Final Fantasy VII Remake games excitement

[Drathon'Tal]

Who here is excited about the Final Fantasy VII remake game coming out in April? I know I am.

https://ffvii-remake.square-enix-games.com/en-us

The game will be exclusive to sony for a year.
And it has a demo on ps4 that is already out now.

if you have a ps4, go check it out.

Old gamers, new gamers, never played any of them before gamers, been playing since Final Fantasy 1 Nintendo Entertainment System Gamers. All gamers.. I want to hear from you.

Have fun out there.

[danzibr]

Preface: I’m 32, been playing games since before kindergarten, the ol’ NES. Pretty much all my free time in my youth went to video games.

FFVII was the first real RPG I played. It helped form me as a gamer. I played it over and over, several hundred hours.

Then... last month, I decided to give up video games. May undo that at some point, no intention to any time soon.

So yeah, I’m excited, but I don’t intend to play it for quite some time.

[Rodin]

I'll probably pick it up just so I can actually see the story of this game I missed out on. I never owned a PS1, so FF7 completely passed me by. My play order went 6, 10, 8 (briefly), 9. Either FF7 didn't have a PC port at the time or my friends who I was borrowing the 8 and 9 PC ports from didn't have it.

By that time I was totally burned out on Final Fantasy, so I didn't touch another one until 12 came out. 12 was so unimpressive I just gave up with the franchise, and by that point it wasn't worth going back to revisit 7.

Different gameplay and a modern re-telling of the story sounds like just the thing. I was very impressed by the Resident Evil 2 remake, and this has the potential to be as good.

[NeoVid]

I've played the majority of the FF series and 7 was my least favorite, but I'm still looking forward to this, as the remake looks to have everything I ever wanted from a new version of FF7: A script that's completed before the game is in production!

Though I am expecting the remake to be missing the one thing I really liked when I was playing the original as a kid: Coming up with game-breaking Materia combos (did you know that Added Effect+Contain would make every attack you made apply Stop, Petrify, Confuse and Death? Add in one of the materia that lets normal attacks hit the entire field...) But if they fix the things that kept me from enjoying the experience while taking out my favorite feature, I'll live with it. Looks like I wouldn't be able to play it for a while if it's a timed exclusive for the Playstation, but considering how critical FF7 was to the PS1, I can understand why they did it.

However, Barrett isn't voiced by Mr T, which is unforgivable.

[Seerow]

FFVII was a defining game for me. It wasn't my first real rpg (that honor goes to Chrono trigger), but it was the first that I got deeply into. It sealed my love for games as a story telling medium, as well as customizable character builds and turn based combat.

As I've aged I've come to understand a lot of the limitations of the game and realize it wasn't perfect, but no other game invokes half as much nostalgia.

What I'm trying to say is I pre-ordered the 300 dollar collector's edition with all the physical goodies including the cloud on a bike statue day one it was available without hesitation. Even though I was at the time very worried about the combat system being more real time than I am typically comfortable with, I wanted it anyway.

Since the demo came out a lot of my fears have been put to ease. The ability to pause mid combat to issue commands is great. There's also the 'classic' option to make movement and auto attacks automated which leaves just using the atb, which is close enough to the turn based roots for me. I am eager to dive in.

[Zevox]

Excited would be an exaggeration, but I'm interested and probably picking it up. I'm not really a Final Fantasy fan - I have played many of the main series games but not all, and honestly the very first is my personal favorite, simply because I can appreciate a simple old-school dungeon crawler like that. With the others, well, I've never really been impressed with their stories or writing to say the least, and some have had what I consider major gameplay flaws - and I never liked the ATB system all too many of them have. I did play the original FF7, but only partway (got distracted by some other game and just never went back), so I don't really include it in those judgments, though I can say that I remember really disliking all the mini-games, and obviously it didn't hold my attention as well as one would hope.

