Final Fantasy VII REBIRTH - Part 2 (Feb 29th, 2024 Release Date) - Reviews are Out! (NO SPOILERS - See Post 385)

[The Crypto Guy]

Part two here we go!

HUGE NUMBERS

Click to read more...

 

[Papa Francouz]

Completely agreed. The characterizations of the main cast + Avalanche + pretty much all of the Shinra heads are absolutely spot on, and probably express the original characters more clearly and eloquently than the original does (even though all of the same seeds were still there in the OG version-- you just had to read between the lines and draw a lot from a few succinct lines, and in some cases you don't realize a lot of it until later in the game). The only fully new and notable character trait I can think of is Jessie's forwardness which did not exist at all before and works excellently in this game (that and I guess Biggs' weird shoe-horned "worrying about details" trait, which I didn't find convincing at all)-- I interpreted it more as a shy schoolgirl crush on Cloud thing in the original, which is not the case at all here. I think they kind of overdid the Aerith/Tifa friendship as well, I guess in attempt to make the game feel less male-targeted.

Sephiroth is probably the sole exception and is very poorly characterized and cheapened for the sake of hollow fan service, though-- which is a shame because his build-up was one of my favorite things about the original game.

Plotwise, I would say they nail just about everything up to the beginning of Shinra HQ, but it suddenly gets very flimsy after that.

I mostly just despise the thematic statement the game concludes with, which really comes close to souring everything else and implications moving forward for me.

I'm curious to see how Sephiroth is built up and introduced in the original when I get around to playing it. Stuff I've read on this site, as well as on other sites, has said that's the biggest negative change between the original and the Remake. I already know most things about Sephiroth due to playing the FFVII-adjacent games, as well as seeing Advent Children way back when, but I'm very interested in seeing how much better his build up is in the original.

Agreed on the plot, too - everything they pulled from the original was awesome. The way they updated it to make it fit in with modern games was great, and it all looked so damn cool. And then the original plot threads for Remake reared their ugly heads and we got some very questionable scenes throughout the last few chapters of the game.

I don't blame you for disliking the conclusion and what it has to say. It's pretty lame and opens the door for more Nomura nonsense in the next installments. I'll still buy the next game just so I can experience the next part of the original story (if they go that way). If not, and if it ends up a non-Disney KH3, then I'll probably skip it.

 

[Harbinger]

So that's what Red sounds like. Interesting.

 

[Shareefruck]

I'm curious to see how Sephiroth is built up and introduced in the original when I get around to playing it. Stuff I've read on this site, as well as on other sites, has said that's the biggest negative change between the original and the Remake. I already know most things about Sephiroth due to playing the FFVII-adjacent games, as well as seeing Advent Children way back when, but I'm very interested in seeing how much better his build up is in the original.

Agreed on the plot, too - everything they pulled from the original was awesome. The way they updated it to make it fit in with modern games was great, and it all looked so damn cool. And then the original plot threads for Remake reared their ugly heads and we got some very questionable scenes throughout the last few chapters of the game.

I don't blame you for disliking the conclusion and what it has to say. It's pretty lame and opens the door for more Nomura nonsense in the next installments. I'll still buy the next game just so I can experience the next part of the original story (if they go that way). If not, and if it ends up a non-Disney KH3, then I'll probably skip it.

It's not that Sephiroth is some super deep character or anything, but how he's used as a storytelling device is excellent. In the remake, he just feels like some dumb Naruto villain (I cringed at how they turned the dynamic into the exact Sasuke/Itachi thing). FFVII-adjacent games/movies basically tell you nothing, and appear to be where the remakes version of Sephiroth comes from. Oddly enough, spin-off material completely bastardized Cloud, Aerith, and Sephiroth (turned emo, angelic, and stoic, respectively), and the remake completely fixed/restored Cloud/Aerith but kept Sephiroth bastardized.

Some advice for when you play the original-- The version you play matters a fair bit.

Whatever you do, do not play the Steam Version raw. The original didn't have mouths on the character models, so they tried to "fix" it by giving everyone really dumb and distracting blow-up-doll mouths. Also, another problem with modern releases of it is that they try to upscale as much as they can but were unable to find the high resolution background and video assets, so the Steam version has this really jarring inconsistency where the models are high resolution but backgrounds and videos are grainy and pixelated. The PS4 version might have these issues too, I'm not sure.

