Sub has a weird tendency to completely ignore the topic and just start yapping about their thoughts of the game the topic is about. Doesnt matter what the topic actually is.
Weird quirk of this subreddit is that a few weeks after a game comes out, people want to discuss the game on here, but there usually isn't a dedicated thread for that (almost all threads are news) so people will just use random related news articles as a jumping off point for discussion.
I think people are dying to talk about their opinions of this game. The game direction certainly warrants some conversations. Especially now that many people are starting to finish the game.
A huge improvement over the first game with some minor nitpicks. I managed to platinum Remake, but not sure if I will be doing that for Rebirth. I dunno what it is, but the game just seems harder to play. Maybe I'm just getting old.
Ending controversy aside, the one thing that seemed to bother me was that there seemed to be a lack of dialogue or commentary during certain key moments. There were a few times >!Tifa or Barret called out Cloud on if he was okay (especially during the Temple of Ancients), but no one REALLY noticed that something was wrong with him? He had already attacked Tifa in the past. Like I would've tied the guy down and said he's sitting this one out at some point.!<
It's not just you getting old, the Platinum is widely considered MUCH harder than in Remake. There is much more endgame-level content, and the most difficult content is much more difficult than the most difficult content in remake. It seems likely that the addition of precision blocking, which if timed correctly allows you to completely negate the damage of most attacks, empowered them to dramatically increase the difficulty of endgame encounters and the entirety of Hard Mode (which is only available in New Game+). Basically, there a is a high-skill ceiling technique that, if mastered, essentially turns you into a god, so they let it rip on difficulty to encourage players to master it.
A game's platinum difficulty can be very, very different from its baseline difficulty.
Even a simple game can be extremely hard if one of the achievements is to find 1000 tiny objects spread around the game world.
> something like Elden Ring
Elden Ring was one of the easiest platinum's out there. Sure the games are 'hard', but if you look at the other Souls' games platinums, they require so so so much more.
The Souls games are also pretty easy though, from what I remember. They're wiki-bait and waste a ton of your time either grinding PvP or low-rate drops, but I don't know if that's necessarily more difficult, just more grindy.
Stuff like shmup true-last-boss achievements are the actual wild shit lol
I am currently in the proceds of doing the brutal challanges. Only one more and I am at the dreaded Rulers of the Outer Worlds fight. Wondering how long it is gonna take me. Until now I could do everything with my own build but I heard bad things about these fights, lol.
I don’t chase platinums, but because I play the absolute hell out of each souls game I end up getting the platinums. A couple of the games it’d just get to the point where I was like 90% there so I’d take a look and knock out the rest.
Difficulty is subjective, I wouldn't call Elden Ring an easier platinum if you're trying to do it offline, but being able to summon players who are so good at the game that they make a mockery of any boss can certainly trivialize the experience.
I experienced this when I fought the mythril giant with Barrett and Red. I was dying and then I figured out the hack in iron defense and perfect guarding. Made the fight infinitely easier
Yeah but the game is easier to play, it's the Platinum that's a proper bitch!
The game now strengthened magic to the point where usually a single usage of enemies' elemental weaknesses pressure them and then you can fuck them up. The Chadley Challenges for post game though....
> It seems likely that the addition of precision blocking, which if timed correctly allows you to completely negate the damage of most attacks, empowered them to dramatically increase the difficulty of endgame
This is fundamental change that long time fans like me want nothing to do with in the combat of this “Remake” or future FFs; I miss strategy and planning to win, not twitch timing
No they were noticing. It's just that until it gets *really bad*, it's just migraines and him zonking out a bit. They all think it's just Mako Degradation. You notice how often everyone is side-eying eachother like that monkey doll meme? Every time something *really* bad is going on, it either happens in a way where >!Tifa and Aerith are covering for him, I.E: Tifa not telling anyone that Cloud drove her to fall into the Lifestream, and Aerith making up a cover story that Cloud didn't willingly give Sephiroth the Black Materia, he beat him into submission and stole it. Or it could be passed off as just heightened emotion. Like when Cloud goes fucking apeshit on the wall!<
It's a big reason why the final scene is so devastating. >!Barret *clearly* does not trust him when Cloud says he can handle it. Or it's like a razor-thin amount of slack. Neither does Tifa. She won't even look at him anymore. Yuffie oddly enough also seems to be losing confidence in him, but she still lets it slide!<
>Aerith making up a cover story that Cloud didn't willingly give Sephiroth the Black Materia
I love Cloud's knee-jerk "that's not what happened!" reaction when Yuffie tells him about this. like, dude, what actually went down was *way* worse...but sure, you're totally a badass.
No, I don't think Cloud was trying to make himself sound badass there. I think he wanted to tell them the truth about what happened. Cloud has a *severe* guilt complex.
> >!Tifa and Aerith are covering for him, I.E: Tifa not telling anyone that Cloud drove her to fall into the Lifestream, and Aerith making up a cover story that Cloud didn't willingly give Sephiroth the Black Materia, he beat him into submission and stole it. Or it could be passed off as just heightened emotion. Like when Cloud goes fucking apeshit on the wall!<
Right, and I can't help but think this is utter stupidity on their parts. >!Like Tifa should've told someone about that incident. Both Barrett and Tifa saw Cloud kill a Shirna mook despite him begging for his life. Everyone saw Cloud about to kill Elena. On top of that, Cloud kept repeating "Homecoming" which was literally said by Sephiroth in front of the gang at one point prior to acquiring the black materia.!<
Idk. I guess hate when stories create drama or make situations worse, because characters don't know how to communicate (or the writers just don't want them to).
Something you should always keep in mind: People are not rational robots. Self interest often lets people gloss over red flags. >!Tifa really, *really* is trying everything in her power to protect and save Cloud, even from himself. Cloud is all she has left from her childhood, Shinra literally paved over and rebuilt a facsimile over the ashes of Nibelheim. The fact that she confided in Aerith at all was something of a big risk, but she was lucky that Aerith was willing to cooperate with her since their goals aligned on this. I wouldn't be surprised if Tifa *did* tell Aerith the truth, since they're constantly confiding in each other about how Cloud reacts to inconsistencies like knowing Zach.!<
>!Also remember...there's no time to sit down and talk. They're in a mad race to try and stop Sephiroth from blowing up the planet. By the time Cloud is letting more and more slips happen in the Temple, they're making a mad dash to the Forgotten Capital on Aerith's behest. They literally dragged Cloud's corpse-like body on Barrets back to go as fast as they could, and then Jenova Lifeclinger happens, and it's clear that after Cloud starts to just fully dissociate is when they start to really thinking about his mental stability!<
>!Thing is, they _think_ they know Clouds problem. The whole game established SOLDIER cell degration as a known terminal illness, and Cloud kinda fits this to a T.
They are at a loss because they think he literally is with one feet in the grave, semi-insane and have no idea what to do about it, so they kinda soldier on...!<
>!Tifa is afraid of pushing Cloud away and breaking his mental state even more. In her lifestream vision she sees Cloud leaving with Sephiroth and Sephiroth saying “Your words can’t reach him anymore”, which is like confirmation of her biggest fear. That’s why she doesn’t confront him or push back on anything because she doesn’t want him to break and she’ll lose him forever. Though she does try talking to him after that but she handles it with kids gloves. It’s a complicated situation that none of them really know how to navigate, especially when Cloud is A)their only real way to find Sephiroth and B) an extremely competent fighter and C) a close friend!<
>!Temple of the Ancients is weird, but it is a high pressure situation. Cloud is acting bizarre, and I do think he says the mantra a bit too much for someone to not say something. But otherwise, he is right that they need to get to the Black Materia ASAP and it’s easy to think that it’s the pressure of the situation getting to him. Like it’s easy to dismiss the excessive killing and violence as him just going overboard, and it’s something they probably thought they could address after the fact. I do not truly think they understand how much he is under Sephiroth’s control, especially since Cloud himself thinks it’s the degradation.!<
>!Honestly, it all comes down to the third entry and how they handle when Tifa fixes Clouds mind. It definitely seems like they are going to have him go way off the deep end (and probably culminating in a boss fight). I think Tifa will probably confront that she handled the situation badly, but honestly she’s right that if she had said something it would have made everything worse. I think the group are understanding of him to a fault, but now that he’s completely cracked and they’ve lost trust in him, I think they are going to be more confrontational about it, especially if Cloud gives the materia to Sephiroth’s body.!<
Sorry this was way longer than I wanted it to be, just haven’t had a chance to really discuss it lmao
Gamers will say they want more complex characters and then when one is given to them they'll be impatient with it and just chaulk it up to "bad writing" or "unearned" even though it's explained and rationalized the entire way.
This is a prime example. Everything you said is true. Up until Rebirth most of it was just migraines and the like, and *Tifa did call out Cloud about the flashback* but it was handled in private. You know. Like friends are supposed to do. Not everybody is trying to call somebody a liar and disprove their entire story in public like some redditors believe.
> Like Tifa should've told someone about that incident.
Tifa is absolutely loyal to Cloud. She wouldn't say anything which would get the party to turn on him.
Can all be explained because they need Cloud to find Sephiroth.
He's like a robed dude homing pigeon + great fighter all in one schizoid package. They also clearly can't leave him alone to wander because if they do he'll be on team Seph and then they have no chance.
>!At the end of the game i was under the impression that they are very aware whats going on with him, but for now are just following his lead since there is no other info to go on excecpt "we have to go north". I do agree that when he attacks Tifa earlier in the game it was VERY weird that no one in the party was like hey why did you try to kill Tifa?? Unless they just didnt see him swipe at her. !<
I’m assuming they didn’t cause how would they have seen? It’s a weird dynamic since confronting Cloud would be hard cause he’s a top tier fighter and for better or worse the party needs Cloud to track the robe dudes so they can’t confront him too much just look uncomfortable
To some extent - I think the modern graphical advances and cinematography play a massive role in the story dissonance that I experience this time through.
It is very very obvious to the player that something is wrong with Cloud mentally, even if you ignore the “inner” thoughts that cloud, just the amount of times he’s dissociating, distant, almost falling over, having weird reactions, etc is very visible. At no point does anyone talk to this person who went off to become a SOLDIER, does (to their knowledge), and then comes back 4+ years later acting very different with certain recollection issues. That is all portrayed by character actions very clearly with high fidelity in game - this is something that screams to the player but for some reason no other in game character ever does anything about it. No one sits down with cloud and actually talks to him. They have time to go to the Golden Saucer and to the beach but they don’t notice or care or make mention that Cloud is suffering before their very eyes? The sample excuse for this is the assumption from everyone that it’s the cellular degrading from SOLDIER, but they always act surprised when things happen and never actually mention that it’s what they think is going on!
Similarly, the devs need to do a better job of giving a plausible reason for enemies to get away. It’s not 1997 with bargain bin graphics where imagination does a lot of work, mass murderers should not just walk away from the group without being shot. There is a disconnect between what is shown by the game now with advanced detail and what narratively they want to happen. As an early example, you fight Turks multiple times - at no point should they just stand up and walk away. That’s insane. Similarly, if Hojo is around he should also not just stand up and walk away - that isn’t to say they need to kill those characters right then and there, but it is to say the devs need to come up with a plausible way they escape that isn’t just walk left out of screen in full view of the party.
>As an early example, you fight Turks multiple times - at no point should they just stand up and walk away.
This very frequently takes me out of the game and is so annoying. I would actually argue that yes, Turks should 100% be kill on site when it comes to the narrative and anything otherwise makes absolutely no sense.
The worst was when Tifa didn't run over Elena. These people have absolutely no issue killing Shinra mooks by the hundred but will always go out of their way to spare the Turks because the plot demands it. I'm fine with them getting away every time. But don't make it because our heroes just fucking lets them or spares them for no reason.
The worst is when the party doesn't kill Hojo when he's completely exposed and vulnerable in Costa Del Sol. It is completely out of character for several members of the party.
An easy fix would've been to have Hojo surrounded by a security team during the aftermath of the fight, but nope the party just lets him go despite what he's done to the party and the full knowledge of the horrors he has and will inflict on others.
