I’m six hours in and I’m exhausted by this game
7 Likes
The biggest hurdle I’m having to clear is prep and menus. I can’t remember all the little bits of I’ve improved or unlocked. At this point in the original FF7 I’m pretty sure I was just holding attack most of the time.
2 Likes
The battle system is so complicated! It forces you to make really detailed decisions in the span of seconds. And there are so many little systems that feed into it! Even the easiest battle against a random orc is stressing me out with choice paralysis.
At one point I had a Synergy Ability, Summon Active and Limit break ready. It really could stand to introduce this stuff a bit slower. You get 5 reworked party members and tons of specific synergies in like the first 5 hours.
Also shut up Chadley! The jabber device is ringing off the hook.
The openworld lawnmower stuff is sucking me in though. It’s pretty incredible how different Remake is in retrospect
Edit: also also, it is insane how tedious 16 feels by comparison
5 Likes
guess who checked earlier this week if he transferred the FF7R#1 save from his PS4 to the PS5 last year, because you never know, they might let you import stuff to part deux and since i already leveled some Materia, i don—
… what, you’re just givin’ me Leviathan and THAT’S it?
joke’s on me then, aye.
What else/random thoughts:
French dub still is the way to go!
Kinda interesting how they paced the intro, and how they brought back the leitmotiv/playing a few notes from the original opening theme leading into part two.
“4k”-gfx setting caused significant framedrops in the first 20 seconds - immediately quit, restarted game, went for framerate setting and never looked back.
Exposition dump doesn’t feel as forced as it did in #1, cannot remember too much about the streched bits in Midgar though.
Love the deadpan humor setup between RedXIII and Barret that has been teased twice in the first chapter, as well as Tsundere Barrettttt (love ze french pronouncicatiôn of Barrettttts french dub).
about six hours in, this is just startin to open up, cannot wait to do some extensive brawlin’ w/ Tifa in Godhand-Mode.
Jessie’s missing!
2 Likes
Have to say, this game is excellent so far (on the boat to Costa Del Sol).
The open world stuff has a nice level of restraint in the first two areas without an excessive level of map icon shit. There’s enough to take you through all of the environments without getting horrendously bogged down. Pursuing everything available puts you a couple of levels ahead of the curve - enough to give you some power in the boss battles without trivalising them. As said, very different atmosphere from Midgar. Mid game mania is suitably amped up as well
And yes, the amount of systems added into the combat makes it feel pleasantly absurd and slightly unknowable. I do miss the weapon AP system from the previous game and the ridiculously detailed orbital menus though. The team move menus are heart crushingly dull in comparison
The worst excesses of the first games handling of Sephiroth and the Whispers has also been reigned in at this point.
10 Likes
what do we think part 3’s subtitle will be? will it be something boring like resurrection? rebirth makes me think of afterbirth at least
2 Likes
Resolution maybe, if we’re sticking with ‘Re-’
Disc 3 would be a fun subtitle
I’d say Reunion but following Rebirth with Resurrection, two words that mean the same thing would be very On Brand.
3 Likes
so, errant thought, where would you split ff6 into 3 parts? I think marking the split at both airships would make sense, avoiding the temptation to just do the one big one
2 Likes
Renaissance
1 Like
Celes alone with Cid on that island for ~3 hours would make such a killer opening for the final game though
Also you can easily have your multipart Kefka battle requested by the execs at the end of each game, if you split the games up after the Narshe reunion and after the floating continent
12 Likes
I’m still in the grasslands but so far I feel like this game is trying to and basically succeeding at rehabilitating Ubisoftian open world game design by just throwing more resources at the problem. Yes, you’re visiting map icons, with each category of icons leading you to a predictable activity, but each specific instance has something distinct and at least somewhat memorable going on to set it apart from the others. The writing is better and more charming than you’d expect to see in something like Horizon Zero Dawn’s sidequests, and they throw little twists in the formula often enough to keep you interested. I’m curious how well they’ll sustain this over the course of the game.
2 Likes
Or we get a free short Interlude game that’s about starting from nothing on that island and finding materials to craft increasingly elaborate objects moving from Simple Fishing Rod + Wooden Shack to Ultimate Fishing Rod + Sauna Palace with periodic RTS minigames, inside Cid’s body controlling his antibodies to save him, that are made easier with higher quality fish / lodging
8 Likes
I haven’t played for sessions this long in quite a while. Starting to get that gungy gamer body feeling.
I’m still generally having a good time although the wrap-up animations, cutscenes and little quirks of getting your character facing just the right way to face a contextual prompt feel a little too slow when marathoning it like this. Chocobos in particular seem to be very fussy about what terrain will stop them dead in their tracks.
Nearly wrapped up Junon but they’re still adding new shit.
5 Likes
I just got to Junon and fought the fish there. This game has grown on me a lot, even its ridiculous battle system! I’m 100% on board. This carries the true spirit of 90’s 32-bit blue sky enthusiasm.
2 Likes
Red XIII is a dog creature who talks like a human, so when he roars in this game it’s just a human voice going “rrraaawwwrrr!!!”
Was never a red xiii guy but damn rebirth you got me
9 Likes
The sound Stardust Ray makes is my favourite sound effect in a while
They said it wouldn’t be in the game they said the game would end before it but even still I still expected them to fit in snowboarding.
in chapter 3 now and finding it funny that after all the discourse about making pathing obvious in AAA games, there is no longer visible paint on the steps/ledges like in chapter 2, implying this is a world building thing and not a game design thing
2 Likes