If you want zero setup, I think the Switch version is probably best-- It doesn't have the mouth issue and it uses a blur effect on the backgrounds-- Not ideal, but at least everything is equally smooth. This version has the most quality of life features as well, I think. I'm not sure what the PS4 version does, but I think it looked worse.

If you're willing to spend some time on setup, the best way to experience the game is to use mods to fix everything on the Steam version (including the mouths). The coolest thing about this is that modders have used Deep Learning technology to fully upscale the original backgrounds and videos to match the resolution of the models while remaining authentic and entirely unchanged from the original assets. Look up the Remako HD mod. The crispness that this gives everything looks excellent, in my opinion. It's as close to the original assets as you're going to get.

It's pretty incredible what technology can do for old games. Alot of those backgrounds are still quite beautiful, and alot of that has been dismissed by the fact that modern versions just take 320 x 240 pixel assets and stretch it out to a 1080p screen, which obviously looks terrible.

Also, keep in mind that a lot of the most compelling lore in the game is entirely optional and hidden behind actually meaningful side quests, easter eggs, and optional dialogue that you have to seek out, so it might be worth peaking at a guide once in a while and talking to everything.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Is The Fastest-Selling PS4 Exclusive

Ended up beating God of War and Spider Man who held the previous records

 

[Papa Francouz]

It's not that Sephiroth is some super deep character or anything, but how he's used as a storytelling device is excellent. In the remake, he just feels like some dumb Naruto villain (I cringed at how they turned the dynamic into the exact Sasuke/Itachi thing). FFVII-adjacent games/movies basically tell you nothing, and appear to be where the remakes version of Sephiroth comes from. Oddly enough, spin-off material completely bastardized Cloud, Aerith, and Sephiroth (turned emo, angelic, and stoic, respectively), and the remake completely fixed/restored Cloud/Aerith but kept Sephiroth bastardized.

*snip*

Also, keep in mind that a lot of the most compelling lore in the game is entirely optional and hidden behind actually meaningful side quests, easter eggs, and optional dialogue that you have to seek out, so it might be worth peaking at a guide once in a while and talking to everything.

I'll put my response to your first paragraph in spoiler tags just in case.

Spoiler

Funny enough, I just finished watching through Naruto a few months ago and I definitely got some Sasuke/Itachi vibes from Cloud & Sephiroth. It wasn't the relationship I remembered hearing about from the original game. I was expecting more - some sort of true antagonist behavior from Sephiroth, but the Remake focused so much on Shinra that Sephiroth felt like an afterthought saved for the finale more than anything else.

Some of those backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous. You can tell there's a ton of work that went into them, and some of the textures from then look like some of the textures from the Remake

I have FFVII on Switch, but seeing those backgrounds with mods on a PC has me wanting to pick it up on Steam sometime. I've got some time before I jump into the original game, but Goddamn does that game on PC look not as bad as people have said.

 

[Tw1ster]

Just beat the Hellhouse. It was my first try but the battle was at least 25 minutes long. I had all the wrong Materia. I’m only level 20, have done all the side quests up until now and have about 15 hours played. Having a blast

 

[Shareefruck]

Spoiler

Funny enough, I just finished watching through Naruto a few months ago and I definitely got some Sasuke/Itachi vibes from Cloud & Sephiroth. It wasn't the relationship I remembered hearing about from the original game. I was expecting more - some sort of true antagonist behavior from Sephiroth, but the Remake focused so much on Shinra that Sephiroth felt like an afterthought saved for the finale more than anything else.

Spoiler

Not sure if you've heard this yet, but Sephiroth is not technically supposed to appear in this part of the remake at all, so that's why he feels like an afterthought-- they try to shoe-horn him in there for fan service even though he doesn't belong in this part of the story, aside from planting off-screen seeds that get paid off later. Adds to the mystery and build-up beautifully, I'd say.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Should we call it "Part 2 but Part 2 isn't out yet."?

