Final Fantasy VII REMAKE - General News Thread

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It's happening? A FFVII Remake is happening?

  • Yes

    Votes: 12 66.7%
  • No

    Votes: 6 33.3%

  • Total voters
    18
  • Poll closed .

Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
Since I live in Australia I was able to play the game early before the actual release date, as such I finished the game a few days ago. I posted some of my impressions on Twitter after I did so I'll post some of that here.



I beat FFVII Remake! Took around 37 hours with me doing most of the sidequest stuff I could find, not all of them but a large chunk of them, also spent a lot of time capturing screenshots/video. Overall I liked the game but have HUGE issues with it too My rating: 7/10.

FF7R has fantastic main story cutscene direction and the main cast character models all look great, the music is excellent and the way the characters are portrayed and their interactions feels faithful to the original (except for a few characters). The combat has me conflicted because in some parts it really shines and is fun and good, while in others it just drags on and feels needlessly repetitive for the sake of it. It's really flashy looking but it's very simple, to the point where it feels really restrictive. Some of the boss fights are great, and some are really great, while others are really bad, and regular mob fights rank on the bottom of the barrel of mindless button mashing and occasional item use. When there's more than 3 enemies in a fight it just feels annoying to play.

The core combat doesn't really evolve at all much from when you first start playing as a character, at most you give them different abilities or magic, but their actual basic actions for attacks, dodges, blocking is the same throughout the game. You can give them the Deadly Dodge materia to give them an extra attack after a dodge, or the Parry materia which you get way too late in the game, but otherwise it feels like very little changes besides some abilities/magic. The game is designed in a way where it is impossible to negate damage all together, you take damage from blocking, and lack of i-frames on dodge roll means you take damage from dodging no matter what, even doing counters has you take some chip damage here and there.

A lot of my fights with Cloud on regular mobs just revolved around me using Focused Thrust which I had on L1+Square then following up with basic attack button mashing also just on Square, I had ATB boosting things on so never really worried about not having ATB to use. You can always be knocked out of an ATB input because there is no i-frames even when having input a command, which discourages using Cure-Cura-Curaga to heal since their animation takes longer than just using Potions to heal with.

There is also ways of boosting the effectiveness of regular healing items, so basic Potions while getting outclassed early on can still be useful with that boost. I don't think I used any items besides Potions line, Ethers and Phoenix Down to revive the AI members. Speaking of the AI, it's just not good, they barely do anything and you have to constantly baby sit them, they won't even use their ATB commands as AI so their ATB charges are always just sitting there, and there is no customization of AI, even fixed. The most is Auto-Cure.

The weapon abilities you get are also really limited, you only have around 6 weapons per character and so only about 6 abilities per character are unlocked, and each weapon type has basically the same combo attacks, save for a few with some unique gimmick ability. I think I only unlocked 1 new Limit Break for Cloud and didn't find any new Limit Breaks for anyone else yet, aside from Refocus which is Limit Break for anyone which it gives you 3 ATB bars instead of 2 so you get more ATB charges more quicker.

The lack of a Jump button was felt throughout my whole playthrough, so many times I just wanted to jump over something to get to it but instead had to run all the way around instead, or in combat to reach enemies better instead of the very clunky auto jump on aerial attacks. The aerial combat doesn't change or evolve at all the entire game, you have the same exact aerial attacks at the start of the game as you do by the end, for Cloud just a 3 hit combo and Tifa her aerial attacks, all you can do for it is boost aerial attack damage output. For Aerith gameplay you just need to hold down Square and she'll attack in a very long autoattack string, her magic stat is quite high and her attacks do magic damage so you can just boost that stat on her and she'll wreck things just as easily as Cloud can on basic attacks.

Red XIII is a guest party member only, he doesn't even show up in the menu, he'll do his own thing during gameplay and you cannot give him any commands whatsoever, not even like 1 small command.

The times FF7R recreates things from the original is really great, character moments feel emotional when they should and the main story scenes are well directed, but the new story stuff especially at the very end is is completely trash, typical Nomura bullshit. It now makes sense why they showed so little of FF7R besides the Bombing mission for years, it's because the massive change that happens in the end completely changes the entire context of what this game is supposed to be. It's hard to even say why without giving spoilers.

