Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Full Review (spoilers)
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
Wow, CG, that was a very thoughtful and thorough review, thanks. I am excited to eventually play this on my PC. I can wait.
It sounds like all the expanded and added extra events and story bits, and they all seem to work. And because this version is so close yet so different from the original, I am geniunely curious on how the third game will look like.
I never finished ff7. How much stuff is left? Will it be as big as this game I wonder?
Just out of curiosity, who did you take out for Golden Saucer date?
It sounds like all the expanded and added extra events and story bits, and they all seem to work. And because this version is so close yet so different from the original, I am geniunely curious on how the third game will look like.
I never finished ff7. How much stuff is left? Will it be as big as this game I wonder?
Just out of curiosity, who did you take out for Golden Saucer date?
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If you're playing regularly and do all the sidequests up to that point it's basically sure to be Aerith. I feel you have to go out of your way to get anyone else.
I ended up with Tifa, I'm pretty sure I did all the side quests I could but.. I guess not, I dunno. That's OK, Tifa has become my favorite character.
If you don't give Aerith all the right answers when talking with her, then you could end up with Tifa for the date instead. Even if you do all the side quests along the way.
Content wise, there's actually very little left. At this point in the original you've been almost everywhere. Most of the rest of the game you actually go back to place you've previously been to. But it would be really easy to expand on whats left.
Are you talking about the first time you were in the Saucer or when you go back in Chapter 12?
Hey @CriticalGaming, I found out from Max's stream last night that a lot of ex-Capcom guys worked on Rebirth's combat. It explains why the combat is so great and even better than before.
First time. I didn't realize there would be a second time but don't worry I don't care about spoilers (since I'm in this thread).
I reached Nibelheim yesterday, which I believe starts chapter 11.
So does this mean that everybody gets Tifa in the first Saucer visit (chapter 8 IIRC), but then chapter 12 depends on dialogue and side questing?
Either way it's cool, I'm not trying to get one outcome or another, I already read that all of the cut scenes are enjoyable.
Dates aside, Tifa is just much more interesting in this game than Aerith, it's a point SkillUp made in his glowing review- Aerith is mostly just shuffled from place to place. And yet she's fundamentally more important as an ancient than anybody in the whole world, one would thing. But I think that's a common problem with these stories- the special one is too special to do cool stuff. Tifa has a fundamentally cooler backstory and apparently her more interesting moments in this game weren't even in the original so it seems the writers consciously focused on spotlighting her (and Barrett) so that is what I'm reacting to.
I wanted to talk about the combat anyway because I have a lot of opinions lol...
IMO it's not great. It has great elements. It is a microcosm of the whole game- there is great stuff in it, but it doesn't cohere.
Mechanically yes the combat is great- I'm delighted that an action as simple as selecting Barrett and pressing triangle to overcharge blast someone still feels good. Executing a cool looking synergy attack (my current favorite is Cloud and Yuffie attacking, ending with her dropping some magic portal on them, then almost falling down) in the heat of battle is epic.
But the dodging/parrying part is not connecting with me at all. You can parry but I don't think I've parried once, even though it's super helpful for managing the meters. In typical Japanese video style you're dealing with screens full of glowing bullshit flying at you from everywhere and if you don't block or parry you end up running and rolling around like a spazz and that's no fun and doesn't work in the long run anyway. I have now resorted to setting an "automatic" mode where characters dodge and attack when I'm not pressing buttons and my method of evasion is to just keep switching characters- basically I gave up trying to play defense.
And, sure, I suck, but I beat Sekiro 4 times and most of FF16 on normal, I can't be THAT bad.
More importantly, managing the ATB meter isn't fun? Now you can do cool stuff, now you can't. And yeah I know that was in remake and I didn't like it much then either. Add to that spells and items and it's that thing where there is LOT but does it all come together? Video game combat needs "flow" and the combination and of fast action and stopping everything to scroll through menus kills that flow.