 

[wingsnut19]

I had to put the game down for a few days after the start of Chapter 12 because I could tell it was going to be hard hitting, but picked it up again last night. I was right. Really difficult chapter to get through for me, too bad it was preceded by what I think was my personal least favourite chapter in the game so far. I hated the train graveyard. Feels like you could cut that part out entirely and you'd not really lose anything. Again though, I never played the original, so maybe there is some content in there that will be relevant later on.

 

[Papa Francouz]

Spoiler

Not sure if you've heard this yet, but Sephiroth is not technically supposed to appear in this part of the remake at all, so that's why he feels like an afterthought-- they try to shoe-horn him in there for fan service even though he doesn't belong in this part of the story, aside from planting off-screen seeds that get paid off later. Adds to the mystery and build-up beautifully, I'd say.

Spoiler

That's about the gist of what I've heard, actually. Lots of talk about following the blood trail to find President Shinra with Sephiroth's sword in his back, but Sephiroth not really being introduced until later. I haven't read in detail what that looks like, but I can picture the general direction of the scene. I'm trying to avoid seeing or reading anything about the original past the Midgar stuff, since people have been comparing the Midgar section in the original to the Remake. Luckily the Midgar stuff in the original game is only 5-10 hours long, apparently, so there's a lot of game for me to still experience when I do sit down and play through the original.

 

[Shareefruck]

I had to put the game down for a few days after the start of Chapter 12 because I could tell it was going to be hard hitting, but picked it up again last night. I was right. Really difficult chapter to get through for me, too bad it was preceded by what I think was my personal least favourite chapter in the game so far. I hated the train graveyard. Feels like you could cut that part out entirely and you'd not really lose anything. Again though, I never played the original, so maybe there is some content in there that will be relevant later on.

It's pure filler. In the original, it's literally just two or three screens where you do a moving-trains-around puzzle to get from the sewers to the Sector 7 plate, with zero dialogue, story, or plot implications.

 

[Ryuji Yamazaki]

I still love this game, 31 hours in, but Jesus Christ the battle system needs a lot of work.

 

[Tw1ster]

I still love this game, 31 hours in, but Jesus Christ the battle system needs a lot of work.

The further I get into the game, the more the battle system is clicking for me. It’s a blast for me the better I’ve gotten

 

[K Fleur]

They really nailed what a disgusting character Don Corneo is.

 

[Emperoreddy]

It is odd how they seemingly got Cloud and Aerith right after years of the characters being reduced to one note shells of their original selves, but Sephiroth remains the generic "cool guy" anime villain he became in Kingdom Hearts and all the compilation material.

Also man is everyone so thirsty for Cloud.

 

[WeaponOfChoice]

I've never played an FF game. Can I play this game without playing any of the others?

 

[Shareefruck]

It is odd how they seemingly got Cloud and Aerith right after years of the characters being reduced to one note shells of their original selves, but Sephiroth remains the generic "cool guy" anime villain he became in Kingdom Hearts and all the compilation material.

Also man is everyone so thirsty for Cloud.

I made the same point earlier, but I will say that exactly how Sephiroth should be portrayed IS a little trickier to pin down because of how infrequent his appearances are and how many different manifestations of him there are depending on the context-- Especially compared to Cloud and Aerith, who get heaps and heaps of characterization and remain pretty consistent/gradual the whole way through.

Meanwhile,

Spoiler

Jenova-posing-as-Sephiroth is completely different from pre-insanity real Sephiroth is completely different from post-insanity real Sephiroth is completely different from post-insanity-but-kind-of-dead-and-combined-with-Jenova real Sephiroth (who barely has any characterization).

The bastardized version of Sephiroth in the remake, Advent Children, and Kingdom hearts is basically only somewhat accurate to pre-insanity real Sephiroth's demeanor, but also with evil thrown in-- which doesn't make any sense-- and it's used for every version of him regardless of the situation. We've NEVER seen Jenova-posing-as-Sephiroth or Post-insanity-real-Sephiroth accurately portrayed, outside of the original game, IMO.

I would say that the only time the portrayal of Sephiroth that we always get (the "calm cool bad-***" one) makes any sense is before the turn in Crisis Core. I do think it's accurate for him to act like that in that scenario.

