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Oxxidation posted:dios mio, i just realized that if/when gold saucer is introduced we are absolutely going to encounter Roche at the chocobo track I fully expect to have several encounters in the next game with Roche, Johnny, Kyrie, and Leslie.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:08
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Oxxidation posted:chocobo with motorcycle handlebars and an exhaust pipe I wonder if 8-bit theater still holds up from my teenage years, been awhile.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:09
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Yeah the Weapons are activated after Meteor is summoned right Yeah. The WEAPONs show up because the meteor is summoned and it's not just gonna kill the puny humans but it's actually gonna kill the Planet, which is expressly a living thing with at least some degree of sapience in FF7. So it summons its version of white blood cells and they happen to be Gundams/jaegers. There's a good point though in Pollyanna drawing comparison, because the Whispers are almost the same thing but on a different level I guess.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:09
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Yeah, the Whispers and the WEAPONs have a lot in common in having been manifested by the planet to defend itself, either to defend what it sees as the best possible future, or to defend it physically from a great threat.Schwartzcough posted:And I'd have to find the quote Onmi posted ages ago, but it's directly from the developers saying they wanted to change things specifically to evoke those same feelings in fans that the fans had playing the original. If they made a pure remake, people would say "ah, this is nostalgic, how nice" but would provide no other real emotions. The only way they could provide more, to evoke wonder and mystery and suspense, is by making it so the future is uncertain, so that the stakes aren't fully known. I find this concept really interesting because on the one hand, it absolutely makes sense that this is what they're trying to do--the way you get someone to engage, emotionally and intellectually, with a story as if it is a new story is, well, to tell them a new story. But on the other hand, I think it oversimplifies with a remake that sticks mostly to the same story can do when there's this much of a gap in technology and presentation. Just anecdotally, I found myself engaging with the characters in this remake more than I think I have since 1997, and in new ways, just because of how much humanity their presentation and portrayals can bring. I found myself caring more about Midgar as a place because it felt so much more real in a way that wouldn't have been possible in the 1997 version. And I definitely relived some of the emotional moments of the original anew, either because of new build-up to them (in the case of the Avalanche crew) or just because of the new presentation making everything feel so much more alive. That's all a long way of saying that, at least if I'm not the weird one here, I think you can get the audience to feel those same, real emotions again by telling the same story in the way they did for 95% of this remake. Okay, maybe you can't really surprise or shock them, but a lot of those emotions can still be recaptured. And that's to say nothing of new fans, who I still wonder about being left behind by how transparently meta a lot of the Whisper stuff is. That's not to say the rest of this remake necessarily has to be self-aware in that way, and I hope it isn't, but I know at least a couple people new to FF7 who just found themselves at the ending thinking, "I'm sure this means something if you played the original but it's meaningless to me," and that doesn't strike me as a great feeling to evoke. Anyway! Long story short I don't think they're wrong to want to make something new to give veterans the experience of a new story, or to include a plot element in part 1 that explores the conflict between faithfulness to the original vs. the risk of creating something new. I just think it's interesting how effective this remake was at getting me to feel a lot of real, not-just-nostalgia emotions about these characters and I think continuing down that road could've still been a worthwhile and genuine emotional experience for players. Harrow fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 20:11
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Mulva posted:So at a certain point it's like....here's the reality. You get the passion, which is what makes 95% of this game great to basically everyone, but you have to take the 5% of weird bullshit. Or you get nothing, at all. That's what the wild ride is, and you are on or off. You can of course talk about why you are off or what gets you to jump on with both feet, but it's not stopping the ride either way. This is fair. Like it or not I am on the wild ride. There was just too much good going on here to not go in for the next one, especially with high spoiler potential for wherever the story goes if you don't get in early. I hope future ratios are in favor of the good, but I am very prepared for disappointment.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:20
