My Thoughts On Final Fantasy 7

[Bartmanhomer]

I play Final Fantasy 7 back when I was a teenager and I haven't finished playing the game because it was very long but I will say it was a very interesting game. I like Final Fantasy 7 because it has a very interesting storyline. I like the material magic spell and the fighting against monsters. I also love the boss battle music theme. So this game is pretty good in my opinion. :smile:

[animorte]

I really enjoyed the original way back when you had to swap out the disc in the middle of the game. I also absolutely love the movie, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

I haven’t had the opportunity to play the remake, but it’s definitely on my list.

[Bartmanhomer]

I really enjoyed the original way back when you had to swap out the disc in the middle of the game. I also absolutely love the movie, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

I haven’t had the opportunity to play the remake, but it’s definitely on my list.

I thought Final Fantasy: Advent Children was a game. I didn't know they made a movie out of the game. :eek:

[NeoVid]

I ended up not liking FF7 back when it was new. The reason I played JRPGs back then was for the story, and after searching out every bit of lore info inside the game, I couldn't see how it would all come together in the ending. Then I got to the ending, and it looked like the writers couldn't, either. My disappointment with FF7 is a big part of why FF8 is still my favorite of the series. It made up for the way the previous game left me feeling, due to the main plot points actually being resolved and getting to find out what happened to the characters I'd spent all that time with...

Advent Children was freaking awesome, though.

And despite how it might sound, I do intend to play FF7 Remake, and I'm expecting to enjoy it. After all, unlike the original, this time the script was completed before the game was in production!

[Bartmanhomer]

I ended up not liking FF7 back when it was new. The reason I played JRPGs back then was for the story, and after searching out every bit of lore info inside the game, I couldn't see how it would all come together in the ending. Then I got to the ending, and it looked like the writers couldn't, either. My disappointment with FF7 is a big part of why FF8 is still my favorite of the series. It made up for the way the previous game left me feeling, due to the main plot points actually being resolved and getting to find out what happened to the characters I'd spent all that time with...

Advent Children was freaking awesome, though.

And despite how it might sound, I do intend to play FF7 Remake, and I'm expecting to enjoy it. After all, unlike the original, this time the script was completed before the game was in production!

I always wanted to play the remake of FF7 but I don't have the money to buy PS5. :frown:

[Zevox]

I always wanted to play the remake of FF7 but I don't have the money to buy PS5. :frown:
FF7 Remake isn't PS5-exclusive, it's on PS4 and PC as well. The DLC addition to it, Intergrade, is PS5 and PC-exclusive, and the sequel/second part, FF7 Rebirth, will be PS5-exclusive initially (it'll presumably get a PC release a year or so later), but Remake itself isn't.

[Bartmanhomer]

FF7 Remake isn't PS5-exclusive, it's on PS4 and PC as well. The DLC addition to it, Intergrade, is PS5-exclusive (I think, not sure if they've put that on PC yet), and the sequel/second part, FF7 Rebirth, will be as well (though it'll likely get a PC release a year or so later too), but Remake itself isn't.

Oh ok. I think my older brother has PS4.

[KillianHawkeye]

FF7 Remake isn't PS5-exclusive, it's on PS4 and PC as well. The DLC addition to it, Intergrade, is PS5 and PC-exclusive, and the sequel/second part, FF7 Rebirth, will be PS5-exclusive initially (it'll presumably get a PC release a year or so later), but Remake itself isn't.

Wow, I just looked it up and not only is the FF7 Remake sequel probably not going to release until a year from now (~ish), but there's also going to be a third part sometime even later??

Do they really expect people to play 1/3 of a story years apart from each other like this? :smallannoyed:

[WritersBlock]

And each one the price of a full game on its own. That and a few other decisions they have made have kept me from this remake. Even if the combat looks kind of interesting.

[NeoVid]

Wow, I just looked it up and not only is the FF7 Remake sequel probably not going to release until a year from now (~ish), but there's also going to be a third part sometime even later??

Do they really expect people to play 1/3 of a story years apart from each other like this? :smallannoyed:

Since it's sold at least 5 million copies so far, I think the answer is yes. Fortunately doesn't affect me, since I have so many games wishlisted already that I usually don't get games until they've had a couple of years of price drops.

[GloatingSwine]

What we really need is a remake of the game that was going to be FF7 but eventually wasn't (Xenogears). I just don't trust modern Square to actually make it. Someone would need to make them give the IP to MonolithSoft and tempt Soraya Saga out of retirement.

[LaZodiac]

I ended up not liking FF7 back when it was new. The reason I played JRPGs back then was for the story, and after searching out every bit of lore info inside the game, I couldn't see how it would all come together in the ending. Then I got to the ending, and it looked like the writers couldn't, either. My disappointment with FF7 is a big part of why FF8 is still my favorite of the series. It made up for the way the previous game left me feeling, due to the main plot points actually being resolved and getting to find out what happened to the characters I'd spent all that time with...

Advent Children was freaking awesome, though.

And despite how it might sound, I do intend to play FF7 Remake, and I'm expecting to enjoy it. After all, unlike the original, this time the script was completed before the game was in production!

The ending of FF7 strikes more to the core of "we are environmentalists fighting to the last scrap to save our planet. What happens to us doesn't really matter, necessarily; it's just one of many conflicts in the world. There will always be people endangering the earth, always be pretty boys with mother issues trying to destroy the planet, but today? Today we win. The planet survives."

It's not the best if you're super devoted to caring about the characters and wanting to know how they ended up in the aftermath of putting the smack down of Sephy, but it is thematically appropriate. The main plot was resolved, in that our heroes ensured the planet will not die, their goal for basically the entire game.


What we really need is a remake of the game that was going to be FF7 but eventually wasn't (Xenogears). I just don't trust modern Square to actually make it. Someone would need to make them give the IP to MonolithSoft and tempt Soraya Saga out of retirement.

I'm genuinely interested in what a Xenogears remake would be. Switching it to beat-em-up style gameply like FF7REMAKE would make a lot of mechanical sense given how the game plays, but any remake would have to ask itself genuinely and seriously; do we actually complete the game, or do we remake the esoteric and wild as hell back half that is our two main leads having depression interviews in the exposition zone?

[GloatingSwine]

I think a Xenogears remake these days would tighten up the back half quite a lot (make sure Billy and Rico don't just drop out of the story, deliver it through gameplay content not text dumps, etc).

The individual form wasn't the thing, the ideas and willingness to engage with them were. (And sure, quite a lot of them reappear in Xenoblade, but not quite with the intensity they had in gears/saga.)

[tyckspoon]

Wow, I just looked it up and not only is the FF7 Remake sequel probably not going to release until a year from now (~ish), but there's also going to be a third part sometime even later??

Do they really expect people to play 1/3 of a story years apart from each other like this? :smallannoyed:

Sure. Perfectly normal. The God of War series, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Halo - all multi-part entries in a longer overall story. I suspect the naming has something to do with it because people have memories of FF7 being just 'one game', but.. like, think of how big the game would be if you released it as a four-disc package these days. It'd be a sprawling 100 hour+ play through. Which is three or four games worth of content, depending on how much time you spend sidequesting and poking into corners off the critical path.

[Zevox]

Wow, I just looked it up and not only is the FF7 Remake sequel probably not going to release until a year from now (~ish), but there's also going to be a third part sometime even later??

Do they really expect people to play 1/3 of a story years apart from each other like this? :smallannoyed:
The answer to that question, as Tyckspoon indicated, is "yes, the same way any other trilogy does." (Though Assassin's Creed is a bad example of this, since the only "ongoing story" there is the modern day stuff that each game barely touches on and the series would be better off jettisoning entirely anyway.)

It's not like they're just doing a 1:1 remake that's been arbitrarily split up into parts, they're greatly expanding things. FF7 Remake itself is a 40-50 hour game that only covers the events up through when the group leaves Midgar, which was only the first 5-6 hours of the original. Which does work very well, they crammed quite a bit of plot into those 5-6 hours, and all of the expansion gives more time for characters to develop and the full drama of what occurs there to have greater impact - the game actually makes you care about what happens to Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie a hell of a lot more than the original did, for one example, because you spend more time with them and develop an actual attachment to them, rather than them just being random filler Avalanche members you see a few times over the first couple of hours in the original. Now, obviously since they intend to be done with this in three games they aren't expanding the entire rest of the game that much, but you can still readily bet there'll be a lot more to them than just what the original had. And from having played Remake, that's very much not just to drag things out, they're using that time effectively.

I won't defend Square-Enix on much when it comes to Final Fantasy, but 7 Remake is a genuinely impressive, well-done game.

[KillianHawkeye]

Perhaps I am just a special class of grognard in this case. I want to play the entire story in sequence, without years of downtime in between parts. I did the same with Mass Effect, and it worked out splendidly in that case.

But even that was meant to be a trilogy from the start rather than making a trilogy out of a single game...

That said, it feels a little strange to me in the past week since I've been recently playing Final Fantasy 13-2 for the first time after several years since playing the original one. But that trilogy was already complete when I started it all those years ago, even if it's true that I had such a long gap between games. My pause was for personal reasons rather than from an outside source of the games not being finished.

Maybe I'm just that jerk who was already a longtime fan of Final Fantasy and doesn't see why FF7 thinks it's SO SPECIAL to deserve this special treatment at all, but I still want to see the remake happen and play it when it's complete? I guess FF7 makes more sense as a trilogy to new players compared to the people who originally experienced it as a single game. It's basically the same as splitting The Hobbit into three movies, which was absolutely seen as ridiculous by some of the LotR fans and purists out there.

