Author Topic: FFVII Remake  (Read 4240 times)

NewF

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FFVII Remake
« on: May 08, 2020, 10:57:52 AM »
Discuss.

I've already capped at lvl 50 and maxed out all my materias. Working on hard mode and fight challenges. Awesome game, but kinda pisses me off that they're releasing it in episodes. Any idea of when the next episode will be released?

Spectere

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2020, 05:43:39 PM »
It was alright. I really started to despise the combat at around the half-way mark and I'm really dubious about where they're going to go from here, but I'll definitely take episode 2 for a spin when it comes out. I've been playing through the original again to sort of compare and contrast the two experiences. So far I've generally enjoyed the story of the remake more (before chapter 18, that is) and have largely preferred the gameplay of the original.

I don't think they've made an announcement with regards to the second part. I can't imagine it taking as long as the first, since it seems like they pushed through the development hell they ended up in, and I'm sure that the engine and many of the assets they made for episode 1 will be reusable.
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NewF

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2020, 09:36:44 AM »
Yeah the combat pissed me off for a while too, but after getting used to it and adjusting (Something I REALLY had to do during the Bahamut fight), I'm much MUCH better at controlling it now and it's incredible. I just wish there was more to play in the first part. They stopped the gamer at LITERALLY the best part, where you get into the overworld and start the chocobo stuff. Or, they shoulda stopped the first part at the gold saucer. Would give us a shitload more to do while waiting for the second part.

vladgd

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #3 on: March 16, 2021, 09:20:02 PM »
With monster hunter rise coming up very soon, I probably won't be finishing this game within the week, but as of this post I got past the first reactor/first boss.

Does the combat get better? Coming from Jedi Fallen Order, the combat in this game feels...pretty rough. It feels like an action game that really wishes it was a turn based game. Maybe since it's so different I'm just not used to it in the hour I have played, so hopefully it's just a matter of getting used to it. However, I kinda really do not enjoy the combat at all in my first impressions, enough to maybe not complete the game if I can't enjoy it within the first few hours.

I have a friend who swears by it, he doesn't have the time to play a ton of games and for whatever reason he says he has a second playthrough going on hard mode, so there's gotta be something to it. I am no longer affected by the final fantasy fan service, so that isn't going to be a staying point for myself, if I was 10 years younger maybe, but I am long over having a "pretty" version of ff7.

Maybe I'm just a jaded old man, iunno, but I do still really oversell on a lot on games I like, and I tend to like a lot of stuff. Or maybe Jedi Fallen Order has combat way better than people are saying. Kinda like going from the shooting in cyberpunk to...the shooting in the outer worlds. Again, first hour of the game, but besides flashy visuals, all I see right now is a game with 3/10 combat. Going to try to get a few more hours in the next day or two and hopefully my opinion will change.

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2021, 10:37:05 AM »
Yeah, you're probably gonna have a bad time if you aren't already digging the combat system. I actually didn't mind the system for the first few hours (initial impressions were a 7/10 for me) but the longer the game dragged on the less I enjoyed it, honestly for the same reason as you.

I don't think it would be as bad if the team AI were even remotely good. The game seems to want to force you to constantly switch between characters, but that kinda falls apart when every time you swap to Barret he's in the corner staring at the wall. The fact that limit breaks can fucking miss through no fault of the player (mostly due to how "cinematic" the combat tries to be) is simply inexcusable, and even one of my friends who liked the combat enough to beat the game on hard cited that as one of his biggest annoyances. Be sure to watch boss health bars like a hawk, because bosses often become invulnerable during phase transitions and the like.

But yeah, it definitely feels like the game has a bit of an identity crisis as far as the combat system goes, and it's really unfortunate. It almost feels like they switched focus in mid-development.

The other issue is that there is a monumental leap between normal and easy. I wasn't enjoying the combat at all at around the 7-8 hour mark so I decided to bump it down, and the easy setting ends up making it way, way too bloody easy. Like, to the point where you could practically set the controller down, make yourself a sammich, eat said sammich, and pick up where you left off with no major issues.

Oh, and the game eventually likes to throw borderline unavoidable status effects at you at a certain point. Get frozen, switch to Aerith, pry her away from the wall she's staring at, heal, switch to Cloud for the DPS, get frozen, switch to Aerith, get her to stop playing with a random butterfly, heal. Rinse, repeat. Kind of another instance of the game not knowing if it wants to have action mechanics or RPG mechanics, because the way it handles i-frames and dodging just feels straight up wonky.

