X is my favorite Final Fantasy but I do have enough fond memories of VII that I wanted to give the remake a look, and while it probably met my expectations for a remake of a nearly 25 year old game, it doesn't quite hold up to modern efforts. Not for lack of trying, though. The spectacle, the budget, the eye candy, the atmosphere are all through the roof and crazy levels of good, and the combat is one of the best mixtures of pure action and tactics seen in an RPG yet. Aside from some of the usual bugbears like status effects and certain materia being underutilized, it's a cracking system with just enough ways to exploit it without either side feeling cheap, and almost every boss fight was a delight; I always relished the chance to engage in combat.
But the combat carries the game, as everything else of substance is extremely shaky. The pacing can go from white hot to slow as molasses in the blink of an eye, but tends to lean towards lethargic with its underdeveloped side characters (this is only part of the original game's campaign, after all), meandering side quests and annoying anime melodrama with all the characters gasping every second line. The original story features some smart updates to its environmentalist core but, as in the original, can lose its focus and fail to keep the tension up when it needs to, as core objectives of the story are side-stepped in favour of what's right in Cloud's face in the moment. And while a good half of the side missions and minigames are good callbacks to the original, there are too many annoying moments for it to have been worth it. Any time I wasn't engaged in combat, I was probably annoyed or bored.
And then there's the actual narrative additions. The purpose of the Whispers starts as hard to define and doesn't appear any clearer by the end, even as the climax of the game becomes very different as a result, and while the possibility of a different Final Fantasy VII is tempting, fighting a literal incarnation of destiny is the worst possible way to have done it, to say nothing of the idea that they might have changed the past as well as the future in the ending. It all adds up to a jumbled and juvenile mess, the kind of which gives Kingdom Hearts its well-deserved reputation as an ass-pulling mess of a story, and criminally robs the story's villain of his motive and endgame, at least currently.
I'm harsher on FF7R just because I've seen most everything the game has to offer before; it's not much worse paced than most JRPGs, as I understand, but it's salt in the wound when twenty five years of innovation do nothing to save stereotypical side-characters, fetch quests, and underdeveloped lore, only hampered by the fact that this game is literally not finished yet. Both in the minutiae and the bigger moments, this game is both bloated and unfulfilling at the same time. But then you get to a really fun callback to the original, or an awesome setpiece or boss fight and it's all worth it. We'll just have to hope the game is a bit leaner from here on out if they're gonna be this revisionist about the rest of it.
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The first statment one must do when talking about FF7 remake is whether one has played the original or not, and I havent. Really the final fantasy franchise has never really drawn me in, I only beat FF15 and dabled in 13, 14 and 6. I just find their overall JRPG formula to be a tad antiquated, not to mention that I find better franchises of similar style which much more interesting characters. That said im all about giving second chances, and so I did when the good reviews came pouring in with the promise of an innovative combat system.
Starting off with the positive aspects, the game is stellar visually. It features a semi realistic presentation, but also knows when its time to deliver on cartoonish designs and flashy attacks. At times it really feels like an anime brough to life, with good cutscene cinematography and great voice acting. Music and sound design is also well polished. Its clear that budget wasnt a concern when making this, but beyong that its budget that is well utilize, which is not something i could say about FF 13 or 15.
Storywise is the main attraction in here for me, but its a very bumpy ride. Whereas the characters themselves are well written and have great banter between them, the pacing of the actual story is all over the place. Its really clear of how much stretched out the story is coming from the original, with added sections that are just a drag to get through and dont meaningful contribute to the overall plot in any way. Some side characters are also given more room, with varying results. In the end though, I was still more than happy to keep adventuring besides my boy Barrett and Cloud's bored attitude.
Combat itself is a combination between real time action with active time gages for the abilities and spells. Its a compromise between the two, and ends up being an awkward experience. Enemies have way too much HP, and its a rather miserable experience to fight groups of enemies due to how hit stun works and because of how bad the dodging / hit detection in the game is. This is made worst by the insistence of the game throwing at you way too many boss fights that have enourmous health bars that extend the fights artificially, even if they have no memorable mechanics in the fight.
The RPG side of the game is reserved to improving the weapons and equipment of the characters, as well as slotting materia in said weapons. Its a well done system that allows some varied builds, but again the combat is never satisfying enough to play with, and that discourages trying out different strategies. I just tried to find the build that gets through combat sections the fastest so I could get back to the proper story.
Map design is quite linear, with the optional side path for mostly banal loot. Its a shame because the levels themselves look great, but there is so few rewarding exploration to be done in them. Its not as bad as FF13, but it still feels like all of this world is comprised of a lame narrow corridor that goes on forever.
The game has plenty of optional sidequests, but unfortunatly they amount to dull fetch quests and arent properly rewarded. Besides, the plot already drags on so much, that it gets even worst if you are going for this quests.
Overall the game clocks in at 30 hours, with some high moments but plenty of low moments as well. It feels twice as long as it should be, and it has some glaring flaws. The characterization is strong enough and the plot got my interest in trying out the next parts of this series, but not any time soon.