I don't know, I guess I have conflicting feelings on this matter. I never really understood why FF7 became such a big deal, beyond the basic "we have Final Fantasy now" marketing spiel that Sony did. FF7 definitely had a wider appeal than previous games somehow, even though Final Fantasy wasn't an obscure game series before that, by any measure. I remember TV commercials for FF6 (then branded as FF3 still in the US) in the mid-90s.

Was it the 3D graphics? Was it the FMV cutscenes? Was it fixing the numbering? What made FF7 stand out so much that it became a phenomenon?

[Delicious Taffy]

I think a Xenogears remake these days would tighten up the back half quite a lot (make sure Billy and Rico don't just drop out of the story, deliver it through gameplay content not text dumps, etc).

The individual form wasn't the thing, the ideas and willingness to engage with them were. (And sure, quite a lot of them reappear in Xenoblade, but not quite with the intensity they had in gears/saga.)

Who's Billy? Was he the kid with the gun and terrible Gear?

[GloatingSwine]

Who's Billy?

Exactly.

He appears for one plot event and then he's basically in the background but just keeps hanging around in the party.

[Zombimode]

It'd be a sprawling 100 hour+ play through. Which is three or four games worth of content, depending on how much time you spend sidequesting and poking into corners off the critical path.

That particular argument doesn't hold for me at all.

Just scrolling to my games in GoG Galaxy:

Divinity: Original Sin 2 - 182 hours
Kingdom Come: Deliverance - 192 hours
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire - 265 hours (holy crap!)
Pathfinder: Kingmaker - 361 hours (do I even have a life?)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 262 hours

Sure, all those numbers figure in some significant idle time (my guess is something between 10 and 20 %), and sure you could say "but you're a slow player" - but even if you cut those numbers in half you will see that having 100+ hour play time is pretty normal for big RPGs.

[Gnoman]

Was it the 3D graphics? Was it the FMV cutscenes? Was it fixing the numbering? What made FF7 stand out so much that it became a phenomenon?

The graphics were a big seller in the day - it is hard to remember now just how mind-blowing 3D was back then, even for those of us old enough to have experienced it. I distinctly remember some of my teachers talking about mistaking a PS1 tennis game for a live broadcast, which seems unthinkable today but wasn't so bizarre when 3D games were new.

The biggest difference, however, was probably the price. Previous console RPGs needed a cartridge with enormous amounts of ROM to store the game and a fair amount of battery-backed RAM for saves. This made the carts very expensive - I can't find a release price for FF3/6 in the US, but Donkey Kong Country released at $60 and Illusion of Gaia was $75.

Final Fantasy VII retailed for $49.99 on launch. The massive price difference came down to the medium - CDs cost virtually nothing to manufacture compared to cartridges. Not only were people much more willing to pay this price, it also was a major factor in production - a lot more copies would get printed because the duplication costs were extremely low, so there'd be a much larger supply.

[Wookieetank]

I think a Xenogears remake these days would tighten up the back half quite a lot (make sure Billy and Rico don't just drop out of the story, deliver it through gameplay content not text dumps, etc).

The individual form wasn't the thing, the ideas and willingness to engage with them were. (And sure, quite a lot of them reappear in Xenoblade, but not quite with the intensity they had in gears/saga.)

Heck I'd settle for an HD remaster of Xenogears at this point (personal preference for a Switch version). Might even happen with how they've been churning out updated versions of older games (Saga, Romancing Saga, Saga Frontier, FF7-10&12, Chrono Cross). Really just left with Parasite Eve, Xenogears, and the Bouncer missing at this point.

[LaZodiac]

I'd say there is no way we're getting The Bouncer HD, but every so often I remember Live A Live's beautiful ****ing rise from obscurity into pitch perfect remake that honestly anything's possible at this point.

On that note, just a few weeks away from REUNION, to stick on the FF7 topic. Strongly encourage all y'all who even sorta like FF7 to pick up Crisis Core. It is good.

It's also got my personal favorite "story and gameplay integration" moment of all time, that has left me devastated to this day.

[Zevox]

Perhaps I am just a special class of grognard in this case. I want to play the entire story in sequence, without years of downtime in between parts. I did the same with Mass Effect, and it worked out splendidly in that case.

But even that was meant to be a trilogy from the start rather than making a trilogy out of a single game...

That said, it feels a little strange to me in the past week since I've been recently playing Final Fantasy 13-2 for the first time after several years since playing the original one. But that trilogy was already complete when I started it all those years ago, even if it's true that I had such a long gap between games. My pause was for personal reasons rather than from an outside source of the games not being finished.

Maybe I'm just that jerk who was already a longtime fan of Final Fantasy and doesn't see why FF7 thinks it's SO SPECIAL to deserve this special treatment at all, but I still want to see the remake happen and play it when it's complete? I guess FF7 makes more sense as a trilogy to new players compared to the people who originally experienced it as a single game. It's basically the same as splitting The Hobbit into three movies, which was absolutely seen as ridiculous by some of the LotR fans and purists out there.
It's quite substantially different than The Hobbit situation. With The Hobbit they were adapting a work from most of a century ago by an author who is no longer around to a new medium, and in the process choosing to bloat it as big as they could for the purpose of milking as much money out of it as possible, because they could. (Although that said, it probably always should have been two movies, since the book itself summarizes events fairly quickly that you would want to give more time to breathe in a visual adaptation - you can kind of tell from the end product that the first movie is much more reasonably paced than the second and third.)

With FF7 you have the company that made the original game, including some of the people that worked on it, choosing to remake it presumably because it's so popular, but aging quite badly in a number of ways due to when it was made. In the process they're expanding it, yes, but it's not the mere padding of The Hobbit - plus, as a video game rather than a movie, the point of it isn't just to tell the main story, so additional content for players to enjoy isn't necessarily a bad thing in the same way that it is in a movie.


I don't know, I guess I have conflicting feelings on this matter. I never really understood why FF7 became such a big deal, beyond the basic "we have Final Fantasy now" marketing spiel that Sony did. FF7 definitely had a wider appeal than previous games somehow, even though Final Fantasy wasn't an obscure game series before that, by any measure. I remember TV commercials for FF6 (then branded as FF3 still in the US) in the mid-90s.

Was it the 3D graphics? Was it the FMV cutscenes? Was it fixing the numbering? What made FF7 stand out so much that it became a phenomenon?
Now that I couldn't tell you, since I'm not a huge fan of the original FF7, nor did I play it anywhere near when it came out. Heck, I didn't even play it all the way through until after Remake impressed me enough to give me more interest in it than I had the first time I tried to play it. I will say that personally I am glad that FF7 is the one getting the Remake treatment since it has the best story of the Final Fantasy games that I've played - though that's not necessarily a high bar, since the range for its competition for me goes from the "eh, it's decent" of FF4 to the "candidate for the worst narrative in a video game I've ever played" of FF13. (I have not played FF6, to head off that question.)


On that note, just a few weeks away from REUNION, to stick on the FF7 topic. Strongly encourage all y'all who even sorta like FF7 to pick up Crisis Core. It is good.

It's also got my personal favorite "story and gameplay integration" moment of all time, that has left me devastated to this day.
I plan to pick it up at some point, but probably not right away, personally. Certainly sometime before Rebirth hits though.

[LaZodiac]

Now that I couldn't tell you, since I'm not a huge fan of the original FF7, nor did I play it anywhere near when it came out. Heck, I didn't even play it all the way through until after Remake impressed me enough to give me more interest in it than I had the first time I tried to play it. I will say that personally I am glad that FF7 is the one getting the Remake treatment since it has the best story of the Final Fantasy games that I've played - though that's not necessarily a high bar, since the range for its competition for me goes from the "eh, it's decent" of FF4 to the "candidate for the worst narrative in a video game I've ever played" of FF13. (I have not played FF6, to head off that question.)


I plan to pick it up at some point, but probably not right away, personally. Certainly sometime before Rebirth hits though.

Something something Final Fantasy 14 meme here you should play it it's good something something.

Also tbh I don't actually like FF6's story that much. It's good, but there are aspects of it that fall flat for me, in part because of some consequences of the back half of it. I won't spoil anything though.

Definitely do! It's in my like, top three for stories in Final Fantasy. Which says a lot given it's a prequel no one asked for or even wanted at the time of release, but the few who play it Understand.

[Zevox]

Something something Final Fantasy 14 meme here you should play it it's good something something.
That one I won't ever play, because it's an MMO. Thanks for the recommendation, but that's just not a type of game I enjoy.

[LaZodiac]

That one I won't ever play, because it's an MMO. Thanks for the recommendation, but that's just not a type of game I enjoy.

Entirely fair, though I'll note virtually everything can be done single player.

That said, I won't push it. Instead I recommend watching someone play through it if you want to experience the story. I've got a link or two I could throw your way.

[KillianHawkeye]

I am glad that FF7 is the one getting the Remake treatment since it has the best story of the Final Fantasy games that I've played - though that's not necessarily a high bar, since the range for its competition for me goes from the "eh, it's decent" of FF4 to the "candidate for the worst narrative in a video game I've ever played" of FF13. (I have not played FF6, to head off that question.)

For what it's worth, I've found the recent remasters of the first six FF games to have been excellent so far (for anyone interested in seeing the early parts of the series), with the disclaimer that I skipped FF2 and haven't gotten started with a FF6 replay yet. I finally just beat FF5 for the first time and it was great!

[Zevox]

Entirely fair, though I'll note virtually everything can be done single player.