And there is a lot of filler. Some of the additions are pretty fantastic, but in some cases you'll find yourself walking for several minutes with minimum dialogue, wandering past arena-shaped areas that you know are going to be questing areas. This is kind of an odd approach as it just shows off an empty, unpopulated world. The Midgar section of the game has always been pretty linear so I think it would have made a lot more sense if they shuttled the player from place to place so that they couldn't see behind the scenes.

I can't emphasize how much walking there is, either, and just to pour salt in the wound you don't unlock fast travel until you no longer need it. Ugh. :|

I'm really hoping that since they have a solid focus on what they're going for (I guess? That ending was seriously fucky) that part 2 ends up being a bit more coherent, at least from a mechanics perspective. I'm sure the development hell of the first slice of FF7R didn't help matters at all. Of course, that's all kind of a moot point if it's a PS5 exclusive, as I don't have any plans to buy either of the non-Nintendo current-gen consoles.
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vladgd

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #5 on: April 27, 2022, 12:54:43 AM »
So with the acquisition of a Playstayion 5, I decided to put a good effort into ff7r for once.

First a few random notes. If you got ff7r on ps4, maybe keep it around if you wanna do it on ps5 because it's a free upgrade if you have the digital OR physical version, assuming you have a disc ps5 for said version. You do have to pay $20 for the ps5 expansion thing that is included in the standard ps5 version. This is fine, because that is an expansion priced as such, and ps5 ff7r is like $70, so if you snagged the physical ps4 version for like $20, you're still saving $30.

FAR AS I KNOW the Yuffie expansion is totally separate, you gotta select it on the title screen and they recommend you beat the game first.

AND some thing with how the synergy materia works, costs no mp or atb...so if i am cloud and I do a skill like braver or assess or a magic spell, an ally with synergy linked with any elemental materia will cast it FOR FREE on ps5 version. Otherwise I think it's unused on ps4 because your characters not in control by you have no atb to use spells anyway. Kinda dumb how that specific thing is ps5 only when there's no technical limitations behind it...but it was a factor to me not wanting to get too deep in the ps4 version.

I have about ~20 hours played, I am on Chapter 9, and I just beat Hell House.

A few positives with my experience thus far.

Everything besides the combat is really really good.

The music is excellent, the graphics even though I'm not a graphics whore are fantastic. Looking at the sky to see midgar, to Aris house, to the broken highway area before wall market are all executed very well and do the original justice in my opinion. Big attention to detail in every area, like the load icon and the graphics from the benches being the old save point graphic.

The writing and character dialogue is great. They sound more like real people and less like JRPG characbters. In the original game I really never gave a shit about Aris at all, but you really can't hate her in this game. She's adorable and has tons of personality. I really enjoyed the scenes where she tried giving Cloud a high 5 and it failing..again...and again, they made it feel natural. I pretty much like everyone except Cloud, but I don't think they could make Cloud very likable without retconning him. 

Over a year later and I can give this old post a somewhat educated reply on certain points.

As far as the story changes I enjoyed, I'll say that I love how the game actually gives you more of a reason to give a shit. In the original FF7 it felt like some important characters really weren't given enough of a build-up. Like, you're told that Tifa is your childhood friend, but the game doesn't really show them prior to the scene with them in the bar ("give me something hard"). The remake changes that significantly and does a far better job building her up (among others). There's also a few things in the original that were very subtle (so subtle that you'd be forgiven for forgetting about them even being plot points) that they ended up bringing out into the forefront.

This might be the best part about the game so far for me. There's a lot of games with character development, and I don't care about them. This game with the obvious nostalgia and love for the original, and knowing that game, it makes me want to play them in tandem to see the differences as I get through the game. For a company that made ff10 and 12 and 13...I don't think anything they've made comes close...except maybe dragon quest 11...but that's apples and oranges.

The game generally looks good and runs smoothly (seems to run at a stable 30fps on a PS4 Pro), though there is noticeable texture pop-in. I chalk that up more to me not being used to playing games with streaming assets from a hard drive on a console. Something something PC Master Race, yadda yadda. This is the first HDR-enabled game I've played (I can't for the life of me get HDR working on my PC) and the added dynamic range definitely makes a difference throughout the game.

Spoiled baby on ps5, load times are neeeeeearrrrrrrrrrrly nonexistant, and looks flawless to me. To be fair to the ps4 though, the load times always sucked on that console from the first time I got mine.