The remake looks promising though. I tried the demo, and I can see some potential to the combat system - it's no Devil May Cry, but still seems legitimately fun. Dialogue and voice acting seems good based on the demo. And obviously it looks gorgeous, and by all accounts seems to be trying hard to capture all the elements that old fans liked about the story. And there's not a hell of a lot else coming that I'm going to be playing this year, at least not that's been announced so far - just this, Persona 5 Royal, and maybe Guilty Gear Strive near the end of the year. So yeah, looks promising enough that I'm thinking I'll grab it.

[danzibr]

Anyone get it? How is it? From what I've read it's amazing, but I trust the firsthand experience of my fellow playgrounders over internet sites.

[Whoracle]

Just finished the first hour (basically what's in the demo - 1st Reactor) 5 minutes ago, now waiting for the rest of the download. The thing clocks in at a whopping 90GB...

First impressions (spoiler free, but still spoilered just in case):

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I'm playing on Normal Mode and Normal difficulty. The Combat is a bit hectic and takes getting used to. Graphics are stellar, controls are servicable enough. Voice acting is good (except for Barret, who shouts a bit too much IMHO). Side characters are getting fleshed out way more - I adore Jessie this time around.

So far no deviations from the original storyline, but I gather there are some later in the game.

Will update my impressions once I get to play more.

Off the cuff: 70 Eurobucks is a bit steep, the 60 US$ it costs over there are way more in line. We'll see how if and how I change my mind.

[lord_khaine]

Hmm.. im only -almost- tempted to get a PS4 for this. Ill likely wait a year and see if it comes out for PC.
I might buy a new computer to be able to run it though :D

[Whoracle]

OK, done with the first 6 hours.

I stand by my initial thoughts:
- Combat OK, but a bit messy and chaotic at times
- Graphics stellar
- Voice acting very good
- Jessie <3

Without spoiling: There are deviations from the original Plot, and there is an in-universe explanation for this. I can live with that as long as the deviations are as good as they have been so far.
I'll likely be finished tomorrow evening or monday at the latest and give a short final review.

Spoiler-ish:

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Oh god, screw the FF7 remake, gimme a spinoff where Avalanche does stuff(tm) :) Biggs, Wedge and Jessie are GREAT this time around! Also, the world gets mightily fleshed out, and in my opinion in a good way so far.

Hmm.. im only -almost- tempted to get a PS4 for this. Ill likely wait a year and see if it comes out for PC.
I might buy a new computer to be able to run it though :D

If you can get one really cheap, and have a handful (say, three or so) other exclusives that interest you, do. High price or only for this - don't.
I'd recommend the whole Kingdom Hearts Saga, now that it's relatively finished. The Remakes of the old ones are great, and 3 is what it is.

[Anteros]

I'm mostly curious how complete the game is. I keep hearing that it's going to be released in 3 parts. How far into the game does this first part actually take you?

[Rodin]

I'm mostly curious how complete the game is. I keep hearing that it's going to be released in 3 parts. How far into the game does this first part actually take you?

The review I read said the first game doesn't leave Midgar, which I gather is the tutorial city? The story length difference is made up by giving a massive expansion to side characters who you really don't learn much about in the original, as well as expanding out cutscenes that were a few lines of dialogue into full conversations.

The reviewer was also very impressed with the ending, which seems to indicate that they don't just end with "and then Cloud and friends had more adventures". The impression I got was that faithful remake fans would have a fit, and that the game is more like the Resident Evil 2 Remake. The broad strokes of the story are there, but they've completely reworked it for modern audiences.

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My question is about the combat. The description in the review made it sound like FFXII's combat only without the gambits to make it tolerable. I hated FFXII's combat even with the gambits. Am I likely to hate the combat in this game too? Or is it more like Nier Automata where you're playing an action game with side characters that occasionally chip in to help?

I really need to know, because the combat is the one potential dealbreaker here. Having never played the original I'm not likely to get upset about lore, and I'm not likely to be bored by the story. That's all useless if the gameplay ain't there.

[Whoracle]

I'm mostly curious how complete the game is. I keep hearing that it's going to be released in 3 parts. How far into the game does this first part actually take you?

The review I read said the first game doesn't leave Midgar, which I gather is the tutorial city?

