Final Fantasy - General - The Bear and Badger

Minnesänger

Ah. Well, fingers crossed for you.

JonB

Nearly four hours into it now, and have just been doing everything in the slums before moving on.

Including

Spoiler:

as a board game is a winning move. I've spent a couple of hours becoming the champ.

Nina

Just want to say that 7 has been wild today.

Spoiler:

hylian_elf

INTERmission/INTERgrade gets a high five from our Jon!

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/review/final-fantasy-vii-remake-intergrade/

JonB

Probably not a surprise after I gave it the same last year. But yeah, I liked the DLC as well. It does a good job with Yuffie and even makes something worthwhile out of Fort Condor.

EvilRedEye

I've been enjoying the PS5 version - it's beautiful, although there are still some low-res looking poster textures that are zoomed up quite close in cutscenes and the 'sky'box beneath the underplate showing the slums in the Reactor 5 section should have been replaced by polygons IMO. Will be fun to see what they can do in Part 2 once they can fully let rip on next gen.

acemuzzy

After R&C and the end of TLoU2, and Rive, I'm pretty sure this is up next...

Nina

Getting there with 7 on Switch, from what I know there's only story to do for me now, no real side things I wanna chase.

Spoiler:

After getting the airship last time, I've done a few optional things, I enjoyed Cactus Island and Goblin Island.

After that though.... Mideel. Cloud completely broken but still alive, leaving Tifa with him and just continue the mission without them, going after the Huge Materia.

North Corel, a really fun scene with Cid and trains, I managed to stop it in time so got all rewards for that / not destroyed Corel further.
Fort Condor, mainly felt bad that I've ignored them the whole game, the scene with the Phoenix was nice though

Back to Mideel, chaos starts, Weapon attacks, Weapon flees, Tifa tries to run away with wheelchair bound Cloud, but you end up in this dream world. Beautiful part of the game that. More impressive camera tricks to switch from the dream scene to the memories.
Cloud finally admits he's WEAK, but everyone still loves him.

More Huge materia adventures, Underwater Reactor in Junon, finally we can go there, thought this looked pretty neat. Get a submarine, do an annoying mini game that hardly makes sense control wise.

Optional things: The Sunken Gelnika, quite a hard part but pretty nice, some good items and a fight with the Turks. Always funny that.
Lucrecia's Cave, oof, I didn't expect that. Vincent's old love, but she chose a scientist and becomes Sephiroth's mother that way.

Shinra was going to Rocket Town, so we go as well. After punching every soldier in the face on our way to the Rocket, Cid finally reclaims his rocket and we go into space. With some confusing instructions from Cid we get another Huge Materia. But we're in space! The annoying girl from Cid's backstory is here as well, but without her we couldn't have lifted the heavy piece of hull that trapped Cid. Quite a nice touch to the story that.

Store the Huge Materia in Cosmo Canyon, and go to the Forbidden City with Bugenhagen. Oof, beautiful place with horrible memories. We get some flashbacks to the white materia falling from Aeris's hair, and looks like this will be important for the end of the game. Such a dumb girl, thinking she could do this on her own and expecting Cloud to figure this out without any hints. He's so WEAK. Probably also a bit dumb.

At some point here we learn who Cait Sith is, (Reeve) and we have to go back to Midgar, as they've employed a Sister Ray thing. More cool cutscenes, have to fight a big robot Weapon, Sister Ray also shoots at big robot Weapon, hits the shield around the Northern Crater, we go there, more cutscenes, back to Midgar, quick stop at Nibelheim to watch the extra scene that'll play when you go into the basement (about how Zack and Cloud escaped here, nice little roadtrip), back to Midgar, parachute in because that's way cooler than using the sector 5 key I picked up earlier, feel bad for Yuffie as she's not a big fan of air travel, but Cloud understands her because he's WEAK, and then we walk around in the sewers and tunnels, doing another Turks fight because why not, they usually have good stuff to steal.
Climb out of the tunnels, meet Gya Ha Ha and Kya Ha Ha with a big robot that's called Proud Clod and not Prod Cloud which I first thought, but we still take it down.

