General Gaming Final Fantasy VII Remake OT - Big Trouble in Little Midgar

[Firewithin]

everyone is thirsty for Cloud lol

[Keyser_Soze]

2 hours ago, TwinIon said:

The area layouts in particular feel like an unnecessary throwback. When you've got sprite maps or pre-rendered backgrounds or primitive polygons, it makes sense to build a town that is a effectively a couple of corridors. With the incredible detail put into these scenes, it's hard not to be so much more aware of the artificiality of the map layouts. The last RPG I played was  Witcher 3, where they really went the complete opposite direction. If anything, it can sometimes be annoying in that game that a castle is nearly the size of a castle. There's so much "wasted" space, so much space to get lost in that doesn't really have a lot of content, but it makes a castle feel like a castle,  a house feel like a house, or a whole town feel like a town. In FF7, I can't help but feel like the maps betray the presentation.

 

The layout and cordidor nature of the game probably lends it to looking so good visually. If you're only walking down a tight corridor they can make that corridor look graphically amazing. But if they suddenly turn that corridor into a rec room then it might not look or run as well.

[Remarkableriots]

I beat the dart game! 

 

[Spork3245]

2 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

The layout and cordidor nature of the game probably lends it to looking so good visually. If you're only walking down a tight corridor they can make that corridor look graphically amazing. But if they suddenly turn that corridor into a rec room then it might not look or run as well.

I was coming here to post something similar. The models of the main characters, and the majority of the game, look so freaking incredible due to the corridor-style allowing them to focus resources. The devs also must’ve kept the highest quality textures/assets for very small areas surrounding your party (if you run too quickly from place to place you can see some textures slowly fade to their higher res versions from super-blurry ones) to keep the detail so high. The next chapters are either going to need a huge graphical downgrade or will be next-gen hardware only.

 

Also, this is the best HDR I think I’ve seen in any console game to date. 

[Keyser_Soze]

 

 

[jaethos]

3 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

Also, this is the best HDR I think I’ve seen in any console game to date. 

On a technical level the HDR is actually not that great.

 

[Chairslinger]

Just now, jaethos said:

On a technical level the HDR is actually not that great.

 

 

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

They wanted to give Jessie, Biggs and Wedge an extended story. I feel like they should have been used for party members in battles.

[Firewithin]

Why are side quest enemies harder then fucking boss battles?  Started ch 8 quests and the first one to kill "frog king" was way harder then stuff leading up to it.  Eas the same for the ch 3 quests

[johnny]

13 minutes ago, Firewithin said:

Why are side quest enemies harder then fucking boss battles?  Started ch 8 quests and the first one to kill "frog king" was way harder then stuff leading up to it.  Eas the same for the ch 3 quests

I think some of the stuff with just Aerith in my party was harder because half the shit I fought her magic was almost useless lol 

[Nokt]

1 hour ago, Firewithin said:

Why are side quest enemies harder then fucking boss battles?  Started ch 8 quests and the first one to kill "frog king" was way harder then stuff leading up to it.  Eas the same for the ch 3 quests

I wasted more phoenix downs on enemies than I did bosses. Although I will say a lot of the boss battles were pretty dynamic, I had fun with them more so than the harder side quest battles. I'd be curious to see how they are on hard mode, but after seeing the ending I refuse to touch this game again.

1 hour ago, johnny said:

I think some of the stuff with just Aerith in my party was harder because half the shit I fought her magic was almost useless lol 

She can just whack people if she gets close enough, but when Aerith is useful, she is REALLY useful.

Also Ray of Judgement is amazing for staggering enemies.

[johnny]

Yeah Aerith can absolutely wreck an enemy that’s weak to magic 

[Spork3245]

8 hours ago, jaethos said:

On a technical level the HDR is actually not that great.

 

On a visual level it sure is.

Spoiler

The dance number was insane, visually, in HDR

 

[Keyser_Soze]

Reno died IRL

 

 

[Kal-El814]

9 hours ago, Firewithin said:

Why are side quest enemies harder then fucking boss battles?  Started ch 8 quests and the first one to kill "frog king" was way harder then stuff leading up to it.  Eas the same for the ch 3 quests

Because FFVII was like that too, any of the weapons would OHKO Sephiroth easily.

[Greatoneshere]

I will say that I appreciate that the characters curse, drink, and Wall Market is truly a seedy and disgusting place. I didn't expect the game to go to these places thematically, given how earnest and anime the game can be at times. It helped give the game an edge at least.

 

It is definitely amusing that every girl is thirsty for Cloud, but at the same time it makes sense, given what he looks like and what he's capable of.

[TwinIon]

Did the motorcycle bit last night. I won't harp on it because it's basically harmless filler, but every vehicle chase segment feels lesser after Uncharted 4. Not that everyone needs to live up to that, but I do feel like they could have put it a tiny bit more variety. Having the same 100ft of tunnel repeating endlessly was not this game's finest moment, and nothing about the gameplay was particularly interesting.

[crispy4000]

3 hours ago, TwinIon said:

Did the motorcycle bit last night. I won't harp on it because it's basically harmless filler, but every vehicle chase segment feels lesser after Uncharted 4. Not that everyone needs to live up to that, but I do feel like they could have put it a tiny bit more variety. Having the same 100ft of tunnel repeating endlessly was not this game's finest moment, and nothing about the gameplay was particularly interesting.

I enjoyed darts more, haha.
 

Overall I still liked that chapter quite a bit.  Even for how over the top it was.  Just got back to the lower plate.

[Keyser_Soze]

 

[johnny]

The fight at the beginning of chapter 10 in the sewer was no joke. 

[Keyser_Soze]

 

[Duderino]

Just got to chapter 8.  
 

