Hero-of-Time Posted May 13 Posted May 13 Chapter 13 is super long and chapter 14 is pretty hefty due to boss fights and cutscenes. 1
drahkon Posted May 14 Posted May 14 10 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said: Chapter 13 is super long and chapter 14 is pretty hefty due to boss fights and cutscenes. 10 hours ago, drahkon said: I'm wondering whether I could finish the game before I'm away for the weekend. Looks like it'll take me a while longer then 1
Julius Posted September 16 Author Posted September 16 (edited) Dived back into this on Saturday after a 6+ month break. It definitely took that first session to get myself back into the swing of things (and I feel like there are still things I'm figuring out again), picking up towards the end of a cave in Chapter 3, and speeding along so that I'm now some 3½ chapters along at the start of Chapter 7 and about to start heading towards Mt. Corel. What I was surprised by returning to this game, or at least across the two sessions I've had since returning to it, is that it feels like the open world is so detached from the linear story being told. After making it out of that cave and heading over to Junon at the end of Chapter 3, I haven't naturally ended up encountering the open world again until the start of Chapter 7, which, uh, is genuinely mind-boggling for a game sold as being open world? When I first played the game back at launch I was doing absolutely everything, and when I left the game around the 10 hour mark, I had essentially spent it exploring every nook and cranny, completing every quest and the like, to 100% completion across just Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. What does it say, then, that returning to the game, I was only 1 level ahead of the expected level curve (going off the recommended level for the main story chapter), despite doing so much beforehand? I suppose there's plenty of gear and gil that it can net you, but man, it really took the wind out of my sails booting this up again and basically realising that the amount of time I'd put in beforehand hadn't really had all that much of an impact on improving things for the party, and before someone says "well maybe you just weren't battling that many things", the side quests themselves have plenty of battles, but I also remember going out of my way to seek them out skimming back through the thread and dodging spoiler tags where I see them, @Hero-of-Time mentioned levelling up quite easy and ending up at Lv 50 by the end of the game despite going through the game in a much more focused and linear fashion, and I have to imagine that backs up what I'm saying a bit in that so much of that EXP must almost certainly be coming from main story beats and bosses. I can't think of many other JRPGs which have as much side content available as this and yet they seem so separated from the core RPGness of it all. I've rattled off a few weird things which have been grinding my gears, then, but mentioning side content and shifting gears, I've got to say, I absolutely freaking adore every mini-game I've come across in this. I enjoyed Queen's Blood back in my first 10 hours with the game and despite such a long break, it didn't take long to get back into the swing of things, and I'm having a blast with it again here. It's SO damn simple but also clearly has a decently high skill cap, and I've been going out of my way to seek challengers, which of course meant I loved a certain tournament. The mini-games in Costa del Sol were good fun, and then the ways in which they choose to gamify events such as an awesome series of events back in Junon similar to how they handled them at the Honey Bee Inn back in Remake was spectacular – I've mentioned it here before, but this to me is such an essential part of what it means to be a Final Fantasy game, making something which could be a cutscene this interactive experience which elevates the scene through your inclusion – I can't help but think back to the opera scene in VI every time I bring this up, but it has been true of every FF I've played so far. I've also tickled some ivories a couple of times with certain characters, and was surprised first and foremost by how intuitive the mini-game of it becomes, before I got the chance to play Tifa's Theme. Tifa's Theme isn't just one of my favourite pieces from VII, or even just Final Fantasy, it's one of my favourite character themes in gaming, period, and I'm not ashamed to say that as the first keys were stroked and I realised what was being played, it had me choking up. I'm really glad that I dropped the game back when I did because of what was going on, as I would've been a mess. Speaking of Junon, the sense of freaking scale at times in this game is INSANE. Just seeing that big ol' gun from so many different perspectives, but then walking through the streets and seeing so, so many people, and at times having so, so many people follow you...the production values aren't just off the chart, but I feel that they went to the right places when I'm left awestruck like I have been several times since returning to the game. I'm also just loving the characters I come across, whether it be a generic NPC in the background screaming about how they don't know what they're doing on a Segway, some Shinra middle manager who must be an undercover Sephiroth Shadow because COME ON HOW IS HE ALWAYS IN THE SAME PLACE AS US, one of the big bad villains, lower league Shinra members, but especially the party itself. Everyone is just so wonderfully realised and voiced to perfection. There's just a charm and silliness here that wasn't really that present in XVI, I know