poor graphics. If the worldbuilding is good enough, I'll be able to imagine what it is they were trying to get across. Graphics are very low on my hierarchy of what makes games good, luckily, so I'm able to play old stuff without many issues.

Absolutely agreed on the pacing and padding in FFVII Remake, by the way. I finished the game this afternoon and by the end of it, I was asking myself when it would end because I had gotten so tired and annoyed of the filler. I don't want to say too much to avoid giving away anything to other players, but I will say the padding is there even 'til the bitter end.

Spoiler: Finale Spoiler

You're absolutely right about Nomura and Nojima being hacks, unfortunately. A lot of the good stuff in Remake was apparently stuff they pulled straight from the original game, which I didn't know. The new additions are totally out of place, and they raise the stakes so high that there's no point in trying to follow up the story in a second game. Going from fighting capital-D Destiny itself to going back to fighting rats is going to be a huge letdown. It's become very apparent that there was no plan in place for the overarching plot between games. Or if there was, Nomura tore up the script and threw it in the toilet so he could become the Michael Bay of the video game industry.

The combat is amazing and I've grown to love the characters more than any other Final Fantasy characters I've interacted with in other games. I wish they would make them all more useful in combat when you aren't controlling them, though. Hopefully they can fix that in the next game. I will disagree about KH3 having good action RPG elements, though. That game is straight up Final Disney Hallway + Triangle Button: The Game. Oh, what could have been...

As for DQ, I played the ever-loving shit out of DQXI on my Switch and loved 99% of it. The endgame grind before fighting the final boss was incredibly tedious, but everything else in that game was top notch.

 

[Shareefruck]

Another unpopular criticism I have about FFVIIR that I think is getting partially overlooked because videogame storytelling has low standards (and these tropes are somewhat expected in general) is that it borrows a lot of narrative tricks and contrivances from lame cliched action blockbuster films that made me roll my eyes pretty hard every time.
The biggest offenders for me were:

Spoiler

* Marle's "Avalanche, I presume?"->"Just a friend." line
* Shinra Middle Manager's "But I'm the enemy!"->"I don't care!" line
* The whole scene with the Soldier "bad-guys" being successfully pressured into opening the gate-- feels like that exact sequence is in virtually every summer blockbuster
* Scaring the lone soldier left by throwing the sword and missing his head by inches

It's a relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things, and admittedly, audiences eat that crap up, so I'm not surprised they did it, but man, personally I can't stand crap like that in media. There's good, genuinely charming and tasteful cheese (like that Barrett vs. suits on the train scene or even the way that Johnny is used) and then there's bad cheese.

The experience felt an awful lot like watching a campy, leave-your-brain-by-the-door American action movie from the 80s or 90s in general (I can't be the only one who feels that way), and personally, I think more highly of the game's substance than that (even though obviously it shouldn't be super serious either).

On a positive note, one exception to this that I totally expected to go in that direction was

Spoiler

Barrett's "So we carry that weight." line

-- That one worked for me.

 

[Papa Francouz]

Another unpopular criticism I have about FFVIIR that I think is getting partially overlooked because videogame storytelling has low standards (and these tropes are somewhat expected in general) is that it borrows a lot of narrative tricks and contrivances from lame cliched action blockbuster films that made me roll my eyes pretty hard every time.
The biggest offenders for me were:

Spoiler

* Marle's "Avalanche, I presume?"->"Just a friend." line
* Shinra Middle Manager's "But I'm the enemy!"->"I don't care!" line
* The whole scene with the Soldier "bad-guys" being successfully pressured into opening the gate-- feels like that exact sequence is in virtually every summer blockbuster
* Scaring the lone soldier left by throwing the sword and missing his head by inches

It's a relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things, and admittedly, audiences eat that crap up, so I'm not surprised they did it, but man, personally I can't stand crap like that in media. There's good, genuinely charming and tasteful cheese (like that Barrett vs. suits on the train scene) and then there's bad cheese.

The experience felt an awful lot like watching a campy, leave-your-brain-by-the-door American action movie from the 80s or 90s (I can't be the only one who feels that way), and personally, I think more highly of the game's substance than that.