Part 1 is to the end of Midgar. I just met Aerith and am about 10 hours in, so the estimated ~40 hours for a mostly complete playthrough that gets cited in various reviews seems accurate to me.

The story length difference is made up by giving a massive expansion to side characters who you really don't learn much about in the original, as well as expanding out cutscenes that were a few lines of dialogue into full conversations.

The reviewer was also very impressed with the ending, which seems to indicate that they don't just end with "and then Cloud and friends had more adventures". The impression I got was that faithful remake fans would have a fit, and that the game is more like the Resident Evil 2 Remake. The broad strokes of the story are there, but they've completely reworked it for modern audiences.

Pretty much this from where I'm at ATM.

My question is about the combat. The description in the review made it sound like FFXII's combat only without the gambits to make it tolerable. I hated FFXII's combat even with the gambits. Am I likely to hate the combat in this game too? Or is it more like Nier Automata where you're playing an action game with side characters that occasionally chip in to help?

I really need to know, because the combat is the one potential dealbreaker here. Having never played the original I'm not likely to get upset about lore, and I'm not likely to be bored by the story. That's all useless if the gameplay ain't there.

More on the Nier side of things. You control one char at a time and can switch between them at will. While controlling the one char, you can make the others cast spells and use abilities in between without switching over. No Gambits, no "set a AI pattern and pray", but your party members are more or less useless apart from tanking a bit of damage and the occasional autoheal that needs a special materia slotted in order to be useful.

But the "switch control" allows for multiple playstyles and is quite interesting. If only the combat itself wouldn't be so chaotic at times.

[danzibr]

Well, I buckled and played through the first chapter.

It’s as good as I hoped. I kind of suck at combat, died to the first boss once. Turns out guarding is really important.

[Seerow]

So I'm up to Chapter 14 now, maybe 25-30 hours in. Not quite done, but heading towards the home stretch.

I'm a big fan. It really is everything I had hoped it would be in terms of keeping the feel of the original. While there's a lot of things that are changed, the things I find myself appreciating most are the little moments from the original that get kept verbatim as a nod to those who care. Also a few of the enemies that were notorious for being way strong random encounters have become boss fights in their own right, which is pretty cool (and in one particular case absolutely hilarious. Truly a fight that will be sung of for generations)

I was very nervous heading in that the Materia system would be neutered and reduce customizability of your characters. Instead, it's even better. Every weapon that each character gets you get to customize (each weapon has a separate upgrade tree), which means if you prefer a caster Tifa, or a support Barret, you have weapon options that make you better at that particular role. And you get that on top of the Materia customization, which is as deep as I could have hoped for (honestly probably deeper with a wider variety of options than you have access to at the same point storywise in the original game, which only makes sense given how many more hours you are investing to hit those story beats).

I am still not a fan of the Action RPG system. I appreciate that they added classic mode which makes your character move/guard/auto attack, so you can focus just on the ATB, but there are a lot of enemies (bosses especially) that clearly expect you to be in control to deal with their mechanics. And to compensate for that, they put classic mode on the Easy difficulty, which is tuned so easy that you honestly don't need to hit any ATB options 90% of the time, so you may as well just set the controller down and let the game fight for you, which while a fun quirk I liked about using Counter in the original game, is not really what I was looking for. There's also several materia that work based off using Guard/Dodge that are basically unusable if you are not directly controlling the character, which is unfortunate. I would really prefer if for the next part if they do Classic Mode, do a bit better balancing for it and give some way to take advantage of/use those materia.

What I've been doing to make up the difference is turning the difficulty up to normal most of the time and just dealing with the ARPG gameplay, then swapping back to classic for harder boss fights.

As far as the story stuff, I won't go into specifics, but there are some expansions that fit like a glove and feel like they should have been in the original game, some that are really fitting and I'm glad to see even though if I think too hard about it, it doesn't make logical sense.... and then a few things that are just weird and out of place, to the point where it feels like it throws off the pacing of the game significantly but got added because Square knew if they didn't have at least 40 hours of gameplay people would throw a fit about Part 1 being too short.