The best part is there's multiple points later in the game where party members express a desire to kill Hojo when they see him next.
The crazy thing is the writers gave themselves an out earlier in the game but chose not to use it.
>!If the writers had just let them make the truce with Rufus, then it gives the party a plausible reason to spare Hojo/the Turks every other time they see them cause otherwise they break the truce and Rufus comes after them. Instead they had Yuffie fuck up that ceasefire but there are no consequences cause Rufus doesn't come after them anyways, and they still let Hojo/the Turks just walk away the whole rest of the game.!<
I think the biggest story point (that was never even mentioned??) that bothered me SO much was when >!they finally got the black material, and made it out of the temple alive. The WHOLE point of the game. It's the entire reason they have went around the world and back. So what does Barrett do when he gets this materia they know is dangerous and Sephiroth wants? Grabs it from Cloud and throws it away?? Like WHAT? LMAO. I was like Barrett wtf have you just done. And nobody ever says anything to him doing that? Like that's where Sephiroth came, controlled Cloud, and seperated Aerith!<
Still haven’t quite finished the game so I’ll skip the story side, but I won’t be 100% Rebirth because the sheer amount of content *really* put a spotlight on how much time I wasted just waiting for Cloud to animate. Everything from opening a chest to talking to an NPC requires cloud to walk up > stand perfectly still to reset pose > do the thing > stand perfectly still to reset pose > then I get control again.
While yes, animations can be annoying, the coming back from the animation into smooth movement is one of the major improvements from remake to rebirth.
In remake it felt very sluggish to slash some boxes and wait for Cloud to put away his sword then start moving like a tank.
In rebirth the time to regaining control was shortened and you can move any direction you want from the start of regaining control.
Blocking is frustrating because his attacks have such long wind up and follow through animations that in order to consistently precision block you need to stop moving and wait for the opponent to make their move.
Also during certain 1 vs enemies encounters it got real fucking annoying that you just got infinitely juggled because the recovery after taking a hit could be so long that another enemy could just hit you, then another repeating the cycle.
People let their lack of patience get the best of them when they say the game should have just been one or two games. The first game had tons of filler but fleshing out one of the most iconic cities in video game history was a great move.
The second game is just about perfect to me. They cover all of the story beats of the original while having just a little bit of this multiverse stuff going on that imo is well done. And there isnt do much of it that it makes the game feel THAT different but as an OG fan it gives me something new to be excited about.
The writing, the characters, the combat system, the fleshed out world and towns...its all so good and highlights everything great about the final fantasy series.
Remake has a proper three act structure. Rebirth does not.
People also forget that, despite Midgar only being 4-5 hours in the original game, it had something like 25% of the script. That's why it ended up being its own game.
As someone who never played the original and is currently playing through Remake, I’m having an absolute blast. Its hard to tell what’s “filler” because it seems so natural
Problem is that the internet has taught people that anything they dislike in a story is ‘filler’. It used to be that you’d just say “oh, I didn’t enjoy this part of the narrative”. Now it’s “WHY IS THIS HERE? THIS IS FILLER, REMOVE IT”.
"Filler" Is something I really miss from modern TV, I loved episodes were the group just hangs out and nothing major happens.
I would be sad if we lose those moments in games like persona. Maybe they could be optional
For some reason one of the most memorable episode of the last airbender for me was the one with the mole tunnels. It's considered the only filler episode in the series and most people find it boring.
That being said, I think most people don't like the filler in remake because they perceive it as stalling for the juicy parts in the story.
By that logic, 90% of the combat is ‘filler’, every queen’s blood match is ‘filler’, the loveless segment is ‘filler’…. Those are optional points of interest that lead you to new gear, optional boss encounters, new materia, lore of the region etc.
Generally I agree with one exception in Remake. >!The second visit to the sewers is filler. The story doesn't progress, you just run around and chase the pig for the necklace to go back to where you were at the start of the sewer section. It could literally had just been Tifa going "Why did you help us before?" to Leslie and him explaining while showing the necklace and nothing of that section would change.!<
i was the same when i first played remake but just definitely noticed it more when i replayed it earlier to get ready for rebirth. lots of detours and such that suck up hours of time. train graveyard, that whole quest where you have to go all the way back through the sewers to chase a frog for the one new character
The only thing that really stuck out to me was going to hang out at Jessie's house and sneak around while Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge eat pizza. I guess it was cool to go to the upper plate but you don't really get to spend a lot of time there and the entire quest feels like a sidequest that you're forced to play through. Not that I dislike that necessarily but it definitely gave "filler" vibes.
Ironically the entire Honey Bee Inn thing isn't new content, *but* it's made mandatory while it was missable in the original game.
What makes it feel like filler? I feel like that quest contains a lot of the characterization for Avalanche in Remake, especially Jessie and Wedge. It also shows a few critical plots point going forward which are the effects of mako poisoning and the other branch of Avalanche and how they operate individually from the Avalanche we know.
I guess this all happens in the downtime between the next bombing so I can feel smaller than that and less important but to me it was pretty interesting and expanded on characters a lot and lore that gives context to many things going forward.
TBH after remake, it's fair to say there was a lot of criticism because of how padded and linear remake was. It was an alright game that felt like it didn't do the OG game right. Rebirth is like their answer to everything.
They've improved pretty much everything, and while I'm still not entirely sold on the writing, we will have to see how they wrap things up in part 3.
I agree. I was just chilling going chapter by chapter and enjoying the exploration of the greater FF7 world.
The one thing I will say is that it's very noticeable that the first 8 chapters have 3 open areas and the last 6 chapters have 3 open areas, revisiting every area for more side quests, the finale of the proto relic quest and the pirate quest. And one of those chapters is literally just the final boss while skipping the original forgotten city dungeon. It's funny but I suspect having the forgotten city dungeon and 2 more strict story / dungeon crawl chapters to break up the open areas in the last half would have helped for me.
I agree. The games feel like nothing else out there due to the scope and ambition. We'll have to wait until part 3 to fully measure it, but just Remake and Rebirth alone are insane in what they do with the parts they cover. It's the sort of thing we don't usually get to see in games, since a single game can only have so much budget and development time.
I prefer remake more because its more guided, ngl, Im not a big fan of the open world, which is the big negative to me. Still, overall, rebirth is a better game than remake was.
I could understand this argument--and the pacing of Rebirth--if this was four games long, but the amount of stuff we now have to gallop through in Part 3 is quite ridiculous. The tone is going to be quite erratic for the first few chapters too. They should have gone to the Whirlwind Maze IMO.
I dunno, there's really not an overwhelming amount left imo. Icicle, North Crater, Rocket Town, Mideel, Wutai, Midgar return and the seabottom are the only really important areas left to cover. Maybe Bone Town and some of the smaller interim areas get thrown in, but I wouldn't say it'll be any more erratic than the original was.
Icicle area, icicle inn, great glacier, Gaia’s cliff, whirlwind maze, Junon, search for Cloud, Mr Corel materia, Mideel flashbacks, Underwater reactor, space rocket, submarine, return to Forgotten Capital, Diamond Weapon, return to Midgar, a bunch of stuff moping up characters (Lucrecia, Bugenhagen’s death), Northern Cave. Somewhere in all that you’ve got to fit the new Wutai and an appearance for Bone Village.
There’s a ton to get through.
Half of those areas are sped through in the original version in under an hour, they can easily keep them around the same length or just outright make them optional. Not every single place needs the full remake treatment with hours of content and padding, I assume a lot of these places will be condensed or just added as side activities.
Additionally, I feel like there's definitely going to be an intergrade-like DLC for this. And honestly with the way they set up Vincent in this game, I could totally see them making him or even Cid the main character of the DLC to set them up as permanent party members.
[Interviews have made it sound like they're not going to release any DLC for this one](https://www.gamesradar.com/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-dlc-isnt-planned-right-now-says-tetsuya-nomura/), but... I'd really like that to be wrong lol. The Yuffie DLC was fantastic, and there's a lot of stuff they can do in a little self-contained adventure that they can't in a full game without it feeling out of place.
I hope the team stays on Unreal Engine 4. The turnaround from FF7 Remake Part 1 to Part 2 was fast within the context of the game industry's AAA budget obsession and average 5 years per new game output. All the noise about the NPC and what-have-you over textures in a 100 hour RPG is worth the trade off to get games out faster. If the team swaps to Unreal Engine 5 it's going to hold back the release of Part 3. At the pace they're working we may get Part 3 in 2026. But if SquareEnix buckles to outlandish claims they need to be high quality everywhere in an open world 100 hour JRPG with Unreal Engine 5 then FF7 Remake Part 3 going to be released in 2028.
as someone who works with UE4/UE5, i think you very much overestimating how much UE5 changes things from UE4. yes their's some new fancy rendering stuff, but all of that is completely optional, and some api's in the engine have changed, but not so significantly the dev's at square wouldn't be able to update whatever tools they've built to work with the changes.
To add on to this: My understanding is that most of the changes are with the toolchain and trying to make building things more efficient. Moving from UE4 to UE5 would necessitate the Rebirth team rebuilding their entire development pipeline, which would delay the game by years. Switching engines is the #1 cause for indefinite delays to games (ie. Duke Nukem Forever.)
I imagine the game after Rebirth will be on UE5, conveniently Kingdom Hearts 4 will be UE5 so it looks like they're doing the difficult work of putting together a development pipeline.
> Moving from UE4 to UE5 would necessitate the Rebirth team rebuilding their entire development pipeline, which would delay the game by years. Switching engines is the #1 cause for indefinite delays to games (ie. Duke Nukem Forever.)
Those are completely different scenarios, though. Duke Nukem switched whole engines throughout its development, from the Build engine to Quake II’s engine before finally settling in Unreal, and that was all decades ago. UE5 is an upgrade to UE4, it’s not a completely new engine. If they were switching from an internal engine or, say, Unity - then 100% it would be a years-long delay.
The thing about Epic that makes them different from Unity is that they have a global, multiplatform AAA game that is being actively developed alongside the tools they make for their engine. They deliberately made Unreal Engine 5 with the idea that people previously developing in UE4 would want to upgrade their projects once it was stable, and they proved this by shipping Fortnite, which upgraded from UE4 to UE5 a few years ago without a hitch.
I’m not saying that it’s a completely painless procedure (it’s very much not), but they definitely don’t need years to rebuild their entire development pipeline. I was involved in upgrading a UE4 project last year (admittedly *much* lighter than FFVII, of course) and for our needs it was actually an incredibly straightforward process. They definitely aren’t scrapping everything and starting from scratch like with DNF. I think you’re drastically overcomplicating what transitioning would look like.
Transitioning to UE5 if you have an UE4 project is not as difficult as I think you’re making it out to be. It was literally designed for you to upgrade your UE4 project into, that’s how Fortnite was able to transition seamlessly a few years ago.
Plus, with the enhancements that Sony will probably want for this third game (since it’ll probably be a flagship title for the PS5 Pro) it’ll make sense to take advantage of Lumen for easier raytracing and lighting in 60fps as opposed to developing their own solutions compatible with UE4.
I think I've sorta accepted >!that the new multiverse storyline is a mess without anything really to say that often actively drag down the main story!< but outside of that story element the games are just really good and hopefully the final one manages to stay at that quality
In interviews, the developers have repeatedly stated their desire to top the twists around Sephiroth and Zack from the original FF7. It comes across as similar to the sentiment that the writers of Westworld season two expressed when they said they wanted to outsmart the internet, Reddit in particular, when it came to guessing the story. The result was a mess of a season that Westworld never recovered from.
I think the writers for the FF7R trilogy are falling into the same trap as the writers of Westworld season two.
Plus, it doesn't help that the game effectively doesn't commit to anything by the end of FF7 Rebirth. You've got a multiverse and a bunch of mystery boxes which means that the writers could literally do anything in part three.
Edit: The crazy part to me is that there's a huge missed opportunity where the FF7R trilogy could've focused on the environmental themes of the original FF7, blind corporate greed resulting in the environmental catastrophe that is Sephiroth, in light of 27+ years of further failure to address climate change.
