No FFVII Remake thread? Really?!

[jaime]

After really liking the story heavy parts in chapters 12 and 13, I really hate that they threw out nine quests that require you to walk all over the world through dungeons you already finished to do. It's a huge momentum killer, the way they tie quests to a handful of specific points in the game so you can't just do the ones you want at your leisure.

The Behemoth fight is also the first one that makes me really annoyed how dumb the AI controlling your other characters is. Tifa and Barret refuse to avoid damage from this thing. This hasn't been much of a problem till now cause enemies couldn't do enough damage quickly enough and the enemies tend to focus more on whoever you're controlling. But it's dumb they don't have basic AI commands every other ARPG has like 'Keep your distance'.

And the quests in this game are really badly designed too. There's no character development or world building in them. It's either "Go through this dungeon you already did to fight some monster", or "Go talk to this list of people" or "Go find these people". Like this game has random busywork bombs that just add time to the game and hold up the story.

I'm going to skip the quests and go straight to Shinra tower as soon as I'm satisfied I'm strong enough for how the game is balanced.

You can replay chapters after finishing so you don’t need to do all quests first time through. And yeah...the AI is kinda dumb, but there’s materia that help, and remembering to switch characters/direct choose their actions, because that turn-based feel is still there helps. Saying that...yeah, gonna wanna grind a bit. That behemoth was close run for me too.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

You can replay chapters after finishing so you don’t need to do all quests first time through. And yeah...the AI is kinda dumb, but there’s materia that help, and remembering to switch characters/direct choose their actions, because that turn-based feel is still there helps. Saying that...yeah, gonna wanna grind a bit. That behemoth was close run for me too.

I want to just go through and do the Shinra Tower, I just don't know if doing that will make me below the level the game is balanced for me to be.

Which quests should I definitely do before going to the tower? What would give me things I definitely don't want to miss?

 

[jaime]

I want to just go through and do the Shinra Tower, I just don't know if doing that will make me below the level the game is balanced for me to be.

Which quests should I definitely do before going to the tower? What would give me things I definitely don't want to miss?

Hmm. You need to make sure you explore thoroughly In there...Tifas final weapon is hiding just after she starts doing monkey bar stuff. And I did the underground quests because of the XP. There is a Shinra fighting simulator inside the building (it’s also the last place for unlocking the challenge materia and summons from blonde kid) for grinding, but after that it’s pretty much linear. It is long (not as long as the original mind you) and one more annoying bike segment. I think I was around level 40 and didn’t have too much trouble at the end. There is a clear flag of ‘no going back after this point’ but I couldn’t see anywhere handy to grind...admittedly I was on the home straight at that point, so didn’t look hard.
Maybe try to make sure you weapon skills learned? And don’t give Barrett his Melee weapons, I find they kind of defeat his purpose. He’s sentinel/ranged.
After that it depends on who you have soft spots for in the side characters and what choices you made already (you have to replay chapters for the different branches, if you want to see all nine dresses for the trophy for instance.) Some of the weapons, if you missed them, are available from vendors.

The plot is about to get very heavy, both in terms of the beats from the original, and the changes (hint: keep an eye out for stamps.) and also in terms of added depth to the villains. Oh..there’s one really annoying boss fight, Cloud Mano a Mano. I made the mistake of having an elemental junction which didn’t help in at least one of those fights. You will get chances to complete stuff that sort of adds to the story, or revisit locations...maybe you should grind at the colosseum, there’s a lot of unlockables there and with the moo glee medal box hitting game if you want to be sure. The only really annoying character is the stripes stocking girl...I think she might be a dig at persona 4 tbh. But most of that is optional.

Have you done the Don corneo stuff in the sewer? There’s a key you get from a side quest you might want if not. There’s a lot of setting up for the next game coming.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'm only level 24 at the moment, the only part of this game I'm enjoying is the main story so I want to do as little grinding and repetitive stuff as possible. I'm not interested in 100% completion, I go for main story + fun side stuff and in this game the side stuff isn't fun. I haven't been back to Corneo's yet, all I did so far was start the chapter and go to the secret lab quest.

Maybe I'll just do the colosseum stuff.