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Harrow posted:That's all a long way of saying that, at least if I'm not the weird one here, I think you can get the audience to feel those same, real emotions again by telling the same story in the way they did for 95% of this remake. Okay, maybe you can't really surprise or shock them, but a lot of those emotions can still be recaptured. And that's to say nothing of new fans, who I still wonder about being left behind by how transparently meta a lot of the Whisper stuff is. That's not to say the rest of this remake necessarily has to be self-aware in that way, and I hope it isn't, but I know at least a couple people new to FF7 who just found themselves at the ending thinking, "I'm sure this means something if you played the original but it's meaningless to me," and that doesn't strike me as a great feeling to evoke. I keep getting this feeling that you're like self-conscious if your posts go for longer than three sentences, and I don't think you should be, fwiw. It's almost always good reading. Anyway I don't necessarily disagree with your points here, either. There was, even still is, absolutely merit to recreating the original FF7 with new technology, and it could absolutely still be emotionally impactful, but it also definitely would've traded in nostalgia quite a bit, there's no getting around it. It would essentially have to, because the tension of the story would be missing if they changed nothing. I'm not saying it's bad, but it has to be acknowledged. I also tried making a point that got lost in the shuffle about remakes ironically erasing their originals instead of lifting them up, and a straight recreation of FF7 would likely have done exactly that. By choosing to do their own thing I think it should be pointed out that this dev team is allowing FF7 to... continue to exist? If that makes sense? The analogy I made was to the Resident Evil remakes, which are pretty loving fantastic. Would you ever recommend anyone actually play the original Resident Evil when the REmake exists, or the original RE2/RE3 now that those remakes exist? I wouldn't. They're strictly worse experiences. By improving their source material so emphatically they've effectively removed them from the cultural canon. FF7R isn't doing that, and I think there absolutely was a little motivation on the dev team's side to respect the original enough to not overwrite it, I guess. The Puppy Bowl posted:This is fair. Like it or not I am on the wild ride. There was just too much good going on here to not go in for the next one, especially with high spoiler potential for wherever the story goes if you don't get in early. I hope future ratios are in favor of the good, but I am very prepared for disappointment. I have a lot of words about FF7R but this is actually the core of how I feel about it. I'm extremely aware that future installments could be loving horrible, and it's maybe even more likely than not that they're inferior to the original's experience, but I'm hopeful that they won't be horrible and that it'll be even cooler than the original. It's a risk they're taking, and like it or not you kinda have to take the risk with them if you keep playing the sub-series. Fingers crossed or whatever. guts and bolts fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 20:20
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The more I think about the final fight, the more I think it would have been better without the giant Whisper god thing. Going from fighting robots and room sized monsters to a giant god creature is more than a bit jarring. You don't even really fight it, you just fight the three normal sized whisper monsters instead and that does damage to it somehow. They should have removed the giant one and just had us fighting the three on their own, with them fusing into Bahamut as the climax to the fight. Or maybe skip it all together and go straight to the Sephiroth fight. Like, I know they wanted a big climactic spectacle fight to end the game on, but the Sephiroth fight showed you could do spectacle without being a giant monster.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:23