7R's graphics is such a mixed bag, the main cutscenes look really polished and fantastic, but the environments especially at day look literally PS3/PS2 tier with low res textures/low poly assets. The character models all look great, but areas feel dated and use 2D image BG.




The overall game structure is incredibly linear, it constantly gates you into only doing what the game wants you to do so you can hardly just go run around to do your own thing outside of the sidequest chapters, and even then it's just relegated to very specific corridors. FF7R was touted as "expanding midgar" but it hardly feels expanded at all, it feels just as linear if not moreso than the original, the "new" areas are mostly just generic looking factory areas with repeated assets everywhere, or some padded out hallway sections. Nearly every Chapter in FF7R is more linear and repetitive than Chapter 13 in FFXV and more padded out with mindless busywork, and most Chapters even visually look like Chapter 13 in XV.

The sidequests are all generic fetch quests or monster fight quests. There isn't even any real lore or worldbuilding added to these sidequests, it's just "find my cats, beat these rats, find these kids, beat this monsters", they feel completely irrelevant to anything in 7R. There is however some minor worldbuilding added in some CG cutscenes regarding the Cetra, really only so much as just showing them and their way of life for a few seconds, but that's like, it. Whatever Shinra characters were in the original aren't even really expanded on.

There is also a whole bunch of things that happen in the game that won't make sense to you unless you have already played FF7 before, so anyone playing the Remake who has not played the original is going to be completely lost and clueless as to what just happened. Aerith and Tifa get some backstory, and Cloud get some minor backstory details, but Barret has next to no backstory at all in FF7R, we don't know anything about him other than he's leader of his own Avalanche splinter branch and that he's Marlene's "dad".

Unless you played the original FF7 then you don't get any info on Barret's backstory, you don't even find out how he got his gunarm in FF7R. There is also scenes later on of a character that anyone who hasn't played FF7 and knows noting about it won't even know who that is. Lots of scenes that happened later on in the original FF7 are now put into this part of the story in Midgar for FF7R, and the entire ending of FF7R changes the entire context of 7R going forward, making the "Remake" name feel misleading or deliberately obscuring the truth.

I'll probably have more thoughts on it later on, but for now I just want to say I'm not happy with the story changes at the end at all, they're inherently for the worst, but the parts of FF7R that recreated the original were all great. FF7R will be a divisive game for sure.

I should note I played with Japanese dub, and one thing that irked me was how off the Eng subs were from the Japanese dub, even as a localization they changed things way too much in that it changes how characters can be perceived, my perception is based on the Japanese dub. Like the characters in the English script swear a lot but they almost never do in the Japanese one, even so much as a "くそ/kuso" besides here and there. Things like one character saying "we can't take a break yet" in JP being "we still might die" in ENG, it changes a lot.

It happens throughout the game and I don't know why they took so many liberties with the script to change it THAT much, even for a localization which I'm mostly fine with making changes, this feels too overly changed from the Japanese script it's supposed to be based on. At one point Cloud says "come at be, bitch" in English, but he doesn't even say anything remotely close to that in the Japanese dialog.

Mitsunori Takahashi isn't credited as part of the battle system for FF7R for the main game, however he is only mentioned as part of "Prototype game design" alongside a handful of other people which is completely separated from the rest of the core 7R staff or combat staff.

Hard mode in FF7R is only unlocked after beating the game first on either Classic, Easy or Normal. Hard mode itself can only be used through Chapter select, you retain the level you have when you beat the game, you cannot use items and only HP is restored at rest spots.


Overall my impression is that FF7 Remake is a 7/10, I would have docked it more points but polish on the main story cutscene direction bumped it up for me personally.

FF7 Remake is not even really a "remake", instead it's actually a sequel, a sequel in an alternate timeline to the OG FF7 and the Compilation of FF7. In FF7 all of FF7 and the Comp had happened in what's implied to be an alternate timeline, and Sephiroth is somehow traveling to the FF7R one trying to change events, but the Whispers, the time ghosts are there to try and "make sure" that the flow of destiny is preserved to what happened in OG FF7, but the thing is things change and they change a lot.