That said, I won't push it. Instead I recommend watching someone play through it if you want to experience the story. I've got a link or two I could throw your way.
Hm, maybe. Not sure when I'd get around to that, given I don't often watch long play-throughs of games. But it also doesn't look like the youtube channel I'd normally turn to for such things has done FF14. If you have a recommendation for one, sure, feel free. Can't hurt to toss it on the Watch Later list.

[animorte]

Can't hurt to toss it on the Watch Later list.
200+ videos and counting, right? Me too.

[Zevox]

200+ videos and counting, right? Me too.
No, actually, I don't tend to put much there myself. The only thing that's sitting there long-term for me right now is a video I'm saving for when I start DMing for my group after our current campaign.

[animorte]

No, actually, I don't tend to put much there myself. The only thing that's sitting there long-term for me right now is a video I'm saving for when I start DMing for my group after our current campaign.
I used to keep it pretty clean, but then kids happened. :smalltongue:

I have a separate playlist specifically for different games I’m running. (My wife is fantastic in this area). Final fantasy soundtracks show up often, actually.

[LaZodiac]

Hm, maybe. Not sure when I'd get around to that, given I don't often watch long play-throughs of games. But it also doesn't look like the youtube channel I'd normally turn to for such things has done FF14. If you have a recommendation for one, sure, feel free. Can't hurt to toss it on the Watch Later list.

Two links, for this! (Both lead to the A Realm Reborn era content, both divide them between expansions for pacing reasons).

My friend Robin (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSugMMGq2mZP7mISYP4ldLiVT6thsnUgC), who is doing streams of FF14 (currently on hiatus due to continuous, chronic health problems, but with a fair bit of content available, showing a wide range of what the game does, and all of the first expansion and some of the second's worth of plot.)

Dan from Playframe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l4-ZgB2Lyc&list=PLvFQJa1XAXzzf1XZ8Ff7IZVcphCzLMher), who is playing through the game bit by bit. I'm not super big on his style and how he presents the game, but I've heard good things.

[Delicious Taffy]

If y'all are tossin' around FF14 videos for story purposes, keep in mind that like 89% of the cutscenes are unvoiced, including very important ones, so you'll have to either pay close attention or hope for a decent narrator. Also it's been going for something like a decade, so it's gonna be a hot minute from start to present.

Don't ask why the protagonists are all albinos, though. Nobody knows for sure.

Edit: Aerith kills Dumbledore. I like materia as a concept, they're neat.

[Rynjin]

Something something Final Fantasy 14 meme here you should play it it's good something something.

It's also worth noting with 14 that it takes a fair few hours to get to "the good part" according to most fans, which is kind of a tough sell for new players.

I think a lot of established 14ers forget that ARR and Heavensward are rough to play.

[LaZodiac]

It's also worth noting with 14 that it takes a fair few hours to get to "the good part" according to most fans, which is kind of a tough sell for new players.

I think a lot of established 14ers forget that ARR and Heavensward are rough to play.

Naw, I recognize that, I just do think ARR is decent (and this is the first I've heard anyone say Heavensward isn't part of The Good Part, so that may just be a sliding scale issue).

[Wookieetank]

For what it's worth, I've found the recent remasters of the first six FF games to have been excellent so far (for anyone interested in seeing the early parts of the series), with the disclaimer that I skipped FF2 and haven't gotten started with a FF6 replay yet. I finally just beat FF5 for the first time and it was great!

FF2 deserves a chance, mechanically its weird yeah, but the story is definitely interesting. There's also plenty of ways to steamroll/cheese the system (punching yourself in the face to inflate your HP total comes to mind), so if you're not enjoying the combat bit might as well so you can see the story.

[LaZodiac]

FF2 deserves a chance, mechanically its weird yeah, but the story is definitely interesting. There's also plenty of ways to steamroll/cheese the system (punching yourself in the face to inflate your HP total comes to mind), so if you're not enjoying the combat bit might as well so you can see the story.

You basically never have to actually do that, as an aside. The game actually balances itself out if you know how the mechanics function- it's not as nuanced as they could be, but still.

Although the pixel remaster borked it a little by not having rows work properly. Oops.

[GloatingSwine]

Punching yourself in the face is the worst way to cheese FF2.

The best way is as soon as you get the canoe and go over the river to the east of the start, equip dual shields and find the bird enemy (that never runs away) and waggle your shields at it over and over again until you get to shield 16, then take off all your armour except Ribbons when you get them and nothing can hit you with physical attacks because your evade is maxed.

You will want a bit of HP but you can set yourself on fire for that.

Later on in the game there are enemies that hit you for a percentage of your health per attack (and they can do up to like 10 attacks or something daft), so just stacking HP doesn't work against them, but if they can't hit you it doesn't matter.

[tonberrian]

I did find that in FF2 hitting yourself with the drain MP spell WAS the best way to train MP, though.

[Rynjin]

Naw, I recognize that, I just do think ARR is decent (and this is the first I've heard anyone say Heavensward isn't part of The Good Part, so that may just be a sliding scale issue).

Maybe, I really wasn't feeling HW when I played, but that may be in part because I didn't find the game fun to PLAY so it impacted my investment in the story.

[Quizatzhaderac]

I'm curious about how closely the remake will keep to the original plot, being as that both the protagonists and antagonists are trying to fight fate. I'm thinking all of the same people and places will be involved, but it wouldn't make sense for Sephiroth to follow exactly the same path with what he knows. Also, I imagine that many players are eager to avoid the original ending to disc 1 (I like it, narrative wise, but it's natural when playing a video game to want to influence the outcome, and in a revised narrative it would feel like playing a lemming marching off a cliff).

There's also some things that were optional, like Yuffie, Wutai, Vincent, and Gonga that I think are going to be non-optional. Especially if they're expanded; I don't imagine if they make Wutai take 10 hours that they'll leave it 100% skippable.

I'm very curious about how/if they the file continuation. Keeping everything would be way too much, but maybe starting out with a fuller set of Materia (most of which you'll be able to eventually buy anyway) would be nice.

[Wookieetank]

I was just offering the self punching HP as one example, not The Example :smallredface:

I personally try to follow the plot as closely as I can to keep things challenging (longtime SMT fan). Granted there's a fair bit of wandering lost with that, cause I'm also too stubborn to use a guide (or go long stretches between sessions at times and forget where I am or what I'm doing), so I end up overpowered from that usually.

More on topic: FF7 remake was pretty brilliant I felt, and this is coming from a lifelong FF7 obsession (couldn't tell you how many times I've played through it at this point). Was very iffy about the reports of it only covering Midgard ahead of release, but actually playing it was a wildly good time. Everything is fleshed out quite well, adding much more personality to the characters and locations. Much as a couple bits felt like filler to a longtime fan (thanks to already knowing the nature of Shinra and it's projects), they were quite informative for my friends who were watching me play it with no FF7 knowledge going in. The length of time between games is a bit of a bummer, but with how the ending goes, it leaves a lot of room for speculating at what's next while you wait, which is its own kind of fun.

[ZhonLord]

FF7 remake was pretty brilliant I felt, and this is coming from a lifelong FF7 obsession (couldn't tell you how many times I've played through it at this point). Was very iffy about the reports of it only covering Midgard ahead of release, but actually playing it was a wildly good time. Everything is fleshed out quite well, adding much more personality to the characters and locations. Much as a couple bits felt like filler to a longtime fan (thanks to already knowing the nature of Shinra and it's projects), they were quite informative for my friends who were watching me play it with no FF7 knowledge going in. The length of time between games is a bit of a bummer, but with how the ending goes, it leaves a lot of room for speculating at what's next while you wait, which is its own kind of fun.

I agree with most of this, however I have serious, SERIOUS, issue with the biggest change they made. The Whispers.

Mechanically they are frustrating because you have to find the one barely-visually-different controlling one and beat him specifically to get them out of your way, while they're throwing around AoE's and crowd control. Story-wise they are a crutch that lets the writers explain away facets of the story that didn't make reasonable sense - like Cloud not being able to finish off Reno when they fought in the church. Everything the Whispers did to mess with the plot could have been explained differently and still made sense overall.

And lore wise, they create a massive freaking plot hole where none existed previously. I mean as gargantuan as the big final Whisper itself. It breaks the fourth wall and acts as a statement against fan expectations - XYZ happens because those who've seen the original story expect it to occur. In a meta sense it's literally the writers' representation of their own fans stifling what they want the remake's story to be, but even that's inconsistent because they changed other stuff just fine without relying on their self made crutch.

In world they don't make sense either. They're the representatives and arbiters of the planet's will?! Why would the planet want the sector 7 plate to fall?! Why would the planet do anything that aids a living parasite on its surface, be it Shira or sephiroth? The Whispers can fight and injure, why don't they attack the Reunion clones to protect itself? Can the planet see the future? If so why does it take actions that put it on the path that has the highest odds of its destruction?!

Everything about the Whispers, beginning to end, adds unnecessary convolutions, questions that the original didn't have to answer, and detract from the story instead of adding to it. And I REALLY hope the results of the boss fights at the end of the game means that we won't see so much as a single spectral hood in Part 2.

[Wookieetank]

I agree with most of this, however I have serious, SERIOUS, issue with the biggest change they made. The Whispers.

Yeah the whispers were annoying, and rather nonsensical. And very much in agreement with you on them and in hoping they're gone from the rest of the games. I did appreciate them being used to tie in FFVII:AC though.

Also hoping for more Roche, he's just so entertainingly over the top and ridiculous. Would've much rather had more of him over the whispers, hell could've used him instead of the whispers a couple of times. Was rather sad when he just unceremoniously dropped out of the story.

[Zevox]

I used to keep it pretty clean, but then kids happened. :smalltongue:

I have a separate playlist specifically for different games I’m running. (My wife is fantastic in this area). Final fantasy soundtracks show up often, actually.
Yeah, I hear those do a number on your free time.