 

[jaime]

I'm only level 24 at the moment, the only part of this game I'm enjoying is the main story so I want to do as little grinding and repetitive stuff as possible. I'm not interested in 100% completion, I go for main story + fun side stuff and in this game the side stuff isn't fun. I haven't been back to Corneo's yet, all I did so far was start the chapter and go to the secret lab quest.

Maybe I'll just do the colosseum stuff.

I didn’t do any grinding, and only did some of the colosseum quests. But I did do all the side quests to wrap up the side stories. (There’s a sort of fun one where you have to put different tunes on a jukebox to cheer up the sector 7 survivors, but it all depends how much you are invested in the ancillary characters tbh.) I scraped through ok. But if you aren’t doing all the sides, then maybe just completing the battles in the colosseum will get you up a bit, and help you unlock weapon skills. (remember to keep telling the others to use theirs) I still got through a mattress worth of Phoenix downs before all was said and done, and didn’t unlock all weapon skills or master all magic. (Gives me a reason to go back and replay for trophies etc. And in my case stop my brother in law from thinking I am finished and he can borrow the game. He borrowed my copy of The Order 1886 about four or five years back, and am still waiting for it’s return sooo....)

It is a game I feel you get more out of if it’s like a family reunion, or get invested in the side stories on the new npcs (it all sort of ties together by the end, except for the obvious ones being introduced to play a bigger part in the next game) or even have memories of Crisis Core. I took the elevators in the Shinra building...I couldn’t find the stairs. There’s nothing on the stairs to pick up mind you. ( I found them after taking the lift)

The Shinra Tower is very long, with a lot of funny stuff and exposition. The good news is, You don’t see Roche again, so that’s a plus (I didn’t think much of him.)

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Do any of the side stories actually develop ancillary characters? All of them I've seen so far are either 'Find these missing kids and or animals', 'Kill the monsters in this place', or 'Find this thing for some one dimensional guy by walking back and forth talking to people'.

If there are any that give meaningful character development or world building to anyone I'd do those too.

 

[jaime]

Do any of the side stories actually develop ancillary characters? All of them I've seen so far are either 'Find these missing kids and or animals', 'Kill the monsters in this place', or 'Find this thing for some one dimensional guy by walking back and forth talking to people'.

If there are any that give meaningful character development or world building to anyone I'd do those too.

Yes.

For instance, those missing kids? The teacher is a dancer at the honeybee inn. Those two or three things then link up, and it’s established that one of the members of avalanche you interact with a lot is also linked to that school, which helps a scene in the ending.

Johnny also seems to be building to be more of a presence throughout...though that is something that like Roche, is probably for future plans. Corneos henchman gets a lot of development, but I don’t think you can miss that. A lot of it is thematic, giving you different viewpoints on why people care for the city/planet/ each other; which later ties in with Barrett face to face with President Shinra (and again with the ambiguous nature of the Turks and Rufus...some of which is richer when you consider other knowledge from other games. The relationship between Tseng and Aerith for instance.) so it’s all kind of...world building texture. Sometimes it’s something silly that feels nice...like hearing stories from the Sector 7 escapees and the effect different pieces of music have on them. The nicest thing in that sub quest comes if you literally stand still next to it, and Barrett starts dancing with a little girl..which makes you think about his relationship with Marlene. It’s also pretty funny.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I managed to beat that behemoth once I realized that the reason Tifa and Barret were getting killed was that, unlike other action RPGs, the enemy AI makes a distinction between the character you're controlling and the character's you aren't. The key to that battle is just controlling Barret so he only uses long distance skills.

Next time I play I'm just going to finish the colosseum fights, report the quests I've already finished (The music one), and then go straight to the tower.

Maybe my expectations for quests doing world building is higher than usual because I've been playing so many Trails games, whose expertise is world building.

 

[jaime]

I managed to beat that behemoth once I realized that the reason Tifa and Barret were getting killed was that, unlike other action RPGs, the enemy AI makes a distinction between the character you're controlling and the character's you aren't. The key to that battle is just controlling Barret so he only uses long distance skills.

Next time I play I'm just going to finish the colosseum fights, report the quests I've already finished (The music one), and then go straight to the tower.

Maybe my expectations for quests doing world building is higher than usual because I've been playing so many Trails games, whose expertise is world building.

Lol. I peaced out on Trails. Will likely go back. Cold Steel. What finally did it was knowing part three wouldn’t even be on my vita.