7R literally shows clips from Advent Children in it, as in the actual footage from Advent children, not even remade CG versions of it, but just clips directly taken from the movie and showed as "visions" at different parts. They also do a shot for shot remake of the end of Crisis Core with Zack's last stand, but the difference this time is Zack doesn't die, he lives.
The final boss is Sephiroth in an advent children tier fight sequence, and right before him you fight Whispers who have merged into 3 different bosses, who then merge to become a Bahamut, Red XIII is shown a vision of the ending of FF7/the CG used at the start of Advent Children of him running with his cubs, and he says that that vision is the future where they fail, which implies that the original FF7 is the BAD END, and that the current FF7R is them trying to defy fate by fighting the whispers so that they are no longer bound by what happened in the original. Sephiroth even propositions Cloud to join him in defying destiny together. It is extremely convoluted for no reason, and this whole thing with "destiny" is pure FF13 Toriyama shit too.

Honestly it's funny how DOTF was also going to have alt timeline where the characters defy fate and have a big spectacle fight against Bahamut and buildings getting destroyed and shit, and then that's exactly what the end of FF7R is, and I do wonder if that similarity is part of why DOTF got cancelled since it would have released before 7R, and SE possibly thought it would have undermined their efforts in FF7R.

But man, the ending of FF7R is terrible from a story perspective and for what it means for future FF7R games, it may look cool, but that's all it is.
 
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FFChocobo18

Warrior of Light
Jan 9, 2017
1,045
1,514
Since I live in Australia I was able to play the game early before the actual release date, as such I finished the game a few days ago. I posted some of my impressions on Twitter after I did so I'll post some of that here.



I beat FFVII Remake! Took around 37 hours with me doing most of the sidequest stuff I could find, not all of them but a large chunk of them, also spent a lot of time capturing screenshots/video. Overall I liked the game but have HUGE issues with it too My rating: 7/10.

FF7R has fantastic main story cutscene direction and the main cast character models all look great, the music is excellent and the way the characters are portrayed and their interactions feels faithful to the original (except for a few characters). The combat has me conflicted because in some parts it really shines and is fun and good, while in others it just drags on and feels needlessly repetitive for the sake of it. It's really flashy looking but it's very simple, to the point where it feels really restrictive. Some of the boss fights are great, and some are really great, while others are really bad, and regular mob fights rank on the bottom of the barrel of mindless button mashing and occasional item use. When there's more than 3 enemies in a fight it just feels annoying to play.

The core combat doesn't really evolve at all much from when you first start playing as a character, at most you give them different abilities or magic, but their actual basic actions for attacks, dodges, blocking is the same throughout the game. You can give them the Deadly Dodge materia to give them an extra attack after a dodge, or the Parry materia which you get way too late in the game, but otherwise it feels like very little changes besides some abilities/magic. The game is designed in a way where it is impossible to negate damage all together, you take damage from blocking, and lack of i-frames on dodge roll means you take damage from dodging no matter what, even doing counters has you take some chip damage here and there.

A lot of my fights with Cloud on regular mobs just revolved around me using Focused Thrust which I had on L1+Square then following up with basic attack button mashing also just on Square, I had ATB boosting things on so never really worried about not having ATB to use. You can always be knocked out of an ATB input because there is no i-frames even when having input a command, which discourages using Cure-Cura-Curaga to heal since their animation takes longer than just using Potions to heal with.

There is also ways of boosting the effectiveness of regular healing items, so basic Potions while getting outclassed early on can still be useful with that boost. I don't think I used any items besides Potions line, Ethers and Phoenix Down to revive the AI members. Speaking of the AI, it's just not good, they barely do anything and you have to constantly baby sit them, they won't even use their ATB commands as AI so their ATB charges are always just sitting there, and there is no customization of AI, even fixed. The most is Auto-Cure.