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guts and bolts posted:I also tried making a point that got lost in the shuffle about remakes ironically erasing their originals instead of lifting them up, and a straight recreation of FF7 would likely have done exactly that. By choosing to do their own thing I think it should be pointed out that this dev team is allowing FF7 to... continue to exist? If that makes sense? The analogy I made was to the Resident Evil remakes, which are pretty loving fantastic. Would you ever recommend anyone actually play the original Resident Evil when the REmake exists, or the original RE2/RE3 now that those remakes exist? I wouldn't. They're strictly worse experiences. By improving their source material so emphatically they've effectively removed them from the cultural canon. FF7R isn't doing that, and I think there absolutely was a little motivation on the dev team's side to respect the original enough to not overwrite it, I guess. Yeah, and I have to admit that I felt that at least a few times playing through this part of the remake. I felt like, why would I replay the original or suggest that someone play the original when this is so good? I'd been spoiled on the ending somewhat so I knew it wasn't going to continue to be a fully straight-up remake, so I knew the answer to that question, but I still felt that way. And I can definitely sympathize with people not wanting to fully supplant their own creation. It's an interesting feeling, I'm sure. Like on the one hand, maybe that's a good thing--if you can make a thing that people already love again and so much better that people love the new version more, isn't that a good thing? Shouldn't you be proud of that? But at the same time, it's sad, and unless the original just doesn't hold up at all (a complicated question in this case), it can be sort of tragic and wasteful to supplant it entirely in the culture. Incidentally one of the reasons I think the "does it hold up?" question is complicated is because I think the answer might be different in English and Japanese. In English, we have to deal with a... rough translation that can make the original hard to get into if you don't already love it, or at least love the Final Fantasy series. That problem wouldn't exist for a player who can read Japanese and I wonder if it feels fresher in that case. guts and bolts posted:I have a lot of words about FF7R but this is actually the core of how I feel about it. I'm extremely aware that future installments could be loving horrible, and it's maybe even more likely than not that they're inferior to the original's experience, but I'm hopeful that they won't be horrible and that it'll be even cooler than the original. It's a risk they're taking, and like it or not you kinda have to take the risk with them if you keep playing the sub-series. Fingers crossed or whatever. Yeah, pretty much same here. I have plenty to say about the execution of parts of this remake but the fact is that the vast majority of it was brilliant and while I'm nervous that the rest will be garbage... honestly, there was a chance it was going to be, anyway, even if they stuck to a more straight-up remake. I'm on the wild ride and very little will stop me from getting the next part on its launch day.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:28
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Caidin posted:I wonder if 8-bit theater still holds up from my teenage years, been awhile. Didn't last I tried. Bunch of jokes from then feel tired now that everyone else has also made them. E: https://www.nuklearpower.com/2001/04/20/episode-018-weve-all-been-there/ itskage fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 20:33
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Harrow posted:Yeah, pretty much same here. I have plenty to say about the execution of parts of this remake but the fact is that the vast majority of it was brilliant and while I'm nervous that the rest will be garbage... honestly, there was a chance it was going to be, anyway, even if they stuck to a more straight-up remake. I'm on the wild ride and very little will stop me from getting the next part on its launch day. Are you saying... there's no getting off this train we're on?
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Apr 21, 2020 20:33
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Are you saying... there's no getting off this train we're on? 
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Apr 21, 2020 20:37
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I'm still shedding a tear over "Planet's dyin' Cloud" getting rephrased in the new script
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Apr 21, 2020 20:37
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cheetah7071 posted:I'm still shedding a tear over "Planet's dyin' Cloud" getting rephrased in the new script For every loss of "no getting offa this train we on" or "Planet's dyin', Cloud!" we also got to update pretty lovely scripting like "Stop acting like a retard and climb!" So it was probably worth it.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:39
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Two amusing things from Tim Rogers's Japanese playthrough/translation of the original FF7 now that I'm actually watching the whole thing: - He assumed as a kid that when Barret referred to the plate as a "pizza," it must have been some sort of untranslatable Japanese pun so the translator just threw in the word "pizza" instead. He found out later playing in Japanese that, no, it's a pizza in Japanese, too. - He renamed all the characters with their English names to make it easier for people to follow, then he named Aeris/th "Aeriス" to avoid having to take a side on s vs. th and it's great