While the video I'm referring to is a song, it's not actually for background music. It's someone singing a song that's included near the start of the adventure - Descent into Avernus, specifically, if you're familiar. Because I'm sure it'll make a better experience to play that than to try and sing it myself.


Two links, for this! (Both lead to the A Realm Reborn era content, both divide them between expansions for pacing reasons).

My friend Robin (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSugMMGq2mZP7mISYP4ldLiVT6thsnUgC), who is doing streams of FF14 (currently on hiatus due to continuous, chronic health problems, but with a fair bit of content available, showing a wide range of what the game does, and all of the first expansion and some of the second's worth of plot.)

Dan from Playframe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l4-ZgB2Lyc&list=PLvFQJa1XAXzzf1XZ8Ff7IZVcphCzLMher), who is playing through the game bit by bit. I'm not super big on his style and how he presents the game, but I've heard good things.
Saved them both, thank you.


I'm curious about how closely the remake will keep to the original plot, being as that both the protagonists and antagonists are trying to fight fate. I'm thinking all of the same people and places will be involved, but it wouldn't make sense for Sephiroth to follow exactly the same path with what he knows. Also, I imagine that many players are eager to avoid the original ending to disc 1 (I like it, narrative wise, but it's natural when playing a video game to want to influence the outcome, and in a revised narrative it would feel like playing a lemming marching off a cliff).

There's also some things that were optional, like Yuffie, Wutai, Vincent, and Gonga that I think are going to be non-optional. Especially if they're expanded; I don't imagine if they make Wutai take 10 hours that they'll leave it 100% skippable.

I'm very curious about how/if they the file continuation. Keeping everything would be way too much, but maybe starting out with a fuller set of Materia (most of which you'll be able to eventually buy anyway) would be nice.
I'm thinking it'll keep pretty close, personally. A speculation I recall from a youtuber I follow that makes sense to me is that with the whole Whispers thing indicating to people that events can now be changed, what they'll do in Rebirth is make you think that Aerith's death (which I assume was the ending of disc 1? I played it as a digital copy on PS4) can be averted, only to have it happen anyway. Really twist the knife, make it sure it still has similar impact despite people knowing what happens in the original by giving you that hope. I'd expect more divergences in smaller details (such as Biggs being shown alive at the end of Remake) than in the big story moments. Although there is the looming question of what's up with the Zack teases at the end of Remake and Intergrade, so perhaps I'll be wrong.

And yeah, they certainly seem to want to better integrate Yuffie, given the Intergrade DLC (though to be fair, as a DLC mission that's separate from the rest of the story so far, it is technically optional as it stands...), so hopefully that extends to Vincent as well. Those two were always rather awkward compared to the other party members in the original, and being optional is almost certainly why. Well, and also the fact that there wasn't much explanation for why the group would let Yuffie join them after she tried to steal from them in the first place...

I'd guess that some things might carry over with a save file from Remake, but probably not every detail, yeah. I doubt they'll be starting you with materia already fully leveled up, for example.


I agree with most of this, however I have serious, SERIOUS, issue with the biggest change they made. The Whispers.
Eh, the Whispers were a representation of Fate that gets destroyed in order to drive home that there can and will be divergences from the original, and they allowed for an epic final boss fight when none otherwise would've been present. That's all that ultimately matters about them.


Also hoping for more Roche, he's just so entertainingly over the top and ridiculous. Would've much rather had more of him over the whispers, hell could've used him instead of the whispers a couple of times. Was rather sad when he just unceremoniously dropped out of the story.
Oh, I have no doubt we'll be seeing more of him. He seems like someone who was introduced entirely to be a recurring side-quest character in future games to me.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Something that especially bugged me was encountering the whispers immediately after a section with vanilla ghosts. Two entirely different, but stylistically similar, supernatural things in sequence?

Why didn't the characters think the whispers were ghosts, if ghosts were a totally known thing and whispers weren't?

And why are they scared of ghosts, but not these other apparitions?

[Wookieetank]

And why are they scared of ghosts, but not these other apparitions?

My best guess is ghosts are seen as Acutal Dead People(TM), and the whispers as WTF are you.

[PhantomFox]

I think Maximilian_dood had a video on this explaining his view that made a lot of sense. I'll try to find it this evening

[lord_khaine]

Eh, the Whispers were a representation of Fate that gets destroyed in order to drive home that there can and will be divergences from the original

This does kinda sound like they dont have the guts to go with the plot twist of the original?

Are there anyone here who played the original when it came out, that are still ready to say positive stuff about the remake?
Or at least defend it as not a cash grab?

[LaZodiac]

This does kinda sound like they dont have the guts to go with the plot twist of the original?

Are there anyone here who played the original when it came out, that are still ready to say positive stuff about the remake?
Or at least defend it as not a cash grab?

It is an incredible game from beginning to end. Calling it a cash grab is honestly just kinda silly.

What exactly do you mean by twist of the original, by the way?

[DaedalusMkV]

This does kinda sound like they dont have the guts to go with the plot twist of the original?

Are there anyone here who played the original when it came out, that are still ready to say positive stuff about the remake?
Or at least defend it as not a cash grab?

Yes. It was an excellent game, and aside from being an ARPG rather than ATB turn-based is an improvement over the original in every conceivable way (and I'm only making an exception there to account for people who hate ARPGs). I played it with a friend, both of us having played every Final Fantasy game back in the day, and we were both huge fans of it. Calling it a cash-grab is total nonsense. It massively expands the story, is dramatically better at developing the characters and just in general does everything extremely well. The only argument you could possibly make for it being a 'cash-grab' is that it is a remake of an older game, but it's not like one of those 'remasters' which amounts to a graphical patch and a few bug fixes. They completely rebuilt the entire thing from the ground up, and no effort was spared on any of it. This is how remakes should be done. Would it have been nice to get the whole story in one game? Sure. But the game tells a full story, it's already like 50 hours long, I'm not going to complain about what we got.

As for the other point, assuming you mean Aerith's death... Time will tell. And no, I'm not going to put in spoiler tags for a game that came out in 1997, for a plot twist that was all over the internet by 2000 and was literally one of the first internet memes. Everybody already knows it. Might as well put Rosebud being a sled in spoiler tags. And IMO, half the point of what they did with the Whispers in the remake was specifically for the purpose of guaranteeing that there was still some dramatic tension left for the rest of the story.

Sephiroth and Jenova broke fate on purpose. The original timeline guaranteed they lost, so they changed the timeline. Aerith might die... Or it might be someone else. At the time she's supposed to or any other time. Once the party leaves Midgar in the Remake anything could happen. I expect we'll get a lot of the same story beats as the original game, but I fully expect major divergences to the plot of the game. And that's not a bad thing. FF7 was at its strongest up until the whole bit in the Lifestream and gets kind of weak from there. I'm quite excited to see what they do with it from here.

[Gnoman]

Do they at least get the characters right? One of the reasons I've avoided the remake (besides being absolutely furious at it not being turn based) is that most of the later stuff with the characters really missed the boat - swapping the personalities of Tifa and Aerith (in the original, Tifa's the girly girl in personality), turning Cloud into a Squall clone (there's a portion in the original game where he's moody and depressed, but that's not how he starts or ends) being the big ones.

[LaZodiac]

Do they at least get the characters right? One of the reasons I've avoided the remake (besides being absolutely furious at it not being turn based) is that most of the later stuff with the characters really missed the boat - swapping the personalities of Tifa and Aerith (in the original, Tifa's the girly girl in personality), turning Cloud into a Squall clone (there's a portion in the original game where he's moody and depressed, but that's not how he starts or ends) being the big ones.

During the raid on the Don's house, Aerith takes a folding chair to someone.

Tifa is probably the most elegantly she's ever been portrayed.

When confronting Cloud about the girl outfit he says, in the nerdiest but also raddest way "yeah I know I nailed it lets move on."

They get the characters Perfect.

[Dame_Mechanus]

Naw, I recognize that, I just do think ARR is decent (and this is the first I've heard anyone say Heavensward isn't part of The Good Part, so that may just be a sliding scale issue).

ARR is a bit slow because it has to reintroduce all of the worldbuilding from the (no longer available) version 1.0, introduce its actual plot, resolve its actual plot, and establish a lot of the architecture for the future... while also dealing with the fact that the writers did not yet fully know how long to make quest chains, how best to deploy important plot points, and so forth. That's not the same as being bad, and while my emotional investment wasn't at its height through ARR, it obviously kept me interested enough to keep playing and paying attention even when this was all new content.

I think it's all a bit weaker now if you're going through it waiting to get to the fireworks factory that really starts going off later, but all of it is necessary narrative foundation for later. Yes, even the part with Alphinaud being the most arrogant intelligent idiot on the face of the planet. It's the weakest part of the story in the same way that you don't expect the climax of a novel with 37 chapters to happen within the first four.


They get the characters Perfect.

Better yet, they weave the characters together and give them development and relationships that weren't really well-established in the original a lot more depth. Tifa and Aerith have a natural fun chemistry between them that's already launched a thousand ships. Cloud's characterization is enriched significantly through his interactions with Tifa and Barret; it's much more firmly established that he's taciturn and a mercenary, but he's not actually a heartless jerk, just uninterested in someone whose introduction is basically continually trying to get out of paying him on the basis of a righteous cause. Tifa and Cloud joke with the familiarity of old friends while also having those awkward moments of realizing they've both grown into very different people over the years. The list goes on.

