Chapter 8/9 thought: Aerith is the Donkey to Cloud's Shrek.
Chapter 8/9 thought: Aerith is the Donkey to Cloud's Shrek.
Just started Chapter 17 and doing stuff in Hojo's lab, which is substantially bigger than the original. So I guess I'm quite near the end, will post some thoughts once the credits have rolled.
Beat the game last week, still don't know how to feel about it. (SPOILER)I really loved the parts of the story that were faithful to the original, the portrayal of almost all the returning characters were on point, and (most of) the new characters were likeable enough and gave greater depth to the lore and worldbuilding of Midgar. However, I absolutely despised the increased focus on Sephiroth, shoving him in our face since almost immediately after the first bombing mission, the time travel ghosts/arbiters of fate nonsense did not belong in this game, and the ending was just a hot mess that pretty much ruined the game for me. Besides that, everything else about the remake was solid, if lacking polish in some areas.
I hate the Weapon Upgrade feature.
(SPOILER)i pick up, say, a new pair of gloves for tifa. i go to equip them and the stats are less than my current ones. ok, it's because ive forgotten to upgrade them. so i spend a minute or two pressing X in the crystarium thing to bring the weapon up to level? seems so dumb and pointless. at least making weapon abilities permanent involves using them in battle. i dont really want to interrupt my current gameplay to do menu stuff. lame.
Ok... well I was not expecting THAT to be the final act. (SPOILER)smurfing Nomura man.
I'll have to think about this before posting my thoughts.
I'm kinda disappointed Roche didn't show up in the escape from Midgar. Makes his addition as a character feel even more redundant unless he's intended to become the "shows up at the worst possible timing, comedy slapstick minor villain who probably has a redemption arc" of the next part(s)
Last edited by Aulayna; 04-13-2020 at 04:53 PM.
(SPOILER) I think Roche was created merely in order for the group to have a battle while they were riding motorcycles.
I'm on chapter 14 and I put the game down. I don't intend to finish it.
LIKED
Aside from some low polygon backgrounds, the game looks amazing.
The voice actor for Barret nailed it, plus he had all the best lines.
The main story beats brought over from the original were awesome.
I love some of the new music, really good stuff.
DISLIKED
The side missions were boring, except darts and whack a box.
The game lost the atmosphere from the original.
FF 7 remake is padded with filler to extend the play time. Some of that padding is OK, but most of it is really annoying. I just want to move forward with the story. I don't want to fight X boss monster in an area that only lasted 5 minutes in the original.
The game loves to slow you down and make you walk.
The voice acting, aside from Barret, Jessie, Wedge and a few others, was pretty bad. Side note, my girlfriend heard me playing one day and asked why all the women in the game sound sexual. I couldn't argue with her or defend the game.
I love the music for Wall Market in the original and can't fathom why they changed it in the remake.
Too much padding in the story.
The game is effectively now a dungeon crawler?
I actually got really frustrated playing and put it down. I was simply enraged. I can't really explain it, but I was not having fun with the game after a while. Maybe my nostalgia goggles are on too tight.
What really bothers me is that all of the review sites and YouTube reviewers are foaming at the mouth over how great the game is. It boggles my mind. Even some of my go to reviewers, who are usually brutally honest about games, are tripping over themselves. Not one iota of criticism. I don't mind folks who like the game. My opinion is my opinion but I have yet to hear any constructive criticism of this game anywhere. If you do, please let me know, I'd love to read it.
As a fan of the original game, I am deeply disappointed in this game.
I think we will find out once everything settles that this game will end up being fairly divisive. I honestly do think it would have been the better move to cover more ground in the first game. I have seen reviews that have brought up a lot of the unneeded padding that this game has. It isn't a bad game but it did do some things that some fans of the original game aren't going to be to keen about.
Last edited by tony123; 04-14-2020 at 12:21 AM.
Pros (so far, since my last update i'm only one scene past the (SPOILER)plate drop):
Turks fights have been enjoyable so far. I liked that (SPOILER)reno showed at least some guilt and hesitation before the plate drop, no matter how short lived. i like that these characters are being humanized early
Wall Market was great. My gf and I really enjoyed the camp of everything. We loved the honeybee inn segment. She was really "wtf", having not played the original game, so that was fun to see. I was worried about how certain elements might be handled (a lot has changed since the 90s) but I think they did a really good job at maintaining the humor of the situation without resorting to harmful stereotypes or jokes.
Bosses typically require a bit more thought than the original, and are more entertaining. This is definitely true of the first two bosses, although it tapered off in the middle.
Cons:
The train graveyard section was way too long. (SPOILER) at this point in time, our three characters know about the plot to drop the plate, and there's a rush to get there. but, i'm supposed to also care about this boring ghost subplot? should have been an optional side-quest/dungeon, imo (although I understand that it would be hard to find a place or ideal time to put it, so maybe it shouldn't exist at all). the whole thing from when you leave don corneo to the plate was a boring slog that took maybe 20-30 mins total in the original
I'm still only in the starting points of the game, but I find myself frustrated that they don't seem to have done much, if anything, about the antiquated portrayals of women in the game. That's just based on first impressions though.
Other than that I'm liking all the added detail so far. Not super fond of the filler missions.
I'm now in chapter 11, so adding a few comments!
Pros
- Aerith's church and home are beautiful.
- Reno and Rude are still so great.
- Aerith talking about (SPOILER)Zack broke my heart. She looks and sounds so sad.
- The entire Wall Market sequence was amazing, and I really enjoy the train graveyard too.
- I love everything that is faithful to the original and how some parts of it are fleshed out.
- The friendship between Tifa and Aerith is finally shown and it's amazing.
- I prefer the relationship between Cloud and Aerith in the remake than in everything else. They (SPOILER)tone down the love triangle and it just makes everything more interesting.
Cons
- I'm not really fond of the dementors-like creatures. I'm not sure it was necessary and we don't see them enough to care.
- Still not fond of Barret's gameplay, while I love playing as the other three
Yeah that is definitely an issue with this game. They are still making 90's style of video game characters for a game that was released in 2020. That was one of the things that made it difficult for me to get into the story. My deal is that if the characters are going to be looking more realistic I want them to act more realistic as well. I think though that is just a JRPG type of thing though. JRPG characters aren't meant to be realistic. They are more or less just fantasy characters. With the original FF7 you could still use your imagination and were still able to turn the characters into the types that you wanted them to be. With this game you can't really use your imagination and just have to take what the JRPG developers gave you.