The weapon abilities you get are also really limited, you only have around 6 weapons per character and so only about 6 abilities per character are unlocked, and each weapon type has basically the same combo attacks, save for a few with some unique gimmick ability. I think I only unlocked 1 new Limit Break for Cloud and didn't find any new Limit Breaks for anyone else yet, aside from Refocus which is Limit Break for anyone which it gives you 3 ATB bars instead of 2 so you get more ATB charges more quicker.

The lack of a Jump button was felt throughout my whole playthrough, so many times I just wanted to jump over something to get to it but instead had to run all the way around instead, or in combat to reach enemies better instead of the very clunky auto jump on aerial attacks. The aerial combat doesn't change or evolve at all the entire game, you have the same exact aerial attacks at the start of the game as you do by the end, for Cloud just a 3 hit combo and Tifa her aerial attacks, all you can do for it is boost aerial attack damage output. For Aerith gameplay you just need to hold down Square and she'll attack in a very long autoattack string, her magic stat is quite high and her attacks do magic damage so you can just boost that stat on her and she'll wreck things just as easily as Cloud can on basic attacks.

Red XIII is a guest party member only, he doesn't even show up in the menu, he'll do his own thing during gameplay and you cannot give him any commands whatsoever, not even like 1 small command.

The times FF7R recreates things from the original is really great, character moments feel emotional when they should and the main story scenes are well directed, but the new story stuff especially at the very end is is completely trash, typical Nomura bullshit. It now makes sense why they showed so little of FF7R besides the Bombing mission for years, it's because the massive change that happens in the end completely changes the entire context of what this game is supposed to be. It's hard to even say why without giving spoilers.

7R's graphics is such a mixed bag, the main cutscenes look really polished and fantastic, but the environments especially at day look literally PS3/PS2 tier with low res textures/low poly assets. The character models all look great, but areas feel dated and use 2D image BG.




The overall game structure is incredibly linear, it constantly gates you into only doing what the game wants you to do so you can hardly just go run around to do your own thing outside of the sidequest chapters, and even then it's just relegated to very specific corridors. FF7R was touted as "expanding midgar" but it hardly feels expanded at all, it feels just as linear if not moreso than the original, the "new" areas are mostly just generic looking factory areas with repeated assets everywhere, or some padded out hallway sections. Nearly every Chapter in FF7R is more linear and repetitive than Chapter 13 in FFXV and more padded out with mindless busywork, and most Chapters even visually look like Chapter 13 in XV.

The sidequests are all generic fetch quests or monster fight quests. There isn't even any real lore or worldbuilding added to these sidequests, it's just "find my cats, beat these rats, find these kids, beat this monsters", they feel completely irrelevant to anything in 7R. There is however some minor worldbuilding added in some CG cutscenes regarding the Cetra, really only so much as just showing them and their way of life for a few seconds, but that's like, it. Whatever Shinra characters were in the original aren't even really expanded on.

There is also a whole bunch of things that happen in the game that won't make sense to you unless you have already played FF7 before, so anyone playing the Remake who has not played the original is going to be completely lost and clueless as to what just happened. Aerith and Tifa get some backstory, and Cloud get some minor backstory details, but Barret has next to no backstory at all in FF7R, we don't know anything about him other than he's leader of his own Avalanche splinter branch and that he's Marlene's "dad".

Unless you played the original FF7 then you don't get any info on Barret's backstory, you don't even find out how he got his gunarm in FF7R. There is also scenes later on of a character that anyone who hasn't played FF7 and knows noting about it won't even know who that is. Lots of scenes that happened later on in the original FF7 are now put into this part of the story in Midgar for FF7R, and the entire ending of FF7R changes the entire context of 7R going forward, making the "Remake" name feel misleading or deliberately obscuring the truth.

I'll probably have more thoughts on it later on, but for now I just want to say I'm not happy with the story changes at the end at all, they're inherently for the worst, but the parts of FF7R that recreated the original were all great. FF7R will be a divisive game for sure.