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Apr 21, 2020 20:41
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guts and bolts posted:For every loss of "no getting offa this train we on" or "Planet's dyin', Cloud!" we also got to update pretty lovely scripting like "Stop acting like a retard and climb!" I kinda like the update
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Apr 21, 2020 20:44
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So I've been thinking about this. I know that there's people that don't like the whisper battle and think we should've just had Sephiroth at the end but I really don't think that they did it just to make a big last boss. Because Sephiroth is there. So why is Whisper shenanigans happening? Well, we know that when you beat the Harbinger seems to be the gestalt of the Whispers. And when you beat it Sephiroth he seemingly absorbs them. I say this because you can see him kind of 'wielding' them later on. But how can he do this if he's still just some jackass who can project himself that's stuck in an ice cube? And what's the whispers *purpose*? We first see them harassing Aerith. Why? They're not really attacking her? They just seem to be keeping her in place. And don't leave until Cloud shows up. Which means that Cloud could possibly have missed meeting her. Which would have changed everything. And the only reason why is... Sephiroth. He delayed Cloud when he first had that vision of a burning Nibelheim.So my theory is that it's Sephiroth that's somehow loving with things. So, weaving all this together: the only way this theory works is if Sephiroth is already part of the planet. Which means that not only does he have foreknowledge but somehow he's already part of the lifestream. Because the only way he'd be able to co-opt something the planet is using to keep things on track is if he's already part of it. Zaa Boogie fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 20:45
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Zaa Boogie posted:Which means that Cloud could possibly have missed meeting her. Which would have changed everything. And the only reason why is... Sephiroth. He delayed Cloud when he first had that vision of a burning Nibelheim.So my theory is that it's Sephiroth that's somehow loving with things. So, weaving all this together: the only way this theory works is if Sephiroth is already part of the planet. Which means that not only does he have foreknowledge but somehow he's already part of the lifestream. Because the way he'd be able to co-opt something the planet is using to keep things on track is if he's already part of it. I like this take a lot. It also helps explain why Sephiroth explodes into Whispers when you defeat him at the end. Maybe he can do these things because he's already functionally just like them--not quite bound by linear time, and not really corporeal the way our characters are. He's dead, but his will is so strong (and maybe partially thanks to Jenova) that he can manifest as an individual out of the lifestream. That would also explain how he's able to seemingly not just control but bodily manifest out of the Sephiroth Clones, something he didn't do in the original (where anytime we saw Sephiroth outside the Northern Crater it's Jenova just looking like Sephiroth).
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Apr 21, 2020 20:48
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Apparently at least one of the moments where Sephiroth shows up was originally literally him talking via text on screen in the original. Compare the post-collapse appearance to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfx6vWBcZX4&t=14m20s
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Apr 21, 2020 20:49
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Whisper was a better final boss than advent children Sephiroth. Fighting the Jenova monstrosity in Shinra tower was the perfect way to fight Seph in part one, adding a second fight against him in one-winged angel form was dumb and I will die on this hill I also think we shouldn't have gotten a good look at his face, even in Cloud's hallucinations, until he stabs Shinra's president. Just nothing but weird camera angles showing his feet, or his hair, or feathers, or whatever The most I think about it, the thing I think the remake did worst was its handling of Sephiroth. Almost all of the other changes were either great or at least neutral second worst change was the second visit to the sewers cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 20:52