So yeah, story never really slows down, although it also feels like it never reached the heights of the first 10-15 hours again. Might be at the actual end. It's also expected tbh, as in the beginning all the story gets sets up, and after that it gets filled in, slowly revealed and a few twists

Spoiler:

. It's still incredibly well told, a lot of funny moments, hints to things that you only realize if you actually think about it for a second

Spoiler:

a good mix of in game scenes, real time scenes, rendered scenes. Going from story to gameplay feels all very natural still. And of course the music.

I find it really playable still, have never used the switch extra's to speed up battles etc, doesn't feel like it needs it. Only thing I have on is the cursor for exits on screen. I do wonder if they made the game easier, as I've never really been in trouble, apart from Cloud not having a ribbon, so when he's confused counter / cover / 2x cut will kill him every once in a while. He's a bit weak after all.

Nina

Finished. What a ride.

Spoiler:

Must say first feelings after the credits roll (incl Red XIII's future scene) I felt a bit underwhelmed.

My last session was Hojo - Good fight, he mentions being Sephiroth's dad and how that would really piss Sephiroth off

Then it's the crater. Pretty fun area, picked up some items, Yuffie made me laugh again when she didn't want to give her item. The scene of your airship leaving Midgar and going towards the crater was pretty impressive.

Then you pretty much walk into the end battle, without any real lead up to that, no scenes, just a "are we ready - yes" talk and that's it.
Sephiroth 1, pretty much a squid, easy enough
Sephiroth 2, very confusing fight where you have to make two parties and target different parts? I'm still not sure how I did this. Used the right stick click to just heal my second party as I didn't have any materia for them.
Sephiroth 3, the One Winged Angel song. Looks amazing, was doing pretty well, then a really long cutscene involving all planets made me very nervous. Did quite a bit of damage, so I panicked and pressed the right stick again as I really didn't want to go through the crater again. No save points. Just a few turns after that to get him down, no more panics.

Crew's all like, best we can do now, going home, see ya later. But Cloud and Tifa stumble some more, Clouds gets sucked into a brown tunnel pipe and there he is.
Sephiroth 4, you just have to wait. Wait for that little bar to fill up, and then Omnislash is unleashed. This felt pretty brutal, and seeing Sephiroth's bloody face after was weird, I almost felt guilty. Might be the first visual blood in the game?

No interaction at all during these scenes between Cloud and Sephiroth. Sephiroth pretty much just takes the beating here, no screams, no threats, just accepting his defeat. Nothing done with Hojo's dad line, and since both fights feel similar (3 phases, from undefined blobs to more human enemies) I thought there might be more.

Scenes with happy kids, Holy covering Midgar, and lifestreams coming up to help Holy. Aeris her face was the last shot before the credits I think.

It's a good end, not too obvious, enough to fill in. But secretly I hoped for more here. The first 10-15 hours are so good, and I wanted them to pull it off again at the end. But it never got there again, and I don't think it might have been possible. So that's why I felt a bit underwhelmed, confused and maybe even disappointed at first.
But then you start to think back about everything that's happened in the game. And there's not a single bit that was filler. Every scene feels worth it, a lot of good character build up, character relations, impressive scenes, jokes, anger, comfort, some big twists, some stories you have to fill in a bit yourself... I'm probably still missing things here, and some story related things might clear up more if I'd dive deeper into this. But for now, I'm really happy with the game, it still holds up.

TLDR - The first 10-15 hours (after leaving Midgar and Kalm City) have some of the best story telling in the game. I can see people not getting into the game after that, but those first hours are worth whatever the price on Switch is. There's still a lot to love after that, and I had a lot of fun with it.

Birdorf

Enjoyed your journey, Nina, thanks for sharing. Might have to have a replay.

Tried the remake a few weeks ago and gave up after dying on the first boss.

Dark Soldier

Yarred the 7 remake on PC. Never played an FF before.