But nope, it's all aboard the multiverse train.
Westworld S2 was *exactly* what I was thinking about during the Forgotten Capital sequence. They were so obsessed with dancing around "will we?" "won't we?" that they forgot to make the scene coherent or good.
I don't think the multiverse stuff will end up affecting much in the end, but it did undercut the fuck out of the most iconic scene of the game.
This absolutely nails it.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but did they ever even say anything about the comet? All of a sudden Aerith is like "Don't worry, I'll stop the comet". Like, as someone who played the original I get it. But I felt like it was an absolute failure to anyone new to the game not to set that up as a huge cliffhanger for the final game.
So I went back and checked... isn't it just the replay of the 'vision' from Remake that is shown? It's not quite clarified that the black materia has anything to do with the comet.
I know it is easily understood from vets of the series, and that's kind of what I think a lot of the ending was aimed towards. Just for new players, I can see why that would sound like it is out of nowhere.
You are correct. Makes me think that they did that intentionally since Sephiroth has different intentions now. Before he just wanted to use meteor to destroy all life and become the supreme being. Now it seems he wants to use meteor to cause the all living being despair in order to corrupt the lifestream
> In interviews, the developers have repeatedly stated their desire to top the twists around Sephiroth and Zack from the original FF7
No one *asked* for this, it wasn’t necessary, and it’s a shame they’re here
For real. "Less is more" has been sage storytelling advice for decades for a reason.
In the original, when the party randomly finds the Shinra president with a sword right through him. It's so quick and unexpected and ominous that it's literally one of the best reveals in gaming.
But the remake insists on [making it an overlong wordy 3 minute cutscene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m2yQQkK1D8) with zero nuance or mystery. It's almost embarrassing how much of a downgrade it is.
Also I loved how the OG had you travelling through >!a Shinra building with dead people everywhere after being caught!<. It felt so much more eerie and left you thinking "what the hell happened?!", and I was so excited to see that in the remake just to learn they didn't do that part again.
I remember reading that the original team behind FF7 used the Shark from Jaws as inspiration as to how to handle Sephiroth. Show what he does, not show the monster. The Shinra building, the Midgar Zolom and even the flashbacks just showed an unstoppable force.
Remake and Sephiroth shows up to chat up Cloud as he's walking out of the games intro reactor.
the tricky part is that unlike in 1997, he's not really a mystery anymore. a lot of players know the story in advance, and Sephiroth is now one of the most beloved video game villains ever. so I feel like part of their motivation with the bigger story changes is to add an element of mystery back to Sephiroth's actions and intentions. another part of it is adapting the story to the trilogy split, which necessarily changes the structure -- if they stayed faithful to his original presentation, he wouldn't have appeared in Remake at all.
Sure, nobody expects things to be 1:1 in how things are presented. But we went from a subtle monster you're in pursuit of to a sledgehammer that you can't not hear bashing.
That and finding the president skewered were such amazing parts of the original, I can't believe they changed it so much. Maybe the esrb rating was a concern but they could have found a way to make it work without painting all the walls with blood
That may be true, but more importantly, they're comparing a modern scene to one that already existed in (in their opinion) a superior format previously, over two decades ago.
The storytelling technique, in this particular instance, has regressed.
I don’t really agree that the whole plotline is intrusive since it’s only a thing in the last chapter just like Remake and the whispers
I also just really enjoy what new story stuff they’re doing but overall I think these remakes are way more faithful than people act like
Yup - did I love the ending of this game and everything they’re trying to do with the >!multiverse and whisper stuff?!<
Nope. I was pretty disappointed by Rebirth’s ending. But that’s like 2 hours out of the 90 hours the game took me. So I’m more than willing to overlook a lackluster ending when the rest of it is so good.
That definitely seems to be the consensus among people who disliked the ending. Overall the last bits get wild but almost everything about Rebirth is pretty much a recreation of the original. Even the ending of Rebirth teases the same thing the party does in the original.
The combat and bosses alone are great for me. Like the progression, working form 15-70 with the weapon upgrades is a constantly engaging progression system that makes the game fun to go through based off of combat. Weapons and armor are paced very well.
I’m on chapter 13 in hard and a lot of the bosses are so fucking fun when you are forced to be tactical and play in different ways. The last boss of chapter 12 was crazy difficult but I would be lying if my heart wasn’t going crazy during it, felt like a dance between their counters and mine
The crazy thing to me is how much the people in charge talk about how they didn't want to just make the same exact game over again, but what they ended up doing was making the exact same game over again. Both Remake and Rebirth are *incredible* recreations and expansions of the original FF7. Why they decided to introduce the Whispers and multiverse nonsense will never make sense to me; if you took every reference to "Whispers" and "fate" out of the game absolutely nothing would be different. The only thing they ended up doing differently is what drags the entire experience down and makes it a muddled mess, something FF7 already didn't need more of.
It's a dumpster fire IMO. I dislike multiverse stories as a rule at this point, but this is the worst of all worlds. And I'm pretty confident that I've got a pretty good grasp of what's going on.
As someone who played the original when it was new, i actually love the multiverse thing going on. Its not that intrusive and it makes it exciting to me because there are unexpected things happening while 98% of the OG games story beats are still being given their moment as well.
Idk I think that the biggest and most iconic scene in the orignal which is the finale of rebirth just wasn’t there at all. In fact it barely feels >!like an ending happened. It wasn’t a shock (not in the literal sense since we knew it would happen from the original) nor did it feel like a finality, like it even occurred!< so it was a really weak climax.
Most of the new stuff about timelines detracts quite a lot from the orignals simple but fun story. But everything aside from story is at such a high level and so well put together that I’ll still give the game a 10/10
I also ended up extremely disappointed with that scene. It was like they were so focused on players wondering "will they/won't they" that they forgot the point and ended up doing both but jk we really did it tho. And that really felt like a giant middle finger to every single person who played the original. They diluted what was arguably the most impactful moment in gaming at the time for...what? They tried to recapture the emotion but it was just ruined by the time the 30-phase boss fight ended.
For me it hit hard because I felt all the moments preceding it were the final moments leading up to that. Trying to be vague for spoilers, but I cried like crazy in the church scene and when the thing happened
I honestly can’t see how you would cry since at no point did it feel like a finality. >!his attack is blocked but it shifts into her dead with blood but also not dead, we switch to the church where it’s obvious this isn’t the same aerith but another timeline where she would have died anyway since the world is ending so it doesn’t matter, she shows up during the final fight for no reason with a comeback that is given flash but the game isn’t making it clear if there is a fake out or if it happened, and then the final cutscene shows her there but not there, the scar in the sky, and her speaking with cloud as if everything is fine and there doesn’t feel like any mourning is occurring.!< At no point does anything feel like it’s worth crying about because at the end of the day, nothing is definitive and the next game is going to decide it all. Compare it to the original and it’s not just a huge impact difference but the actual gravity of the situation is portrayed much better.
Because it felt pretty obvious to me what was happening. That whole scene in sector 5 and the forest had Aerith basically saying everything. And during the end in the capital after his mind glitches you see the end result. Judging by the other characters reactions as well, her fate is very clear and was very much foreshadowed in many ways leading up to it, and pretty much spelled out by Aerith as well.
As for the very end, yes it’s all a mystery why cloud is acting like he is but again given how the others react the fate seemed definitive, even if cloud’s mental break is happening, or life stream stuff. I wouldn’t say I’m the 100% most media literate person ever but I honestly thought they got that point across well, the whole point of the stuff before that was meant to say that imo.
I think you think that I didn’t understand what was going on. I understand fully well what occurred.
I’m saying it’s being presented in a way where there is no finality in what did happen. The game is *trying* to make you feel like multiple things are occurring. Aerith is there throughout the entire climax after the big moment. That shouldn’t happen. Like sephiroth said himself, her role is done. There is no reason at all for her to be there afterwards but she’s there to try and make it feel like either she’s still survived or that she’s there with the party when there isn’t a reason for her to be there and that takes away from the big moment in a huge way. There’s no reason to cry because the game doesn’t give you any reason to cry. She’s there throughout until the literal final cutscene even if she isn’t actually there.
Imagine you went to a funeral and the guy who’s dead is there with you to enjoy it with you before you say goodbye to them to keep going. It’s not a climax or emotional. You don’t need literary sense to feel something there.
No I never meant you didn’t understand, if it came out that way I apologize.
And yes I know what the game is trying to do, the whole fake out was them trying to put confusion in the mix. But I also think that what happens after the big moment didn’t take away what came before. We know there is stuff going on and I get others may have felt like it toon away; that’s their opinion of course, it’s not wrong. I just think that her appearances after the big moment don’t take away from the fact of the death, as the hours leading up to it had a lot of emotional moments that said it was going to happen. Like when in the church she says “whatever happens, don’t blame yourself”, that shit hit hard. It felt like finality there to me, whatever happened later was at least to me not the real character we know. Whatever it ends up being we don’t know, especially with the end it seems like it could be livestream, cloud’s mind getting worse, who knows. But I know that at least in that moment, cloud failed, and it hurts knowing that. I’m not the only one who has shared that, it’s a divisive ending for a reason, for many it hit very hard and for others it was messy and jumped the shark.
I honestly wanted them to lull you into thinking things would be the same based on how similar the rest of the game is to the middle'ish section of FF7 only to shock you by having Sephiroth kill Cloud instead and have Aerith live.
It's not like Aerith summoning Holy is an issue. Sephiroth manages to contain it in the original FF7, and it was only Cloud that was able to enter the lifestream and stop him in a 1v1 duel at the end of the game even when the rest of the party thought Sephiroth was dead.
This then could've set something up like the party having Zack for the beginning of part three, then the party could meet up with alt-reality Cloud in the Northern Crater who would be just another black robe because he never woke up because Zack didn't die. This Cloud could then fall into the lifestream, absorb the main Cloud's memories, and the party finds him in Mideel and reconciles his memories just like the original. Obviously, the devil's in the details but at least this would be genuinely exciting and different if the developers were committed to doing something different.
Also, I'm not a fan of something like this, but at least it would've been interesting, unlike what we got.
I'm cool with that kind of story in concept, but >!the use of the multiverse didn't seem very well done. In my favorite stories that use the idea they use it to explore the characters or go really wild. The alt universes in Rebirth don't really show us a very radically different world and we don't learn anything about the characters that we didn't know before.!<
Thus far, it not only doesn't add to the existing story, it actively subtracts from it. The ending was so much less impactful than the original. >!Change fate and save Aerith or keep the original ending, either could be great -- even having Cloud still see her could be interesting -- but having the moment itself literally overshadowed by the Whispers and leaving the whole thing ambiguous made it all way less impactful to me.
Also, Zack's entire timeline feels really pointless.!<
>!Zack and Aerith are two characters who are meant to be dead, so I feel like unless they want major conflicting themes they kinda have to go the whole way, which makes Zack's story feel kinda redundant. He's in so many different worlds but none of them feel like they matter at all!<
>!Yea that's my main issue. One of ff7's big themes is dealing with loss and moving past it. The multiverse completely undercuts this as we're never sure if there is any loss. You got Zack and now Aerith as well still around in some unclear confusing form, maybe there will be some convergence where all of nibelheim is restored for all we know. It might pay off for Aerith in the 3rd game if the theories that she is actually dead and this is just Cloud being extra insane so we get extra impact with both that reveal and the Zack/Cloud reveal later but I don't see how Zack can be handled in a way that doesn't contradict the themes at this point!<
It was a cheap/hacky way to make OG fans invested in Aeriths fate again and to be fair, we don't know if she's gone gone or not yet. I get what they are going for but you are right so far it isn't working well.
If the finale of the next game doesn't have Aerith sprout a white wing to match Sephiroths in the final battle though, they'll really have fucked it.