they wanted to go for something else in that game, but I keep finding myself grinning from just how silly this game consistently gets at times. Music, it goes without saying, has been phenomenal since returning to Rebirth, not just in the typical "this is Final Fantasy and it is meeting my insane expectations for Final Fantasy" way, but in the "oh, this is going to be the best music in gaming this year, sorry to everyone else I guess but thanks for showing up and taking part?" way that we've been spoiled with on the FF front for a good while now, what with Remake, XVI and now Rebirth all having spectacular OSTs. I'm doing my best to avoid looking up track names because I've managed to avoid spoilers for 6+ months and don't want to increase my odds of coming across them now, but there's just so much great stuff, and it's so varied but also nuanced in how it can escalate or de-escalate depending on a widening or narrowing of scope, such as how the very suave, California highway in the 60s, bossa nova-ish Costa del Sol track just morphs into so many different forms while you explore that locale. The battle music and boss tracks in particular continue to be on a whole other level of epic, and looking back at what I said last time, mentioning bosses, I just want to highlight that the most fun with this game I'm having in combat encounters is with bosses. They're soooooooo good! So, while returning to it I'm still not fully sold on the open world (I may just look into if there's a point in the story where everything opens up at once before I imagine it narrows its focus for the finale) or the idea of the side quests, I'm having a blast. Like with Remake, I think the more focused and linear parts of this game where it seems at its closest to adapting the original VII are where it is at its strongest, with some of the content filling the gaps between those points, for me, feeling a little weaker, but totally understandable to include given the scope of the game and needing to bridge gaps between those original events and locations. I'm not sure when and where this game ends exactly (from the trailers I remember it at least goes as far as Temple of the Ancients), but I could see the final entry in the trilogy narrowing things back down in scale a bit purely because I think that would best serve the story, whereas having the middle chapter have these optional sprawling areas makes complete sense to me, because it will literally end up being left open-ended, so why wouldn't the world also be? This all being said, with how Remake ended - which was a bit too much for my tastes, story-wise, just with how off-the-wall it went - and how much this game hasn't really done that yet outside of what I remember of its opening...it's hard to not be a little nervous about where this is all heading. I'm all for them going off the rails to an extent, but I hope it makes some level of sense. And by that, I mean actual sense, not the typical Square Enix kind Anyways, super happy to be back playing this, and looking forward to popping here from time to time to comment on particular aspects as The Unknown Journey continues Edited September 16 by Julius 1
Julius Posted September 18 Author Posted September 18 Chapter 7 rounded off, and the highlight of it all is this very unique reaction of Barret's to Yuffie's sass... Spoiler 1
Julius Posted September 19 Author Posted September 19 (edited) Chapter 8 got me, that was wonderfully done First time at Gold Saucer was great, looking forward to going back when some of the locked off stuff hopefully becomes playable. Not all of those mini-games were created equal (despite the lovely looking polygonal models from the original game, that "boxing" one was a bit of a miss for me), but I did have a great time! Cait Sith's theme is excellent: Though I do miss the organ from the original Really impressed by just how well animated Cait Sith is in this, he's incredibly expressive. Yeah, I'm honestly just ignoring the open world and a lot of the optional quests at this point and treating it like a much more linear game, partly because of what I mentioned before about not really feeling the benefits of exploring the open world, but also, the story is really just pulling me along and I'm having so much fun just spending time with the party and seeing how they interact. It's a shame, and I'd call myself something of an open world defender - of good open worlds, anyways, of which there are few - but there's just so little interactivity in the open world that it feels like little more than set dressing to me most of the time. Of the side content, beyond a planned return to Gold Saucer to make sure I play enough games to collect all the prizes, Queen's Blood is still getting played every chance I get, and the cards I picked up from Gold Saucer have seamlessly fitted into my existing deck –and I can't see that changing before credits roll. I'm not typically a huge "card game in a video game" guy but over the last few months I've really turned around on them, what between Pazaak in KOTOR and Sabacc in Outlaws. Now we're just trucking along, heading south... Edited September 19 by Julius 1