The combat system wore out its welcome at around the 12 hour mark for a lot of reasons. Prior to that I generally enjoyed it and just dealt with the little cracks that were starting to fester, but it eventually got to the point where it became a frustrating slog, so I just switched the game to easy mode in order to preserve my sanity. Let me just detail a handful of situations that I've encountered numerous times during my playthrough.

Playing the beginning of the game a third time now, that shield guy at the beginning almost wiped me because I did not understand the awkward un-intuitive combat. The materia system was great in the original, but in this game it feels more frustrating somehow. There's battles I enter, go "don't have the materia that covers this guys weakness" and I just want to reload my game. That...shouldn't be a thing, but it happens a lot.

I'm not at all opposed to a hard game, and generally welcome them (I enjoy Soulsborne games and have clocked a decent number of hours in various Monster Hunter titles), but the problem with FF7:R's battle system is that it seems to have an identity crisis. The way it's built makes it seem apparent that it doesn't know if it wants to be a straight up action game or an RPG and ends up sending moxed messages. On one hand, sure, you can dodge in real-time, but on the other hand it still feels like if the game wants to hit you with an attack, it'll hit you.

I am still on normal, but I wouldn't call this an easy game at all. Due to it being one of those games with a party, and you can only direct control 1 at a time, when someone dies, you can end up in shit creek real quick. I am beginning to understand the combat more however. Setting shortcuts is MANDATORY for making combat feel anywhere near fluid. Doing some of the combat arena stuff right now I can blast some people with Aris, snap to Cloud and plonk an ability, to snap back to Aris to move or build atb or whatever. It is a weird middle ground where it very much IS an action game, but you have to master a different skillset than the standard.

The game also seems to break previously established rules. Remember how limit breaks were intended to be a character's iconic last-ditch attack? Imagine my surprise when I found out that they can miss. I've triggered cross-slash in front of an enemy, only to have them wander off camera during the wind-up animation, leaving Cloud to aggressively attack the air. Did I mention that you're vulnerable during this wind-up animation? I've had enemies come from off-camera and start wailing on Cloud during the animation, shaving off hundreds of health points during an unskippable animation that locks him firmly in place.

Having done a crosslash limit break to an enemy, to have it casually take 3 steps back...I don't use those style limit breaks unless I have em rooted. I will not defend the system, however with the stagger system, and whatever the state before stagger is called that the enemy doesn't move, and ice magic, there's options to set up a limit break hitting.

Healing spells follow three distinct steps: playing the animation, removing MP, and restoring HP. The problem is that there's a surprisingly long gap between when the game removes MP and restores HP (feels like around half a second). If you die between those two events, the game will take your MP without restoring your health. Really nice given how much smaller the MP pools are now.

You don't even need to die, they can just bitch slap you and knock you over and you lose the mp, take the damage, and don't cast the spell. Pretty annoying, makes you think more before you act.

The game gets really stun-happy around the 12-16 hour mark. Stuns are pretty much what you'd expect: temporary debuffs that completely prevent you from moving. The problem with them is two-fold. First of all, the stun debuff is never shown on your character panel ("am I stunned for a quarter of a second or five seconds?"). Second, too many enemies can do it, and too often. It reminds me all too much of when my friends and I would attempt to clear World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade raids with three overleveled people before Blizzard patched the challenge out of old raids.

I do agree with you, but also somewhat disagree? It's annoying yes, but that to me just forces me to dodge/block/pick my spot better. The one part where having other party members feels "good" to me. Barret is stunned, auto swap to someone else to build some atb to toss him a heal or recovery or something. Being stunned doesn't mean "sit there and do nothing" in this game because you can switch to another party member, and that feels pretty fluid to me. 

On top of that, there's no rhyme or reason regarding which attacks can be blocked or dodged, and the only way of knowing is to get hit. I've seen plenty of cases where Cloud was able to block a massive attack from a giant monster, yet a normal-looking attack from a human-sized enemy would break his block (and lock him into a combo, naturally). Similarly, there are more cases than I can count of Cloud getting hit despite being noticeably outside of the range of an AoE attack. Again, if the game wants you to take damage, you're going to take damage. Period.