Yeah, Remake tends to subtly get you to sep d time playing as each character, or switching...by making sure your arse gets kicked if you stay on cloud. It’s an interesting approach, because it makes it a hybrid between the older ATB systems and the new. Like really, deep down, we know we should e using magic and ranged on nominal back row enemies/flying enemies etc.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Also this game badly needs a jump button. Aerial combat is terrible not being able to control when you jump.

I switch between characters all the time but I wish the other characters worked more like Tales games. You don't have to micromanage them and select every individual ability used, and enemies don't make a distinction between 'Control character' and 'Other characters', there's just a party of three people. Much more immersive that way.

 

[jaime]

Also this game badly needs a jump button. Aerial combat is terrible not being able to control when you jump.

I switch between characters all the time but I wish the other characters worked more like Tales games. You don't have to micromanage them and select every individual ability used, and enemies don't make a distinction between 'Control character' and 'Other characters', there's just a party of three people. Much more immersive that way.

I think largely that’s because it’s *not* a tales game, it uses a blend of modern FF systems (and doesn’t even have an exploration jump...jump is very rare in FF) and making it a little like ATB systems. It’s also part of the games design, as you have found ‘getting Clouds Spikey Ass whooped? Have you tried Barret for range or tanking? Or Aeris for magical thump? Tifa is fast and good at dodging...) which can be a little clunky, but as a regular FF player since the original, it’s nothing I couldn’t adjust too. On the other hand, I have only finished Tales of Symphonia way back when, didn’t really get into the others, apart from Hearts on Vita...and even then, I kind of wandered off. Interestingly, if you look in your battle settings, there are settings there that let yo set skills almost exactly like the tales set up...one button short cuts for skills etc. I never used them. The companion AI is rough, but there are certain materia you can set that give it a gambit-like AI system, but very weak. I think part of that is because if you grind enough, and you didn’t have to switch between battles, the battles would be over super fast because your Aeris magic nuked their weakness and Tifa kicked shit out them before Cloud could draw a sword. The current mix is real-time, but feels very ATB (using clouds guard/stagger feels slow...but is effective.) and will probably get smoothed out in the next entry (as opposed to the annoyance of FFXV that had more patches than a bloody quilt, and the game I wandered off from playing is a totally different one to the disc I got on day one.) which is something that happened before in XIII Trilogy.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Except it doesn't preserve what worked in the original game, *and* it doesn't adopt the things that work about ARPGs. It's the worst of both worlds. You can't make the allies useful without pausing the game to micromanage them, *and* they act stupidly and get themselves killed. It makes the combat extremely awkward and clunky, and dictates specific strategies to use per battle.

Barret isn't actually better than Cloud in that battle. You just have to use him to manipulate the enemy AI not kill the suicidal ally AI. That's a *terrible* experience. Your choice of who to control should be based on which character is best to attack the enemy, not based on which best manipulates the AI.

If the enemy sees two characters in short range, and one longer range, it shouldn't choose a different attack just based on which one you happen to be controlling. Enemies shouldn't be using meta-game knowledge, they should just see three characters in front of them. In any real time combat system, any characters who are on the battlefield should be able to act independently, and be treated equally by the AI.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I’m in chapter 18 now.

Right now if I were farther from the end I’d drop the game. I enjoyed the part where you are climbing the Shinra Tower but everything else in the final sequence has been a slog.

For example, the sequence where they are climbing up the debris. In the original game it was a charming weird little ten minute sequence. In this it’s an hour and a half long slog where they dramatically nearly fall to their deaths and get saved at the last second every five minutes. No character development or world building is happening here. Just forced tension and melodrama.

Then, the climb of the tower and the Shinra museum were awesome and had great character development and world building. But when you get to Hojo’s lab it’s more of the same again, an overlong melodramatic slog of forced cliffhangers and cartoony evilness.

I hope when part 2 is out they can really focus on character building and build up the tension to Aerith’s fate instead of relying on having people constantly falling off ledges.

 

[jaime]

I’m in chapter 18 now.

Right now if I were farther from the end I’d drop the game. I enjoyed the part where you are climbing the Shinra Tower but everything else in the final sequence has been a slog.

For example, the sequence where they are climbing up the debris. In the original game it was a charming weird little ten minute sequence. In this it’s an hour and a half long slog where they dramatically nearly fall to their deaths and get saved at the last second every five minutes. No character development or world building is happening here. Just forced tension and melodrama.