I should note I played with Japanese dub, and one thing that irked me was how off the Eng subs were from the Japanese dub, even as a localization they changed things way too much in that it changes how characters can be perceived, my perception is based on the Japanese dub. Like the characters in the English script swear a lot but they almost never do in the Japanese one, even so much as a "くそ/kuso" besides here and there. Things like one character saying "we can't take a break yet" in JP being "we still might die" in ENG, it changes a lot.

It happens throughout the game and I don't know why they took so many liberties with the script to change it THAT much, even for a localization which I'm mostly fine with making changes, this feels too overly changed from the Japanese script it's supposed to be based on. At one point Cloud says "come at be, bitch" in English, but he doesn't even say anything remotely close to that in the Japanese dialog.

Mitsunori Takahashi isn't credited as part of the battle system for FF7R for the main game, however he is only mentioned as part of "Prototype game design" alongside a handful of other people which is completely separated from the rest of the core 7R staff or combat staff.

Hard mode in FF7R is only unlocked after beating the game first on either Classic, Easy or Normal. Hard mode itself can only be used through Chapter select, you retain the level you have when you beat the game, you cannot use items and only HP is restored at rest spots.


Overall my impression is that FF7 Remake is a 7/10, I would have docked it more points but polish on the main story cutscene direction bumped it up for me personally.

FF7 Remake is not even really a "remake", instead it's actually a sequel, a sequel in an alternate timeline to the OG FF7 and the Compilation of FF7. In FF7 all of FF7 and the Comp had happened in what's implied to be an alternate timeline, and Sephiroth is somehow traveling to the FF7R one trying to change events, but the Whispers, the time ghosts are there to try and "make sure" that the flow of destiny is preserved to what happened in OG FF7, but the thing is things change and they change a lot.

7R literally shows clips from Advent Children in it, as in the actual footage from Advent children, not even remade CG versions of it, but just clips directly taken from the movie and showed as "visions" at different parts. They also do a shot for shot remake of the end of Crisis Core with Zack's last stand, but the difference this time is Zack doesn't die, he lives.
The final boss is Sephiroth in an advent children tier fight sequence, and right before him you fight Whispers who have merged into 3 different bosses, who then merge to become a Bahamut, Red XIII is shown a vision of the ending of FF7/the CG used at the start of Advent Children of him running with his cubs, and he says that that vision is the future where they fail, which implies that the original FF7 is the BAD END, and that the current FF7R is them trying to defy fate by fighting the whispers so that they are no longer bound by what happened in the original. Sephiroth even propositions Cloud to join him in defying destiny together. It is extremely convoluted for no reason, and this whole thing with "destiny" is pure FF13 Toriyama shit too.

Honestly it's funny how DOTF was also going to have alt timeline where the characters defy fate and have a big spectacle fight against Bahamut and buildings getting destroyed and shit, and then that's exactly what the end of FF7R is, and I do wonder if that similarity is part of why DOTF got cancelled since it would have released before 7R, and SE possibly thought it would have undermined their efforts in FF7R.

But man, the ending of FF7R is terrible from a story perspective and for what it means for future FF7R games, it may look cool, but that's all it is.




I know I said wasn't going to let myself get spoiled, but I was curious about the ending of the story, so I did peek at this, and oh lord, the Watchmen of Fate


remind me of the Vallites from Fire Emblem: Fates, especially it's Revelation route, I'm not getting good vibes from them, as I don't like Fire Emblem; Fates' story, and if they somehow make them or some form of them the final boss of the final entry, I won't be happy, KH should also stay in KH. I prefer DOTF over what I read here, and that was more entertaining than VII:R doing this in an already established story.
 
Likes: Storm

Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
I know I said wasn't going to let myself get spoiled, but I was curious about the ending of the story, so I did peek at this, and oh lord, the Watchmen of Fate


remind me of the Vallites from Fire Emblem: Fates, especially it's Revelation route, I'm not getting good vibes from them, as I don't like Fire Emblem; Fates' story, and if they somehow make them or some form of them the final boss of the final entry, I won't be happy, KH should also stay in KH. I prefer DOTF over what I read here, and that was more entertaining than VII:R doing this in an already established story.
Yeah I don't think any of this time ghost stuff is going to go over well, and even knowing the things in DOTF it still doesn't feel as bad as what I'm seeing happening here in 7R's ending.