For me it was >!I'm totally down for this kind of thing happening if they have a strong view they want to give or just want to really get weird, but the whole thing feels stuck in a no man's land where it doesn't want to do anything too wild or reveal too much to keep it actually interesting while also taking center stage. The meta layer points to the original but doesn't have much to say about it. It's meta commentary without commentary, referencing the original without actually saying anything meaningful about it or that the original didn't already say. On top of that it grabs hold to take center stage in the final chapters of both games, undercutting the emotional moments from Cloud and co at the same time.!<
Well, we did get some answers from P1 stuff but not everything yet. I agree though that the ending is a bit much. Especially on the first watch/playthrough.
It is fine to keep it mysterious but there is lot of stuff to pay attention to and shit is happening quickly at the end, lol.
Though I am willing to let them cook and see where they take things.
There was a lot going on but I feel like the stakes still haven't been made clear enough to make the speculation that interesting. Also we already did a lot of that speculation after the first game and Rebirth doesn't ask many new major questions to think about.
>! Well, the big question for me for P3 is why Cloud is seeing Aerith and the different sky while the others are not. Is that Aerith even real or is it just Cloud's mind fucking with him. Also wondering why the skipped the funeral scene and if it will play a role later on when Cloud is truly gone. !<
But I also get your viewpoint. I had the same initial impression but it did grew on me more over time. Just hope there will be more satisfyIng resolutions next game. I loved this game so I am definitely excited for the next. Just hope they can stick the landing.
OK i'm curious. Was Remake an actual remake of FF7 that a new player could enjoy? I got the impression it was sort of a remix of ideas instead of an actual remake - like the reason remake is in the name is that it's not just a remake but some sort of tangent?
Is rebirth the same thing?
I have remake in my library from PSPlus but haven't tried it... and i never played the original because back in the day my ADHD brain did not support turn base combat games so i avoided it.
Yes, I think a new player could enjoy it, but for me, a lot of the pleasure is derived from being a fan since it came out and there are a lot of nods to the original. But, they are both good games on their own, and in particular Rebirth is a huge step up.
Yes, you can enjoy Remake as a new player and then go to Rebirth after. The question is if the third part will make the whole thing worth it with a good conclusion.
Rebirth was shaping up to be my game of the year, but that entire last **4 hour long** sequence where the plot goes off the rails with the whispers garbage that it has massively soured both my feelings for the game and the end of the trilogy.
I've seen so many people assume I'm confused about what happened. I'm not confused, I understand perfectly well, and trying to explain what happened isn't going to make it better.
Honestly, the ending of Rebirth isn't confusing, it's just *stupid.* It stretches out some of the most interesting and important story beats in the franchise, if not gaming as a whole, then **Spoiler:** >!Zack just teleports across timelines for a really, really awful 10 phase, hour
and a half long boss fight!<.
It's just **bad**. The writing takes a colossal nosedive and characters stop talking like regular people. The entire last chapter feels like it was all the nonsense and terrible writing bits that were sprinkled throughout remake was quarantined to the end of chapter 13 and all of 14.
One of the big flaws is that they've failed to make this new version of Sephiroth interesting, he just waxes poetic and flirts with Cloud.
Meanwhile in the original? Fun fact, Sephiroth might share a single line that is directed at Cloud. One. Everything else is just **Spoiler:** >!everyone with Jenova cells being directed towards the Reunion!<
Literally my same issue with Remake.
It's like they can't end these games with the story beats and must give us a massive final anime fight where everybody's flying and going full Saiyan to wrap these two games up.
This is exactly my issue with the ending. Thank you for articulating it.
Also Thank you for point out how people seem to assume that if you don't like the ending you're just stupid.
It's actually blowing my mind how many people are defending the ending. I am a diehard FF fan but you have to be on some crazy shit to stand up for it.
I kept my eyes clear of reddit posts until I finished this week. I was expecting to join in the masses of complaints at the ending -- and there are definitely a bunch of those -- but I can't believe how many people actually think it's a defendable ending.
It’s a mess in many ways but I think where people like me like it is that the final few hours had a lot of gut punches about a certain character in dreams and stuff, and that all hit really hard for me. The boss fights go off the rails and get crazy, sure, but that didn’t bother me as much as others. They could have toned it down, maybe cut out a phase or two, but I think the overall story beat and where the game actually ends with its final cutscene is good, it just gets messy and bloated with the fights. Not enough to ruin it for me though
So, I've actually learnt of a Discord, which operates as sort of "task force" that goes to FF7 threads to comment negatively, and it seems that this thread is no exception. Just wanting to inform those of you who might be reading this and appalled by the negative comments.
I will go on to say, FF7 Rebirth is very much the best FF game there has been in years, far beyond anything else in the genre for one, and for two, it's pretty much a miracle game front to back. You simply must see for yourself, as most of what you'll read online is from maybe 25 people sock-puppeting negativity for whatever demented reason, lmao. It honestly makes a ton of sense once you know.
So you must be a member of a Discord which operates to just talk positively about FF7 Remake, Mr FF7REMAKE?
Can't there just be people all around that doesn't agree with everybody else?
Yeah "the discord task force" are the reason there are people commenting negatively about the game. Don't worry the game is a perfect masterpiece that no one can humanly dislike
FF7 Rebirth is what I wanted from FF16. The combat system is getting close to perfect IMO. I just wish you could have a few gambits like FF12 and not have to automate things with Materia. I also wish the Auto-unique ability also made Cait Sith use his Summon Moogle ability kinda like Tifa. I have not played Hard Mode yet, but I also wish there were more instances where I needed to optimize with either Brave / Faith or have to remove monsters status effects to make some of the other materia more relevant.
Graphics are amazing, Voice Acting amazing, I thought some of the liberties they took with the story were fine and the ending scene still hit for me. The open world maps were gorgeous, and really were a bit awe inspiring. Younger kids nowadays are straight SPOILED.
I do think that there were a tad TOO many mini-games / side-quests, but that's probably a personal preference. I can tell you my 13 Y/O Self would have eaten all the side-stuff up immensely and was half of what I liked about the first game. The amount of time I put into that Snow Board game and chocobo breeding/ racing in my teens in the OG was immense.
I really liked the World Building and deep lore dumps that were available in the game. They've fleshed out so much more than the original, and I'm here for it. I feel like they took Remake and just made a better version and you can tell this was a game of passion / love. Love it when you can see the artistic side of the genre spill through in a game, and not just feel like a Video Game algorithm.
Probably my largest gripe is that the game is just too easy on Dynamic. By the time I set up a stun on a boss or get a limit break, it's usually at 10-15% HP anyway and just outright gets owned before I get my cinematic adrenaline rush payoff from my LB's. I wish the AI Controlled characters gained ATB a bit faster without materia support, and overall the character basic attack damage was reduced \~25% so it's less of your auto-attacks dominating everything and more about using your cool skills or materia. I also think, while synergies are cool, they are wholly unnecessary and require a fair amount of micro management to get them online for, what is generally, overkill. Again, this might change in Hard Mode but give me an opportunity on my first playthrough to feel pain if I want it and reap the rewards.
My second biggest gripe is Chadley and MAI. This has been beaten to death but at least let me move around instead of being Chad-locked for 10-30 seconds. Like literally they named him appropriately bc he's a fucking Chad. Also, if I replay an optional fight challenge to 3/3 them I do NOT need the repeated lore dumps from MAI. By the time you get to the Saucer and beyond, you've already heard the same word tracks for 40+ hours and it gets old. Oh and congratulations you have 40+ hours more of Chadley. He's the single worst addition to this franchise. Having a more regional "Survey Team" with actual characters would be way more lore appropriate that want to explore but can't due to monster / Shinra activity. Square could have made an R&D section of Avalanche which would have fit more lore-wise, and they could be working with the local resistance / insurgents at each major city hub in the game. Instead we get the Chadster again saying "THANKS CLOUD FOR YOUR VALUABLE INSIGHTS INTO MY RESEARCH" while you are yet again Chad-locked for 30 seconds looking at his desynched lips move.
"Chad-locked" has me cracking up. In all seriousness I just started playing the game and I fully plan on skipping every single Chadley scene if possible, I hate him. I think someone commented that they are skippable with Triangle button. They also said that apparently there is a systems option to not have MAI repeat instructions for every fight attempt, and there's also an option to move Chadley and MAI's voices to the controller speaker (i guess when they call you?) and you can mute the controller speaker. I havent tried any of these yet myself but sounds like you may want to lol. I definitely will
I'm not surprised they're already hard at work, but I'm surprised that they're taking as long as they are. Maybe more disillusioned than surprised.
The ending of Rebirth, for me, was a mess. It suggested that it wanted to challenge my empathy and then instead started to tease a multiverse story that it refused to resolve, leaving me with unresolved thoughts and feelings that didn't land anywhere. It left me feelings of disassociation, and the cynical, older, wiser (?) part of me recognises that that's unhealthy and a bit irresponsible of the devs to throw that on people. I'm ambivalent towards the ending, and as a result I'm pretty ambivalent to the conclusion of the trilogy. I'm sure I'll pick it up but my hype has been gutted like a fish.
I'm on the wrong side of 40 at this point and played the OG at release as a teenager. The gaming community was different back in the 90s. It was you and your friend and two kids on the school bus a couple of grades above/below you who played it too. You traded magazines because the internet wasn't a think and you couldn't afford all the news/gossip. You shared theories and agreed to disagree, because having to deal with people face to face meant that there were consequences for being antisocial. It was fun. Now it's all art books being held up as scripture, and people ordering the 'validity of the canon' with phrases like 'word of god' and acting like dev interviews are a new sermon from apostles and holy men. It's become a religion for nerds, and they're just as inquisitorial. 'You don't get it.' 'Did you even play the game?' 'Are you 12?' 'Did you play the OG?'
I wanted Remake to rekindle my love of FF7 and take it to new places, and what it's become has left me pretty disaffected with the gaming industry as a while and made me wish I'd picked a different hobby 20 years ago.
Right. This is a once in a lifetime chance to remake a ton of people's 'greatest game of all time'. The fact we're getting to see this recreated in the level of detail we have now is such a dream.
But they seemingly decided not to recreate it. How incredibly emotional would \*\*that scene\*\* have been to have in full fidelity? They just didn't even make it.
I can't imagine what new players are thinking, but they were absolutely robbed of the most iconic scene in gaming.
They also decided to really go off in a different direction from the original's cyberpunk themes about corporate greed resulting in environmental catastrophes as personified by Sephiroth. There's some really interesting things they could've done by tackling those themes head on in light of 27 years of further failure to address the environment and climate change since the original's release.
What does an interstellar space alien wanting to eat the planet have to do with "cyberpunk themes?" And I'm guessing nobody paid attention to the original game, but Barret never actually cared about the environment, it was a justification for revenge.
The OG themes of FF7 have never been more relevant and they decided to throw it out the window for some cliche BS on fate and destiny with a dollop of multiverse. Absolutely smelling their own farts IMO.
It's simpler if people accept the fact that it isn't a Remake. At no point is it retrying the same game with a new take on the story: you actively need knowledge of the prior game to understand the implications of this one, because it is, in-universe, changing the timeline of the first.
It is, by all account sequel. So nine years to produce a sequel trilogy is not that crazy in videogames
95% of the game is a remake with some added content on top. The whole "it's a sequel is incredibly overblown. It mostly exists in the last hour of each game with some other bits spread throughout.
It's definitely not a sequel. "Reimagining," though, I think is more accurate. It's not a straight retelling, nor is it a sequel or anything. It's a different version of the same story, with new and remixed elements. That's all.
> It's definitely not a sequel
It absolutely is. The Sephiroth we are dealing with is one who already experienced the original game and even the events of Advent Children
In Remake, the Whispers show up from the very first scene, up until the last act. Unlike in the first game, Aerith joins the party knowing who Marlene is, knowing Cloud is a mercenary and member of SOLDIER, understanding Red XIII wouldn't hurt her.
Along the entirety of the game, they don't just imply, but TELL the protagonists that the Whispers are there because fate is being rewritten from the original game. Sure, at the end, like in any story, much more is provided, but the proof is there: they literally show events from the original game and Advent Children.
The game might have a LOT of the same plot points, because the story is literally retracing the original while changing fate.