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Biggest offender so far has been the train graveyard. I did not need a "Save the ghost children" sideplot while trying to rush to save sector 7 from a plate collapsing on top of it. It would have been fine as a side quest during an earlier chapter, but this particular expansion of the Train Graveyard really rubbed me the wrong way.

Regardless, so much of the rest has been good enough for me to forgive it. I have cried at least twice, and there's one running subplot that has me genuinely interested/curious despite having played through the main game multiple times. Anyone sitting on the fence, it is genuinely worth it.

[Wraith]

I haven't played the remake myself, but I have been watching a streamer named AdmiralBahroo play through it - about 40 hours from start to finish - so I have seen all of it, and it's the game that might make me cave in and buy a PS4.

FF7:R takes the first ~5 hours of the original FF7 and remakes it into a 40 campaign in it's own right. I have to admit that I'm quite impressed at how the new style of gameplay doesn't make the original plot points feel arbitrarily stretched out and tedious, though at the same time you can see where the padding has been squeezed in.

That is to say, absolutely NOTHING has been left out from the original game - every location, every plot point, and every character is there, but they have also added and expanded upon it. For example, the first Reactor that gets terrorised in FF7 has about 4 different 'locations'/screens with a simple door puzzle in one, random mook fights in the second, then dialogue/a boss in the fourth - in the remake, it's expanded to have various climbing puzzles, a mini-game or two, extended dialogue, a more involved bossfight, etc etc.
It is padding at times, but it doesn't *feel* like padding as it looks like legitimate updates for a console that can accommodate them with the benefit of 20 years' worth of technology.

I haven't yet fully analysed and absorbed the implications of the ending, save that the game is teasing us that the characters "might be able to change their fate if they fight hard enough". That might *just* be a tease so I don't think its a spoiler, but it's obvious that they're trying to expand the lore and creating uncertainty around That Moment to try and make it a new surprise all over again, and I am all for it.

The wait for part 2 will be agony. My only complaint is that Part 1 is comprised of such a small amount of the original game that they will HAVE to cut out pieces from later on, otherwise FF7:R could be 8 or 10 parts long. It'll be a shame if they do because there's very little of the original that isn't either very important to the plot or otherwise iconic to the story, but I can't see them intentionally making a 400 hour game....

[Anteros]

The wait for part 2 will be agony. My only complaint is that Part 1 is comprised of such a small amount of the original game that they will HAVE to cut out pieces from later on, otherwise FF7:R could be 8 or 10 parts long. It'll be a shame if they do because there's very little of the original that isn't either very important to the plot or otherwise iconic to the story, but I can't see them intentionally making a 400 hour game....

This is my biggest hangup right now about getting the game. If it's going to come out in 3 or more parts, and they're all going to be years apart I don't know if it's worth investing in the series until it's done. I'm the type of person that's going to want to replay the game in a few years when the sequel is coming out so everything is fresh, and I don't think I care enough about FF7 to play it 3 or more times within a few years.

[Wraith]

This is my biggest hangup right now about getting the game. If it's going to come out in 3 or more parts, and they're all going to be years apart I don't know if it's worth investing in the series until it's done. I'm the type of person that's going to want to replay the game in a few years when the sequel is coming out so everything is fresh, and I don't think I care enough about FF7 to play it 3 or more times within a few years.

Especially since the PS5 is due to be released within the next year or so. Sony don't have a great record of supporting their old consoles despite consumer demand, and I'll be damned if they think I'm going to buy each of the next 3 generations of PS for one game each.

I *want* to play it now.... Or I can wait a year and collect them all on Steam where I can keep them forever. Not such a tough choice any more.

[danzibr]

Based on part 1, I’m guessing... 15 parts :P

At least part 2 is already in the works. And should come out way faster.

Serious question for those who have played it. Would you rather old school ATB combat, or what we got? I find the combat chaotic, as others have said, and have only beaten the first reactor, but I really like being able to roll around and guard and whatnot.

[Spore]

I would love to play it but

The game will be exclusive to sony for a year.