I will hate it won't I.

EvilRedEye

Digital Foundry have been tweeting today that there are performance issues with the PC port.

Dark Soldier

There always are. Lovely stuff.

Dark Soldier

Actually read about it and yes download cancelled. Sounds like a beyond clusterfuck.

Console ports are the best.

Blue Swirl

I got FFXII Zodiac Age on Switch for Christmas, and it's still excellent.

Just hoping I can re-spec characters, as I've accidentally made Penelo and Ashe both White Mages.

EvilRedEye

I just did a quick Google and Montblanc at Clan Centurio lets you do that.

Blue Swirl

Ah mint. I had a vague memory that someone would let you do it, but I couldn't remember who.

Blue Swirl

OMG you guys, you guys OMG. I had no idea that you could do this in Zodiac Age: I've just unlocked the ability to get a second license board for each character. This is fractal, nested levels of character customisation. This is going to be awesome.

voices

Dark Soldier wrote:

Actually read about it and yes download cancelled. Sounds like a beyond clusterfuck. Console ports are the best.

FF7R is decent on PC. It's not the port I was hoping for, but it's still a fun game. That is - if you're happy to play in Japanese using subtitles. The English dub is objectionable. The voice actor for Tifa is totally at odds with her body language, and this game is all about Tifa.

And some story shit, but mainly Tifa.

dynamiteReady

Am I right in thinking that the Final Fantasy 7 Remake project is now 4 separate titles, that now cover less than half of the original story?

WTAF?

EvilRedEye

Nah, three games that cover the whole story. The other projects like Crisis Core Reunion, Ever Crisis and The First Soldier are extra bits and bobs.

dynamiteReady

Ah... It was the tail end of this trailer that confused me:

Still a bit frustrating though. I'd guess at this rate, it's going to take at least two more titles, and more likely three, to complete the story.
Devs should never listen to us fans.

Look at us... We're exploiting ourselves!

Minnesänger

They've said Remake will be 3 parts already, so it won't take 2 or 3 more. It'll be this one, then one more. But yeah, if you didn't watch the full show, then the messaging is...very Square Enix.

Minnesänger

Remake 1 (inc intergrade）, 2 and 3 = the remake project in full
Ever Crisis = mobile phone alternate remake wrapping all the expanded Anthology of FFVII content into a single bundle
Crisis Core Reunion = PSP remaster
First Soldier = Phone Battle Royale Prequel

I think that's it.

MattyJ

I’m glad they confirmed it’s a trilogy, and it seems we’ll get them all on ps5. Looking forward to what happens in the next game considering the way the story unfolds in part 1.

acemuzzy

By "separate", does that mean no carry over at all? (In terms of items/EXP? Or specific story arcs which you have/haven't progressed? Can you double back to bits you missed in the first game?)

I'm guessing that either that's unclear/unknown, or I should just watch the video?

dynamiteReady

acemuzzy wrote:

By "separate", does that mean no carry over at all? (In terms of items/EXP? Or specific story arcs which you have/haven't progressed? Can you double back to bits you missed in the first game?) I'm guessing that either that's unclear/unknown, or I should just watch the video?

The trailer I posted is just a teaser. I don't know if there's a 'deep dive' out there.

Minnesänger

dynamiteReady wrote:

acemuzzy wrote:

By "separate", does that mean no carry over at all? (In terms of items/EXP? Or specific story arcs which you have/haven't progressed? Can you double back to bits you missed in the first game?) I'm guessing that either that's unclear/unknown, or I should just watch the video?

The trailer I posted is just a teaser. I don't know if there's a 'deep dive' out there.

Naw, that's the only stuff. And they didn't tackle Muzzy's question - no-one knows how progression across games will work, if it even is a thing at all.

MattyJ

I can’t see it happening, unless they have some way of knowing all the items and materia and levels I had on the ps4 version of the remake. Maybe if you played remake on the ps5 it could happen.

Blue Swirl

Wait, so how much of the story is the remake that came out last year?

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