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Zaa Boogie posted:So I've been thinking about this. See, I took it from the original game and the Remake that Sephiroth is so mixed up with Jenova that he is inherently alien to the planet. In the original, he doesn't join the lifestream even when "killed", and maintains his consciousness and independence, even if he can absorb information from and "feed on" the lifestream. In the remake, Aerith talks about the whispers basically "crying out" and controlling fate, but that they don't affect Sephiroth. She says something like, "He doesn't hear them. They're raindrops rolling off his back." I think that he isn't affected by the whispers personally, but he can't change the course of the planet because anything he tries to do differently, the whispers just come in and "correct". I'd have to watch the end again to pay more attention to Sephiroth "absorbing" the whispers. But I think it's like the lifestream- he planned to sit in the middle of it and consume it all to gain tremendous power, even if he can never become part of it because he's so alien. Maybe the whispers can't affect him, but he can still "consume" them to take their power.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:55
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cheetah7071 posted:Whisper was a better final boss than advent children Sephiroth. Fighting the Jenova monstrosity in Shinra tower was the perfect way to fight Seph in part one, adding a second fight against him in one-winged angel form was dumb and I will die on this hill I'm gonna ride this pony of 'That was entirely on purpose.' I mean, in the original game you really just never knew who the voice was in Cloud's head. I feel like still trying to keep it a mystery and him showing himself have two completely different meanings. Not the second visit to the sewers, though. That did go on too long and I look forward to magnify -againg all of those things. Schwartzcough posted:See, I took it from the original game and the Remake that Sephiroth is so mixed up with Jenova that he is inherently alien to the planet. In the original, he doesn't join the lifestream even when "killed", and maintains his consciousness and independence, even if he can absorb information from and "feed on" the lifestream. In the remake, Aerith talks about the whispers basically "crying out" and controlling fate, but that they don't affect Sephiroth. She says something like, "He doesn't hear them. They're raindrops rolling off his back." I think that he isn't affected by the whispers personally, but he can't change the course of the planet because anything he tries to do differently, the whispers just come in and "correct". Yeah, that's what I meant. Not that he was part of it like other people but that he's trying to co-opt it for himself. Zaa Boogie fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 20:55
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cheetah7071 posted:I also think we shouldn't have gotten a good look at his face, even in Cloud's hallucinations, until he stabs Shinra's president. Just nothing but weird camera angles should his feet, or his hair, or feathers, or whatever  I'm honestly glad there's a lot more Sephiroth here in the Midgar portion for this remake because, as a standalone 40-hour game, it'd be weird if he didn't appear somehow. I also enjoy his characterization and his manipulative, obsessive thing with Cloud, and I think some of their conversations were pretty great. But I'd have loved to see more of a slow, creeping reveal of Sephiroth. Just really, really build the tension there. Realistically, almost everyone playing this game knows who Sephiroth is, or at least could pick him out of a lineup of anime sword guys, and probably want to see Sephiroth in glorious HD. So tease the audience, make us wait for it, so it owns even harder when he appears.
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Apr 21, 2020 20:57
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Every time a bar of one-winged angel comes in as a motif in a track it is very good
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Apr 21, 2020 21:01
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Honestly I would've been okay with Jenova Dreamweaver being the final battle. You beat up Rufus, the Whispers go berserk, so you defeat them too and - whoops - the Whispers may have been railroading things onto the Planet's preferred outcome (Sephiroth dies and the Planet doesn't), but they were also a sort of containment protocol for the virus-like Jenova and now that they're gone, welp, here you go. A big heaping helping of J-E-N-O-V-A Have Sephiroth show up in a cutscene or even as a battle that you can't win. Story wraps, done deal. I'm not actually sure that would be a strict improvement, though. Every time I find myself expressing dissatisfaction with elements of how the ending progressed, I fail to come up with something better myself.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:06
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So if I run out of MP in hard mode, am I just hosed and need to restart? Cause goddamn 4 hooligans vs. Cloud is unfair.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:08