[Anteros]

A lot of the "content" in the later and middle parts of the game revolves around just running around the world map and fighting random stuff. From what I remember the game was very much story heavy at the beginning and very end. I don't think the grindy world map bits will be as stretched out as what we've seen so far.

Especially since combat seems to be almost an afterthought in the game. It really doesn't seem very good at all. Everything looks very sluggish, there's mostly frustrating chip damage where your enemies don't react to getting hit, and there seems to be only a few attack animations per character. Maybe it'll feel better when I'm playing it rather than watching someone else though.

[Seerow]

Based on part 1, I’m guessing... 15 parts :P

At least part 2 is already in the works. And should come out way faster.

Serious question for those who have played it. Would you rather old school ATB combat, or what we got? I find the combat chaotic, as others have said, and have only beaten the first reactor, but I really like being able to roll around and guard and whatnot.

I would rather ATB combat, but I have always been in the camp of preferring turn based RPGs.


Also I would not guess 15 parts. I would guess 4 as the most we would see, and expect 3. You get roughly 20 chapters per part, where each chapter is a major story beat. I don't have the time or inclination to go map out the original game for number of distinct story beats after leaving midgar, but fewer than 60 doesn't seem like an unreasonable statement.

The more interesting question to me is how far the second part will get. I like to hope it makes it to end of Disc 1, but I've seen speculation of it ending at Nibelheim.

[danzibr]

A lot of the "content" in the later and middle parts of the game revolves around just running around the world map and fighting random stuff. From what I remember the game was very much story heavy at the beginning and very end. I don't think the grindy world map bits will be as stretched out as what we've seen so far.

Especially since combat seems to be almost an afterthought in the game. It really doesn't seem very good at all. Everything looks very sluggish, there's mostly frustrating chip damage where your enemies don't react to getting hit, and there seems to be only a few attack animations per character. Maybe it'll feel better when I'm playing it rather than watching someone else though.

Doesn’t feel sluggish at all.

I would rather ATB combat, but I have always been in the camp of preferring turn based RPGs.


Also I would not guess 15 parts. I would guess 4 as the most we would see, and expect 3. You get roughly 20 chapters per part, where each chapter is a major story beat. I don't have the time or inclination to go map out the original game for number of distinct story beats after leaving midgar, but fewer than 60 doesn't seem like an unreasonable statement.

The more interesting question to me is how far the second part will get. I like to hope it makes it to end of Disc 1, but I've seen speculation of it ending at Nibelheim.

I enjoy both turn based and non. Just depends on the game.

With what they were trying to do with the remake, I don’t see how turn based would work.

As for the 15 parts bit, I was sort of joking, but... part 2 going all the way through the end of disc 1? That’s nuts. So many towns, so much story. Man, Cosmo Canyon, Shinra Mansion, Rocket Town, Wutai.

Personally I’d like to see full treatment of the whole game, no shorting anything, I hope it’s 10 parts.

[AlanBruce]

I just beat the game last night and was... satisfied.

I understand that cramming the entire game into one single disc would be a gargantuan endeavor- it's that massive of a world and lore to keep in one disc. Plus, it's more money that way.

The game offers replayability and chapter select, which is good if you're going for a platinum. Combat seems chaotic and it can be- the last battle comes to mind regarding that.

But to those saying that each character has only one move, that isn't true. I had to go through half the game to understand this, but whenever you get a new weapon, use its special ability and eventually, you will learn the skill without having the weapon equipped. Towards the end, Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and Barret have at least 8 or 10 different ways to dispose of enemies... before we even go into spells, which i didn't find using much except once or twice a battle to stagger.

[danzibr]

But to those saying that each character has only one move, that isn't true.

Whoa, hadn't heard that. This is crazy, so untrue. I'm only like 1 hour in but there's a lot of move variety already.

I really like what they did with materia. And leveling up weapons. And how fun Tifa is to play. It's kinda funny that Cloud's badass SOLDIER (or so we think) and Tifa's a bartender, but she kicks way more donkey (sorta... I made my Cloud magic focused).

[Anteros]

But to those saying that each character has only one move, that isn't true.