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I played this one shortly after it came out, and am currently playing Rebirth, so I figured now would be a good time to rate this.
What a delightful game! I don't have a whole lot of comments since it's been a while since I played it, so I'll do some bullet points.
- The combat is perfect. It honestly feels like what the ATB system always should have been: dynamic and impactful, but still tactical enough that the player has time to think about their next move. I am really glad they kept the combat style for Rebirth.
- The world building is fantastic: there are so many details that are taken from the original and expanded in a really cool way. Midgar feels like an actual city, with actual people, which makes the tragic sections even more powerful.
- The characters are truly fantastic. The party members, including Cloud, are expanded on faithfully but meaningfully. The members of Avalanche that die in the first hour of the original are granted depth that I never would have expected. Even the unnamed NPCs feel like they actually live in the city!
- It is mostly a fantastically tight experience, and the linearity gives more power to the storytelling.
Overall, really good.
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The combat (the slashing with Cloud's sword and sometimes punching with tifa) is good and the characters are also likable (they look good as well, especially the girls), it has some charm to it, including the quirks. However, the scripted sequences and the underwhelming, bland-looking sections at sewers, constructions, platforms and abandoned places leave a lot to be desired, even the last shinra location (though it is a different location, it is also very lacking). The game is torn between the good reconstruction of Midgar in the background with the looks to back up how good the graphics are and between the repetitive-looking, dull levels where most of the fighting occurs. Add the stretched sections on a lot of chapters where the player has to do certain tasks around the places to progress and the levels get even more tiring to go through, these tasks feel like they are there just to extend the duration of the level, that includes the walking sections.
The sidequests are completely lacking (bad), but i wont judge the game by them because i dont think they are integral to the experience at all, like the side content is for other games. If they were integral and considered when judging the game, it would be worse.
It is interesting how well implemented the turn-based fashion of the OG was integrated with the half hack´n´slash half jrpg combat (though still not hack´n´slash, just in a very barebones sense), which made it enjoyable, but sometimes held back by how easy it is to take damage by the waves of enemies on-screen, you have to be an absolute god to not take any hit at all (not to mention the quantity of enemies that can incapacitate temporarily a member of the playable party), plus the countless damage sponge enemies; regarding the damage taken, it is even worse in the case of the AI of the group members you are not controlling. The enemies are also boring, most of them are insect/insect-like, robots and armed security, even the exceptions to that get stale as they are battled with more and more. The combat is not enough to make the walking sections and the scripted sequences less grating to be played.
I liked the sits and vending machines where you rest to replenish hp-pm and buy consumables-items, i am fine with the rpg system not being more complex because it already works well enough the way it does. Some of the bosses are good (3) while most of them are a chore to deal with. The story was not compelling but not much to write about, and i can easily forgive a bad story if the gameplay is great and with good levels, which was not the case here (the combat is good but has drawbacks to it, while the levels are very subpar). I did beat it only because of the combat, even if the combat itself is flawed it still is good enough to bear through the countless dull moments present during the game. The aesthetic is fine as backdrop but not much to write about it, nothing stylish or charming enough about it (i can imagine it being for those that liked the original). It is unfortunately that the flaws held back the best moments of this game by a huge margin. The combat and the likable cast of characters are two positives.
I enjoyed FF7 remake, i played the original when the remake had the teaser trailer released and did not liked it, so my opinion isnt held back by any appreciation of the original, as i find the remake better (which is not saying much, given that i was never into the classic and completely forgot 99% of it). FF7R is not the worst game to play and the combat can be enjoyable at times and it lacking replay value is not an issue (though i value that a lot personally), but a lot of things held it back from being a satisfaying experience. Still, worth it as a one time playthrough, as it is not bad to play, regardless of the very present flaws and pacing.
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I must confess, I liked more or less the begining, not too much cut scenes, manageable gameplay, but by the end I just was skipping the cut scenes, because in the will to finish it as soon as possible. It aged quite badly, and I guess I would have more appreciated the game back in the 90's, but I didn't play anymore when 3D came around at homes. Of course the music is stellar, and some mechanics are good (the special attacks and the magic) but I really hated that materias and caracters change all the time, especially by the end. And really too much cutscnenes on the second half, by my tastes of course. But I guess I didn't like this style of manga/fantasy at first, so it didn't help to immerse in the story. Loved Barret though, thankfully he is there and saved my playthrough.
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What happens when you stretch 5-6 hours to 40 hours?
I think it is fair to say that FF7 Remake is a wild ride. At times this feels like one of the best Square-Enix games since the merger, and at other times it feels like an absolute chore. What is exceptionally weird, is that what I thought I wouldn't like ended up being pretty good, and vice versa.