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Maybe my most specific hope for the next parts is that the ramp up how alien and terrifying Jenova can be. I love the whole pseudo-Lovecraftian Thing From Beyond the Stars motif in games when it's done well, like Bloodborne stuff or even just Lavos from Chrono Trigger. I really want the story to lean into how creepy Jenova is.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:09
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Pollyanna posted:So if I run out of MP in hard mode, am I just hosed and need to restart? Cause goddamn 4 hooligans vs. Cloud is unfair. You should equip materia that allows for non-MP healing like Chakra or Prayer.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:11
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Pollyanna posted:So if I run out of MP in hard mode, am I just hosed and need to restart? Cause goddamn 4 hooligans vs. Cloud is unfair. If you're talking about the four Corneo lackeys at the end of Chapter 3, that's the last battle for that Chapter. You can safely waste all remaining MP on survival. If what you're saying is that you have no MP at all for this battle, you have two choices. One of them is to restart and ration your resources differently. Because you keep items, XP, and AP even while using Chapter Select, you can keep all of the manuscripts you've picked up to this point and just skip those sidequests if they're too taxing, which should significantly improve your ability to contend with those jerks. Option two is to go into the Scrapyard and break crates for MP shards over and over and over again until you have the MP you want, using Cloud's apartment to rest/regain HP as needed. This is tedious but will preserve your story progress. Of note is that, if you are trying for an unseen dress for Tifa, you have to do all of the sidequests and then beat the Chapter for your decision to count. Doing all the sidequests is a prerequisite for picking Tifa's dress, and story progression does not save unless you complete the chapter wholly. e: ImpAtom posted:You should equip materia that allows for non-MP healing like Chakra or Prayer. This sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Prayer and Chakra's healing is less effective and generally slower, especially when compared to the cast time for Regen (and just running around like a fool until your HP is more or less refreshed). Once you get the hang of Hard mode you will quickly discover that MP is actually not the bottleneck in and of itself - ATB is far and away your most precious resource. guts and bolts fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 21:13
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Harrow posted:Maybe my most specific hope for the next parts is that the ramp up how alien and terrifying Jenova can be. I love the whole pseudo-Lovecraftian Thing From Beyond the Stars motif in games when it's done well, like Bloodborne stuff or even just Lavos from Chrono Trigger. I really want the story to lean into how creepy Jenova is. I'm really curious about how they'll handle the other Jenova fights. In the original the first three fights were all recolors of each other and I have to imagine they'll want to do more than that in the new games.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:15
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guts and bolts posted:Of note is that, if you are trying for an unseen dress for Tifa, you have to do all of the sidequests and then beat the Chapter for your decision to count. Doing all the sidequests is a prerequisite for picking Tifa's dress, and story progression does not save unless you complete the chapter wholly. I think if you don't make the choice, she defaults to the "Mature" dress. So if you haven't gotten that one yet, you should be able to skip sidequests and just make it to the end of the chapter.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:16
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Schwartzcough posted:I think if you don't make the choice, she defaults to the "Mature" dress. So if you haven't gotten that one yet, you should be able to skip sidequests and just make it to the end of the chapter. I'm almost positive you're correct, and that's worth pointing out, so thanks for the assist. I chose "Mature" in my first run, myself, and I think I just erroneously assumed everyone else did, too.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:18
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guts and bolts posted:Yeah. The WEAPONs show up because the meteor is summoned and it's not just gonna kill the puny humans but it's actually gonna kill the Planet, which is expressly a living thing with at least some degree of sapience in FF7. So it summons its version of white blood cells and they happen to be Gundams/jaegers. Be interesting if instead of running wild the WEAPONS were able to be utilized in conjunction with Holy....