There are some games where multiple timelines and alternate events are generally accepted, like in Nier Automata or in 999 or so on, even FFXV had established it had multiple timelines before it even released with the Omen trailer stuff, however even an aside from that, a theme in FFXV itself was accepting your fate/destiny, so doing an inverse of that feels more like it's bouncing off an established theme already which is why even if I didn't personally ask for it I wasn't against them doing the DOTF stuff. But in FF7 there was never a theme of fate or destiny to begin with which is why it feels so out of place being shoehorned in here and especially more egregious.

Especially after all that talk of them being faithful to the original and only putting in changes like expanding on things that already existed like Shinra or Avalanche.
 

NikoZ

PSICOM Soldier
Feb 18, 2018
87
125
24
Honestly I can see there being 2 remaining games at most AND can see them both coming before 2025 ends, maybe 2026. If you leave your cynicism at the door, it's pretty easy to imagine!
 
Likes: andrzejp90

ash

PSICOM Soldier
Feb 18, 2018
82
97
Honestly I can see there being 2 remaining games at most AND can see them both coming before 2025 ends, maybe 2026. If you leave your cynicism at the door, it's pretty easy to imagine!
That makes the most sense to me too! I didn't play the game yet (I am unable to), but I know where it ends. Given those circumstances, I can see the game being split into 3 parts.
 
Feb 19, 2018
582
1,108
31
Playing through the Remake atm and after having almost made it to the halfway point I see plenty of good in the game but also some of the things that I was afraid of before release have been confirmed. So the good things are that the characters and their interactions have been done amazingly so far. The content within the main story quests is also great and varied enough that it feels like you're actually on an adventure where anything can happen rather than just going from one fight to the next in a rinse and repeat cycle of gameplay. The bosses so far have all had a really distinct feeling to them that helps set them apart from each other and makes them feel like a truly important event in the story. It also goes without saying that the music is one of the best parts of the game. So overall the main event stuff is handled phenomenally. The combat for the most part is ok when you get the hang of it and switch often but I think that's where the problems start coming up.

I feel like combat suffers greatly from the lack of i-frames in dodging and a general lack of any really good defensive options. I don't wanna hear the "it's a repositioning tool" argument because that's an extremely redundant point as all dodges are repositioning tools with the purpose of said tool being to avoid damage. So since there's no point in the dodging mechanic I hardly use it and the fights often devolve in potion spamming which you can easily stock up on since dodging serves no viable purpose. Blocking during boss fights is also useless, you're better off just taking the damage and popping potions/cure or switching to different character to keep up the assault. Not even Cloud's counter block in Punisher mode stops incoming damage. The game just seems to punish you left and right for playing defensively so I'm not sure why they went out of their way to include said defensive options.

The camera is also a huge problem. It's better in wider areas but with how frequently the game stuffs you into tight corridors and tiny rooms for fights one would think that they would make sure the camera doesn't spaz out so bad in those areas. It's too often that I end up not even being able to see what's going on in a fight. Another point that bothers me but is alleviated by the character switching is that none of the characters seem to evolve combat wise. Magic is always the standard projectile attack, everyone's combos are static and never evolve, and the different weapon abilities seem to be trickling in really slowly. I'm almost at the halfway point of the game and Cloud still hasn't gained a single new ability. The weapons themselves don't offer any change to combat either like unique combos that are exclusive to them or maybe unique effects that set them apart from each other. It all just feels very samey and the combat hasn't evolved enough since the first hour. The lock-on mechanic is also a nightmare to manage in large group fights because whenever I try to adjust the camera to face the enemy it just starts bouncing around between everything on screen with a pulse. It's super jarring. Lastly, thank the lord for Barret because the aerial combat is a nightmare. The auto jump is so finicky and temperamental that it's just not fun to even attempt. Not to mention that enemies can fly away from you after you finally get in the air with them so you're just left punching the air while the enemy flies away.