Heck, as mentioned elsewhere, they turn the fate of previously one-note characters where you just thought "well, that's sad" into actual tragic situations where you feel for and care about these people, fleshing out their goals, desires, and wants enough that I desperately wanted the plot to change before the ending rolled around.

I've not played Intergrade at this point, so I can't say if they got Yuffie right too. But my own apprehension about people increasingly forgetting the actual plot of FFVII was handily dismissed; this is the story as it actually happened, not the rehashes of half-remembered plots that didn't really exist. (Except maybe for the relationship between Sephiroth and Cloud, but that has more to do with actual timeline weirdness rather than trying to act like the original story had Sephiroth remembering who Cloud even was.)

[lord_khaine]

The concern about a cash grab is indeed because its a remake of an older game.
And because i have seen several other cases of what looks like it.
Prime example being Warcraft III. At the moment my confidence in AAA companies can lie on a very, very small place.

[Rynjin]

ARR is a bit slow because it has to reintroduce all of the worldbuilding from the (no longer available) version 1.0, introduce its actual plot, resolve its actual plot, and establish a lot of the architecture for the future... while also dealing with the fact that the writers did not yet fully know how long to make quest chains, how best to deploy important plot points, and so forth. That's not the same as being bad, and while my emotional investment wasn't at its height through ARR, it obviously kept me interested enough to keep playing and paying attention even when this was all new content.

I think it's all a bit weaker now if you're going through it waiting to get to the fireworks factory that really starts going off later, but all of it is necessary narrative foundation for later. Yes, even the part with Alphinaud being the most arrogant intelligent idiot on the face of the planet. It's the weakest part of the story in the same way that you don't expect the climax of a novel with 37 chapters to happen within the first four.

The problem is ARR is not a novel, it's a game. Roughly equivalent in length to most AAA games with a plot. I could read 4-5 novels in the time it took me to get through ARR (maybe more).

Turning it on its head, would you play a game series where the first 2 games in the franchise just aren't fun and have a slow, boring, extremely rote story? I wouldn't, even if somebody told me game 3 was amazing.

[LaZodiac]

ARR is a bit slow because it has to reintroduce all of the worldbuilding from the (no longer available) version 1.0, introduce its actual plot, resolve its actual plot, and establish a lot of the architecture for the future... while also dealing with the fact that the writers did not yet fully know how long to make quest chains, how best to deploy important plot points, and so forth. That's not the same as being bad, and while my emotional investment wasn't at its height through ARR, it obviously kept me interested enough to keep playing and paying attention even when this was all new content.

I think it's all a bit weaker now if you're going through it waiting to get to the fireworks factory that really starts going off later, but all of it is necessary narrative foundation for later. Yes, even the part with Alphinaud being the most arrogant intelligent idiot on the face of the planet. It's the weakest part of the story in the same way that you don't expect the climax of a novel with 37 chapters to happen within the first four.

Better yet, they weave the characters together and give them development and relationships that weren't really well-established in the original a lot more depth. Tifa and Aerith have a natural fun chemistry between them that's already launched a thousand ships. Cloud's characterization is enriched significantly through his interactions with Tifa and Barret; it's much more firmly established that he's taciturn and a mercenary, but he's not actually a heartless jerk, just uninterested in someone whose introduction is basically continually trying to get out of paying him on the basis of a righteous cause. Tifa and Cloud joke with the familiarity of old friends while also having those awkward moments of realizing they've both grown into very different people over the years. The list goes on.

Heck, as mentioned elsewhere, they turn the fate of previously one-note characters where you just thought "well, that's sad" into actual tragic situations where you feel for and care about these people, fleshing out their goals, desires, and wants enough that I desperately wanted the plot to change before the ending rolled around.

I've not played Intergrade at this point, so I can't say if they got Yuffie right too. But my own apprehension about people increasingly forgetting the actual plot of FFVII was handily dismissed; this is the story as it actually happened, not the rehashes of half-remembered plots that didn't really exist. (Except maybe for the relationship between Sephiroth and Cloud, but that has more to do with actual timeline weirdness rather than trying to act like the original story had Sephiroth remembering who Cloud even was.)

The funniest thing is that I genuinely, truly, loved every second of ARR. I loved absorbing all the world building, I loved seeing the set up for things starting to build and knowing (if not the details) that they were going to lead somewhere. The ambient feeling that "this is a world that has recently suffered an apocalypse and it shows in every aspect of it" that I just, ****ing love devouring. The personal fear that my favorite Scions, Yda and Papalymo, sure do seem to just... not, get fan art. Oh boy that's horrifying and an experience I loved as much as I did fear it. It's the Good ****!

If you do get into FFXIV, I highly recommend you just enjoy it. Sit back, relax, take it at a gentle pace. Don't rush it. You'll only ruin what makes it so good.

As for FF7REMAKE; agreed on all counts, yeah.


The concern about a cash grab is indeed because its a remake of an older game.
And because i have seen several other cases of what looks like it.
Prime example being Warcraft III. At the moment my confidence in AAA companies can lie on a very, very small place.

Well it's not that so you can rest your laurels and enjoy.


The problem is ARR is not a novel, it's a game. Roughly equivalent in length to most AAA games with a plot. I could read 4-5 novels in the time it took me to get through ARR (maybe more).

Turning it on its head, would you play a game series where the first 2 games in the franchise just aren't fun and have a slow, boring, extremely rote story? I wouldn't, even if somebody told me game 3 was amazing.

I mean, as said above to each their own. I loved ARR!

[Dame_Mechanus]

Turning it on its head, would you play a game series where the first 2 games in the franchise just aren't fun and have a slow, boring, extremely rote story? I wouldn't, even if somebody told me game 3 was amazing.

This analogy falls apart because it is predicated on the assumption that the game isn't fun; if you aren't having fun you aren't going to suddenly start having fun because Emet-Selch is snarking at you about how he doesn't consider you a person. FFXIV is an excellent game, and it also is a game that tells you what it is going to be pretty accurately within the first 15 levels or so. Heck, I don't agree with the premise of "the story is bad in ARR" which is why I chose my words very specifically to avoid that.


The funniest thing is that I genuinely, truly, loved every second of ARR. I loved absorbing all the world building, I loved seeing the set up for things starting to build and knowing (if not the details) that they were going to lead somewhere. The ambient feeling that "this is a world that has recently suffered an apocalypse and it shows in every aspect of it" that I just, ****ing love devouring.

Oh, don't get me wrong; even if I was less invested in what ultimately happens to most of the characters in ARR, I still loved ARR well enough to keep playing nonstop. I might not have had strong opinions on Urianger or Y'shtola, but I sure loved the world that was being set up, was curious about what the Ascians were trying to accomplish, loved every little nugget we got about regions like Doma and Ishgard, and spent lots of time speculating on the roleplaying forums about what little lore details could potentially mean. (All of our speculation was wrong, but that was part of the fun.)

Really, what's changed is just that now I'm as invested in the characters as I am in the world and have very strong opinions about the characters. I've only had Zero for one patch, but if anything happens to her I will riot.

[ZhonLord]

Are there anyone here who played the original when it came out, that are still ready to say positive stuff about the remake?
Or at least defend it as not a cash grab?
Absolutely. The Whispers are my one sole gripe about the game. The combat is excellent, the hybrid of realtime and turn-based combats flows smoothly, you're encouraged to swap between characters and use all three in bigger fights, and all of the OTHER story additions are great and fit the world.


Do they at least get the characters right? One of the reasons I've avoided the remake (besides being absolutely furious at it not being turn based) is that most of the later stuff with the characters really missed the boat - swapping the personalities of Tifa and Aerith (in the original, Tifa's the girly girl in personality), turning Cloud into a Squall clone (there's a portion in the original game where he's moody and depressed, but that's not how he starts or ends) being the big ones.
Tifa is a good hearted warrior who can kick your butt one second and serve you drinks the next, provided you've learned your lesson. She's friendly and helpful without being innocent or naive, and if you're willing to hurt innocents to get your way then you're going to get a metal-knuckled fist down your throat.

Cloud seems emotionless at first, but enough of his real personality seeps through across the early parts that his opening up to banter with Aerith comes naturally. His willingness to fight and help his allies, and his complete social awkwardness with Jesse and the other Avalanche members, fits the established character beautifully and give us more tastes of the man beneath the Hojo Project.

Barrett is a tough leader who's driven to get things done, but is also fiercely protective of his team and won't leave anyone behind. He's also more preachy about the planet's well-being and the issues mako is causing, but it's not overdone. The devs just brought that up to the same level of passion and intensity as everything else Barrett does. And when he's with his daughter Marlene it's downright adorable - as is she, they largely used her Advent Children personality and turned back time a few years.

And Aerith. Holy crap Aerith. Her kindness, her perceptiveness, her courage and magical prowess, they did everything about her correctly and more. You aren't just told she's not quite human, you see it. You feel it. She makes everyone around her better just by interacting with them without ever seeming"ordinary" herself, the devs captured everything that makes her an enchanting figure and made it BETTER.


Eh, the Whispers were a representation of Fate that gets destroyed in order to drive home that there can and will be divergences from the original, and they allowed for an epic final boss fight when none otherwise would've been present. That's all that ultimately matters about them.
That's my point. They're a contrived snub at the fourth wall and the fans of the original. And none of this addresses the plot holes their very existence creates, per my above post. If you're going to inject something like this into a story, it has to fit. It has to make sense. It has to be executed well. The Whispers are none of these.

[Quizatzhaderac]

This does kinda sound like they dont have the guts to go with the plot twist of the original?If they repeat that plot point, it's not a twist.

As I understand from interviews and such, they didn't include a death because Aerith had a fatal flaw like in a greek tragedy, they included a death because sometimes that just happens in the world without making moral sense.

