Final Fantasy 7 Remake's Upgrade Details

BrawlMan

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How many games allow you to completely change your loadout and tactics in the middle of combat?
Devil May Cry Series
Ninja Gaiden Reboot Series.
Bayonetta 1 & 2
Nier Automata
Onechanbara
Killer Is Dead
Metal Gear Rising
No More Heroes 2
God of War Series
Ninja Blade
Samurai Warriors 4
Resident Evil Series
Evil Within 1 & 2
Time Crisis 3, 4, & 5
House of the Dead 5


You asked.
 
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CriticalGaming

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Devil May Cry Series
Ninja Gaiden Reboot Series.
Bayonetta 1 & 2
Nier Automata
Onechanbara
Killer Is Dead
Metal Gear Rising
No More Heroes 2
God of War Series
Ninja Blade
Samurai Warriors 4
Resident Evil Series
Evil Within 1 & 2
Time Crisis 3, 4, & 5
House of the Dead 5


You asked.
All straight up action games. But Strategy and RPG games rarely let you change weapons and magic during combat.

And fair enough if you want that out of games then RPG's aren't for you. Especially turn based JRPG's.

To top it off it doesn't even compare correctly because you can adapt to what's happening in the combat on the fly in the Remake. While loadout can't change, tactics can thanks to the more actiony nature of core basics.
 

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And fair enough if you want that out of games then RPG's aren't for you. Especially turn based JRPG's.
Nier: Automata is an Action-JRPG, so it definitely counts. Then there are most of the later Dark Souls games, its clones, and the Metroidvanias with RPG elements and leveling up. Symphony of the Night is calling you right now! Also, Odin's Sphere from Vanillaware.

And fair enough if you want that out of games then RPG's aren't for you. Especially turn based JRPG's.

To top it off it doesn't even compare correctly because you can adapt to what's happening in the combat on the fly in the Remake. While loadout can't change, tactics can thanks to the more actiony nature of core basics.
Ironic you say all that, because if you build Tifa's materias in a certain way, she plays almost like a character from a Platinum Games game. Chip (Chip and Ironicus) pointed this out early when you are first able to play as Tifa in his on going playthrough of the game.

Even more ironic that they have the combat designer from DMC5 working on FFXVI.
 
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CriticalGaming

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Nier: Automata is an Action-JRPG, so it definitely counts. Then there are most of the later Dark Souls games, its clones, and the Metroidvanias with RPG elements and leveling up. Symphony of the Night is calling you right now! Also, Odin's Sphere from Vanillaware.



Ironic you say all that, because if you build Tifa's materias in a certain way, she plays almost like a character from a Platinum Games game. Chip (Chip and Ironicus) pointed this out early when you are first able to play as Tifa in his on going playthrough of the game.

Even more ironic that they have the combat designer from DMC5 working on FFXV.
i have never played a castlevania game actually. can you believe that?
 

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I just made sure my characters had multiple types of attack Materia so that I didn't get caught off guard. It worked for most of the game. But I despise using poison, don't know why.
Well I can't blame you, poison in the vast majority of video games is useless because the trash mobs aren't worth trying to poison while the vast majority of bosses are immune to it anyway.
 

BrawlMan

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i have never played a castlevania game actually. can you believe that?
You should get on that.


 
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Casual Shinji

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How many games allow you to completely change your loadout and tactics in the middle of combat?
Most of them. Any game, even RPGs, that have inventories, equipable items and weapons, and attainable skills allow you full access over them while in combat. Locking away tools designed for combat while in combat for abitrary reasons because you haven't equiped them beforehand is bad design. It's not like you left them on your ship or at home base, or some signal is jamming your access to them, or your inventory hover bot flies away in the heat of battle; They're right there in your pockets. You should just be able to equip them whenever you want, but the game says you can't because...