 

[Ryuji Yamazaki]

The further I get into the game, the more the battle system is clicking for me. It’s a blast for me the better I’ve gotten

Sometimes it’s ok.

I don’t even know where to start

Flying enemies - They need to be just scrapped altogether. Especially if you don’t have Barrett in the party. They go outside the “battle zone” so you can’t hit them and you just end up taking turns high jumping doing nothing. You’d better hope you have magic materia equipped because all those abilities are useless now.

Camera - Way too often I’m searching for enemies in battle because the camera is all over the place. I’ve tried fooling with the options and different combinations of the camera but none of them are perfect.

Guard - Completely pointless. The amount of time it takes for your character to start guarding from the button press is ridiculous. If you don’t “have a reservation”, you might as well forget it and just dodge. The damage reduction isn’t even that great it seems like. I know there’s the Steadfast Block materia but still.

Interruptions and Misses - Wtf. This is so dumb. Trying to cast a spell or ability the game makes you take your sweet ass time. You’re either going to get interrupted and not have it cast at all, or if you do cast it, it misses because the enemies moves. On top of that, you lose your ATB gauge as if you did cast it? Gimme a break.

I’m sure there was some other stuff that I can’t think of.

 

[Nizdizzle]

I've never played an FF game. Can I play this game without playing any of the others?

The Final Fantasy games are all independent of each other and take place in different worlds. The only thing I've head about this one is that the ending makes more sense if you've played the original FFVII, and is confusing if you haven't. If the game looks like it appeals to you, dive in. I haven't played the original and I'm a few hours into this new one and there haven't been anything that I feel like I'm missing out yet.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Sometimes it’s ok.

I don’t even know where to start

Flying enemies - They need to be just scrapped altogether. Especially if you don’t have Barrett in the party. They go outside the “battle zone” so you can’t hit them and you just end up taking turns high jumping doing nothing. You’d better hope you have magic materia equipped because all those abilities are useless now.

Camera - Way too often I’m searching for enemies in battle because the camera is all over the place. I’ve tried fooling with the options and different combinations of the camera but none of them are perfect.

Guard - Completely pointless. The amount of time it takes for your character to start guarding from the button press is ridiculous. If you don’t “have a reservation”, you might as well forget it and just dodge. The damage reduction isn’t even that great it seems like. I know there’s the Steadfast Block materia but still.

Interruptions and Misses - Wtf. This is so dumb. Trying to cast a spell or ability the game makes you take your sweet ass time. You’re either going to get interrupted and not have it cast at all, or if you do cast it, it misses because the enemies moves. On top of that, you lose your ATB gauge as if you did cast it? Gimme a break.

I’m sure there was some other stuff that I can’t think of.

I do think the battle system is great but it isn't without flaws and I do agree with the flaws you have posted, especially as it relates to flying enemies and interruptions and misses. On more than one occasion I went to use a limit break, only to be interrupted by a stupid mid battle cut scene and lose my limit break completely. If you're going to allow for attacks to interrupt spells and such then the spells need to be cast much quicker.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Sometimes it’s ok.

I don’t even know where to start

Flying enemies - They need to be just scrapped altogether. Especially if you don’t have Barrett in the party. They go outside the “battle zone” so you can’t hit them and you just end up taking turns high jumping doing nothing. You’d better hope you have magic materia equipped because all those abilities are useless now.

Camera - Way too often I’m searching for enemies in battle because the camera is all over the place. I’ve tried fooling with the options and different combinations of the camera but none of them are perfect.

Guard - Completely pointless. The amount of time it takes for your character to start guarding from the button press is ridiculous. If you don’t “have a reservation”, you might as well forget it and just dodge. The damage reduction isn’t even that great it seems like. I know there’s the Steadfast Block materia but still.

Interruptions and Misses - Wtf. This is so dumb. Trying to cast a spell or ability the game makes you take your sweet ass time. You’re either going to get interrupted and not have it cast at all, or if you do cast it, it misses because the enemies moves. On top of that, you lose your ATB gauge as if you did cast it? Gimme a break.

I’m sure there was some other stuff that I can’t think of.

Flying Enemies - Always have offensive material equipped. You should have some sort of attack magic equipped for every character that can battle flying things.