But if Aerith dies in at the same time and same place it's not going to feel random anymore.


Are there anyone here who played the original when it came out, that are still ready to say positive stuff about the remake?
Or at least defend it as not a cash grab?This is the least lazy-ily made game I've ever played, both in terms of production values, and the fact that they seem to have seriously thought about each change they made.

[Rynjin]

The "laziness" comes in from them failing to put that level of care into roughly the last 4-5 mainline entries (depending on whether you like XII or not) and instead tossing a Hail Mary play by going back to the same tapped well for the umpteenth time.

Any time Squeenix is losing money from their horrible business decisions it's time to make another Final Fantasy VII game!

I'd give Capcom the same flak, but at least they bailed out their failing franchise by making a good new game first, before they started shoveling out remakes.

[Dame_Mechanus]

The "laziness" comes in from them failing to put that level of care into roughly the last 4-5 mainline entries (depending on whether you like XII or not) and instead tossing a Hail Mary play by going back to the same tapped well for the umpteenth time.

If only Square-Enix had tried a little harder they wouldn't have had two massively popular MMORPGs bringing in consistent revenue after 20 years for the older one and three single-player titles that sold millions of copies while receiving massive critical acclaim! Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Rynjin]

If only Square-Enix had tried a little harder they wouldn't have had two massively popular MMORPGs bringing in consistent revenue after 20 years for the older one and three single-player titles that sold millions of copies while receiving massive critical acclaim! Yeah, that's the ticket.

I'm not sure if you realize how close Squeenix came to bankruptcy when 14's initial launch failed, but it was...very close. ARR literally saved the company.

That's how well FF 12 through 13-2 sold.

Hell, throughout its history Square, Squaresoft, Square-Enix, whatever it happens to be called after the NEXT buyout that removes its ass from the fire, has been constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Famously it's how the company started the Final Fantasy franchise (as a quite literal last chance to save the company), it's the position they were in after FF 8 and 9 flopped, it was the position they were in after Final Fantasy XIV's initial launch flopped, etc.

"Square is a financially stable company" is a hell of a weird hill to die on. They are quite clearly doing SOMETHING wrong with their money and have been for close to 40 years.

[Dame_Mechanus]

Hell, throughout its history Square, Squaresoft, Square-Enix, whatever it happens to be called after the NEXT buyout that removes its ass from the fire...

None of those were buyouts. Squaresoft was Square's American branding and Square and Enix merged; the merger had been discussed for years and was put on pause when Square's first attempt at producing a movie bombed horribly and lost a huge amount of money, but the plans went through once Square stabilized more in...

Hang on, let me check my notes...

The very next year.

This is not surprising, because Square-Enix is a company with a very diverse set of entertainment holdings, and it also has a tendency to bet on a lot of things that wind up not working out terribly well. When you make a lot of wild bets, a lot of them don't pay off terribly well, and the sales of one game series do not determine the financial fortunes of a company with over five thousand employees worldwide. In fact, the whole "Square-Enix was nearly bankrupt after FFXIV flopped" thing is a known falsehood based on a misunderstanding of a quote from Naoki Yoshida claiming that another such flop could destroy the company - with his statement contextually being clear not in the sense of "there would be no more money" (at the time ARR was more than a year out from release) but "there would no longer be a reputation to salvage."

Not to mention that just on its face this is a silly statement, because if Square-Enix was truly down to cutting costs and saving money however it was possible, the far cheaper option was to just axe the service altogether instead of what actually happened. FFXIV's success was itself a pretty long bet for the company.

It's totally fine if you don't like FFVII's remake existing (I'm not thrilled about the outsized importance the game is afforded), it's totally fine if you don't fine recent series entries terribly fun (FFXV was hot garbage from both a mechanical and narrative standpoint), but none of that translates to "this was a desperate play to go to the only possible way to salvage the company" because it's simply not true. And that's shown even more clearly in the fact that if they were treating these projects as "Break Glass In Case Of Emergency" sure-fire hits, the project wouldn't be allowed to write major changes into the storyline. (This is without getting into the fact that the principle creatives associated with the game are the same in both cases, with the primary difference being that Sakaguchi is not involved with the project.)

"Oh, you're just a Square-Enix fangirl." Did you see what Yosuke Matsuda wrote at the start of the year? I just like actual facts.

[Rynjin]

The VII remake isn't a desperate play, it's just part of the tired trend of Squeenix going back to the Final Fantasy VII well any time they need quick and easy cash. It's cool if the game is good, but let's be real: even if the game was thoroughly mediocre, it would have sold like hotcakes because it has Cloud Strife in it.

My point was it would be nice if they could put the same care and attention into one of the other mainline tyitles, because XIII and XV were kinda trash, and even though I liked XII, I know it's a hugely divisive game.

That's not a great track record for mainline titles recently. XII came out in like 2006. That leaves the last pretty much universally liked singleplayer Final Fantasy at X...which is 20 years old.

[Zevox]

The VII remake isn't a desperate play, it's just part of the tired trend of Squeenix going back to the Final Fantasy VII well any time they need quick and easy cash. It's cool if the game is good, but let's be real: even if the game was thoroughly mediocre, it would have sold like hotcakes because it has Cloud Strife in it.

My point was it would be nice if they could put the same care and attention into one of the other mainline tyitles, because XIII and XV were kinda trash, and even though I liked XII, I know it's a hugely divisive game.

That's not a great track record for mainline titles recently. XII came out in like 2006. That leaves the last pretty much universally liked singleplayer Final Fantasy at X...which is 20 years old.
I don't disagree about 13. Can speak to 15 since I haven't played it - though that's in part because of the poor reputation that garnered, since I did have some amount of interest in it at first after seeing that the series was finally ditching the ATB and going for action-RPG combat. None of that changes that 7R is a great, well-made game, though.

As for whether that'll carry over into the main series, we'll have our chance to see in about half a year, when FF16 comes out. If nothing else, it should have actually good combat this time, given they have a combat designer from Devil May Cry 5 working on it. Whether the story will be any good is always a crapshoot with this series, but cross your fingers. Looking up the guy who's credited as the writer, it appears he's been an "event planner" for Final Fantasy Tactics and the main scenario writer for Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn and Heavensward, and had some amount of involvement in what I presume to be later expansions to FF14. So, even though I can't speak to those games' quality from experience, he seems to have a pedigree in games that were better received than FF13 and 15.

[Dame_Mechanus]

The VII remake isn't a desperate play, it's just part of the tired trend of Squeenix going back to the Final Fantasy VII well any time they need quick and easy cash.

As evidenced by the fact that the last time they released a game set in that universe was in... 2014, as a free-to-play mobile title absolutely no one remembers. Before that was back in 2007. Not exactly a well that's been wrung dry of every potential release multiple times. Not that the argument holds water anyway, since the project was in development for five years before release and cost an estimated $200 million, making this a definition of "quick and easy cash" that is inconsistent with most other definitions. It also, again, belies any motivation to change things instead of just running in a basically functional graphical update.


My point was it would be nice if they could put the same care and attention into one of the other mainline tyitles, because XIII and XV were kinda trash, and even though I liked XII, I know it's a hugely divisive game.

Again, you're sandwiching two unrelated concepts here. What exactly indicated that Final Fantasy XIII lacked care or attention? Or the launch version of Final Fantasy XIV? Or the revamped version? Or Final Fantasy XI? The only one your stated objection actually applies to is Final Fantasy XV, which was a rushed production that reused extensive stock assets due to a multi-year floundering development that failed to really account for how little was finished when Hajime Tabata was brought on to steer the project in. Every new mainline title has been controversial since the original FFVII, and you can still find people grousing about how that game turned the series into science fiction whilst longing for the days before science fiction elements had infested the franchise.

Which is equally absurd because there were robots back in the first game.

None of these games are lacking budget, care, personal attention, investment, or development time - again, except for FFXV, which comes down more to the fact that it was a project that inexplicably got shoved into a mainline entry from its original intention despite hardly being finished enough to need the added investment. The fact that your argument comes down to "FFXIII didn't get care or attention like FFVII because I didn't like it" doesn't have substance behind it, and trying to argue that it's a cash grab (which, in context, is synecdoche for a project made without an artistic impulse but simply a desire for sales) falls flat considering that it was a project offered to the principal creatives on the original game if it was an idea they were interested in. As it turns out, they were.


Looking up the guy who's credited as the writer, it appears he's been an "event planner" for Final Fantasy Tactics and the main scenario writer for Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn and Heavensward, and had some amount of involvement in what I presume to be later expansions to FF14.

He's credited as "Special Thanks" for Shadowbringers and Endwalker, which is usually something reserved for someone who was influential and/or created groundwork that was expanded upon later; considering how much of later expansions calls back to initial ones, this is not particularly unusual. He also served as the overseer coordinating the multiple writers who worked on Stormblood, which also means he probably was in no small part responsible for seeing Natsuko Ishikawa's potential and moving her into being the main scenario writer for the aforementioned Shadowbringers and Endwalker. (Ishikawa's writing is consistently cited as a high point in those expansions, and for good reason.)

[KillianHawkeye]

So since we're talking about game releases and finances now... I just wanna say that I don't know how successful the FF 1 through 6 remasters were in a financial sense, but they were extremely well done remakes of the older games in the series. They basically held true to the original visions of those older games while bringing in some modern conveniences, and the presentations were just magnificently done!

I know FF7 Remake is an altogether different beast, but I think FF Pixel Remasters deserve some recognition in how well they revived the classic games for modern machines and modern audiences.

[Wookieetank]

I know FF7 Remake is an altogether different beast, but I think FF Pixel Remasters deserve some recognition in how well they revived the classic games for modern machines and modern audiences.