Julius Posted September 22 Author Posted September 22 (edited) Chapters 9 and 10 completed today. Chapter 9 was fantastic. By far the coolest Cloud has been in the remake project so far, and... Spoiler ...of course it's when he's doing his best Sephiroth RP Chapter 10 then came along and just doubled down on the hard-hitting story beats. Spoiler The visuals in this game are stunning, especially so in the cutscenes. You can tell by just how many "edits" there are in these alone that there's so much care and effort put into the game, never mind the fact that it's probably got some of the best "cinematography" in AAA gaming right now outside of Sony's first-party offerings (y'know, your GoWs, your TLOUs). It's so refreshing after playing something like Outlaws last month where the "camera" just felt so...static, whereas in this, it almost feels like a character unto itself. I need to praise the combat once again, as being at or just under the recommended level with following the main story seems to be this sweet spot for emphasising just how tremendous these boss fights are. I love this game's combat, and as much as I enjoyed so much of Final Fantasy XVI, Square Enix need to stop being silly now: the Action ATB they introduced in VII Remake is BY FAR AND AWAY one of the best combat systems in a modern action RPG. This needs to be all over the near future of Final Fantasy for me, I don't think they can reasonably go back to pure turn-based for the mainline games, and while I think it will take more than this for the franchise to become a juggernaut again, they should really take this and tweak it across multiple games in the same way that ATB was introduced in IV and stuck around until IX. I realise I'm saying this with a few games to catch up on from this year, but having played Shadow of the Erdtree and having had a whale of a time with its bosses and knowing full well the strength of its roster of boss encounters, I feel qualified to say it: Rebirth has some of the best boss encounters in gaming this year, hands down. So far so many of them have been incredibly fun, they somehow always feel fresh and inject even more life and immediacy into the game, and they're guaranteed to be a spectacle. Look, I've got issues with the open world and side quests of Rebirth, which I'm still almost entirely ignoring to focus on the story, and I do think having an open world game like this and as much side content as this game does feel so separate should hurt the game – but it doesn't, and I'm kind of in awe of the fact that it doesn't; I don't honestly know how I'm supposed to weigh my perspective of the open world against the broader game given that it feels like almost entirely optional, incredibly expensive, beautiful-looking but not so interactive set dressing, and there's so far been no punishment whatsoever for avoiding it in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay or my enjoyment of the game. It kind of reminds me of Elden Ring and how some loved exploring the open world, and others didn't, but those that didn't could beeline to the next legacy dungeon or point of interest and they'd still be able to have a blast with the game. Which is all to say that, yep, I'm still having a blast with Rebirth – despite not finding enjoyment in its open world, it is still making me feel how I wanted to feel about this game watching its many trailers and anticipating its release. The music. The characters. The story beats. I've still got some ways to go - apparently I'm around ⅔ in, according to the progress tracker back on the PS5 main menu - but even if this game somehow falls on its face towards the end (which I'm half-expecting because as much as I enjoyed Remake and the risk it took, it did also kind of do the same with its story), it has really reinforced my love and appreciation of Final Fantasy VII, as in the original 1997 game. It's making me want to go back and revisit the original – it's been a while since I played through it, and I think it had its issues, but, what, some 7+ years removed from clearing that game for the first and only time, I'm playing through this and constantly going "so we've still got that to come up, I think...oh, and then there's that, too!", and remembering with surprising accuracy which beat is coming up next – I mean, how many modern releases do you think you'll be saying that about in 7 years' time? I seriously doubt there'll be too many. And so the final act of this middle chapter of The Unknown Journey begins...can't wait Edited September 22 by Julius 1
Julius Posted October 1 Author Posted October 1 (edited) Started and finished off Chapter 11 on Friday night, which had maybe my favourite boss fight (got them to no HP showing and they dropped a nuke on me first time, so beat them second time), but was a series of highs and lows. Ending up needing to solo an area as certain characters, especially support characters, just kind of sucks – genuinely think the most frustrating battle in the game so far was against a pair of standard enemies as said support character. I will say, it's probably because of not doing side stuff, but I wiped only once in the entire game before the finale of Remake (against Type-0 Behemoth) whereas, probably not doing much of the side content and not getting the better gear, I've wiped a few more times than I did in that game – which I LOVE. This game really feels like it builds on Remake's combat and boss encounters in such unique and interesting ways where I don't mind taking some of them on a few times because of how fun they are to face off against. At the same time, though, the problem Remake had of you sometimes not having a certain spell or ability of a certain element to take advantage of a weakness means that on a second attempt you can re-spec with slotting in a new materia (I think it gets really messy when the party gets split up because you might have a few compositions which cover all bases and then - SURPRISE! - you have a super weird party comp which doesn't and so you need to rejig things a bit), and any extra attempts beyond the first are infinitely once you know what you're