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Apr 21, 2020 21:19
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OK so here's my random bullshit thoughts on the game after finishing it last night. As for the ending, I don't understand the hate. I personally wanted a 1:1 remake but after spoiling myself on the ending a couple weeks ago I actually thought the changes were cool. I like the idea that they're trying to give us olds a chance to feel those WTF feelings we experienced back in 97. They did a good job. I also like that we have a sense of mystery going forward. Obviously as all of us have said a zillion times, Aerith's fate is up in the air now and what happens to her at the Forgotten City could potentially change the events after that a lot. I still don't think they're going to try to give us a whole new story though. All the big plot moments need to be there for nostalgia, we'll just get there in different ways and have a bunch of side quests to do just like in this game. My biggest complaint, and this is so very minor but it makes me so mad, is the occasional plot railroading. There are times when the game wants me to walk forward 100 feet to trigger the next cutscene but I don't want to do that and I want to walk around and explore and look for treasure chests and examine the scenery and the game is like NO YOU CANNOT DO THAT YOU MUST ADVANCE THE NARRATIVE. And if that's my biggest complaint then that means the game is pretty drat good overall. I agree with the people who say that some dungeons overstayed their welcome but it was mostly dungeons in the latter part of the game, not all of them. I also agree that some of the sidequests were absolutely empty filler, but not a majority of them. They at least attempted to flesh out a side character or do a little world building. I'm also glad there weren't too many side quests. In Dragon Quest 11 I expect billions of side quests because that's a game I want to drown in for 200 hours. In this game I did not want to do that. I wanted to have some fun diversions for a while and get some cool rewards and then move on because I mostly just wanted to see the story. As others have said the combat was awesome and pretty much every boss fight felt unique. Some of them were total loving assholes but I eventually got through all of them. Hell House was the worst for me because I didn't realize you could quit and restart right before the fight and respect all your stuff. All the fights after that were done with quit/respecs and that definitely made them less frustrating. My biggest praise is for the characterization and voice acting. I was so worried they would gently caress up at least one character and I was worried about Aerith the most. But she was perfect and I was happy. Wall Market was everything I hoped for and the Honey Bee Inn was over the top but still one of the best parts of the game. As for the Zack stuff, I didn't realize how much they were going to shove him into the ending. I thought it was going to be one scene as an example of another possible timeline but they just kept going with it which makes me wonder how much they're going to change things in the future games. One interpretation could be that it was just Aerith seeing that as a possible thing that could happen and wishing it were true and then realizing it's not meant to be in their reality. Fantastic game overall and they really knocked it out of the park. Definitely looking forward to the next game and all the rampant speculation we're going to be doing here until the next game comes out. I don't think I'm going to bother with Hard Mode. Some of the normal bosses were enough of a challenge with me. I don't need to break any controllers. Kudos to people who have already taken the challenge and done all that stuff though  Oh and as I said I clearly need to go back and replay the final chapter while not half asleep because I clearly missed some important bits. Those last couple boss fights were pretty easy and fun so that will be an added bonus.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:21
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I chose sporty because Sporty Spice was my favorite SG and it's the most suitable for Tifa.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:21
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Elephant Ambush posted:I still don't think they're going to try to give us a whole new story though. All the big plot moments need to be there for nostalgia, we'll just get there in different ways and have a bunch of side quests to do just like in this game. This is my best-case scenario. For all its problems the game as a whole is great - and honestly one of the funniest I've played in ages. Whoever localised it needs a medal. But I'll hold off on part 2 until a week or so after launch to see what the consensus is. If it goes full Advent Children / Kingdom Hearts I'll just figure it's not for me and go and enjoy something else.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:34
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Elephant Ambush posted:As for the ending, I don't understand the hate. I personally wanted a 1:1 remake but after spoiling myself on the ending a couple weeks ago I actually thought the changes were cool. I like the idea that they're trying to give us olds a chance to feel those WTF feelings we experienced back in 97. They did a good job. I also like that we have a sense of mystery going forward. Obviously as all of us have said a zillion times, Aerith's fate is up in the air now and what happens to her at the Forgotten City could potentially change the events after that a lot. I still don't think they're going to try to give us a whole new story though. All the big plot moments need to be there for nostalgia, we'll just get there in different ways and have a bunch of side quests to do just like in this game. Being railroaded from place to place is annoying but rarely seems super impactful. You