I really don't need Yet Another Copy of FF1-6, but they do look tempting. Does it also include After Years for FF4? Haven't gotten a chance to play that yet.

[LaZodiac]

I really don't need Yet Another Copy of FF1-6, but they do look tempting. Does it also include After Years for FF4? Haven't gotten a chance to play that yet.

Does not, though there's been rumblings they're making After Years Pixel Remaster.

Honestly kinda hope they do, more people need to play these interminably bad games.

[Dame_Mechanus]

Does not, though there's been rumblings they're making After Years Pixel Remaster.

Honestly kinda hope they do, more people need to play these interminably bad games.

I don't know what I had expected with After Years as a sequel to a game I already disliked, but it definitely wasn't to dislike the source game even more as a result. Yet here we are. Maybe if it hadn't just given us the exact same cast all over again and made the whole "second generation" basically irrelevant?

But the pixel remasters are quite good, and not just because it's a good thing to have a version of FFIII that isn't the poorly rebalanced 3D remake available for everyone. I'm also tickled at the bespoke engine changes just for the opera scene in FFVI.

[Gnoman]

it's the position they were in after FF 8 and 9 flopped

I don't know where you got the idea that VIII and IX "flopped". Both were absolutely massive hits - VIII sold almost as well as every previous FF combined, IX sold a little less well largely because it wasan end-of-life release for the PS1. Square's financial problems that led to the Enix merger were 100% the fault of The Spirits Within, their disastrous attempt at revolutionizing the movie industry which resulted in a loss of nearly a hundred million dollars. Had they stuck to games, they'd have been fine.

[Quizatzhaderac]

FFIV after years was, just okay IMHO. Definitely only worth bothering if you loved FFIV, since there's no mechanical upgrade and the plot depends on you caring about this huge cast of characters.

Before FFVIIR was a thing I was hoping for a FVII after years, being as the ending was way too ambiguous (did humanity survive?), and that the world was, at best, still a cyber punk dystopia suffering a major disaster. I even had a bunch of specific ideas.

[Bartmanhomer]

I love the boss music of FF7. It's very entertaining for me. :smile:

[Psyren]

I'm enjoying 7make quite a bit, personally. I've been playing fairly slowly in between other releases and just arrived at the Shinra building.

This is the kind of remake that isn't afraid to update the more dated parts of the original, both narratively (The whole Wall Market/Honeybee Inn/Don Corneo sequence comes readily to mind, as well as... basically everything to do with the Avalanche members, especially Barrett himself) as well as the combat (needing to mash attack for a few seconds before you can cast anything is a bit annoying, as is not being allowed to use summon materia until Designated Boss Climax Time, but other than that it's a solid update to the formula.) When you run into other members of SOLDIER in this title it really does feel like a major event, and that includes Rude and Reno who felt like glorified stooges in the original, so coming out on top feels a lot more earned and impactful. And the fact that they're willing to at least tease potential story diversions is a bold direction even if nothing ends up changing ultimately, though I'm curious to see if things will.

With all that said though, I'm with Rynjin on one point - SQE does seem to return to this well when they have trouble. They had three high-profile flops this year between Babylon's Fall, ChocoboGP, and the third one is itself an example of what he's talking about (FF7 First Soldier.) All three games are being demonetized or outright shut down in 2023, and two of them were probably banking on that FF7 draw overtly. That pull not being sufficient to prop up bad games anymore has to have their execs a bit nervous.

[Delicious Taffy]

They had three high-profile flops this year between Babylon's Fall, ChocoboGP, and the third one is itself an example of what he's talking about (FF7 First Soldier.) All three games are being demonetized or outright shut down in 2023, and two of them were probably banking on that FF7 draw overtly. That pull not being sufficient to prop up bad games anymore has to have their execs a bit nervous.
Maybe if they'd stop putting all their eggs in one basket and hoping their next cash cow will be whatever over-monetized, incomplete mess of a game they put out most recently, then freaking out mere months later because it somehow failed to meet their impossible expectations (not to mention falling for scams to such a heavy degree that they jettisoned a ton of their IP just for a little extra starter cash), they might have less reasons to be nervous. The games aren't so much flopping as they are being flopped, by a company that's put itself into a state of perpetual panic.

[Zevox]

Maybe if they'd stop putting all their eggs in one basket and hoping their next cash cow will be whatever over-monetized, incomplete mess of a game they put out most recently, then freaking out mere months later because it somehow failed to meet their impossible expectations (not to mention falling for scams to such a heavy degree that they jettisoned a ton of their IP just for a little extra starter cash), they might have less reasons to be nervous. The games aren't so much flopping as they are being flopped, by a company that's put itself into a state of perpetual panic.
Yeah, Square Enix seem to be the only ones who didn't see Babylon's Fall's failure coming a mile away. As far as I could tell pretty much everyone they would've had interested in it based on Platinum Games being involved alone lost interest as soon as it was revealed to be a "Games as a Service" multiplayer-focused title, which left it as that kind of game coming out but as a full-priced title instead of the free-to-play model normally used for those, and without a big brand name like the Avengers to pull in at least some audience. (Not that their Avengers game was a smash hit either, but it at least had that name, and a half-decent single-player campaign, to help it fare better.) That something like that was a bigger flop than just about anything else in recent memory honestly should not have surprised them.

I don't know anything about Chocobo GP, but a quick look on Wikipedia tells me it was panned for having a mobile game-like monetization model, and I know that FF7 First Soldier was a free-to-play mobile shooter title they seem to have just slapped Final Fantasy branding on. So it kind of seems like the lesson of those games (and Avengers) is that Square-Enix is really bad at "Games as a Service" style games.

[Rynjin]

Maybe if they'd stop putting all their eggs in one basket and hoping their next cash cow will be whatever over-monetized, incomplete mess of a game they put out most recently, then freaking out mere months later because it somehow failed to meet their impossible expectations (not to mention falling for scams to such a heavy degree that they jettisoned a ton of their IP just for a little extra starter cash), they might have less reasons to be nervous. The games aren't so much flopping as they are being flopped, by a company that's put itself into a state of perpetual panic.

Don't...don't remind me about the NFT stuff, jeez.

It does at least give me hope that Embracer will produce some good Thief and Deus Ex games though.

[Psyren]

I don't know anything about Chocobo GP, but a quick look on Wikipedia tells me it was panned for having a mobile game-like monetization model, and I know that FF7 First Soldier was a free-to-play mobile shooter title they seem to have just slapped Final Fantasy branding on. So it kind of seems like the lesson of those games (and Avengers) is that Square-Enix is really bad at "Games as a Service" style games.

Yeah - reviewers I follow believe that ChocoboGP was actually a great game at its core, and had a decent chance of wresting the Kart Racing crown from Mario's death grip or at the very least being a solid contender. But they mired it in all the worst mobile game chaff imaginable, ranging from Battlepasses to Confuseopoly currency baggage to limited-time FOMO sales etc. All that on top of being a full-price game. It was vile.

[Zevox]

Yeah - reviewers I follow believe that ChocoboGP was actually a great game at its core, and had a decent chance of wresting the Kart Racing crown from Mario's death grip or at the very least being a solid contender. But they mired it in all the worst mobile game chaff imaginable, ranging from Battlepasses to Confuseopoly currency baggage to limited-time FOMO sales etc. All that on top of being a full-price game. It was vile.
Ah, so much the same sort of thing they did with Babylon's Fall, then. ...why did they need to learn twice in the same year that releasing a full-price game with all the worst parts of a F2P game is a bad idea?

Oh, right, this is the same company that sold a batch of reasonably valuable developers and IPs for NFT money, their management is obviously more greedy than smart. Guess we get to just cross our fingers that doesn't end up infecting their actually promising-looking games.

[Psyren]

Ah, so much the same sort of thing they did with Babylon's Fall, then. ...why did they need to learn twice in the same year that releasing a full-price game with all the worst parts of a F2P game is a bad idea?

Oh, right, this is the same company that sold a batch of reasonably valuable developers and IPs for NFT money, their management is obviously more greedy than smart. Guess we get to just cross our fingers that doesn't end up infecting their actually promising-looking games.

They've also doubled-down on NFTs this year (https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-square-enix-nfts-boss-president-matsuda-1849945065) despite the bottom falling out of the market, all the recent fraud and other crypto scandals, and their resounding rejection by most gamers and even other developers.

So yeah. Not the brightest bulbs in the Shinra storeroom.

[Zevox]

They've also doubled-down on NFTs this year (https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-square-enix-nfts-boss-president-matsuda-1849945065) despite the bottom falling out of the market, all the recent fraud and other crypto scandals, and their resounding rejection by most gamers and even other developers.

So yeah. Not the brightest bulbs in the Shinra storeroom.
Yeah, I saw that not long ago too. At the very least their President sure is dead set on that and incapable of reading the room. Doesn't bode well for their future. Here's hoping their first failures in that area do something to get the point through to him.

[Enceladus]

So yeah. Not the brightest bulbs in the Shinra storeroom.

Agreed.

Mr. Matsuda's 2023 New Year's letter is further indication of this especially the portion that reads "The market was driven more by speculative investors than by gamers though 2021. In other words, the content that was at the forefront was created based on the premise that blockchain and NFTs should result in monetization. However, in the wake of the aforementioned turbulence in the cryptocurrency industry, there is now a trend to view blockchain technology as a mere means to an end and to discuss what needs to happen to achieve the end of delivering new experiences and excitement to customers. I see this as a very beneficial development for the future growth of the industry.".