On a positive note, there were also some other scenes that I totally expected to go in that direction but didn't and actually ending up feeling tasteful like

Spoiler

Barrett's "So we carry that weight." line

Don't forget about the trope that made me roll my eyes the hardest throughout the last few chapers:

Spoiler: Spoiler

Barret pulling President Shinra up off a ledge, later followed by Tifa pulling Cloud up off a ledge, later followed by Tifa and Barret pulling Cloud up off a ledge. And I'm sure I'm missing a few other instances of this happening.

 

[Shareefruck]

Don't forget about the trope that made me roll my eyes the hardest throughout the last few chapers:

Spoiler: Spoiler

Barret pulling President Shinra up off a ledge, later followed by Tifa pulling Cloud up off a ledge, later followed by Tifa and Barret pulling Cloud up off a ledge. And I'm sure I'm missing a few other instances of this happening.

Yeah, that's a good one-- the "Surprise! I'm here to save you! Bonds strengthened!" money-shot is milked over and over again and it kind of stinks.

For some reason minor nuances like that can bother me more than even outright dumb plot-holes/implausibilities.

 

[Papa Francouz]

Yeah, that's a good one-- the "Surprise! I'm here to save you! Bonds strengthened!" money-shot is milked over and over again and it kind of stinks.

For some reason minor nuances like that can bother me more than even outright dumb plot-holes/implausibilities.

Not sure why that is, but I'm the same way. For instance, whenever I hear the Wilhelm scream in any piece of media, I am immediately pulled out of it and have to force myself to become reimmersed in what I'm experiencing as opposed to being drawn in naturally. Fortunately, I don't think Remake had a singe scene with the Wilhelm scream in it, so I got lucky there.

You're right in your previous post about some of the cornier stuff working, though. Especially the one that worked for you - that worked for me, as well, and brought some additional empathy for that character out of me.

 

[Warden of the North]

I actually thought he was voicing Sephiroth until I looked it up. Wasn’t exactly but there were a few time’s when Sephiroth spoke that made me think it coulda been Geralts voice actor

End game spoiler

Spoiler

Theres a line after the final battle where Red XIII says something like "If youre going on a hunt, you're going to need my nose" and it sounds EXACTLY like Geralt. Hell, its almost something Geralt would say, too.

 

[Shareefruck]

Another thing that is entirely new that I did love was the scene with

Spoiler

The Turks in the Shinra building.

Felt totally organic and perfectly encapsulates what they're all about and their different degrees of moral ambivalence.

Not sure why that is, but I'm the same way. For instance, whenever I hear the Wilhelm scream in any piece of media, I am immediately pulled out of it and have to force myself to become reimmersed in what I'm experiencing as opposed to being drawn in naturally. Fortunately, I don't think Remake had a singe scene with the Wilhelm scream in it, so I got lucky there.

You're right in your previous post about some of the cornier stuff working, though. Especially the one that worked for you - that worked for me, as well, and brought some additional empathy for that character out of me.

I think for me, it just comes down to being put off by the fact that something reeks of "this manipulative crap always works on those suckers, hook line and sinker." So something like the Wilhelm scream doesn't bother me nearly as much as this stuff.

If something is super cheesy but feels like an authentic and personalized creative choice that accomplishes something, I'm happy to go along with the silliness and find plausibility/realism/continuity kind of overrated. Both Shinra Middle Manager encounters with Barrett were just so over the top but perfect, and the fact that Cloud can fall a million stories without dying really doesn't matter to me.

 

[kingsholygrail]

So I finally beat it.

Spoiler

I'm fine with this ending and eager to see where it goes. I loved how much of Crisis Core got put into the game. When the one Shinra soldier recognizes Cloud, I had such a big grin. When President Shinra mentioned the Soldier Type S and G(Sephiroth and Genesis), that was another smile. So things like that. We could see Genesis and Angeal make an appearance.

Non-spoiler impressions, I was highly satisfied by the characterizations and mostly enjoyed the new additions. Don Corneo was fantastic. I didn't care for the jazz remixes of a lot of the songs, but I'm not really a jazz guy anyway. The Upgrade weapon system seemed kinda pointless since you just automate it anyway to save your sanity. I honestly didn't find myself switching between the weapons, but maybe that becomes a bigger thing in hard mode.

 

[Shareefruck]

delete