But more importantly is that enemies often do feel like sponges. At first I thought it was because I was playing wrong but even when I use Assess, determine the weakness and correct strategy, apply the right moves, pressure and stagger them, it still takes so long to whittle them down, just staring at that orange bar. It's the same problem as FF16 fundamentally- great basic controls with tedious application.
Obviously I'm coming at this from a casual perspective- I'm just trying to beat the game. Maybe if you're hardcore, playing on hard, min-maxing your build and all that, it's different and rewarding. But this game is HUGE, and I want to do the side stuff and clear the map- I do enjoy the combat as part of the experience but I'm "only" good for, like, 100 hours of it.
I just games by "if/when do I drop to easy mode" and I did that earlier than I had hoped here just to be able to progress at a pace that feels natural.
Are they still spongy on easy? Because that reminds me of GoW, especially Ragnarok. Yet it still didn’t take most enemies long to delete Kratos’s (old but still a friggin demigod) health bar.
You are definitely not using the combat system the way it is intended if you are having those issues. The basics of combat, attacking, using atb when you can, dodging and blocking, thats all nothing if you arent using materia.
For example First strike materia which starts a character with full atb the moment combat starts. Then there is atb boost materia where you can spam a couple buttons to boost atb to full nearly instantly. Synergy materia where your inactive character with cast any spell in the game everytime another character uses an atb ability...and it costs no MP. Comet costs 30mp but if a character casts it off synergy, it costs nothing.
Or how about combining stop with quake and aeriths arcane ward ability? Here is what you do. Link magnify to time materia, cast stop on all enemies at the start of the fight. Swap to aerith have her drop arcane ward on your 3rd character. That 3rd character casts quakaga, and because they are nowin arcane ward they double cast it. Which petfiries and inatantly kills basically anything in the game include uber hard challenges. GG.
For example First strike materia which starts a character with full atb the moment combat starts. Then there is atb boost materia where you can spam a couple buttons to boost atb to full nearly instantly. Synergy materia where your inactive character with cast any spell in the game everytime another character uses an atb ability...and it costs no MP. Comet costs 30mp but if a character casts it off synergy, it costs nothing.
Or how about combining stop with quake and aeriths arcane ward ability? Here is what you do. Link magnify to time materia, cast stop on all enemies at the start of the fight. Swap to aerith have her drop arcane ward on your 3rd character. That 3rd character casts quakaga, and because they are nowin arcane ward they double cast it. Which petfiries and inatantly kills basically anything in the game include uber hard challenges. GG.
Yes but obviously less so. Easy mode for me is less about winning fights I couldn't win otherwise but about winning those fights faster to avoid the tedium. Same as looking up youtube guides for how to get to some points of interest in the open world instead of dealing with the horrible camera angles that happen when you ride a chocobo.
Certainly I'm using materia. Am I using that specific Aerith quake thing you said? no, there are a bajillion possibilities here and I'm trying various ones but impossible to try all of them. I understand that, kind of like Elden Ring, it's possible to meta-game it and do some min-max stuff and that some folks enjoy that but while that can be fun sometimes it's not the main draw for me.
And then trying certain things can be discouraged with the mechanics. For example I was messing around with Red's abilities and it's very defensive based and relies on those awkward parry timings.
Also is annoying that different enemies require different elements and strategies (ie flying enemies) and the game doesn't let you save materia load-outs, though it does let you have three team configurations, and the UI for changing materia and equipment is butt. So it's like- hey here's all this stuff you can do but fuck you if you really wanna do it.
Maybe it's different for Final Fantasy veterans who are used to this stuff.
The lack of a Materia loadout is definitely a problem, and I don't know why they didn't put a system like that in place.
One of the other gripes i have with this game is the lack of dynamic dialog between the party as you do open world content. Character have no banter with each other that isnt scripted to a side mission or main quest. Which makes completing the various world intel minor activities feel lonely if you do them in a big chunk. The only person who talks to you during these is Chadley and honestly, FUCK Chadley.