[Delicious Taffy]

Not the brightest bulbs in the Shinra storeroom.
Hehe. As ridiculous and stupid as Square's been acting lately, I've personally been loving all the comparisons to Shinra.

[Psyren]

Hehe. As ridiculous and stupid as Square's been acting lately, I've personally been loving all the comparisons to Shinra.

They literally called their premium currency for the third of the failed projects I mentioned "Shinra Coins." How... how does anyone miss the point of their own game that badly??


Agreed.

Mr. Matsuda's 2023 New Year's letter is further indication of this especially the portion that reads "The market was driven more by speculative investors than by gamers though 2021. In other words, the content that was at the forefront was created based on the premise that blockchain and NFTs should result in monetization. However, in the wake of the aforementioned turbulence in the cryptocurrency industry, there is now a trend to view blockchain technology as a mere means to an end and to discuss what needs to happen to achieve the end of delivering new experiences and excitement to customers. I see this as a very beneficial development for the future growth of the industry.".

There's a reason it wasn't driven by gamers Mr. Matsuda! There's no damn benefit for gamers!

[Ignimortis]

They literally called their premium currency for the third of the failed projects I mentioned "Shinra Coins." How... how does anyone miss the point of their own game that badly??

I think that part of the problem is that people in charge are not actually very (if at all) familiar with their own games. As far as I'm aware, Mr. Matsuda hasn't held any game-related positions in more than 15 years (at the very least). He's been listed as a CFO since 2004 before becoming president of SE in 2013.

[Bartmanhomer]

They've also doubled-down on NFTs this year (https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-square-enix-nfts-boss-president-matsuda-1849945065) despite the bottom falling out of the market, all the recent fraud and other crypto scandals, and their resounding rejection by most gamers and even other developers.

So yeah. Not the brightest bulbs in the Shinra storeroom.

This is also the reason why I prefer modern physical money.

[Psyren]

I think that part of the problem is that people in charge are not actually very (if at all) familiar with their own games. As far as I'm aware, Mr. Matsuda hasn't held any game-related positions in more than 15 years (at the very least). He's been listed as a CFO since 2004 before becoming president of SE in 2013.

It was mostly rhetorical - but fair enough.


This is also the reason why I prefer modern physical money.

Indeed, as well as regulated investment vehicles.

[Zevox]

I think that part of the problem is that people in charge are not actually very (if at all) familiar with their own games. As far as I'm aware, Mr. Matsuda hasn't held any game-related positions in more than 15 years (at the very least). He's been listed as a CFO since 2004 before becoming president of SE in 2013.
I very much doubt the company president was the one picking the name of the in-game currency for one of their games.

Personally, I'd be inclined to wonder if some of the devs did that deliberately. If they didn't want to include that sort of GaaS-style microtransaction economy, but the order to do so came from higher up and their hands were tied, something like that could be their small way of expressing their displeasure.

Or it could've been a decision made by someone who wasn't very familiar with FF7 I guess. I doubt there was no one who worked on the game and saw that currency name who knew how it sounded though - we'll just probably never know whether it was pointed out and ignored, or if anyone who noticed decided to just not say anything.

[Ignimortis]

I very much doubt the company president was the one picking the name of the in-game currency for one of their games.

Personally, I'd be inclined to wonder if some of the devs did that deliberately. If they didn't want to include that sort of GaaS-style microtransaction economy, but the order to do so came from higher up and their hands were tied, something like that could be their small way of expressing their displeasure.

Or it could've been a decision made by someone who wasn't very familiar with FF7 I guess. I doubt there was no one who worked on the game and saw that currency name who knew how it sounded though - we'll just probably never know whether it was pointed out and ignored, or if anyone who noticed decided to just not say anything.

Oh, certainly it wasn't Matsuda's decision to call it "Shinra Coins". But the general idea is that people in charge don't actually know how or why games function aside from the fact that you can make money off them, and this prompts them to seek any way that revenue flow can be improved. This, in turn,. leads to obsession with MTX and NFT and any other questionable practices.

Also, I am pretty sure that "Shinra Coins" is indeed either deliberate, or, just as likely, the result of someone going "hey, do we have any names related to corporate activity? Shinra? cool, thanks" and just...putting it on.

[Bartmanhomer]

Their NFT plans didn't age very well.

[Rynjin]

Their NFT plans weren't BORN well. They hopped on the bandwagon after the industry had already busted.

[Enceladus]

I think that part of the problem is that people in charge are not actually very (if at all) familiar with their own games. As far as I'm aware, Mr. Matsuda hasn't held any game-related positions in more than 15 years (at the very least). He's been listed as a CFO since 2004 before becoming president of SE in 2013.

Good point there.

But even from the financial perspective Mr. Matsuda's actions have been...interesting. Realistically, I can only surmise his NFT/Blockchain drive is perhaps, financially speaking, he is betting that such tech is going to get a big push forward and wants to be at the start to cash in. I can somewhat see this given a few key figures in Japan's government are pushing such things like the PM Fumio Kishida saying Web3 is a pillar of economic reform for the country. Others as well championing NFTs or blockchain in one form or another.

I guess from a historical stance he, and others that share is idea, are trying to transition the market like what happened with the shift to CD-rom as a storage medium instead of the old cartridges and bank on that. But even in that the shift was also caused by other industries embracing the technology which in the case of NFT/blockchain not much progress has been there. In that it still is interesting (putting it nicely) that they are trying to proceed in this despite there being no real market and attempting to create a market. Provide if that is the real case.

IDK, financially speaking it makes no sense to abandon something that is the proven money maker for what is really a shot in the dark.

[Psyren]

And here's Square-Enix live service failure #4 in as many months: Bravely Default Brilliant Lights Shutting Down (https://gamerant.com/bravely-default-brilliant-lights-shutting-down-why/)

[Zevox]

And here's Square-Enix live service failure #4 in as many months: Bravely Default Brilliant Lights Shutting Down (https://gamerant.com/bravely-default-brilliant-lights-shutting-down-why/)
They had a Bravely Default live services game too? Geez, were they just trying to crank out live service versions of any successful IP they had?

Not saying anything about Bravely Default, I haven't played the series. It's just that on the hierarchy of IPs Square-Enix owns, that seems like it's fairly low to my mind, so I'm surprised they were trying to milk live service game money even out of that.

Then again, I know there was a BlazBlue live service game for a little while, and that series is probably an order of magnitude more niche than Bravely Default, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised that every game company out there is trying to throw any IP they have into that space...

[Delicious Taffy]

They really do just hate making money in any sort of straightforward way, huh? Or waiting five damn minutes for their latest lemonade stand to get any business.

I swear, if Square Enix ran a fast-food chain, they'd open a hundred locations with only one point of service each, hire six people per store, charge $30 for a simple combo meal (plus $5 per additional condiment), set the business hours at 3am-10am, and then shut the entire thing down after six months because they didn't understand why they weren't making money during the lunch rush like everyone else and it wasn't breaking world records on overall profit.


Edit: Oh yeah, to keep the thread relevant to FF7 specifically, do y'all like the materia system overall? I like how it's incorporated into FF14, but I know there are some differences in 7.

[Zevox]

Edit: Oh yeah, to keep the thread relevant to FF7 specifically, do y'all like the materia system overall? I like how it's incorporated into FF14, but I know there are some differences in 7.
It's okay. In original FF7 I think it influences characters too much, to the point where they lack any individuality mechanically (barring Limit Breaks alone) - I was able to completely replace Aerith as my full caster just by throwing her materia on Yuffie or Tifa, no problem. That's much less of an issue in Remake, where the characters' movesets are inherent to them, and materia doesn't have as much influence over their stats as it could in the original, so there it works better as a way to customize the characters without overriding any sense of individuality.

[KillianHawkeye]

It's okay. In original FF7 I think it influences characters too much, to the point where they lack any individuality mechanically (barring Limit Breaks alone) - I was able to completely replace Aerith as my full caster just by throwing her materia on Yuffie or Tifa, no problem. That's much less of an issue in Remake, where the characters' movesets are inherent to them, and materia doesn't have as much influence over their stats as it could in the original, so there it works better as a way to customize the characters without overriding any sense of individuality.

That's good to know for when I eventually play the remake. :smallsmile:

[lord_khaine]

That's much less of an issue in Remake, where the characters' movesets are inherent to them, and materia doesn't have as much influence over their stats as it could in the original, so there it works better as a way to customize the characters without overriding any sense of individuality.

Possibly one of the best arguments made for Remake so far.

[Delicious Taffy]

Gods, this is a hard game for me to get into. I finally gave it a shot and started playing, but I can't physically make myself play past the section where you sneak out of Aerith's house. I just get this overwhelming urge to play any other game in the world, and I don't know why. It's not even a remark on the quality, I just can't get around this block and actually play it. I haven't had this problem with any of the other FF games I've played.

[avensis]

Quite simply...Magic! Beautiful music, an interesting story and above all endearing and funny characters.

[Zevox]

And +1 to the "Square-Enix live service game failures" list: Avengers support is ending later this year (https://avengers.crystald.com/en-us/final-update-on-the-future-of-marvels-avengers/). I'm honestly only surprised it took this long - I can only assume it was sheer brand recognition that gave it enough of an audience to last the three years it'll have been between launch and its end, because it definitely wasn't the quality of the gameplay, which was pretty mediocre. Fair warning, if you're interested in ever playing the single-player campaign of the game and would be buying it digitally, do so before that end point in September, because it'll no longer be available for purchase digitally after that.

Good thing the Square-Enix Guardians of the Galaxy at least turned out good, so we got one good game out of their stint with Marvel. Probably not coincidentally, that game doesn't have any live service elements at all, it's just a story-driven action game.