Then, the climb of the tower and the Shinra museum were awesome and had great character development and world building. But when you get to Hojo’s lab it’s more of the same again, an overlong melodramatic slog of forced cliffhangers and cartoony evilness.

I hope when part 2 is out they can really focus on character building and build up the tension to Aerith’s fate instead of relying on having people constantly falling off ledges.

I have to admit, the debris pile got loooong. At first it was really good, really sinking in the destruction of sector 7, but it seems almost too big and wide, and then the jump to Shinra tower...where everything is pretty much normal, really makes it noticeable. Midgar is too big basically...but it only really becomes noticeable when you have that jump. I think it would work better if the city was small enough that you could see the edges of things. The sector 7 debris felt like a whole city because of how it looked as you were climbing. It was jarring.

 

[Rincewiend]

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[DigificWriter]

I didn't even know that there'd been any news about Part 2 of FFVII Remake, and now I find out that not only was I out of the loop, I won't even get to complete the story because they've Exclusive-locked Part 2 to the PS5.

Grrrrrrrr.

Finding this out kind of makes me want to delete FFVII Remake Part 1 and download the PS4 port of the OG game instead even though I don't even really like the OG game that much and was only playing Remake because of the potentiality for Square Enix to overtly link the story to FFX and FFX-2.

 

[jaime]

I didn't even know that there'd been any news about Part 2 of FFVII Remake, and now I find out that not only was I out of the loop, I won't even get to complete the story because they've Exclusive-locked Part 2 to the PS5.

Grrrrrrrr.

Finding this out kind of makes me want to delete FFVII Remake Part 1 and download the PS4 port of the OG game instead even though I don't even really like the OG game that much and was only playing Remake because of the potentiality for Square Enix to overtly link the story to FFX and FFX-2.

It’s not too much of a surprise sadly. I’m annoyed I can’t even get the Yuffie stuff on my ps4, which makes no sense, but moving to ‘current gen’ hardware (that no one can get their hands on…) unfortunately makes sense.
And tbh, FF being PlayStation exclusive also makes a kind of sense, as it’s essentially the home of the series for a number of years.

And hey, I am not only a big fan of X and X2, but also of the whole XIII universe, and VIII, and I have got used to things moving on and ignoring the corners I like. Apart from VII.

 

[DigificWriter]

If there weren't so many issues associated with the PS5 (overpricing, lack of availability, lack of a game library sufficient enough to justify dealing with the first two issues), Square Enix Exclusive-locking the rest of Remake to that console wouldn't bother me.

As it stands right now, though, I've only got 1/3 of a game I never really liked and no way to get my hands on the rest of it and the things that I anticipated were going to change my mind on it, and that just sucks.

 

[jaime]

If there weren't so many issues associated with the PS5 (overpricing, lack of availability, lack of a game library sufficient enough to justify dealing with the first two issues), Square Enix Exclusive-locking the rest of Remake to that console wouldn't bother me.

As it stands right now, though, I've only got 1/3 of a game I never really liked and no way to get my hands on the rest of it and the things that I anticipated were going to change my mind on it, and that just sucks.

I don’t see them tying it too explicitly to being the future of X (and let’s not forget the absolute shit show of an audio drama on the HD remasters… that killed my interest in anything new on the X front if I am honest, and VII is now cleaner for *not* being tied to that — except somewhat thematically) so since it wasn’t something you enjoyed, maybe you can just live with YouTube streams when it comes?

I am still secretly hoping I can get XIII trilogy on my switch, or failing that, hope to one day afford a steam deck and use the PC version.

 

[DigificWriter]

The fact that Squares Enix linked FFVII to FFX and FFX-2 retroactively is the only reason I could bring myself to play Remake, and is the only reason I'm considering indulging the FF Completist in me by going for the PS4 port of the OG game because I can mentally apply my knowledge of the connections to FFX/FFX-2 to the OG game and be okay with playing it.

Alternatively, I can just hold onto Remake (without having it installed) and keep hoping that the PS5 drops in price enough to warrant buying one so I can get all of the Remake project at some point.

Re: XIII, I've held onto my PS3 with the intent of buying the last 2/3 of the Trilogy, but can't find XIII-2 or Lightning Returns anywhere cheap.