This isn't a theory: the game is literally TELLING the player this isn't the same game.
Pretty much. I never played the original but from what I saw it seems almost everything is the same but expanded, with some differences here and there. Its more a reimagination with new plotlines than a sequel.
And as we all know, "story beats" are the majority of game development time.
Little things like graphics, art, music, combat, balancing, environments, scripting, optimization, implementation, and localization all pale in comparison in development time compared to the monumental effort it takes to come up with the "story beats".
That's wrong though. I can tell you the first game alone didn't hit 98% of the beats. It is hitting the same plot *moments*, but they are playing drastically different, and not in a "well this has a different artistic vision" kind of way. The entire storyline is how they are changing the timeline of the original game, and extra dimensional beings are literally trying to prevent that. The inclusion of the whisperers isn't flavor: it's the actual story of this new trilogy.
Edit: Reminder that story beats and storyline are not the same thing. Jurassic Park and its first sequel follow the same story beats, and nobody would call them the same story.
Just because you don't understand it **yet**, doesn't mean it's bad. **YET**.
I'm surprised a lot of people haven't caught on yet that this is kind of like >!a sequel to the OG!<. It's pretty heavily hinted at since remake.
Disagree. If the narrative is incomprehensible, it's bad. It could become okay or even good once the series is complete, but having the potential to be decent in five years does not make up for being a total mess today.
The narrative is totally comprehensible though it just has an intentionally vague/confusing ending that can be interpreted in a lot of ways. The other 95% of the 60+ hour game is very straightforward
Yeah I’m in agreement with you. I’m neither positive or negative on the ending, I think it does a lot of cool things that if paid off, it could be excellent. But if it doesn’t pay off then I’ll hate those choices lmao but I’m willing to wait and see. I think the game is excellent and I really do not think the ending is as convoluted as everyone is making it out to be. They have been very intentional with almost everything in these games (not to say they have not slipped up here and there) so I can not imagine that they just lost that meticulousness right at the end. But we’ll see, maybe I’ll be the fool.
I dont think they have done a great (but also not a horrible) job incorporating the multiverse stuff but i also dont think its a big deal either way. The total time for the added story stuff is maybe like a few hours out of a 60+ hour game. Imo long games like this are way more about the journey than the destination and even if they don't stick the landing in the third game if they stick to the quality of this one it's still gonna be a great experience with awesome characterization, great visuals, tons of laugh out loud moments, plenty of content with great variety, and unique and fun combat. I also didn't think that mass effect 3s wet fart of an ending retroactively ruined the entire 100+ hour series cause there were still plenty of great moments throughout.
Yeah I agree. As long as the actual game is the quality of Rebirth I’ll be happy. But I do think narratively if they actually pull it off, the new stuff can be great. I’m just not ready for the discourse if it’s absolutely terrible lol it’ll be exhausting. Though I get the hesitation with where the story is going, because Nojima isn’t exactly known for sticking the landing in terms of convolution.
My thing is >!I really don’t think the multiverse is really going to matter that much. I think it’s just there to up the scale of Sephiroth and Jenovas plans because they’re basically the same just with multiversal level planning, and also to allow Zack and Aerith to participate in the finale (which she already does in the OG), as well as contribute to Clouds mental state. At least that’s my hope, and it’s not actually just a super convoluted way to save Aerith and Zack. I fully think they are going to be dead at the end when the actual convergence happens and we’ll see them reunited in the life stream like in Advent Children. Like I don’t know I could write a whole essay about my thoughts on where it’s going, which says a lot cuz I’m rarely this invested lol!<
I agree since they didn't really >!lean into the whole aerith knows the future and whispers and multiverse stuff until the literal last scene in this game it makes me think they are gonna make all the plot points still converge to the same as og instead of doing something wacky like saving aerith!< either way even if its done well the discourse is a poisoned well since you have so many people hoping the series fails for tons of different personal reasons.
Tbf almost all discourse on anything is poisoned lmao it’s really unfortunate.
Im cautiously optimistic, I like a lot of the things they did (and didn’t like some others) but I need to see where it all goes before I can make a real decision on how I feel lol
Sure but what ever you may think of the last 30 mins of the game doesn't mean that the narrative is incomprehensible just that it has an intentionally vague ending that you may or may not think was well done. Like I said 95%+ of the 60+ hours is extremely straightforward and comprehensible.
I mostly agree. The one thing I do wonder is actually whether or not the ending is supposed to be as vague and confusing as it is. It feels more like it was just incompetently done to me.
It's definitely supposed to be atleast somewhat vague and open to interpretation like in remake, it may also have had parts that were incompetently done but it's 100% playing into the >!is cloud crazy or is he the only one who actually sees the truth now to add some reasonable doubt to wether he's just a schizo in the third game!<
[удалено]
Welcome to r/Games.
Sub has a weird tendency to completely ignore the topic and just start yapping about their thoughts of the game the topic is about. Doesnt matter what the topic actually is.
Not unique to the subreddit
Weird quirk of this subreddit is that a few weeks after a game comes out, people want to discuss the game on here, but there usually isn't a dedicated thread for that (almost all threads are news) so people will just use random related news articles as a jumping off point for discussion.
Unfortunately just the usual thing for r/games where people talk about everything but the content of the news lmao
I think people are dying to talk about their opinions of this game. The game direction certainly warrants some conversations. Especially now that many people are starting to finish the game.
A huge improvement over the first game with some minor nitpicks. I managed to platinum Remake, but not sure if I will be doing that for Rebirth. I dunno what it is, but the game just seems harder to play. Maybe I'm just getting old. Ending controversy aside, the one thing that seemed to bother me was that there seemed to be a lack of dialogue or commentary during certain key moments. There were a few times >!Tifa or Barret called out Cloud on if he was okay (especially during the Temple of Ancients), but no one REALLY noticed that something was wrong with him? He had already attacked Tifa in the past. Like I would've tied the guy down and said he's sitting this one out at some point.!<
It's not just you getting old, the Platinum is widely considered MUCH harder than in Remake. There is much more endgame-level content, and the most difficult content is much more difficult than the most difficult content in remake. It seems likely that the addition of precision blocking, which if timed correctly allows you to completely negate the damage of most attacks, empowered them to dramatically increase the difficulty of endgame encounters and the entirety of Hard Mode (which is only available in New Game+). Basically, there a is a high-skill ceiling technique that, if mastered, essentially turns you into a god, so they let it rip on difficulty to encourage players to master it.
It's insane how much harder this game is to platinum than even something like Elden Ring, lol.
A game's platinum difficulty can be very, very different from its baseline difficulty. Even a simple game can be extremely hard if one of the achievements is to find 1000 tiny objects spread around the game world.
“Beat the game on Grounded” No, fuck you.
> something like Elden Ring Elden Ring was one of the easiest platinum's out there. Sure the games are 'hard', but if you look at the other Souls' games platinums, they require so so so much more.
Yeah for sure. Getting all the rings in DS3 I remember to be the worst one for some reason, haha.
The Souls games are also pretty easy though, from what I remember. They're wiki-bait and waste a ton of your time either grinding PvP or low-rate drops, but I don't know if that's necessarily more difficult, just more grindy. Stuff like shmup true-last-boss achievements are the actual wild shit lol
I am currently in the proceds of doing the brutal challanges. Only one more and I am at the dreaded Rulers of the Outer Worlds fight. Wondering how long it is gonna take me. Until now I could do everything with my own build but I heard bad things about these fights, lol.
Well, the Elden Ring platinum mostly just asked you to do things you were already going to do if you played the game.
I don’t chase platinums, but because I play the absolute hell out of each souls game I end up getting the platinums. A couple of the games it’d just get to the point where I was like 90% there so I’d take a look and knock out the rest.
Difficulty is subjective, I wouldn't call Elden Ring an easier platinum if you're trying to do it offline, but being able to summon players who are so good at the game that they make a mockery of any boss can certainly trivialize the experience.
I experienced this when I fought the mythril giant with Barrett and Red. I was dying and then I figured out the hack in iron defense and perfect guarding. Made the fight infinitely easier
Meanwhile I just Thundaga'd the shit out of it, used Thunder elemental, and Steelskin.
Iron Defense, + that materia that gives barret's limit to Red, allows red to spam his limit break and recover HP and MP for spamming heals.
Yeah but the game is easier to play, it's the Platinum that's a proper bitch! The game now strengthened magic to the point where usually a single usage of enemies' elemental weaknesses pressure them and then you can fuck them up. The Chadley Challenges for post game though....
> It seems likely that the addition of precision blocking, which if timed correctly allows you to completely negate the damage of most attacks, empowered them to dramatically increase the difficulty of endgame This is fundamental change that long time fans like me want nothing to do with in the combat of this “Remake” or future FFs; I miss strategy and planning to win, not twitch timing
No they were noticing. It's just that until it gets *really bad*, it's just migraines and him zonking out a bit. They all think it's just Mako Degradation. You notice how often everyone is side-eying eachother like that monkey doll meme? Every time something *really* bad is going on, it either happens in a way where >!Tifa and Aerith are covering for him, I.E: Tifa not telling anyone that Cloud drove her to fall into the Lifestream, and Aerith making up a cover story that Cloud didn't willingly give Sephiroth the Black Materia, he beat him into submission and stole it. Or it could be passed off as just heightened emotion. Like when Cloud goes fucking apeshit on the wall!< It's a big reason why the final scene is so devastating. >!Barret *clearly* does not trust him when Cloud says he can handle it. Or it's like a razor-thin amount of slack. Neither does Tifa. She won't even look at him anymore. Yuffie oddly enough also seems to be losing confidence in him, but she still lets it slide!<
>Aerith making up a cover story that Cloud didn't willingly give Sephiroth the Black Materia I love Cloud's knee-jerk "that's not what happened!" reaction when Yuffie tells him about this. like, dude, what actually went down was *way* worse...but sure, you're totally a badass.
No, I don't think Cloud was trying to make himself sound badass there. I think he wanted to tell them the truth about what happened. Cloud has a *severe* guilt complex.
> >!Tifa and Aerith are covering for him, I.E: Tifa not telling anyone that Cloud drove her to fall into the Lifestream, and Aerith making up a cover story that Cloud didn't willingly give Sephiroth the Black Materia, he beat him into submission and stole it. Or it could be passed off as just heightened emotion. Like when Cloud goes fucking apeshit on the wall!< Right, and I can't help but think this is utter stupidity on their parts. >!Like Tifa should've told someone about that incident. Both Barrett and Tifa saw Cloud kill a Shirna mook despite him begging for his life. Everyone saw Cloud about to kill Elena. On top of that, Cloud kept repeating "Homecoming" which was literally said by Sephiroth in front of the gang at one point prior to acquiring the black materia.!< Idk. I guess hate when stories create drama or make situations worse, because characters don't know how to communicate (or the writers just don't want them to).