doing – one problem I then had resulting from that with a certain boss fight in the following chapter was that I got to the second phase too quickly and without having had my gauges fill up to a point where I could consistently do damage the way the game asks you to. In the latter stages of the game - probably because of the increased speed of attacks - I've definitely had the animation cancel problem (be it through an attack or a mid-battle cutscene) return from Remake against some bosses, where ATB gauges and the like are going to waste because just so happened to use them at just the wrong time? Chapter 12 yesterday...I knew that was coming after we got the game presented at the TGAs last year, but damn, yeah I was fully choked up, as I thought I would be weird difficulty spike starting here with the boss fights where even using Assess they're suddenly so much more about having Limit Breaks and ATB abilities and spells ready to go in the very small window a boss is prepping a certain move/has a certain vulnerability, but once you know what's coming damn is it still great. The 1v1 took a bit of time for me to adjust to (I kept attacking too early on the Reload) but damn was Triple Slash helpful as all heck in this battle. I thought I would be spending loads of time doing mini-games and tracking down Queen's Blood players once the map opened up more here, but nope, I want to see the ending out of excitement and also it seems like some of the stuff back at Gold Saucer is on a higher difficulty which, meh, isn't really what I'm looking for out of those games. Started Chapter 13 and had the exact same issue I mentioned about needing to attack an early boss a certain way when powered up, except the damn thing wouldn't stay still or even allow me to ground it consistently, so that took surprisingly long – Shiva throwing icicles at its face worked a treat. Game is well and truly starting to build up to its climax so I'm very excited to see where it goes, but holy damn @Hero-of-Time you weren't kidding about how long Chapter 13 was, it does kind of grind things to a halt (as much fun as I find it to spam Heatwave as Aerith on horses of Shinra fodder), and at a guess I probably half-ish of the way through before putting it down last night. It's a shame because in the context of the complete VII story having a fully fledged dungeon here makes sense - much more so than the length of Hojo's place in Remake - but in the context of Rebirth in a vacuum, yeah, it's long, and you feel it because you want to see what happens next and how it wraps up. I'm now really curious to see how and where this wraps up, exactly. Will be aiming to wrap this up today in order to start picking away at my spooky or monster-filled picks for Halloween this month imagine I'll be making very liberal use of the spoiler tags! Edited October 1 by Julius 1
Julius Posted October 1 Author Posted October 1 Bahahahahahahaha Chapter 13 spoils Cait Sith running through the Temple of the Ancients like 1
Julius Posted October 2 Author Posted October 2 (edited) And, after nearly 52 hours and reaching Level 48, that is a wrap on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Quick and rambled thoughts with no time to sit on how it all wrapped up incoming! Finale and story spoilers Good lord, that final fight was long, amirite? Jenova Lifeclinger was cool, wasn't expecting a ridiculous number of phases but I did appreciate the approach of getting a fight from different angles, including Zack's. Bizarro•Sephiroth turning up - aka the Sephiroth form with the best fight music, don't @ me, I know I'm right, Birth of a God is PERFECTION and it's a little silly that it didn't turn up here - was completely unexpected considering, well, its timing in the original game. Everything was smooth sailing for me up until the final phase of Sephiroth with The End Is Nigh, because well, this happened on my second attempt: And on some subsequent attempts too, to the point I had to look up if I was completely missing something. The advice I found? Save a Limit Break and plenty of ATB bars ready for that final part of the battle to really push hard, which I've got to say, I wasn't a huge fan of, purely because on that second attempt I did exactly that but didn't know to save my Limit Break (hell, just one more ATB bar) in expectation of a final move I couldn't have foreseen. You get that a couple of times with these later bosses. So, during other attempts, to raise my Limit Break gauge I actually found myself needing to get hit by Sephiroth, and then some of those just went wrong for me. Hell, this happened: I tried to use a Giga Potion on Cloud after Sephi used that stupid Heartless Angel attack (and yes it is stupid because it's pure RNG/space between you that decides if you can get a heal off before he swipes at you again) as Aerith, then switched over to Cloud to wait for said heal to arrive and raise my ATB to heal Aerith... WHY?! Ahem, anyways, eventually it got done: my final attempt seemed to be exactly what the game wanted you to know to do, without telling you (note: the ATB bars I'm not using on a Staggered boss like you would THE ENTIRE DAMN REST OF THE GAME TO SAVE THEM FOR THE END IS NIGH SHIXIDNAKFJEBSKXI) Anyways, that all happened, and...Aerith still didn't make it. They did successfully fake me out for a split second after the initial killing blow from Sephiroth in all honesty, because I thought they were going to change it, and the fact that they didn't does make me question a bit what we're doing here, exactly? It's a shame because I actually love the story as a whole - maybe it was Remake's stupid Kingdom