You know the system that allows you to learn a weapon specific skill by wielding that weapon and using the skill enough times to unlock it, and then you can use that skill with every other weapon from then on? That's a good system. The materia isn't, because it remains static. You can't unlock the ability to switch it in combat, for example by upgrading it all the way, or unlocking a materia slot in your skill tree, or creating a set amount of different materia builds based on how many weapons you have acquired and then being able to switch weapons during combat. This would meet the requirement of earning this ability.
The game does reward skill, I don't see the difference. It doesn't just "spring" enemies on you, you can see enemies on the battlefield most of the time and those that do surprise you are of the same type that you've fought previously. The game's skill come from being able to utilize the materia you have equipped to the best you can, as well as the ability to combine and build your characters the way you deem fit.

Materia is also not the entirety of combat, it is HEAVILY skill based.

for example here is the hardest fight in the game on hardmode defeated with NO MATERIA even equipped on the characters.
So saying it is just a button masher and solely reliant on materia is easily proven false.
Then what's the point in the materia system even being there when it apparently isn't even that crucial to the combat? Why allow materia to be swapped from character to character and encourage making certain builds based on the enemies you'll be fighting? Why not just have locked skills for each character like in other Final Fantasy games? Allowing character builds and swapping builds - a build focused on fire attacks, a build focused on healing - implies strategy, the skill of strategizing. Which then gets hampered by not having the knowledge of what your going to fight and locking you into your current build as soon as the fight starts.

And here's the thing, it's actually real easy to just reload before the fight and change your materia accordingly. But that's really annoying and takes you out of the flow of the game. It's not that it makes the game harder, it's that it makes the game more of a chore then it should. The materia system as is feels designed to have you scan your foes, quit out of the battle, set the appropriate materia, and then restart the fight. It's cumbersome, and all it would take to fix is to allow you to switch materia in combat.

You don't like the game or system fine. But saying it is a bad system is just ignorant because everything you've said as a reason is provably wrong.
I actually really like the game (apart from the meta nonsense), but the materia system, or to be precise, the hard locking of it during combat, sucks and is bad.
 
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Dreiko

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I think games may allow you to change some things, but not things like the skill allotment and minor equipment issues. Even games which let you pause and change equipped weapons are pretty rare and more on the turn based spectrum (and usually changing gear uses up a turn or something).


Also something like DMC doesn't allow you to change tactics, it just has all the tools permanently available and you an swtich among em by default. You can't pause it and go to the statue and spend orbs to learn a new move because you just noticed it might be useful, which is what asking the game to let you equip materia on the fly is like.



But yeah all these things are way more actiony than FF7R is, it's using a turn based style elemental weakness system, just actionizing its presentation. It's literally just like pokemon. You gotta have your elemental coverage on you at all times cause you never know what might appear next so you better be prepared ahead of time. Honestly it never was an issue in my playthrough due to approaching it this way. I never even died once outside of fighting the optional boss Leviathan way too early and not having the stats to do any damage to him (would prolly have taken him too if stuff wasn't doing 1 damage, I was surviving his tidal wave with Barret and had a buttload of phoenix downs due to never needing to use em normally).


Even that house boss fight I took down in 1 try and was a lot of fun, it just took me a while to realize what I needed to do but once I did it wasn't too bad. Also a ton of fun in general.
 
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Arkage

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I didn't have a problem with the materia system, but having loadouts to some extent would be nice. Or maybe an ability to Fuse like two mastered elemental materia into 1 that has both elements, but starts back at lvl 1. There are workarounds other than creating loadouts.
 
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Dreiko

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I didn't have a problem with the materia system, but having loadouts to some extent would be nice. Or maybe an ability to Fuse like two mastered elemental materia into 1 that has both elements, but starts back at lvl 1. There are workarounds other than creating loadouts.
Man that would be really OP cause it'd open up slots for a lot of magic and HP up stuff. They'd have to balance it out somewhere else or keep it as a super endgame thing.
 

CriticalGaming

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I didn't have a problem with the materia system, but having loadouts to some extent would be nice. Or maybe an ability to Fuse like two mastered elemental materia into 1 that has both elements, but starts back at lvl 1. There are workarounds other than creating loadouts.
You can create loadouts for each weapon for each character. At least you can have materia setups for each individual weapon.
 