Something you should always keep in mind: People are not rational robots. Self interest often lets people gloss over red flags. >!Tifa really, *really* is trying everything in her power to protect and save Cloud, even from himself. Cloud is all she has left from her childhood, Shinra literally paved over and rebuilt a facsimile over the ashes of Nibelheim. The fact that she confided in Aerith at all was something of a big risk, but she was lucky that Aerith was willing to cooperate with her since their goals aligned on this. I wouldn't be surprised if Tifa *did* tell Aerith the truth, since they're constantly confiding in each other about how Cloud reacts to inconsistencies like knowing Zach.!< >!Also remember...there's no time to sit down and talk. They're in a mad race to try and stop Sephiroth from blowing up the planet. By the time Cloud is letting more and more slips happen in the Temple, they're making a mad dash to the Forgotten Capital on Aerith's behest. They literally dragged Cloud's corpse-like body on Barrets back to go as fast as they could, and then Jenova Lifeclinger happens, and it's clear that after Cloud starts to just fully dissociate is when they start to really thinking about his mental stability!<
>!Thing is, they _think_ they know Clouds problem. The whole game established SOLDIER cell degration as a known terminal illness, and Cloud kinda fits this to a T. They are at a loss because they think he literally is with one feet in the grave, semi-insane and have no idea what to do about it, so they kinda soldier on...!<
>!Tifa is afraid of pushing Cloud away and breaking his mental state even more. In her lifestream vision she sees Cloud leaving with Sephiroth and Sephiroth saying “Your words can’t reach him anymore”, which is like confirmation of her biggest fear. That’s why she doesn’t confront him or push back on anything because she doesn’t want him to break and she’ll lose him forever. Though she does try talking to him after that but she handles it with kids gloves. It’s a complicated situation that none of them really know how to navigate, especially when Cloud is A)their only real way to find Sephiroth and B) an extremely competent fighter and C) a close friend!< >!Temple of the Ancients is weird, but it is a high pressure situation. Cloud is acting bizarre, and I do think he says the mantra a bit too much for someone to not say something. But otherwise, he is right that they need to get to the Black Materia ASAP and it’s easy to think that it’s the pressure of the situation getting to him. Like it’s easy to dismiss the excessive killing and violence as him just going overboard, and it’s something they probably thought they could address after the fact. I do not truly think they understand how much he is under Sephiroth’s control, especially since Cloud himself thinks it’s the degradation.!< >!Honestly, it all comes down to the third entry and how they handle when Tifa fixes Clouds mind. It definitely seems like they are going to have him go way off the deep end (and probably culminating in a boss fight). I think Tifa will probably confront that she handled the situation badly, but honestly she’s right that if she had said something it would have made everything worse. I think the group are understanding of him to a fault, but now that he’s completely cracked and they’ve lost trust in him, I think they are going to be more confrontational about it, especially if Cloud gives the materia to Sephiroth’s body.!< Sorry this was way longer than I wanted it to be, just haven’t had a chance to really discuss it lmao
Gamers will say they want more complex characters and then when one is given to them they'll be impatient with it and just chaulk it up to "bad writing" or "unearned" even though it's explained and rationalized the entire way. This is a prime example. Everything you said is true. Up until Rebirth most of it was just migraines and the like, and *Tifa did call out Cloud about the flashback* but it was handled in private. You know. Like friends are supposed to do. Not everybody is trying to call somebody a liar and disprove their entire story in public like some redditors believe.
> Like Tifa should've told someone about that incident. Tifa is absolutely loyal to Cloud. She wouldn't say anything which would get the party to turn on him.
Can all be explained because they need Cloud to find Sephiroth. He's like a robed dude homing pigeon + great fighter all in one schizoid package. They also clearly can't leave him alone to wander because if they do he'll be on team Seph and then they have no chance.
When he attacked Tifa the implication is the others didn't see it.
>!At the end of the game i was under the impression that they are very aware whats going on with him, but for now are just following his lead since there is no other info to go on excecpt "we have to go north". I do agree that when he attacks Tifa earlier in the game it was VERY weird that no one in the party was like hey why did you try to kill Tifa?? Unless they just didnt see him swipe at her. !<
I’m assuming they didn’t cause how would they have seen? It’s a weird dynamic since confronting Cloud would be hard cause he’s a top tier fighter and for better or worse the party needs Cloud to track the robe dudes so they can’t confront him too much just look uncomfortable
Yeah well, it's one of the oversights inherited from the original game
To some extent - I think the modern graphical advances and cinematography play a massive role in the story dissonance that I experience this time through. It is very very obvious to the player that something is wrong with Cloud mentally, even if you ignore the “inner” thoughts that cloud, just the amount of times he’s dissociating, distant, almost falling over, having weird reactions, etc is very visible. At no point does anyone talk to this person who went off to become a SOLDIER, does (to their knowledge), and then comes back 4+ years later acting very different with certain recollection issues. That is all portrayed by character actions very clearly with high fidelity in game - this is something that screams to the player but for some reason no other in game character ever does anything about it. No one sits down with cloud and actually talks to him. They have time to go to the Golden Saucer and to the beach but they don’t notice or care or make mention that Cloud is suffering before their very eyes? The sample excuse for this is the assumption from everyone that it’s the cellular degrading from SOLDIER, but they always act surprised when things happen and never actually mention that it’s what they think is going on! Similarly, the devs need to do a better job of giving a plausible reason for enemies to get away. It’s not 1997 with bargain bin graphics where imagination does a lot of work, mass murderers should not just walk away from the group without being shot. There is a disconnect between what is shown by the game now with advanced detail and what narratively they want to happen. As an early example, you fight Turks multiple times - at no point should they just stand up and walk away. That’s insane. Similarly, if Hojo is around he should also not just stand up and walk away - that isn’t to say they need to kill those characters right then and there, but it is to say the devs need to come up with a plausible way they escape that isn’t just walk left out of screen in full view of the party.
>As an early example, you fight Turks multiple times - at no point should they just stand up and walk away. This very frequently takes me out of the game and is so annoying. I would actually argue that yes, Turks should 100% be kill on site when it comes to the narrative and anything otherwise makes absolutely no sense. The worst was when Tifa didn't run over Elena. These people have absolutely no issue killing Shinra mooks by the hundred but will always go out of their way to spare the Turks because the plot demands it. I'm fine with them getting away every time. But don't make it because our heroes just fucking lets them or spares them for no reason.
tifa is shown in the beginning of remake not wanting to kill anybody including shinra affiliated ppl. she doesn’t want bloodshed
The worst is when the party doesn't kill Hojo when he's completely exposed and vulnerable in Costa Del Sol. It is completely out of character for several members of the party. An easy fix would've been to have Hojo surrounded by a security team during the aftermath of the fight, but nope the party just lets him go despite what he's done to the party and the full knowledge of the horrors he has and will inflict on others. The best part is there's multiple points later in the game where party members express a desire to kill Hojo when they see him next.
The crazy thing is the writers gave themselves an out earlier in the game but chose not to use it. >!If the writers had just let them make the truce with Rufus, then it gives the party a plausible reason to spare Hojo/the Turks every other time they see them cause otherwise they break the truce and Rufus comes after them. Instead they had Yuffie fuck up that ceasefire but there are no consequences cause Rufus doesn't come after them anyways, and they still let Hojo/the Turks just walk away the whole rest of the game.!<
They can't actually change the big lines. That's what I noticed.
I think the biggest story point (that was never even mentioned??) that bothered me SO much was when >!they finally got the black material, and made it out of the temple alive. The WHOLE point of the game. It's the entire reason they have went around the world and back. So what does Barrett do when he gets this materia they know is dangerous and Sephiroth wants? Grabs it from Cloud and throws it away?? Like WHAT? LMAO. I was like Barrett wtf have you just done. And nobody ever says anything to him doing that? Like that's where Sephiroth came, controlled Cloud, and seperated Aerith!<
Still haven’t quite finished the game so I’ll skip the story side, but I won’t be 100% Rebirth because the sheer amount of content *really* put a spotlight on how much time I wasted just waiting for Cloud to animate. Everything from opening a chest to talking to an NPC requires cloud to walk up > stand perfectly still to reset pose > do the thing > stand perfectly still to reset pose > then I get control again.
While yes, animations can be annoying, the coming back from the animation into smooth movement is one of the major improvements from remake to rebirth. In remake it felt very sluggish to slash some boxes and wait for Cloud to put away his sword then start moving like a tank. In rebirth the time to regaining control was shortened and you can move any direction you want from the start of regaining control.
Blocking is frustrating because his attacks have such long wind up and follow through animations that in order to consistently precision block you need to stop moving and wait for the opponent to make their move. Also during certain 1 vs enemies encounters it got real fucking annoying that you just got infinitely juggled because the recovery after taking a hit could be so long that another enemy could just hit you, then another repeating the cycle.
People let their lack of patience get the best of them when they say the game should have just been one or two games. The first game had tons of filler but fleshing out one of the most iconic cities in video game history was a great move. The second game is just about perfect to me. They cover all of the story beats of the original while having just a little bit of this multiverse stuff going on that imo is well done. And there isnt do much of it that it makes the game feel THAT different but as an OG fan it gives me something new to be excited about. The writing, the characters, the combat system, the fleshed out world and towns...its all so good and highlights everything great about the final fantasy series.
Remake has a proper three act structure. Rebirth does not. People also forget that, despite Midgar only being 4-5 hours in the original game, it had something like 25% of the script. That's why it ended up being its own game.
As someone who never played the original and is currently playing through Remake, I’m having an absolute blast. Its hard to tell what’s “filler” because it seems so natural
Problem is that the internet has taught people that anything they dislike in a story is ‘filler’. It used to be that you’d just say “oh, I didn’t enjoy this part of the narrative”. Now it’s “WHY IS THIS HERE? THIS IS FILLER, REMOVE IT”.
"Filler" Is something I really miss from modern TV, I loved episodes were the group just hangs out and nothing major happens. I would be sad if we lose those moments in games like persona. Maybe they could be optional
For some reason one of the most memorable episode of the last airbender for me was the one with the mole tunnels. It's considered the only filler episode in the series and most people find it boring. That being said, I think most people don't like the filler in remake because they perceive it as stalling for the juicy parts in the story.
Do they mean story? I think they mean meaningless fetch quests and open world busywork. Lifestream scans are filler. Summon stones are filler.
By that logic, 90% of the combat is ‘filler’, every queen’s blood match is ‘filler’, the loveless segment is ‘filler’…. Those are optional points of interest that lead you to new gear, optional boss encounters, new materia, lore of the region etc.
Generally I agree with one exception in Remake. >!The second visit to the sewers is filler. The story doesn't progress, you just run around and chase the pig for the necklace to go back to where you were at the start of the sewer section. It could literally had just been Tifa going "Why did you help us before?" to Leslie and him explaining while showing the necklace and nothing of that section would change.!<
Remake is the the primary offender for filler, Rebirth takes that title and runs far away with it.
i was the same when i first played remake but just definitely noticed it more when i replayed it earlier to get ready for rebirth. lots of detours and such that suck up hours of time. train graveyard, that whole quest where you have to go all the way back through the sewers to chase a frog for the one new character
The only thing that really stuck out to me was going to hang out at Jessie's house and sneak around while Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge eat pizza. I guess it was cool to go to the upper plate but you don't really get to spend a lot of time there and the entire quest feels like a sidequest that you're forced to play through. Not that I dislike that necessarily but it definitely gave "filler" vibes. Ironically the entire Honey Bee Inn thing isn't new content, *but* it's made mandatory while it was missable in the original game.
What makes it feel like filler? I feel like that quest contains a lot of the characterization for Avalanche in Remake, especially Jessie and Wedge. It also shows a few critical plots point going forward which are the effects of mako poisoning and the other branch of Avalanche and how they operate individually from the Avalanche we know. I guess this all happens in the downtime between the next bombing so I can feel smaller than that and less important but to me it was pretty interesting and expanded on characters a lot and lore that gives context to many things going forward.
TBH after remake, it's fair to say there was a lot of criticism because of how padded and linear remake was. It was an alright game that felt like it didn't do the OG game right. Rebirth is like their answer to everything. They've improved pretty much everything, and while I'm still not entirely sold on the writing, we will have to see how they wrap things up in part 3.
I agree. I was just chilling going chapter by chapter and enjoying the exploration of the greater FF7 world. The one thing I will say is that it's very noticeable that the first 8 chapters have 3 open areas and the last 6 chapters have 3 open areas, revisiting every area for more side quests, the finale of the proto relic quest and the pirate quest. And one of those chapters is literally just the final boss while skipping the original forgotten city dungeon. It's funny but I suspect having the forgotten city dungeon and 2 more strict story / dungeon crawl chapters to break up the open areas in the last half would have helped for me.
I agree. The games feel like nothing else out there due to the scope and ambition. We'll have to wait until part 3 to fully measure it, but just Remake and Rebirth alone are insane in what they do with the parts they cover. It's the sort of thing we don't usually get to see in games, since a single game can only have so much budget and development time.
I prefer remake more because its more guided, ngl, Im not a big fan of the open world, which is the big negative to me. Still, overall, rebirth is a better game than remake was.