This part is one of the bigger problems with the games combat as I play more. I was fighting Shiva, and I would try to dodge certain attacks and it wouldn't work and I'd get hit, so I'd start blocking which works great, except that other attack you can't block. Or that one attack you can block, but then it explodes and you have to evade it. This is fine the third time you fight her and understand "block this, dodge this, don't get hit by that, block then evade that" but the game doesn't properly communicate a blockable spell from one you need to dodge. They could easily make clever use of spell graphics or sound effects to communicate this to the player as a lot of games do. Tekken 7 is a 3d fighting game, you have attacks you can sidestep, and there's attacks which can hit lateral movement. Said attacks that hit stepping, you see it with a white swoosh communicating that this attack is hitting those lateral movements. So when you get hit by it, you can see as the person getting hit, what they did, and can use that information to counter it later.

Just to give you an idea, on normal I went from having to struggle to survive due to all of the above issues piling up, to being able to mash square to win. That's not offering multiple difficulty levels, that's giving the player the option to neuter the game. Still, when faced with the choice between frustration mechanics and actually being able to enjoy the story, I chose the latter. Sue me. If I want a challenge (and a decent combat system) I'll play Soulsborne Hunter instead.

I can't make my final judgement until I finish the game, but where I am so far, the combat is beginning to click. The square button not being the death dealing mechanism you would expect, combined with the pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time feeling of juggling 3 characters at once, feels REALLY REALLY awkward. But right now I to tend to enter combat with the feeling that I sorta know what I'm doing...sorta. I think it mostly boils down to what enemies I'm fighting. I have noticed that you "pick a main and rip" through most fights. Some fights need Cloud as the point guy, and in chapter 9, Aris is point and Cloud is support. Hitting weakness to cause a stagger with Aris, to swap to Cloud rapidly get 1-2 atb and let em rip before stagger ends, is starting to feel more natural, and with that, starting to be more fun.

One more nitpick. I know Cloud is the main character, but if I have a party, just...let me walk around outside of combat with them please? If I'm using barret, I enter combat as Cloud, and switch to Barret...combat ends, and I am back to cloud...to enter a combat and have to swap back to Barret. Wouldn't it be nice if you wanted to play Tifa, and the game just let you retain control of Tifa? Sure Cloud is the MAIN character but he isn't the ONLY character...

I take back nothing I said about this game from earlier posts, as that is how I felt about the game at that time. I also felt the same way a few weeks ago when I tried playing it on ps4 again.

If I have to say what the biggest flaw to this game is right now, the combat isn't "bad" as it is EXTREMELY UNINTUITIVE. It is OFFENSIVELY unintuitive. With that, it's very hard to even grasp the "correct" way to play the game, and the game not exactly being easy, and having quite a few hard bosses (HELL HOUSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE), it's very easy to be frustrated. That combined with the fact that I am an old man who likes turn based games and final fantasy hasn't been like that since the early ps2 era. I understand why it is real time, because the kids don't like turn based, and I know more than a few people that wouldn't touch a game if it was taking turns, if that game isn't called pokemon...

TL;DR

Warming up on the game...starting to get used to it's quirks.

*edit*

I should also mention that if this were any other game I wouldn't give it another chance. The only reason I am even able to make this post is because I have wanted to play this game since this ps3 tech demo in 2005 when I was in high school. Having played the original back in the day, and having wanted a modern remake since I was literally a kid...it's nothing short of amazing that I didn't get the game on release, or even have any care to attempt to get past the combat until now.

And the funny thing is that old tech demo that looked too good to be any game I'd be playing in my lifetime doesn't even hold a candle to what they actually released...on a last generation console, let alone a modern one.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2022, 01:18:27 AM by vladgd »

Spectere

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2022, 11:11:28 AM »
Quick reminder: I've only played at launch, so it's possible that some of my gripes might have gotten fixed either through patches or the release of Intergrade. Assuming I get my hands on a PS5, I'll probably wind up replaying this before Part 2 is released, so my opinion might change at that point.

Spoiled baby on ps5, load times are neeeeeearrrrrrrrrrrly nonexistant, and looks flawless to me. To be fair to the ps4 though, the load times always sucked on that console from the first time I got mine.

Spinning rust + Unreal Engine 4 = aaaaaaaaaaa

To be fair, the load times (that is to say the amount of time it takes you to slog through the loading screen) were actually quite good compared to other PS4 games. It just took it a while to flesh out the world.

Having done a crosslash limit break to an enemy, to have it casually take 3 steps back...I don't use those style limit breaks unless I have em rooted. I will not defend the system, however with the stagger system, and whatever the state before stagger is called that the enemy doesn't move, and ice magic, there's options to set up a limit break hitting.