Drathnoxis

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How many games allow you to completely change your loadout and tactics in the middle of combat?
Bravely Default and Disgaea both let you change your equipment in combat. Fire Emblem: Awakening does also, as long as it's in one of your character's personal inventories.

I'm going to say that the answer is "quite a few" at this point.
 

CriticalGaming

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Bravely Default and Disgaea both let you change your equipment in combat. Fire Emblem: Awakening does also, as long as it's in one of your character's personal inventories.

I'm going to say that the answer is "quite a few" at this point.
Weapons are not loadouts. Bravely Default does not let you change jobs mid-combat and if you go in with the wrong job you can get wrecked.

Again there is a difference between completely being able to change everything you're doing, versus swapping some gear. Final Fantasy X is close because you can have every character in every fight and there aren't really "loadouts" in the game.

For example as stated above DMC doesn't count imo, because you have all your weapons swappable at all times, it's just the core function of how the combat works. You never have to plan for a fight in DMC because you always have everything at the ready.

Whereas in RPG games that isn't usually the case. There are always elements of play that are locked during combat, forcing your to fight with whatever you have at the time. And most games are reasonably balanced around that where unless you are underleveled, you should be able to handle most of the game with whatever you happen to have.
 

Drathnoxis

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Weapons are not loadouts. Bravely Default does not let you change jobs mid-combat and if you go in with the wrong job you can get wrecked.

Again there is a difference between completely being able to change everything you're doing, versus swapping some gear. Final Fantasy X is close because you can have every character in every fight and there aren't really "loadouts" in the game.

For example as stated above DMC doesn't count imo, because you have all your weapons swappable at all times, it's just the core function of how the combat works. You never have to plan for a fight in DMC because you always have everything at the ready.

Whereas in RPG games that isn't usually the case. There are always elements of play that are locked during combat, forcing your to fight with whatever you have at the time. And most games are reasonably balanced around that where unless you are underleveled, you should be able to handle most of the game with whatever you happen to have.
Darksouls, Nethack, Oblivion, and Skryim all let you change out your loadout in combat, but I'm sure you'll be able to come up with reasons why none of those count either.
 
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Dreiko

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Darksouls, Nethack, Oblivion, and Skryim all let you change out your loadout in combat, but I'm sure you'll be able to come up with reasons why none of those count either.
Again not the same thing. Darksouls doesn't let you attune new magic or go and enhance a new sword mid fight, it lets you switch stuff you already came in wearing so you needed to have come in prepared, which is the same thing with materia and is balanced by them weighing you down more. And if you wanna open the (not)pause menu and try to equip things that way on the fly the huge chunks of life you lose while doing so if you do that mid-fight (if not outright death) are gonna balance things out.


Skyrim as well has a carry limit so you need to have all the things you wanna switch actually on you to do that, which may limit stuff you can pick up if you bring too many sets of weapons and armor with you to cover all your bases instead of having a balanced main one that can deal with any situation, so that too is balanced.
Bravely Default and Disgaea both let you change your equipment in combat. Fire Emblem: Awakening does also, as long as it's in one of your character's personal inventories.

I'm going to say that the answer is "quite a few" at this point.

Those just let you change weapons and armor, not what abilities the chars can use or their class/job and what have you.
 

Drathnoxis

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Again not the same thing. Darksouls doesn't let you attune new magic or go and enhance a new sword mid fight, it lets you switch stuff you already came in wearing so you needed to have come in prepared, which is the same thing with materia and is balanced by them weighing you down more. And if you wanna open the (not)pause menu and try to equip things that way on the fly the huge chunks of life you lose while doing so if you do that mid-fight (if not outright death) are gonna balance things out.


Skyrim as well has a carry limit so you need to have all the things you wanna switch actually on you to do that, which may limit stuff you can pick up if you bring too many sets of weapons and armor with you to cover all your bases instead of having a balanced main one that can deal with any situation, so that too is balanced.



Those just let you change weapons and armor, not what abilities the chars can use or their class/job and what have you.
Natch.

Edit: Also, false. In Disgaea changing weapons changes your skillset. You get a completely different set of special abilities if you are using an axe compared to a sword or spear. And Skyrim has no balance.
 
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