can't sidequest in Chapter 3 until you've been to Seventh Heaven, gotten your apartment, and hung out with Tifa a bit, but after you get the tutorial about weapon upgrades you're set loose. It never is, like, "oh wow look at all this cool stuff you can't visit, you have to do what the plot says and then leave and when you COME BACK then we'll think about letting you do sidequests and meet people and find treasure!!" What I think is most frustrating is the conceit that we the players still have to do it. Like if I can't stray from this path at all and the only thing waiting for me at the other end is a cutscene, why not... just... skip directly to the cutscene. I don't know. Sometimes it's effective to generate immersion but it's usually just pointless. quote:As others have said the combat was awesome and pretty much every boss fight felt unique. Some of them were total loving assholes but I eventually got through all of them. Hell House was the worst for me because I didn't realize you could quit and restart right before the fight and respect all your stuff. All the fights after that were done with quit/respecs and that definitely made them less frustrating. This is my biggest beef with the bosses in the game though - you shouldn't have to see the boss, Assess it, figure out its elemental weakness and whether or not you should be spamming magic or normal attacks, retry before the last battle, actually set up your materia, and then do the fight "for real." This game's biggest mechanical weakness is that it's so rote and rigid with how bosses work, particularly on Hard. You don't really have a lot of freedom to express yourself in the battle system because bosses are puzzles that you solve. If you didn't slot the correct solution into your materia slots, you are left with little choice but to start over. Load times on the PS4 Pro are fast enough to where this isn't maybe, like, super taxing? But it's certainly annoying. quote:One interpretation could be that it was just Aerith seeing that as a possible thing that could happen and wishing it were true and then realizing it's not meant to be in their reality. Huh. Hadn't even considered that. That's actually pretty interesting. quote:I don't think I'm going to bother with Hard Mode. Some of the normal bosses were enough of a challenge with me. I don't need to break any controllers. Kudos to people who have already taken the challenge and done all that stuff though Said this upthread but Hard mode toes the line between challenging and tedious. In a lot of games Easy is basically a visual novel, Normal is easy, and Hard is the way the game is ~meant to be played~ or whatever. That is emphatically not true in FF7R. If you don't care about maxing out your weapon level or getting the Götterdämmerung then you should probably just not even bother with Hard.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:35
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Well, hard mode in this is basically just NG+ so it makes sense that's it tuned to be pretty tough. It's very refreshing to have an rpg that requires you to actually use the systems it gives properly in a normal playthrough.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:40
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Reposting a quick summary. Here is the complete list of stuff gated behind Hard mode.
That's it. If you don't care about the Platinum trophy, don't care about getting a little crown symbol next to your play log, and don't care about the other ticky-tack stuff listed above, you can safely skip Hard mode. Andrast posted:Well, hard mode in this is basically just NG+ so it makes sense that's it tuned to be pretty tough. I wouldn't say I disliked it entirely. I mostly enjoyed it, I think. I just think that because you can't change materia mid-fight they could have done a much better job of making the bosses less rigid. The part of FF7R Hard I enjoyed the most was knowing that the game was tuned for me being level 50 and that there would be no way to powerlevel and brute force myself through the mode - I was gonna have to come correct with tactics and materia setups or I wasn't going to win. That was really cool. Seeing Eligor cast a party-wide Reflect on me that apparently never expires on Hard was kinda bullshit, and reinforces this feeling of bosses on Hard being puzzles with one solution. If you didn't bring that solution, whoops, retry. guts and bolts fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 21:42
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guts and bolts posted:Being railroaded from place to place is annoying but rarely seems super impactful. You can't sidequest in Chapter 3 until you've been to Seventh Heaven, gotten your apartment, and hung out with Tifa a bit, but after you get the tutorial about weapon upgrades you're set loose. It never is, like, "oh wow look at all this cool stuff you can't visit, you have to do what the plot says and then leave and when you COME BACK then we'll think about letting you do sidequests and meet people and find treasure!!" The most annoying case of railroading for me was the first time you go to the church, there's a materia you see but it's blocked off by whispers. Then after you leave the church (and Shinra also explicitly leaves the chuch), it doesn't let you go back and grab it - you need to go all the way to unlocking sidequests or something before you can go there. Then it turned out to be a duplicate materia anyway.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:46
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| # ? May 29, 2024 03:39 |
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My #2 wish for part 2 (after super alien Jenova) is more Rufus than was in the original game. He's just so cold and charismatic and I want more scenes of him and Cloud together.
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Apr 21, 2020 21:47
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