You can definitely set it up to make it a guarantee (and I often did that) but the inconsistency with how it worked makes it feel like a bug.

You don't even need to die, they can just bitch slap you and knock you over and you lose the mp, take the damage, and don't cast the spell. Pretty annoying, makes you think more before you act.

In a way, yes, but the enemies also have a tendency to bumrush the active character. One of the primary issues I had is that I'd set up combat with Cloud, and the second I switched to Aerith they'd shove his spiky ass aside and immediately start wailing on her.

The other issue is that the threadbare party AI that the game does have (and yes, I realize it's by design) has just enough autonomy that it tends to wander away from where you placed the character, leading to situations where I'd switch to Barret only to have him facing a wall on the other side of the arena, run him back into position, and when I switch back to Cloud he'll be on the opposite side of the arena admiring a lamp. Again, maybe this was patched, but during my playthrough it happened enough to become a pattern and made it feel like a cat herding simulator.

I do agree with you, but also somewhat disagree? It's annoying yes, but that to me just forces me to dodge/block/pick my spot better. The one part where having other party members feels "good" to me. Barret is stunned, auto swap to someone else to build some atb to toss him a heal or recovery or something. Being stunned doesn't mean "sit there and do nothing" in this game because you can switch to another party member, and that feels pretty fluid to me.

The problem I ran into is that I'd swap, only to find my other characters in seemingly random positions. Aerith was fairly well-behaved, but I'd often find Barret admiring the wall and generally being far enough out of range that the stun would wear off by the time I steer him back into the fray.

I actually distinctly remember why I bought this up in the first place. The part that this happened was where the only party members were Cloud and Aerith, and in those instances combat would open with a ~5 second stun on Cloud, followed by all of the enemies rushing Aerith. Once in a while, sure, but it got kind of formulaic. Might have just been poor luck, but still.

This part is one of the bigger problems with the games combat as I play more. I was fighting Shiva, and I would try to dodge certain attacks and it wouldn't work and I'd get hit, so I'd start blocking which works great, except that other attack you can't block. Or that one attack you can block, but then it explodes and you have to evade it. This is fine the third time you fight her and understand "block this, dodge this, don't get hit by that, block then evade that" but the game doesn't properly communicate a blockable spell from one you need to dodge. They could easily make clever use of spell graphics or sound effects to communicate this to the player as a lot of games do. Tekken 7 is a 3d fighting game, you have attacks you can sidestep, and there's attacks which can hit lateral movement. Said attacks that hit stepping, you see it with a white swoosh communicating that this attack is hitting those lateral movements. So when you get hit by it, you can see as the person getting hit, what they did, and can use that information to counter it later.

Exactly. I couldn't agree more.

That's one of the main reasons I feel that it has an identity crisis. It's kind of a weird mish-mash of classic JRPG and action RPG tropes that occasionally clash. When it's on-point it feels amazing (like I said, I really loved the combat system for the first few hours despite some of the weird little AI quirks and such) but I feel that the more difficult fights just wind up exposing those cracks.

I'm sure the second part will probably feel a lot more refined. The first one kinda got caught in development hell, after all. I'm sure that didn't do it any favors.

If I have to say what the biggest flaw to this game is right now, the combat isn't "bad" as it is EXTREMELY UNINTUITIVE. It is OFFENSIVELY unintuitive. With that, it's very hard to even grasp the "correct" way to play the game, and the game not exactly being easy, and having quite a few hard bosses (HELL HOUSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE), it's very easy to be frustrated. That combined with the fact that I am an old man who likes turn based games and final fantasy hasn't been like that since the early ps2 era. I understand why it is real time, because the kids don't like turn based, and I know more than a few people that wouldn't touch a game if it was taking turns, if that game isn't called pokemon...

At least Squeenix has been dipping their toes back into that well with stuff like Bravely Default (traditional FF-style) and Triangle Strategy (FFT-style).

Apparently Intergrade allows you to use turn-based controls for FF7:R's Normal difficulty. Have you tried messing around with that at all?

And the funny thing is that old tech demo that looked too good to be any game I'd be playing in my lifetime doesn't even hold a candle to what they actually released...on a last generation console, let alone a modern one.

Technology is a funny thing, eh?