Overall I'm still enjoying the game but the problems that it does have bear mentioning in my utmost honest opinion cuz it really does put a wrench in the fun when the game becomes hard to manage or devolves into a repetitive cycle. Speaking of which, the sidequests are nothing to write home about either but since they're not a frequent thing they don't wear out their welcome before the game tells you to get back to the main story. On the plus side though, I love the mini games so far. Whoever was in charge of those deserves a raise, A+ side content.

Edit: Ok so I sat down to play again and looked through menus. Found an option to change how lock-on switching works so that it's not tied to the camera stick anymore and instead is operated by pressing the right and left buttons on the d-pad. It's works so much better now and I'm honestly wondering why the default method is even a thing cuz it is downright horrible in how it functions.
 
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Guitar (pseudo)God

Blitzball Champion
Aug 14, 2016
519
649
All over
I'm at Chapter 8. I'm playing it blind; I didn't read any spoilers. So far I'm enjoying my time with the game.

  • Cutscene direction, character models, and the production values are off-the-charts great. Yes, there are some texture issues that are noticeable, but these are only mildly distracting at worst. When scaling the heights of Midgar can trigger my vertigo, you know they've done something right in immersing the player in this world.
  • The music, the use of motifs in scene composition -- wow. I don't think I've ever played a game that does it better.
  • I just can't get the hang of the battle system. Every time I think I have it, the game does something to annoy me. For instance
    in the fight against Roche, it's pretty obvious that the game wants you to dodge his warp attacks. Okay, cool. But when I'm attacking and see the red prompt, I hit the dodge button. Nothing, unless the attack animation has finished. I then just say the hell with it and start a rhythmic Square, Square, Circle, which sees me through the rest of the fight.
  • I had my issues with FFXV's camera, but this is even worse. The aforementioned fight, I was blindly hitting my inputs because the goddamn enemy was completely offscreen. The game seems to treat even hard lock-ons as a suggestion. There are many numerous multi-part boss fights where this gets really annoying. "No game, I wanted to attack the left leg. Why the hell am I now attacking the main body?"
  • If ever a game needed a FFXII-style gambit system, it was this one. The party AI is so, so stupid. Example -- if I'm playing as Cloud or Tifa, why isn't Barrett attacking the long-range enemies? Okay, fine -- the game wants me to play as Barrett. Then why won't the game let me target the cannons or whatever when I swing the camera around? (See previous complaint).
  • These enemies -- especially bosses -- are really spongey, often dragging out encounters far longer than necessary. I get it -- there's a stagger mechanic that you're supposed to use. The implementation -- well it doesn't help that there's so much going on screen you can't tell what are effects and what are actual attacks.
  • I've seen complaints that the game is linear like FFXIII, but I don't mind it here. The original was very linear as well - at least this game offers SOME down-time with side quests, some optional story beats. And I very much liked the inclusion of NPCs and relevant dialog.
  • I could write a book about my feelings about the story. I'll be succinct here - when the story follows the original, it is magical. I do like the shades of gray the game introduces, especially with regards to Avalanche's actions. What I don't understand are Shinra's motivations. I'll reserve judgement until I've completed the game.
  • The new additions are a mixed bag.
    The black-robed specters have me intrigued. Far less so are new characters like Roche -- what the hell is that asshole's deal?
    . Some of the new story beats really work.
    The way the game explains Jessie's motivation was stunning, but in a good way - a simple fetch that showed her father hit me far harder than, say, Jared's death in FFXV (and I LOVE FFXV).
  • I'll say this simply -- the original game introduced the main villain far more effectively than the remake. I get the "why" -- just not my personal preference.
  • As characters, I simply don't like Cloud and Barret. That's a feature, not a bug -- okay, I can live with that. What I really dislike is how plain thirsty they made Jessie and Tifa -- just reeks of fan service.
  • The localization is uniformly excellent, with serviceable to good performances by the voice actors. I still don't like how uncomfortably close to Tropic Thunder I find Barret.
Overall, the game has grabbed me in a good way, and I'm looking forward to the later chapters.