Camera: Lock on enemies, problem solved.

Guard - I didnt take full advantage of this till later, makes a huge difference on some enemies.

Interruptions and Miss - I agree this is annoying, especially the interruptions. My strategy is to just switch switch switch. I switch between characters sometimes every 10-15 seconds. Usually the enemy is only focused on the character you are playing with so when you switch to another guy you can use stronger spells that don't get interrupted.

Regardless of some flaws, this is one of the best battle systems i've every played once I fully got the hang of it. Very rewarding.

 

[Shareefruck]

Sometimes it’s ok.

I don’t even know where to start

Flying enemies - They need to be just scrapped altogether. Especially if you don’t have Barrett in the party. They go outside the “battle zone” so you can’t hit them and you just end up taking turns high jumping doing nothing. You’d better hope you have magic materia equipped because all those abilities are useless now.

Camera - Way too often I’m searching for enemies in battle because the camera is all over the place. I’ve tried fooling with the options and different combinations of the camera but none of them are perfect.

Guard - Completely pointless. The amount of time it takes for your character to start guarding from the button press is ridiculous. If you don’t “have a reservation”, you might as well forget it and just dodge. The damage reduction isn’t even that great it seems like. I know there’s the Steadfast Block materia but still.

Interruptions and Misses - Wtf. This is so dumb. Trying to cast a spell or ability the game makes you take your sweet ass time. You’re either going to get interrupted and not have it cast at all, or if you do cast it, it misses because the enemies moves. On top of that, you lose your ATB gauge as if you did cast it? Gimme a break.

I’m sure there was some other stuff that I can’t think of.

I think there are some big problems with the battle mechanics, but none of these would be among them for me, personally (other than maybe a slightly chaotic camera which seems like a nitpick). Hell, guard is significantly more useful than dodge is (the counter in particular), and interruptions and misses are a really neat part of the strategy/timing of the game, IMO. It actually cleverly conditions a more psychologically turn-based mentality as well, because the safest time to use a big attack is after a big attack from the enemy has completed. Also, flying enemies being tedious when you use melee characters with for some reason zero magic equipped sounds entirely reasonable to me.

The biggest flaw in the battle system in my view is Limit Breaks getting interrupted and lost/reset by in-battle cut-scenes that you can't predict and that is completely antithetical to the encouraged battle strategy. That is a clear oversight that just feels absolutely moronic when it happens, especially as battles get bigger and tougher.

Perfectly save up a meter until you stagger an enemy, preparing to do massive damage with the limit break (sometimes even enough to finish them off), the first few frames of the Limit animation ticks off a margin of the HP needed to trigger the cut-scene, and all of a sudden all of that expected damage and your meter (which takes forever to build-up) is lost for no reason other than because the enemy wanted to arbitrarily strike an Anime pose and get a little more serious. At the very, very least it should finish showing the animation so that you can get some marginal (albeit still hollow) satisfaction out of it.

Another nitpick I would make is that there are problems with the A.I.. It's not a huge factor because this is essentially a turn-based game, but Cloud's A.I. appears to be buggy compared to other characters in general, and the enemy automatically directing all of their attention to whoever you're controlling does not feel natural and strategically fair or meaningful to me, especially de-incentivizing use of a character like Aerith, who is expected to ideally need/want some degree of cover from allies when acting. This also sort of encourages you to exploit the A.I. in broken ways that isn't remotely fun or the right way to play (like, oh, it turns out I can just do nothing and be chased around by him for hours while my ally slowly chips away with crappy normal attacks without ever being in real danger of getting damaged).

 

[S E P H]

So I am playing the game on normal, but I am thinking of changing it to classic mode? Would you lot advise towards this or not?

Also I am half-way in Chapter 4 and Jessie is becoming one of my favourite characters in any video game I've played.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

So I am playing the game on normal, but I am thinking of changing it to classic mode? Would you lot advise towards this or not?

Also I am half-way in Chapter 4 and Jessie is becoming one of my favourite characters in any video game I've played.

I would not advise on that. The battle system is amazing, don't go back to classic unless you really want boring and easy fights. If you are having a bit of trouble with the regular mode, classic is a good way to slow things down a bit so you can get a hang of things.