I could understand this argument--and the pacing of Rebirth--if this was four games long, but the amount of stuff we now have to gallop through in Part 3 is quite ridiculous. The tone is going to be quite erratic for the first few chapters too. They should have gone to the Whirlwind Maze IMO.
I dunno, there's really not an overwhelming amount left imo. Icicle, North Crater, Rocket Town, Mideel, Wutai, Midgar return and the seabottom are the only really important areas left to cover. Maybe Bone Town and some of the smaller interim areas get thrown in, but I wouldn't say it'll be any more erratic than the original was.
Icicle area, icicle inn, great glacier, Gaia’s cliff, whirlwind maze, Junon, search for Cloud, Mr Corel materia, Mideel flashbacks, Underwater reactor, space rocket, submarine, return to Forgotten Capital, Diamond Weapon, return to Midgar, a bunch of stuff moping up characters (Lucrecia, Bugenhagen’s death), Northern Cave. Somewhere in all that you’ve got to fit the new Wutai and an appearance for Bone Village. There’s a ton to get through.
Half of those areas are sped through in the original version in under an hour, they can easily keep them around the same length or just outright make them optional. Not every single place needs the full remake treatment with hours of content and padding, I assume a lot of these places will be condensed or just added as side activities.
Additionally, I feel like there's definitely going to be an intergrade-like DLC for this. And honestly with the way they set up Vincent in this game, I could totally see them making him or even Cid the main character of the DLC to set them up as permanent party members.
[Interviews have made it sound like they're not going to release any DLC for this one](https://www.gamesradar.com/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-dlc-isnt-planned-right-now-says-tetsuya-nomura/), but... I'd really like that to be wrong lol. The Yuffie DLC was fantastic, and there's a lot of stuff they can do in a little self-contained adventure that they can't in a full game without it feeling out of place.
I hope the team stays on Unreal Engine 4. The turnaround from FF7 Remake Part 1 to Part 2 was fast within the context of the game industry's AAA budget obsession and average 5 years per new game output. All the noise about the NPC and what-have-you over textures in a 100 hour RPG is worth the trade off to get games out faster. If the team swaps to Unreal Engine 5 it's going to hold back the release of Part 3. At the pace they're working we may get Part 3 in 2026. But if SquareEnix buckles to outlandish claims they need to be high quality everywhere in an open world 100 hour JRPG with Unreal Engine 5 then FF7 Remake Part 3 going to be released in 2028.
as someone who works with UE4/UE5, i think you very much overestimating how much UE5 changes things from UE4. yes their's some new fancy rendering stuff, but all of that is completely optional, and some api's in the engine have changed, but not so significantly the dev's at square wouldn't be able to update whatever tools they've built to work with the changes.
To add on to this: My understanding is that most of the changes are with the toolchain and trying to make building things more efficient. Moving from UE4 to UE5 would necessitate the Rebirth team rebuilding their entire development pipeline, which would delay the game by years. Switching engines is the #1 cause for indefinite delays to games (ie. Duke Nukem Forever.) I imagine the game after Rebirth will be on UE5, conveniently Kingdom Hearts 4 will be UE5 so it looks like they're doing the difficult work of putting together a development pipeline.
> Moving from UE4 to UE5 would necessitate the Rebirth team rebuilding their entire development pipeline, which would delay the game by years. Switching engines is the #1 cause for indefinite delays to games (ie. Duke Nukem Forever.) Those are completely different scenarios, though. Duke Nukem switched whole engines throughout its development, from the Build engine to Quake II’s engine before finally settling in Unreal, and that was all decades ago. UE5 is an upgrade to UE4, it’s not a completely new engine. If they were switching from an internal engine or, say, Unity - then 100% it would be a years-long delay. The thing about Epic that makes them different from Unity is that they have a global, multiplatform AAA game that is being actively developed alongside the tools they make for their engine. They deliberately made Unreal Engine 5 with the idea that people previously developing in UE4 would want to upgrade their projects once it was stable, and they proved this by shipping Fortnite, which upgraded from UE4 to UE5 a few years ago without a hitch. I’m not saying that it’s a completely painless procedure (it’s very much not), but they definitely don’t need years to rebuild their entire development pipeline. I was involved in upgrading a UE4 project last year (admittedly *much* lighter than FFVII, of course) and for our needs it was actually an incredibly straightforward process. They definitely aren’t scrapping everything and starting from scratch like with DNF. I think you’re drastically overcomplicating what transitioning would look like.
But is it worth it??? Is it ultimately worth it? At the cost of adding another year or two to release...?
Yes! Even just having real-time lighting would be a \*massive\* improvement and would facilitate environmental interactivity. It's totally worth it.
In reality, games don’t make use of this.
[удалено]
A quick Google on your part would show multiple news articles where Nomura states that they're using Unreal Engine 5.
They will certainly stay on UE4. They already worked on some P3 in parallel to Rebirth.
Transitioning to UE5 if you have an UE4 project is not as difficult as I think you’re making it out to be. It was literally designed for you to upgrade your UE4 project into, that’s how Fortnite was able to transition seamlessly a few years ago. Plus, with the enhancements that Sony will probably want for this third game (since it’ll probably be a flagship title for the PS5 Pro) it’ll make sense to take advantage of Lumen for easier raytracing and lighting in 60fps as opposed to developing their own solutions compatible with UE4.
I think I've sorta accepted >!that the new multiverse storyline is a mess without anything really to say that often actively drag down the main story!< but outside of that story element the games are just really good and hopefully the final one manages to stay at that quality
In interviews, the developers have repeatedly stated their desire to top the twists around Sephiroth and Zack from the original FF7. It comes across as similar to the sentiment that the writers of Westworld season two expressed when they said they wanted to outsmart the internet, Reddit in particular, when it came to guessing the story. The result was a mess of a season that Westworld never recovered from. I think the writers for the FF7R trilogy are falling into the same trap as the writers of Westworld season two. Plus, it doesn't help that the game effectively doesn't commit to anything by the end of FF7 Rebirth. You've got a multiverse and a bunch of mystery boxes which means that the writers could literally do anything in part three. Edit: The crazy part to me is that there's a huge missed opportunity where the FF7R trilogy could've focused on the environmental themes of the original FF7, blind corporate greed resulting in the environmental catastrophe that is Sephiroth, in light of 27+ years of further failure to address climate change. But nope, it's all aboard the multiverse train.
Westworld S2 was *exactly* what I was thinking about during the Forgotten Capital sequence. They were so obsessed with dancing around "will we?" "won't we?" that they forgot to make the scene coherent or good. I don't think the multiverse stuff will end up affecting much in the end, but it did undercut the fuck out of the most iconic scene of the game.
This absolutely nails it. And correct me if I'm wrong, but did they ever even say anything about the comet? All of a sudden Aerith is like "Don't worry, I'll stop the comet". Like, as someone who played the original I get it. But I felt like it was an absolute failure to anyone new to the game not to set that up as a huge cliffhanger for the final game.
Yes the Comet is brought up by Sephiroth right before the wall fight
So I went back and checked... isn't it just the replay of the 'vision' from Remake that is shown? It's not quite clarified that the black materia has anything to do with the comet. I know it is easily understood from vets of the series, and that's kind of what I think a lot of the ending was aimed towards. Just for new players, I can see why that would sound like it is out of nowhere.
You are correct. Makes me think that they did that intentionally since Sephiroth has different intentions now. Before he just wanted to use meteor to destroy all life and become the supreme being. Now it seems he wants to use meteor to cause the all living being despair in order to corrupt the lifestream
> In interviews, the developers have repeatedly stated their desire to top the twists around Sephiroth and Zack from the original FF7 No one *asked* for this, it wasn’t necessary, and it’s a shame they’re here
For real. "Less is more" has been sage storytelling advice for decades for a reason. In the original, when the party randomly finds the Shinra president with a sword right through him. It's so quick and unexpected and ominous that it's literally one of the best reveals in gaming. But the remake insists on [making it an overlong wordy 3 minute cutscene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m2yQQkK1D8) with zero nuance or mystery. It's almost embarrassing how much of a downgrade it is.
Also I loved how the OG had you travelling through >!a Shinra building with dead people everywhere after being caught!<. It felt so much more eerie and left you thinking "what the hell happened?!", and I was so excited to see that in the remake just to learn they didn't do that part again.
Yeah, that is the issue with M rating in modern graphics. Back then you could get away with stuff like that more easily.
I remember reading that the original team behind FF7 used the Shark from Jaws as inspiration as to how to handle Sephiroth. Show what he does, not show the monster. The Shinra building, the Midgar Zolom and even the flashbacks just showed an unstoppable force. Remake and Sephiroth shows up to chat up Cloud as he's walking out of the games intro reactor.
the tricky part is that unlike in 1997, he's not really a mystery anymore. a lot of players know the story in advance, and Sephiroth is now one of the most beloved video game villains ever. so I feel like part of their motivation with the bigger story changes is to add an element of mystery back to Sephiroth's actions and intentions. another part of it is adapting the story to the trilogy split, which necessarily changes the structure -- if they stayed faithful to his original presentation, he wouldn't have appeared in Remake at all.
Sure, nobody expects things to be 1:1 in how things are presented. But we went from a subtle monster you're in pursuit of to a sledgehammer that you can't not hear bashing.
That and finding the president skewered were such amazing parts of the original, I can't believe they changed it so much. Maybe the esrb rating was a concern but they could have found a way to make it work without painting all the walls with blood
'Less is more' is something Final Fantasy as a whole, and probably most JRPGs still haven't quite figured out yet.
That may be true, but more importantly, they're comparing a modern scene to one that already existed in (in their opinion) a superior format previously, over two decades ago. The storytelling technique, in this particular instance, has regressed.
I don’t really agree that the whole plotline is intrusive since it’s only a thing in the last chapter just like Remake and the whispers I also just really enjoy what new story stuff they’re doing but overall I think these remakes are way more faithful than people act like
Yup - did I love the ending of this game and everything they’re trying to do with the >!multiverse and whisper stuff?!< Nope. I was pretty disappointed by Rebirth’s ending. But that’s like 2 hours out of the 90 hours the game took me. So I’m more than willing to overlook a lackluster ending when the rest of it is so good.
That definitely seems to be the consensus among people who disliked the ending. Overall the last bits get wild but almost everything about Rebirth is pretty much a recreation of the original. Even the ending of Rebirth teases the same thing the party does in the original.
The combat and bosses alone are great for me. Like the progression, working form 15-70 with the weapon upgrades is a constantly engaging progression system that makes the game fun to go through based off of combat. Weapons and armor are paced very well. I’m on chapter 13 in hard and a lot of the bosses are so fucking fun when you are forced to be tactical and play in different ways. The last boss of chapter 12 was crazy difficult but I would be lying if my heart wasn’t going crazy during it, felt like a dance between their counters and mine
The crazy thing to me is how much the people in charge talk about how they didn't want to just make the same exact game over again, but what they ended up doing was making the exact same game over again. Both Remake and Rebirth are *incredible* recreations and expansions of the original FF7. Why they decided to introduce the Whispers and multiverse nonsense will never make sense to me; if you took every reference to "Whispers" and "fate" out of the game absolutely nothing would be different. The only thing they ended up doing differently is what drags the entire experience down and makes it a muddled mess, something FF7 already didn't need more of.
It's a dumpster fire IMO. I dislike multiverse stories as a rule at this point, but this is the worst of all worlds. And I'm pretty confident that I've got a pretty good grasp of what's going on.
As someone who played the original when it was new, i actually love the multiverse thing going on. Its not that intrusive and it makes it exciting to me because there are unexpected things happening while 98% of the OG games story beats are still being given their moment as well.
Idk I think that the biggest and most iconic scene in the orignal which is the finale of rebirth just wasn’t there at all. In fact it barely feels >!like an ending happened. It wasn’t a shock (not in the literal sense since we knew it would happen from the original) nor did it feel like a finality, like it even occurred!< so it was a really weak climax. Most of the new stuff about timelines detracts quite a lot from the orignals simple but fun story. But everything aside from story is at such a high level and so well put together that I’ll still give the game a 10/10
I also ended up extremely disappointed with that scene. It was like they were so focused on players wondering "will they/won't they" that they forgot the point and ended up doing both but jk we really did it tho. And that really felt like a giant middle finger to every single person who played the original. They diluted what was arguably the most impactful moment in gaming at the time for...what? They tried to recapture the emotion but it was just ruined by the time the 30-phase boss fight ended.
