Funky Valentine posted:

Rufus's actual characterization is that he's secretly much smarter than basically everyone else involved with Shinra.

It would actually be kind of amazing if they do expand the party roster and have Rufus join the squad because how can he make dosh if Sephiroth destroys the world?

homeless snail posted:

IDK how you could play this game for 40 hours and not think its anything but a labor of love by everyone involved, its crazy reverent of FF7

Andrast posted:

People who wanted a straight remake should have been out the instant they changed combat to a real time system imo

guts and bolts posted:

I want to take the time to effortpost about an element from the game that accurately sums up my feelings about the entire drat experience of FF7R. That element is the song "J-E-N-O-V-A - Quickening," and it is the best motherfucking song.

The fight with Jenova Dreamweaver and the song that plays when you engage it are both engrossing and distressing at once, particularly right at that first moment. The song is recognizably "J-E-N-O-V-A," but the punchiness and synth that was evocative of something sinister and alien in the original are curiously missing, and the fact that we're fighting Jenova at all is a break from established canon, so immediately the OST and the mechanics are working together to establish this feeling of not-quite-rightness that is an excellent representation of what Jenova is (Wrong, with a capital W). The song is almost dreamlike and languid, and much slower than the original's high-tempo adrenaline booster. Even the fight seems ponderous, particularly on Hard or if you aren't overtly superpowerful yet - you kill tentacles to try and create vanishingly small windows of vulnerability for this... The-Thing-lookin' thing, now in glorious HD.

But you do start making progress. The fact that you're not "supposed" to fight Jenova here fades away, because while I wasn't sure about all this when it started I'm extremely on board now. This is new poo poo but it kicks rear end. And the song follows along with you, building into an ominous chorus and the sonorous sweep of the orchestra playing off a bit of that high-pitched goodness we all know and love, made real here by the presence of the strings. There's a lot of percussion as punctuation, neatly aligning with the rhythm with which you take out these new, remote appendages and create a widening gap to attack this Thing. I'm not even sure I miss the original track anymore - the chant filling in for the MIDI staccato feels suitably epic, and I'm an unabashedly enormous fan of the source material - both the song and the game.

It isn't until after I've convinced myself that, you know what, this is a real high note, and maybe even better than the original... I mean, I still miss that drat song, it was so good, I would've liked to hear it in--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVOtzx-fXTY

OH FUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK, they get it, these motherfuckers get it, they know exactly what they're doing, holy shiiiiiiiiittttt, and I'm cackling like I'm 12 years old again re-playing Final Fantasy VII in my best friend's basement, except the same friend is here with me as an adult because we've been playing through the game and he's cackling like a lunatic, my man just LISTEN to that glorious "alien techno."

This game is really good, and its soundtrack is loving transcendent. Masashi Hamauzu loving rules.

NikkolasKing posted:

The earlier comparison to MGS2 was apt. MGS2 being what it was isn't really such an out-there evolution of Metal Gear and it was also really well done.

Final Fantasy has never shown any interest in this kind of meta narrative and I can understand why it annoys people who just wanted a good, straight story like the original game.

Harrow posted:

You bringing up Red XIII here did make me want to revisit the Drum and think more about my opinion on it. You're right that it does a lot to make Red XIII feel like an actual member of the party and that could be pretty important to drive home there. I didn't really feel like it added anything to what we already know about Hojo by that point, or at least that it didn't add enough to justify how long it is, but I did really like how much that segment did with Red XIII.

guts and bolts posted:

My man, I am torn. I think I want to love FF8, but I just can't. Junction is probably simultaneously the most tedious customization system in an FF and by far the easiest to break open, even if you engage with it on the game's terms. The cast is largely horrible outside of Squall and Quistis, and Laguna if you wanna count him. The plot is straight up nonsense, and only sometimes in a fun way. Rinoa, the main love interest!, is child-like in a way that honestly kinda creeps me out, having replayed it on the Switch relatively recently. The last 20% of the game or so is straight up garbage if R=U is truly not a valid reading of the story. I have some strong feelings about FF8.

FF8 had like... a demo disc? Something, and it came out with like I wanna say Jet Moto 2 and some other cool poo poo. But all I cared about was playing the FF8 demo after being so obsessed with FF7, and the song that plays for the Dollet mission is SO GOOD, and the FMV had me crazy hype, and it was gonna have like a school setting? which I did not realize was incredibly commonplace in Japanese popular culture, particularly videogames and anime, so I was like "COOL???? I THINK????"

And then the goddamn game came out and I kept thinking I was going to eventually like it until it ended and I realized I didn't like it.

If they were to remake FF8 they'd have to start almost from scratch. UGH FF8.

SgtSteel91 posted:

Unless I'm mis-remembering and they're blaming the Sector 7 Collapse on Avalanche/Wutai, in which chase yeah Jessie's parents are probably dead too

J Detan posted:

The characters were delightful the whole way through (especially Aerith, who I frankly didn't care for much in the original and is my standout favorite in the Remake) and the weird way it goes about saying that its story has unknown avenues and twists we won't see coming was exciting, at least to me.

Elephant Ambush posted:

OK so I finished the game last night and I did not kill any whispers. I saw no indication that the whispers had all been defeated and were never coming back and everyone itt keeps insisting that we killed them all off. When and where did this take place? The 3 main party stand-in demon things and the huge demon behind them were not whispers. What am I missing here?

ImpAtom posted:

... The bosses are literally called "Whispers." That is their name. They are Whispers.

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.

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!"

So it was probably worth it.

ShallNoiseUpon posted:

THE AWESOME GHOST posted:

Game of thrones