If you're referring to my comment, what I said was that the animations are repetitive. You might have a few different moves, but that move is going to look the same every single time you do it. I know a lot of games have this flaw, but for some reason it feels particularly egregious to me in this one. Maybe because the production value of everything else is so high.

Edit: So I got the game today, and I do have to admit that combat feels a lot less clunky when you're playing instead of just watching.

[darkdragoon]

Kind of had the perfect storm of "if this happens I'll have to chip in" and "if this happens I'll have more money but even less time" then the virus pretty much wreaked havoc on my out of town shopping as it is.

I'm not sure if this is quite what you're asking for but:
Try the Nail Bat with Cloud
Similarly I've heard off/on that Barrett's melee weapons change up some of his other skills as well

[Starbuck_II]

That dart game was so much trouble, took me like 20 tries to get 1st place.
Three tries to get 4th place (10 darts), seven to get 3rd places (sharing with Tifa, 9 darts to win), 5 to get share 2st with Wedge (8 darts to win), and then 5 to get actual 1st (7 darts to win).

It seems technically possible to do it in 6 darts, but I'm not that good.

Weird that summons can't gain AP and get stronger.

[danzibr]

That dart game was so much trouble, took me like 20 tries to get 1st place.
Three tries to get 4th place (10 darts), seven to get 3rd places (sharing with Tifa, 9 darts to win), 5 to get share 2st with Wedge (8 darts to win), and then 5 to get actual 1st (7 darts to win).

It seems technically possible to do it in 6 darts, but I'm not that good.

Weird that summons can't gain AP and get stronger.

Oh yeah, I did the dart game this morning. Also took me a good few tries. Did get it in 6 darts.

The trick is, I think, you just need to get your left stick to the right spot. Slowly zone in, fortunately it doesn't move around. Pretty sensitive though.

[One Step Two]

My advice for the Dart game is that because it has essentially two windows for a Perfect throw, always use the second window. Spend as much time compensating for the drifting aim, and make your shot. Aiming for dead centre is forgiving because even a Great throw can still land in the centre for 50 points, but you need to land 5 centre shots and a triple 17 for the 6 dart score, as opposed to the 5 triple 20 shots, and a single 1.

My overall thoughts are as follows, I will be spoiler free for those who have not finished it.

After my playthroughs of the game I am overall satisfied with the mechanics, my only real gripe is that hard mode feels artificially harder because they do not let you use any items whatsoever, invalidating the whole mechanic. Which is a shame, because unlike the original game where items were okay, but could be ignored because Materia existed, and could sometimes devolve into a dull HP trade you could brute force your way through at times. The Remake has your need to carefully weigh options, as the ATB heal mechanics of Chakra and Prayer have limitations, and the much smaller MP pools means you don't want to spam the Healing materia as often, so item use was very tactical, and a nice change. a Meta-gripe of the mechanics is that because you can reach level 50 in the game, and grind out AP for materia, which is much more varied than the original, will mean you're too powerful in future chapters, and as a result they might reset progression. It would be a little aggravating, but that's worrying about the horse before the cart.

Beyond that, the merging of the ATB with active combat is pretty smoothly done, and if you want to focus more on the turn-based strategy, applying the Classic battle setting will give you the older style gauges to pick actions, but now you can participate in manuevering enemy attacks until the bars fill, which again, is a little better than just waiting around for them as the timer ticks upwards. I think the best way to describe the mechanics is that it's like Dark Souls, but the ATB is your upward ticking Stamina to perform a special ability.

As for story, I love the expansion of Midgar, and all the nods to the expanded world of FF7 since it's initial release, the extra development for the characters is amazing, and heartbreaking all at once. My only issue is with because it does have all the expanded story, there's a few moments that feel like they are winking to camera, which can break immersion a little.

There's something for new players in an exciting game with a rich world to explore, and for returning players of the original, it's both a trip down memory lane, but showing off so much more of what had been hidden due to the limitations of the original 1997 release.

Oh, and this is my last point because it deserves to be said: Wall Market is awesome, the whole chapter, from the Gym to the Honey Bee Inn, it fantastic!