Hearts ending, but I had no issue with Rebirth's in terms of going off the rails, and would actually say that it could've gone further, that's how much leeway the audacity of the Remake ending bought them. Zack and Cloud facing off against Sephiroth was cool as hell, as was Zack vs Bizarro in the church. But yeah, why are we here? Again, I don't mind the multiverse stuff or whatever they're doing particularly bad, but I do think they're some of the weaker points in the game, not Zack's POV or that over world but rather the Whispers and stuff. They decided to forgo this being a straight-er remake (let's be honest, it could never be 1:1) and thus risked not getting newcomers on-board who want the full story - I've said it before but I have friends who barely touch JRPGs, I can whittle them down in some cases, but convince them to play a JRPG from 1997 with polygons to compete against Lara Croft's? Yeah, fat chance. The strength of interactions between and performances of the cast show to me that going this route wasn't at all necessary, it's almost like they needed an out in case they wanted to do things differently, did them differently, and then...didn't? Like, that scene going differently feels like the entire point of the Whispers existing. I do think a lot of the new fleshing out stuff has been great - damn, Alfina's death scene got me teary eyed too - but take out the Whispers and I would have honestly enjoyed this and Remake even more than I already have. People will say "oh, Sephiroth won't have the same mystique around him as he did in '97!" – well, yeah, obviously if you've already played VII then you already know what's coming! But for newcomers, or people like me who wanted to see it fully realised with the fidelity of this project? It would've been awesome. I also think some of the main themes of the original game are unfortunately watered down in comparison to the original game, purely because of this side stuff going on. Again, it's not a massive turnoff for me, but it feels so obvious that it would be stronger without that I do find myself questioning just a little bit whether the decision by S-E to boldly go in a new direction with Remake was truly about being bold and doing something new, or because they feared simply remaking and updating the original game for a modern audience and system. Did they think these games wouldn't sell as well if saving Aerith wasn't on the cards? Now, I don't think either approach is wrong, but even though the heart and soul of VII is well and truly alive here, I think some of the depth is missing. This can be no more apparent to me than one of my favourite moments - Aerith's water burial by Cloud - being ENTIRELY omitted. That scene carries so much weight because of what it means for Cloud and the party, yet here we are now facing a wait of a few years to then have Cloud get over this current trauma of losing Aerith before making peace with it...which I struggle to imagine can land nearly as hard as it could have if retained here, like in the original. I feel like they've left it all in a bit of a weird spot. Oh, and if this game to close out the trilogy isn't "Reunion", S-E have to be some of the biggest trolls. I swear it's the word said the most in this entire game! For as flawed as I think Rebirth might be - some of the issues with combat from Remake that I had have stuck around, the story elements not from the original can be a bit hit and miss, and the open world I found almost entirely redundant - I've got to say: I had an absolute blast. As for GOTY discussions, well and truly, for me: The music, the characters, the vibe, Cait Sith going from like a D-tier character at best up to a clear and obvious A-tier, the mini-games, the music, the boss fights, the Synergy stuff, the incredibly expensive but also fantastic looking set dressing of an open world, the playability involved when travelling through and from certain areas, just the vast look and feel of this game world and the abundance of people in it and in certain cutscenes, not to mention how well the "camera" is used for some really unique shots and perspectives, and last but not least, let's not forget to mention the music for the third time!! The real winner for me with this game, though, is just how much it has made me want to revisit the original – and so I've got it pencilled in already for a potential replay next year off the back of this. I played this game through once close to a decade ago now and I feel so incredibly strongly about it that I think it's worth a revisit, especially before the final part, because I keenly remember that being the weakest part of it all for me, and where it fell apart in a way some of my other favourite JRPGs haven't. I'm really curious now too to see if they can change my mind about the last act with the final game in the trilogy. Which is all to say: I can't wait for the seemingly inevitable DLC and the third and final entry in this trilogy. It's been a hell of a time, and so for now, until next time, Unknown Journey Edited October 2 by Julius 2
Hero-of-Time Posted 7 hours ago Posted 7 hours ago Quote The United Kingdom outlet Daily Star recently published an interview with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi. I think there is one other thing actually, which I can say was a mistake on my part, something that I've already apologized for – and I definitely will not do again, which is how difficult I made it to get the Platinum Trophy. So rest assured I have learned from that and in future I will not be making Platinum Trophies that difficult. Coward.
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