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IF YOU DONT WANT TO READ SPOILERS LOOK AWAY NOW

I would like to preface that I am a huge OG FF7 fan. That game has made my childhood/teen years bearable in an otherwise bleak reality.
So I have strong fond feelings toward the original.

SO here is my take -

I have completed FF7 remake a couple weeks ago and have been pondering it since then trying to collect what I thought as few of my friends have asked me.

1. Generic Thoughts - game background/ development

So the best way I can describe it is, it felt like I played "Final Fantasy Advent Children Prequel: The game"

Obviously the game ends at the point you leave Midgar. And given the vastness of the OG game is a pitiful amount of content to cram into a full game. I think this is more of a design and business limitation rather than a creative decision.
I understand there was an issue with next gen console coming out so justifying investing into an epic full sized game for a dying console is problematic. So I would have this been delayed again and we could be given a full epic version of the game after the new console is about a year into its lifecycle.

Its frustrating that this seemed to be a clear limitation they had to work with and they had to cram a lot of content into such a small plot line and thus having to deviate from the OG story. I cant speak for all the fans. But I essential just wanted the OG story but with modern game mechanics and graphics as I believe that what the creators would have done had they had the tools we have now then. The old battle system is a representation of what the developers wanted the game to be but just did not have the technology to bring it into life. So having the tools now and simply shoehorning an entire "fate spirits" thing to make the game make sense without it feeling short is very sad. So many people have never played the original game and would have appreciated the original story for what it was. I understand loading up on optional side quests but having whole chunks of the game doing new side plots of no relevance just to "filler"felt really cheap to me and a disservice to newcomers who will never try OG FF7 due to its dated graphics. Why was there so much side quest BS but you couldn't control Red XIII as a playable character? His animations, skills etc were right there.. clearly.. If there is a way to make him playable and I somehow screwed up be so kind and let me know.

Its a shame they couldn't just wait for it and released a 3 disk full game on the new version of the console. Imagine that? A multi disk game in this day and age. It would have broke the internet as it would mean they did it right and didint hold back. Obviously it would have meant you cant really sell it digitally so that idea is dead int he water because "accessibility" would come up at the corporate meeting.

The story:

I really disliked the deviation from the original story and introducing the weird poorly done "fate spirit barriers".. Its was painfully obvious its done to filler and slow down the pace of the game as well as the side plots that really didint matter. Some new characters and having more meat on the bones of some old characters was pretty cool though and I think they could have done more there in terms of fleshing out rather than throwing in. The overarching story mostly followed the plot in a wierd way, but the way in which it happens and arrives at the same conclusion was just stupid unnecessary. It was very nice to get the story told with the modern use of voice acting and graphics and I really got into it and at times thought " yes when I wa sa kid this is how I wished this game could be". I suppose as a veteran I had to suffer and have my immersion broken due to the fact I knew what should have happened. They could have "fillered" so much more with the fact that the team got captured by shinra and then have the whole sepiroth invades and kills the president thing happen and all of the creatures were let loose. Dont understand why they had to go the "we could help you and stop you from dying but we wont" plot.. The original story worked so much better and felt like it all had a lot more gravitas.

Characters:

I really loved the cast voice acting, the designs graphics and the way all of the characters were delivered. It griped me a little bit having jesse as some sort of mainish charcter though for no reason. Also why did wedge survive and the evacuation happened? The point of the event was the tragedy of everyone dying and the characters just being devastated (not cloud though.. hes a cool ass MOFo so he just walks off). Overall though I really liked the characters.


Graphics:

Just visually stunning. No fault anywhere.

SOundtrack:

Ohh this brought back so many memories. Very glad they kept the original themes and brought them to the modern audience to experience. Some of it felt a bit wierd at times lol. like the world map theme ina city? But ok.. it worked I guess lol.

Gameplay/Combat/mechanics

This is the part of the game I'm glad they got absolutely perfect. I really cant fault the game-play, mechanics or the combat/battle system in any way.
It was exactly how Id imagine it would work if the technology was better at the time of playing the OG game. Little touche of having the materia visible all the time on weapons and armor was a touch of magnificence so absolute bow down to the devs for that.
The only critique is that I felt there may have been bit of an over-saturation of abilities at times but I guess that otherwise the battles would start feeling really bland and repetitive in a modern context. however the way each individual charcter played differently was really cool. Apart from Red.. never got to play as red.. because reasons..