I’m struggling to think of another game In recent memory paced quite this well.  Maybe God of War?  So far nothing has overstayed its welcome for me.  Maybe the padding will become more of an issue in later chapters and I’ll change my view but for now I’m very engaged, even with the new content.  The pros vastly outweigh any cons I have.

[Spork3245]

Just finished the battle intel in chapter 14. I know people say to beat the game then do it because exp and ap are tripled after you beat the game, but I wanted all the rewards... #18... jfc, that was a grind.

Spoiler

I really wanted the “secret summon” before beating the game

Spoiler

Behemot

 

Also, winning all challenge levels of the pull-up minigame may be the hardest part of the game so far.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, Spork3245 said:

Also, winning all challenge levels of the pull-up minigame may be the hardest part of the game so far.

 

Just don't have someone else within earshot of you playing it because Tifa and the dude make some questionable sounds.

[Spork3245]

50 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Just don't have someone else within earshot of you playing it because Tifa and the dude make some questionable sounds.

I completed it by turning off music and dialogue in the audio options so I could listen to the button noises and get a rhythm going. It honestly felt impossible until I did that. The first level (trainee) was easy enough, but those other two guys required that you didn’t mess up once and went as smoothly as possible.

[atom631]

On 4/15/2020 at 4:04 PM, Keyser_Soze said:

 

The layout and cordidor nature of the game probably lends it to looking so good visually. If you're only walking down a tight corridor they can make that corridor look graphically amazing. But if they suddenly turn that corridor into a rec room then it might not look or run as well.

 im not finding the visuals not that amazing...esp considering the linearity of the game so far (chapter 8). I feel like the maps have a very sterile feeling to them. They just dont look like they've been occupied by people. Consider something like The Last of Us or Uncharted. You go inside a building/house and it feels like people have been there. These environments just feel empty and lifeless. 

 

 

[Spork3245]

36 minutes ago, atom631 said:

 im not finding the visuals not that amazing...esp considering the linearity of the game so far (chapter 8). I feel like the maps have a very sterile feeling to them. They just dont look like they've been occupied by people. Consider something like The Last of Us or Uncharted. You go inside a building/house and it feels like people have been there. These environments just feel empty and lifeless. 

 

 

The slums are very lively IMO, especially Wall Market.

[Kal-El814]

Yeah it's a mixed bag graphically. The PCs all look really great, and the art design in general is very strong... then you get to Cloud's apartment and the door textures straight up never load? There have been a bunch of things like that.

[Keyser_Soze]

Yeah the texture thing is a bug I believe. It's got Halo 2 syndrome.

[Kal-El814]

41 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Yeah the texture thing is a bug I believe. It's got Halo 2 syndrome.

The door thing seems like a bug. Some of the other texture stuff is hard to tell. There's times where looking down on the slums from above / up at the plate from the slums looks SUPER assy... other times it's really solid. Pop in / corridoring the loads I get, but it happens enough that I'm not confident what's a limitation vs. a defect.

[heydude93]

Got to chapter 9 last night.  Everything so far is quite linear, but so were X, X-2 and every installment of XIII.  My hope and prediction since classic FFVII had a world map is that this remake will be Square’s take on a Star Wars or LOTR-style blockbuster trilogy, designed almost like the Arkham games where the first one is linear and confined (Midgar story chapters expanding to bombastic proportions nonwithstanding) and the sequels are open world and increasingly so.

 

Also as someone who’s 100% that jerk that dislikes most non-Ghibli anime and doesn't get the hype for most acclaimed video game stories, I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying the story here. Like with Ghibli films, the writing and characters feel endearing and well acted for the most part. There's still some cornball moments (as there is with almost every story-driven game with tons of writing) but so far it's genuinely engaging imo. Pretty hyped to see how it plays out.

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Yeah the texture thing is a bug I believe. It's got Halo 2 syndrome.

 

My understanding is that the texture thing is a bug of some sort as well. I see it all the time on tons of background objects and the NPC's clearly aren't as detailed as main characters. I think a lot of this has also to do with the limitations of the UE4 engine. FF15 looked way better than this game (though to be fair that was on PC at 4k) and that was open world (both games are similar in many respects).

 

Regardless, I'm on chapter 14 (near the end of the game now) and it's been a lot of fun so far. The plot contrivances start stacking up once you go to Wall Market but for the most part everything else has been fun, entertaining, well-told, etc. It is by no means a perfect game, but it's earnest and has a lot of heart.

 

The one thing I hope comes out of FF7R (that should have come out when FF15 came out) is that people realize the battle system's depth - each character plays entirely differently, making there really be a different battle system/play-style per character, which is very cool. FF15 did the same thing, but you rarely had reason to switch characters in that game (the DLC ended up emphasizing the other characters' battle systems eventually). Granted, even on Normal difficulty I rarely have reason to switch characters in FF7R either, but I'm hoping people see how cool it is that both games give you separate battle systems; one per character, and mastering how to play each one provides a lot of depth to the game - this is especially cool since the battle systems for each character in FF15 and FF7R are extensions of who that character is, which ties in nicely. For instance, I primarily play as Cloud, but my brother thinks playing as Tifa is more fun (it is, I agree) and so he sets Tifa to team leader during battle when he can and plays primarily as her. I imagine a lot of players may be doing things like that. You could do this in FF15 too, but I don't think people took as much advantage of it.

[jaethos]

15 didn't add character switching until significantly after the game released, so a lot of people who played it only ever played as Noctis.

[atom631]

9 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

The slums are very lively IMO, especially Wall Market.

I’m only on chapter 8 and I will say that this is probably the best chapter so far for feeling like it’s a world people actually live in. 

[Keyser_Soze]

So once you beat the game this is a pretty good video that explains a lot of what went on and some other interesting things to think about.

 

Spoiler