It's going to be interesting to see what part 2 looks like, seeing as it's going to be exclusively on current gen consoles. The screenshots of part 1 on PS5/PC look noticeably better, but designing it from the ground up for newer hardware can make a pretty substantial difference.
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vladgd

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2022, 02:15:54 PM »
At least Squeenix has been dipping their toes back into that well with stuff like Bravely Default (traditional FF-style) and Triangle Strategy (FFT-style).

Yeah I picked up Triangle Strategy, and the only bad part about that game is that it came out the same day Gran Turismo 7 did...so...in the 7 hours I played that game, it is quite good.


Apparently Intergrade allows you to use turn-based controls for FF7:R's Normal difficulty. Have you tried messing around with that at all?

Not at all, being as I assume "Normal" difficulty is the way the game was intended to be played, I didn't see much point in fighting it. The combat does get better the more acclimated you get to it though, in my case it took about half the game...but I don't hate it anymore.

It's going to be interesting to see what part 2 looks like, seeing as it's going to be exclusively on current gen consoles. The screenshots of part 1 on PS5/PC look noticeably better, but designing it from the ground up for newer hardware can make a pretty substantial difference.

I just JUST came off finishing INTERmission, which is ps5 only, so I'd guess the game'll look more or less the same as the base game on ps5. I couldn't tell any difference, it all looked the same "very very good" to me.

Speaking of INTERmission, lemme summarize it without spoiling it.

It's anywhere between 4.5 and 6 hours depending on how fast you want to smoke through it. I took my time and came in at just over 6, but I could see doing it in 4 or less.

Iunno what's up with Square on THIS project making characters so damn likable, because usually they don't. They turned Yuffie from a worthless skipable character in the original to a very likable character with very meaningful story hooks to get her to join the main party in the next part.

I felt playing as cloud in combat was kind of "meh", Barret, Tifa, and Aeris were all a lot more fun in comparison. My preference towards Barret. Yuffie is really cool, she goes melee, but can throw her giant shuriken and mash square to do non elemental ranged magic attacks. She can burn an ATB to change that non elemental to whatever of the 4 elements you want, and it lasts until the battle ends or you change it. She can also block at the last moment to negate all damage it seems, but I never got good at it. They do motivate you to try with certain weapon upgrades that do things like "gain regen if you block an attack at the last moment" which is a really good idea, makes the average player want to engage with the mechanic over ignoring it.

Being a ninja, she is quite nimble. Climbing around the environment and going over balance beams and whatnot with her is a lot quicker/more effortless compared to Cloud and co. So even outside of combat she's got her own flare. Plenty of ranged things you can hit with her shuriken for puzzles and traversal, well implemented.

She has access to one party member in the 2 chapters of this DLC, and he is non controllable. You ONLY control Yuffie in this DLC. This is really nice because he actually builds up ATB on his own. Being only two characters the controls make a lot more sense. You can hit the right trigger to access his spell/ability list with ease. You can hit left trigger to do a "synchronize" which allows you to fight in tandem, and use special powered up abilities that use ATB with both characters, at the expense of building less ATB. You can freely toggle between the two modes in combat, it feels really good. He can be fully equipped like any other party member, items, materia, upgrades, limit breaks, the whole kit and kebang.

They figured out a way to get Fort Condor into the game. Remember that psuedo rts strategy minigame in the original? Well it's like a psuedo card game/strategy board game with some collectable elements...it's really fun. It's like the old card games in 8 and 9, except it's not a card game...but it has card game elements sorta. It's unique and pretty neat. I hope they put more time into it and reintroduce it into part 2, it would be cool to play randos in matches to get rewards. Also the graphics for the units evoke the rough look of the ps1 units, it's charming.

Story pulls a Half-Life in which takes place during several chapters of the main game, and you do play the "Blue Shift" or "Opposing Force" eye view of a few scenes, if you are familiar with the original Half-Life. Pretty neat, places Yuffie into being actually relevant to the story, and doesn't feel "tacked on".

Music is great..like..wanna listen to in my free time great. If you like Jazz at all...ohh boy do they have a segment of the game with a phenomenal series of jazzy tunes.

The ending was...really good. They recommend playing this DLC AFTER finishing the main game for a reason. Out of left field you are hit with a good few cutscenes that tease part 2, introduce a cameo/"ohh hey that's coming back", and also some...surprises...ohh boy. I beat the original game 2-3 times, and some of the thing's I'm seeing make me know where the game is going, but also...not. More than I could have asked for, plenty of surprises to come.