My take:

On balance I guess I felt a bit cheated that I wasn't really playing FF7 remake but more like "FF advent children the prequel: Game"
I avoided all of the spoilers reviews, etc as I really wanted to give this game an honest evaluation. Unfortunately somebody did spoil to me the game ends at Midgar before I started but that's the only piece of information I had prior to playing. Probably a good thing as I would have been very very disappointed if I was expecting the whole l OG game. As explained Im fairly aware why this was the case. (It sucks but thats just life)

What did other people think ?

It was ass, start to finish.

If I wanted crappy Kingdom Hearts combat, I'd play Kingdom Hearts Remix Redux 2.54224 Re-release XD edition.

The story was butchered beyond all recognition. They literally transported everyone to an alternate dimension just so they could have their cake and eat it too.

It was paced so poorly, the sidequests were monotonous and just a time waste, whoever thought "Chad" or "Roche" were worthwhile as characters needs to never be let near a video game production ever again, Tifa and Aerith's personalities were butchered, Red XIII was just an unlikable donkey-cave, you spent half the game stunlocked, hope you didn't be stupid and keep your limit breaks because when you use it and it does 3 damage to trigger a cutscene, textures more compressed than a neutron star's core.

The game was just a re-skin of FF13 (you know, the absolute worst one, even worse than 2 ffs), crystarium system and corridors included.

And I get it, you need to include a Games Journalist mode in games now to get your perfect scores, but it's still an insult.

I havn’t actually played it and I don’t particularly mind spoilers since I’ve played the original. I don’t think I’m going to play it on principle. I was very intrigued in things like how the golden saucer, all the mini games (snowboarding! Tower defense! Racing! Submarine stealth action!) would be transferred to a modern system. I’d love to see the design of the weapons (I mean the bosses) too. I remember how Leaving midgar was such an amazing event. Midgard is great and all but the world was just so much bigger. Now that I’ve read some stuff about the remake I feel that it’s... well, far to anime-y and limited. Feels silly to have a progression system that makes you feel like a god when it’s really just the start of the story. If they’d been very clear about it being “FF7 midgar remake” I might have been on board with it but it’s been labeled as the full game and the reviews I’ve seen have to clearify that “this is just the beginning of the game”. The combat does look like fun but I kind of doubt it’s worth buying only for that. It feels so much smaller in scope then the original game. Also doesn’t Sepiroth and the Turks appear first after you leave Midgar? I mean shinrs is a good antagonist sure but those are the faces of the opposition.

As a stand alone game it’s great.
Visually appealing and good fun.

As a remake? Not so good.
Lots of little Easter eggs and nods to the past which is great, but countless flaws let it down.
Just seems as if they pushed nostalgia as a marketing tool for a game that feels rushed and unfinished.
Showed such promise in the early stages but quickly fell apart.

My only fear is the mutters of FF8 being next.
Really couldn’t deal with them butchering another classic (and one that’s in my top 3 too)


Also, as above I see a ton of hate for 13.
I agree with a ton of it but 13-2 seems to have gone miles above it.
Finally back to a story with proper characters.



At this stage though I feel like FF games are a dead horse.
They milked 15 for ages with constant “extra” content that should have been the base game.
I honestly don’t think we will get any more of the nostalgic FF games back, those times are gone and the times of easy cash are here.

I really cant fault the game-play, mechanics or the combat/battle system in any way.

Eh. The combat was monotonous, with a lot of bullet sponge.
The gauge filling over-limited the player's ability to actually make choices in combat, and even fighting simple enemies like dogs took far too long and happened far too often.

And the boss fights... ugh. With normal enemies as tedious grinds, these were just actively painful.

It didn't help that a lot of people really struggled with the controls.

Given that the focus of the game was the cutscenes, it really felt like someone should have just made a film and not bothered with all the tedious filler.

Voss wrote:

I really cant fault the game-play, mechanics or the combat/battle system in any way.

Eh. The combat was monotonous, with a lot of bullet sponge.
The gauge filling over-limited the player's ability to actually make choices in combat, and even fighting simple enemies like dogs took far too long and happened far too often.

And the boss fights... ugh. With normal enemies as tedious grinds, these were just actively painful.

It didn't help that a lot of people really struggled with the controls.

Given that the focus of the game was the cutscenes, it really felt like someone should have just made a film and not bothered with all the tedious filler.

It's a JRPG why wouldn't there be bullet sponge enemies and bosses with overlarge health bars?

I never played the original, but I watched a streamer I follow play it and it seemed... okish. Really over-padded with sidequests, but I guess they had to justify breaking up the original and selling it piecemeal.