As for the good, I feel like they managed to portray Cloud, Tifa, Barrett, and Aeris extremely well in the migration to fully voiced characters from the original. Sure at times, they have some truly cringe lines, like Barrett singing the victory theme from time to time. But there are some very good attempts at keeping the sometimes serious, sometimes comical nature of the original (not always, but enough to keep the story somewhat lighthearted). The combat system still seems like it is a work in progress at times, but overall, it is absolutely a blast to play. I think the ATB system here fits perfectly with the combat, and helps keep you from just blasting everything away with insane spells and skills from the get go. And overall, it just feels good, with each character having entirely different and unique movesets fitting to their weapon type. I truly think they have finally struck gold with a battle system they can continue to develop and improve on. While enemies might be lacking a little bit in visual variety at times, the difference in movesets and AI from each type of monster stay fresh pretty much throughout the whole game. The original game has some of the most creative enemy designs of all time, and I will happily say that the remake also did a great job in making them just as you remember. As for the world of Midgar, visually this game has moments where it looks fantastic. I think the slums were pretty cool, with all sorts of relics from the prerendered backgrounds remaining. And while some of the magic is lost from the art of the original, I think they did a pretty solid job creating a believable transition to 3d. I am still irked a little about how light Midgar is relative to the original, but still pretty happy with what I got nonetheless.
Where the game gets a bit rough, is the pacing and story. I'm not the first to say it and won't be the last, but the pacing is truly awful in this game. Stretching out a 4 hour segment of the original into 40 was a horrible idea, especially considering no one had any idea how to fill it up. Tedious and horrible side quests? Check. Unnecessary backstories of characters with little to no personality? Check. Pointless backtracking with very little payoff other than completion? Check. Beyond that, there is just so much filler content that adds literally nothing exciting to the story of Final Fantasy 7. The plate collapsing in Sector 7 is one of the best parts of the Midgar stretch in the original, why don't we add a stupid ghost story to kill the urgency of making it back to the crisis at hand? Or why don't we add a section where we have to go all the way to the plate to grab an ID card so we can get into another reactor, when we seem to have never had an issue with that in the past. A whole chapter basically spoon-feeding you why Midgar is brighter in the remake? Yep let's go with that. None of it adds value to the overall story. There is no character growth here, it is just filler to add more content to a game that doesn't need it. I would truly have been happier with a shorter game in this instance.
Some story parts rubbed me the wrong way here and there too. Though this isn't the largest gripe. I feel like dangling Sephiroth around at every turn was pretty uninteresting, especially when he just teases Cloud with "I'm the bad guy and going to kill everyone you love" schtick over and over again. I feel like the slow build up to his reveal in the original allowed Sephiroth to have his spotlight in post-Midgar phase of the game, and instead become the "mysterious war-hero of old" like he was in the original. It's also just overexposure, like they are expecting you to start clapping like a fanboy every time he shows up. I will let this pass though, since it looks like the story is going a new direction with the Remakes. This is something which I think could be potentially cool (especially with some characters surviving that died in the original), but definitely a bit worrisome considering most of the new story content we have seen in Remake is average at best. I am pretty concerned about the Sephiroth ghosts stuff, as they seem to be a cop-out to why some of the story changes take place, but I will wait until the other games come out to judge that fairly.
Quick note on the Soundtrack, it is going to be impossible to recapture the classic OST from Uematsu, but I think they did a pretty good job overall. There are some remade songs that are fantastic, and there are some that are a little overdone. There are some new tracks that are really good, and some that are ultimately forgettable. Hamauzu is one for the more ambient music to build atmosphere, while Uematsu captured your attention with unforgettable melodies. So it is understandable that Remake would be pretty different from the original compositionally. Of course I like the original better, but I do like both composers quite a lot, and thought this direction change is pretty good overall.
I think that is all I will write about this. FF7 Remake has some of the highest highs in the last 20 of Square-Enix, but also has some moments that just make you scratch your head. 10 hours of it is generally great content, and the rest is, while not atrocious, definitely disappointing. All-in-all though, I think this game turned out better than I expected at least which is nice, and definitely worth a play. This is one of the better FF games in recent years in hindsight and an overall decent experience.
A fitting 7 on a day I feel nice, but usually a 6 when I think about the time I spent with Cloud finding cats or chocobos or solving ghost stories, or whatever
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not exactly the bosses (altho i do dislike how damage spongey the bosses got) but just all the mob encounters. i remember being forced to do almost all of them even if I rlly didn't want to. the game feels like it was made by control freaks.
You can definitely just run past enemies to flee, and avoid them in the overworld though. There are a handful of story related encounters like bosses and stuff but Midgar's linearity I guess makes things feel more like encounters are placed. But that's not the same as scripted
Yeah i swear people are looking at the original through nostalgia goggles because that plot was insanity bordering on nonsense, but in a fun way. Remake was written by the same guy who wrote the original, why would you be shocked more insane stuff is happening in the plot. The glue that holds FFVII together is the characters anyways, which imo are even better in the Remake series than the original.
Can someone with a brain for websites like this please add Intermission as its own page? The above link shows it can clearly be purchased separately and thus should have one. I haven't even played it but it's been bugging me for months.
I thought I’d be bored of this game (and Rebirth) once the main story was over but I really grew to love Yuffie’s combat, more than Cloud or any of the other characters surprisingly