Besides wanting more, I can't really think of anything to complain about. This is a good time, made my time waiting to get a ps5 worth it. Now if only Square could make their other Final Fantasy games half as good as this...I ain't even touch FF15 if you paid me to play it
« Last Edit: May 04, 2022, 02:21:13 PM by vladgd »

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #8 on: May 04, 2022, 11:51:26 PM »
Oh jeez, I thought Interwhatever was just a PS5 port with moar graffix and a few little things added. I didn't realize it had DLC with that much extra content. Definitely something to look forward to if I manage to get my hands on a console.

Character development in general has been one of the best parts of FF7R so far, though I do kinda think they blew their Sephiroth load a bit too quickly and too often. As you mentioned, the way they handled Aerith is significantly better than classic FF7, so I'm looking forward to their treatment of Yuffie. It's been a while since I did a full play through of the OG version, but I remember being more annoyed than enamored by the spontaneous diversion to Wutai, so hopefully that part is handled a bit more gracefully if they decide to migrate that over.

I kinda feel that if I do wind up winning the console lottery I may hold off on this until part 2 is on the horizon. Kinda seems appropriate to refresh myself on the FF7R lore before jumping into the next title, eh?

Also, speaking of the PS5: is there any reason to hang onto my PS4 Pro if I get a PS5? Have you noticed any compatibility issues so far?

I ain't even touch FF15 if you paid me to play it

I enjoyed what I played of FF15, but it's so wildly different that I kinda feel that they should have spun it off from the mainline FF series.
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vladgd

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #9 on: May 12, 2022, 01:22:53 PM »
Oh jeez, I thought Interwhatever was just a PS5 port with moar graffix and a few little things added. I didn't realize it had DLC with that much extra content. Definitely something to look forward to if I manage to get my hands on a console.

It comes with the ps5 version, but you have to buy a dlc if you're upgrading from a ps4 version. Considering ps5 games cost more money...seems fair enough to me.

Character development in general has been one of the best parts of FF7R so far, though I do kinda think they blew their Sephiroth load a bit too quickly and too often. As you mentioned, the way they handled Aerith is significantly better than classic FF7, so I'm looking forward to their treatment of Yuffie. It's been a while since I did a full play through of the OG version, but I remember being more annoyed than enamored by the spontaneous diversion to Wutai, so hopefully that part is handled a bit more gracefully if they decide to migrate that over.

I recall replaying the ps4 port of the original ff7 and not even doing wutai until late game, didn't even know it was optional for the most part.


I kinda feel that if I do wind up winning the console lottery I may hold off on this until part 2 is on the horizon. Kinda seems appropriate to refresh myself on the FF7R lore before jumping into the next title, eh?

I mean you can, but who's to say when the next part releases, on the ps7? I think giving the original a playthrough up to the end of whichever part is a fun idea so you can see all the little things you thought they just made up, but ended up being in the original. Like Johnny, I didn't even remember he was in the original.

Also, speaking of the PS5: is there any reason to hang onto my PS4 Pro if I get a PS5? Have you noticed any compatibility issues so far?

Honestly, aside from transferring your saves and whatnot over...I don't think so? I've been able to throw in various ps4 discs like mgsv ground zeros, the wipeout collection, ff7r (obviously), no issues. Going digital however...same thing, stuff on your psn seems to work fine. Like the ps4 ff7 original port, burnout paradise, ff8 remaster, downloads/works fine.

I'm not a fan of throwing out old consoles, but in my case it seems to do all what the ps4 can, only better.

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #10 on: May 17, 2022, 11:22:57 AM »
I recall replaying the ps4 port of the original ff7 and not even doing wutai until late game, didn't even know it was optional for the most part.

I only knew about it because I was a child of the Internet and had access to GameFAQs (and because my friend, who played the phuck out of the PSX version, told me about Yuffie and Wutai).

I mean you can, but who's to say when the next part releases, on the ps7?

Hah. Touché, friend.

I think giving the original a playthrough up to the end of whichever part is a fun idea so you can see all the little things you thought they just made up, but ended up being in the original. Like Johnny, I didn't even remember he was in the original.

I actually wound up doing that in the time leading up to FF7R:1's release, so I was able to pick out a loooooot of changes and such.