RE: Nostalgic FF games

We may yet see a return to them if SE has been properly paying attention. FFXIV was supposed to break the links to the old stuff. Classes at launch were thing like Gladiator, Lancer, and Thaumaturge. Then the game crashed hard on release, Yoshi P. was brought in to fix things, and the game went *hard* for the nostalgia angle. Classes became jobs at level 30, with familiar names like Paladin, Dragoon, and Black Mage. The nostalgia has continued, too. One series of raids in the Stormblood expansion involved fights against bosses from classic Final Fantasy games, such as Doomtrain and Kefka.

Yoshi P. knows that FF players like the nostalgia. The question is whether the SE management knows that, too.

 ScarletRose wrote:

Voss wrote:

I really cant fault the game-play, mechanics or the combat/battle system in any way.

Eh. The combat was monotonous, with a lot of bullet sponge.
The gauge filling over-limited the player's ability to actually make choices in combat, and even fighting simple enemies like dogs took far too long and happened far too often.

And the boss fights... ugh. With normal enemies as tedious grinds, these were just actively painful.

It didn't help that a lot of people really struggled with the controls.

Given that the focus of the game was the cutscenes, it really felt like someone should have just made a film and not bothered with all the tedious filler.

It's a JRPG why wouldn't there be bullet sponge enemies and bosses with overlarge health bars?

I fully expect (and despise) the stupid boss battles.

I don't expect the throw away dogs in the intro chapter (and later, over and over and over again) to be able to shrug off multiple attacks with guns and stupid swords the size of I-beams. Considering they try to sell Cloud and company on the 'badass' factor, having to make an actual effort to kill dogs is just sad and undermines the characterization that these characters are even competent, let alone something special.

Some fair comments. The combat did seem a bit grindy vs low tier trash at times for sure but it was quite enjoyable to me nonetheless. As mentioned the original game was grindy if you wanted it to be in terms of Strenght sources, levels or chocobos. But you could just complete the game around level 35 purely through natural progression.

It seems that the level exp gain was a bit off. It seemed my guys weren't as strong as they should be.

The crux of the issue for me is the game marketed as FF7 remake should be a remake not an alternative dimension/timeline based off a CG anime film cannon.

All that aside as a game on its own merit its an OK final fantasy, don't think its as good as 15 (any post 10 apart from 15 were garbage in ym book) but its impossible for me not to look at it and not compare it to the OG game. I would rather play OG game. In fact i think im going to play the OG game this weekend.

 Argive wrote:
Some fair comments. The combat did seem a bit grindy vs low tier trash at times for sure but it was quite enjoyable to me nonetheless. As mentioned the original game was grindy if you wanted it to be in terms of Strenght sources, levels or chocobos. But you could just complete the game around level 35 purely through natural progression.

It seems that the level exp gain was a bit off. It seemed my guys weren't as strong as they should be.

The crux of the issue for me is the game marketed as FF7 remake should be a remake not an alternative dimension/timeline based off a CG anime film cannon.

All that aside as a game on its own merit its an OK final fantasy, don't think its as good as 15 (any post 10 apart from 15 were garbage in ym book) but its impossible for me not to look at it and not compare it to the OG game. I would rather play OG game. In fact i think im going to play the OG game this weekend.

If so I'd reccomend that after finishing the Midgar section in the OG you make a quick google for "Yuffie" and "Vincent". They're secret characters that really add a lot to the game but are easy to miss.

You cant get vincent till neibleheim. From memory the earliest you can get yuffie is juno forest after getting past the midgar zolom...
Gawd why do I remember useless stuff like this lol.

Meh it's alright. It was the reason I got a PS4 ( that and battle garegga rev 2016 by M2 shot triggers) and im ok with that.

The game is kinda meh, ofc they had to extend the midgar stuff to make it a 'full game' ( ugh) to sell it. Also cutting this into chapters ( so they can sell you the same thing over and over again) was also sleezy... I mean cutting it into season passes... might as well be.

I kinda gave up on it, and my ps4 gathered dust until I picked up Yakuza 0 on steam and didn't like the controls on it so I got Yakuza 0 on ps4 and its a million times better. Now I got a few more games for ps4 ( castlevania rondo of blood and SOTN back) so yeah.


Over all I know why they are doing it the way they are, im not liking it and im dredding how they butcher the story next.

FF7 Remake.... meh go play the OG if you want a awesome game, play this if like the op said you want FF7 AC the prequel.