Johnny is a bit of an odd one, since he's ever-present but not quite as noticeable as he is in the Remake. If we're being honest, I think I prefer him being an ever-present background character. :P

Honestly, aside from transferring your saves and whatnot over...I don't think so? I've been able to throw in various ps4 discs like mgsv ground zeros, the wipeout collection, ff7r (obviously), no issues. Going digital however...same thing, stuff on your psn seems to work fine. Like the ps4 ff7 original port, burnout paradise, ff8 remaster, downloads/works fine.

I'm not a fan of throwing out old consoles, but in my case it seems to do all what the ps4 can, only better.

Cool, thanks.

I don't think I'd really feel bad about selling off the PS4 (or maybe I'll just exchange it for my old PS3, which my dad is currently using). The PS4/XB1 was kind of a lame duck generation in a lot of ways. The CPUs were ungodly weak even for the time (seriously, AMD's cores from that era are Pentium 4 levels of bad), so they were capable of shiny graphics with minimal substance, and they were using HDDs when SSDs were getting popular. It was an upgrade from the previous generation, but considering the previous generation was from 2005/2006 that's a pretty low bar to clear.

The PS5/XBS, on the other hand, are actually fantastic PC alternatives. Zen 2 paired with a solid GPU, NVMe SSDs, tons of RAM and cores…it's basically the perfect blend of components for a living room box.

Honestly, if Microsoft ever partnered up with Valve to bring Steam to the Xbox Series X I'd spend a lot more time in the living room. That thing would make a solid Steam Machine.
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vladgd

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #11 on: May 20, 2022, 09:18:48 PM »
The PS5/XBS, on the other hand, are actually fantastic PC alternatives. Zen 2 paired with a solid GPU, NVMe SSDs, tons of RAM and cores…it's basically the perfect blend of components for a living room box.

I mean right now my ps5 loads games faster than my pc does on my samsung m.2 ssd...like from the ps5 dashboard I can be LOADED IN GAME in death stranding OR ff7r by the time you can count to 10. So booting up the game, skipping to the title screen, selecting your file to load, loading the game and being loaded ready to play, 10 seconds. It's a novelty I am still impressed with and I applaud. Load times last generation seemed to be the worst they've been yet, and seeing it do a 180 is very satisfying.

Honestly, if Microsoft ever partnered up with Valve to bring Steam to the Xbox Series X I'd spend a lot more time in the living room. That thing would make a solid Steam Machine.

I really hope not. Any reason for windows OS to have a gaming focused competitor is a good thing. I await the day valve has a proper OS that you can game on without using windows. 

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Re: FFVII Remake
« Reply #12 on: May 21, 2022, 01:14:26 AM »
I mean right now my ps5 loads games faster than my pc does on my samsung m.2 ssd...like from the ps5 dashboard I can be LOADED IN GAME in death stranding OR ff7r by the time you can count to 10. So booting up the game, skipping to the title screen, selecting your file to load, loading the game and being loaded ready to play, 10 seconds. It's a novelty I am still impressed with and I applaud. Load times last generation seemed to be the worst they've been yet, and seeing it do a 180 is very satisfying.

The way they do it is a bit cheaty, but it's a fantastic approach for games systems. When you switch games on both the Xbox Series and PS5, the OS creates a save state and just loads that. The only time it actually loads the full game is when the game updates, the game crashes, or if you haven't played it in so long that it just wipes it from the cache.

It's pretty trivial to do that on a platform that uses game VMs and a fixed architecture. Features like that are unlikely to come to a PC because devs can't rely on the environment being the same twice in a row.

I really hope not. Any reason for windows OS to have a gaming focused competitor is a good thing. I await the day valve has a proper OS that you can game on without using windows. 

Valve already tried doing it and it didn't go particularly well. Contrary to popular belief, the issues with Linux gaming historically go far beyond devs simply not porting their games. The architecture is a complete mess, to the point where video card drivers have to bypass half of Xorg in order to offer acceptable performance. There's a replacement for Xorg called Wayland, but in my experience it still simply work well enough to be a definitive replacement.

In more recent times, the Steam Deck is another attempt by Valve to push Linux adoption. Everyone I know who bought a Steam Deck eventually loaded Windows on it, though.

Oh, then there's the fact that Steam still requires a messy multilib installation to run on Linux since they refuse to release a native 64-bit version of it, forcing you to maintain a ton of 32-bit libraries on your system even if you're only planning to run 64-bit games. Similarly, the Mac build of Steam is not a universal app, so you need to use Rosetta 2 to run it on ARM Macs. If they truly give a damn about non-Windows platforms, they have a weird way of showing it.
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