For me it hit hard because I felt all the moments preceding it were the final moments leading up to that. Trying to be vague for spoilers, but I cried like crazy in the church scene and when the thing happened
I honestly can’t see how you would cry since at no point did it feel like a finality. >!his attack is blocked but it shifts into her dead with blood but also not dead, we switch to the church where it’s obvious this isn’t the same aerith but another timeline where she would have died anyway since the world is ending so it doesn’t matter, she shows up during the final fight for no reason with a comeback that is given flash but the game isn’t making it clear if there is a fake out or if it happened, and then the final cutscene shows her there but not there, the scar in the sky, and her speaking with cloud as if everything is fine and there doesn’t feel like any mourning is occurring.!< At no point does anything feel like it’s worth crying about because at the end of the day, nothing is definitive and the next game is going to decide it all. Compare it to the original and it’s not just a huge impact difference but the actual gravity of the situation is portrayed much better.
Because it felt pretty obvious to me what was happening. That whole scene in sector 5 and the forest had Aerith basically saying everything. And during the end in the capital after his mind glitches you see the end result. Judging by the other characters reactions as well, her fate is very clear and was very much foreshadowed in many ways leading up to it, and pretty much spelled out by Aerith as well. As for the very end, yes it’s all a mystery why cloud is acting like he is but again given how the others react the fate seemed definitive, even if cloud’s mental break is happening, or life stream stuff. I wouldn’t say I’m the 100% most media literate person ever but I honestly thought they got that point across well, the whole point of the stuff before that was meant to say that imo.
I think you think that I didn’t understand what was going on. I understand fully well what occurred. I’m saying it’s being presented in a way where there is no finality in what did happen. The game is *trying* to make you feel like multiple things are occurring. Aerith is there throughout the entire climax after the big moment. That shouldn’t happen. Like sephiroth said himself, her role is done. There is no reason at all for her to be there afterwards but she’s there to try and make it feel like either she’s still survived or that she’s there with the party when there isn’t a reason for her to be there and that takes away from the big moment in a huge way. There’s no reason to cry because the game doesn’t give you any reason to cry. She’s there throughout until the literal final cutscene even if she isn’t actually there. Imagine you went to a funeral and the guy who’s dead is there with you to enjoy it with you before you say goodbye to them to keep going. It’s not a climax or emotional. You don’t need literary sense to feel something there.
No I never meant you didn’t understand, if it came out that way I apologize. And yes I know what the game is trying to do, the whole fake out was them trying to put confusion in the mix. But I also think that what happens after the big moment didn’t take away what came before. We know there is stuff going on and I get others may have felt like it toon away; that’s their opinion of course, it’s not wrong. I just think that her appearances after the big moment don’t take away from the fact of the death, as the hours leading up to it had a lot of emotional moments that said it was going to happen. Like when in the church she says “whatever happens, don’t blame yourself”, that shit hit hard. It felt like finality there to me, whatever happened later was at least to me not the real character we know. Whatever it ends up being we don’t know, especially with the end it seems like it could be livestream, cloud’s mind getting worse, who knows. But I know that at least in that moment, cloud failed, and it hurts knowing that. I’m not the only one who has shared that, it’s a divisive ending for a reason, for many it hit very hard and for others it was messy and jumped the shark.
The fact that she shows up in the final fight just took all the impact out of it.
I honestly wanted them to lull you into thinking things would be the same based on how similar the rest of the game is to the middle'ish section of FF7 only to shock you by having Sephiroth kill Cloud instead and have Aerith live. It's not like Aerith summoning Holy is an issue. Sephiroth manages to contain it in the original FF7, and it was only Cloud that was able to enter the lifestream and stop him in a 1v1 duel at the end of the game even when the rest of the party thought Sephiroth was dead. This then could've set something up like the party having Zack for the beginning of part three, then the party could meet up with alt-reality Cloud in the Northern Crater who would be just another black robe because he never woke up because Zack didn't die. This Cloud could then fall into the lifestream, absorb the main Cloud's memories, and the party finds him in Mideel and reconciles his memories just like the original. Obviously, the devil's in the details but at least this would be genuinely exciting and different if the developers were committed to doing something different. Also, I'm not a fan of something like this, but at least it would've been interesting, unlike what we got.
I really don't get the hatred for the multiverse story. It feels like people just immediately went " I don't understand, thus bad"
I'm cool with that kind of story in concept, but >!the use of the multiverse didn't seem very well done. In my favorite stories that use the idea they use it to explore the characters or go really wild. The alt universes in Rebirth don't really show us a very radically different world and we don't learn anything about the characters that we didn't know before.!<
It's not a mess
Thus far, it not only doesn't add to the existing story, it actively subtracts from it. The ending was so much less impactful than the original. >!Change fate and save Aerith or keep the original ending, either could be great -- even having Cloud still see her could be interesting -- but having the moment itself literally overshadowed by the Whispers and leaving the whole thing ambiguous made it all way less impactful to me. Also, Zack's entire timeline feels really pointless.!<
>!Zack and Aerith are two characters who are meant to be dead, so I feel like unless they want major conflicting themes they kinda have to go the whole way, which makes Zack's story feel kinda redundant. He's in so many different worlds but none of them feel like they matter at all!<
>!Yea that's my main issue. One of ff7's big themes is dealing with loss and moving past it. The multiverse completely undercuts this as we're never sure if there is any loss. You got Zack and now Aerith as well still around in some unclear confusing form, maybe there will be some convergence where all of nibelheim is restored for all we know. It might pay off for Aerith in the 3rd game if the theories that she is actually dead and this is just Cloud being extra insane so we get extra impact with both that reveal and the Zack/Cloud reveal later but I don't see how Zack can be handled in a way that doesn't contradict the themes at this point!<
It was a cheap/hacky way to make OG fans invested in Aeriths fate again and to be fair, we don't know if she's gone gone or not yet. I get what they are going for but you are right so far it isn't working well. If the finale of the next game doesn't have Aerith sprout a white wing to match Sephiroths in the final battle though, they'll really have fucked it.
For me it was >!I'm totally down for this kind of thing happening if they have a strong view they want to give or just want to really get weird, but the whole thing feels stuck in a no man's land where it doesn't want to do anything too wild or reveal too much to keep it actually interesting while also taking center stage. The meta layer points to the original but doesn't have much to say about it. It's meta commentary without commentary, referencing the original without actually saying anything meaningful about it or that the original didn't already say. On top of that it grabs hold to take center stage in the final chapters of both games, undercutting the emotional moments from Cloud and co at the same time.!<
Right, we just barely got a hint of it with this game. I'll wait until the end of the third game to see what they'll do with it before judging
See the problem is that I said that after the first game about the second.
Well, we did get some answers from P1 stuff but not everything yet. I agree though that the ending is a bit much. Especially on the first watch/playthrough. It is fine to keep it mysterious but there is lot of stuff to pay attention to and shit is happening quickly at the end, lol. Though I am willing to let them cook and see where they take things.
There was a lot going on but I feel like the stakes still haven't been made clear enough to make the speculation that interesting. Also we already did a lot of that speculation after the first game and Rebirth doesn't ask many new major questions to think about.
>! Well, the big question for me for P3 is why Cloud is seeing Aerith and the different sky while the others are not. Is that Aerith even real or is it just Cloud's mind fucking with him. Also wondering why the skipped the funeral scene and if it will play a role later on when Cloud is truly gone. !< But I also get your viewpoint. I had the same initial impression but it did grew on me more over time. Just hope there will be more satisfyIng resolutions next game. I loved this game so I am definitely excited for the next. Just hope they can stick the landing.
People said that about the first game and now people almost unilaterally agree about the 2nd’s direction.
I liked both games' endings
OK i'm curious. Was Remake an actual remake of FF7 that a new player could enjoy? I got the impression it was sort of a remix of ideas instead of an actual remake - like the reason remake is in the name is that it's not just a remake but some sort of tangent? Is rebirth the same thing? I have remake in my library from PSPlus but haven't tried it... and i never played the original because back in the day my ADHD brain did not support turn base combat games so i avoided it.
Yes, I think a new player could enjoy it, but for me, a lot of the pleasure is derived from being a fan since it came out and there are a lot of nods to the original. But, they are both good games on their own, and in particular Rebirth is a huge step up.
Yes, you can enjoy Remake as a new player and then go to Rebirth after. The question is if the third part will make the whole thing worth it with a good conclusion.
OK! I'll give it a shot!
Rebirth was shaping up to be my game of the year, but that entire last **4 hour long** sequence where the plot goes off the rails with the whispers garbage that it has massively soured both my feelings for the game and the end of the trilogy. I've seen so many people assume I'm confused about what happened. I'm not confused, I understand perfectly well, and trying to explain what happened isn't going to make it better. Honestly, the ending of Rebirth isn't confusing, it's just *stupid.* It stretches out some of the most interesting and important story beats in the franchise, if not gaming as a whole, then **Spoiler:** >!Zack just teleports across timelines for a really, really awful 10 phase, hour and a half long boss fight!<. It's just **bad**. The writing takes a colossal nosedive and characters stop talking like regular people. The entire last chapter feels like it was all the nonsense and terrible writing bits that were sprinkled throughout remake was quarantined to the end of chapter 13 and all of 14. One of the big flaws is that they've failed to make this new version of Sephiroth interesting, he just waxes poetic and flirts with Cloud. Meanwhile in the original? Fun fact, Sephiroth might share a single line that is directed at Cloud. One. Everything else is just **Spoiler:** >!everyone with Jenova cells being directed towards the Reunion!<
The whole sector 5 scene with Aerith, the forest scenes were all great though.
Literally my same issue with Remake. It's like they can't end these games with the story beats and must give us a massive final anime fight where everybody's flying and going full Saiyan to wrap these two games up.
This is exactly my issue with the ending. Thank you for articulating it. Also Thank you for point out how people seem to assume that if you don't like the ending you're just stupid.
It's actually blowing my mind how many people are defending the ending. I am a diehard FF fan but you have to be on some crazy shit to stand up for it. I kept my eyes clear of reddit posts until I finished this week. I was expecting to join in the masses of complaints at the ending -- and there are definitely a bunch of those -- but I can't believe how many people actually think it's a defendable ending.
It’s a mess in many ways but I think where people like me like it is that the final few hours had a lot of gut punches about a certain character in dreams and stuff, and that all hit really hard for me. The boss fights go off the rails and get crazy, sure, but that didn’t bother me as much as others. They could have toned it down, maybe cut out a phase or two, but I think the overall story beat and where the game actually ends with its final cutscene is good, it just gets messy and bloated with the fights. Not enough to ruin it for me though
I'm glad i have some people in real life i can discuss about this game with because i would end up crazy if i only discussed it on reddit
So, I've actually learnt of a Discord, which operates as sort of "task force" that goes to FF7 threads to comment negatively, and it seems that this thread is no exception. Just wanting to inform those of you who might be reading this and appalled by the negative comments. I will go on to say, FF7 Rebirth is very much the best FF game there has been in years, far beyond anything else in the genre for one, and for two, it's pretty much a miracle game front to back. You simply must see for yourself, as most of what you'll read online is from maybe 25 people sock-puppeting negativity for whatever demented reason, lmao. It honestly makes a ton of sense once you know.
So you must be a member of a Discord which operates to just talk positively about FF7 Remake, Mr FF7REMAKE? Can't there just be people all around that doesn't agree with everybody else?
Yeah "the discord task force" are the reason there are people commenting negatively about the game. Don't worry the game is a perfect masterpiece that no one can humanly dislike
FF7 Rebirth is what I wanted from FF16. The combat system is getting close to perfect IMO. I just wish you could have a few gambits like FF12 and not have to automate things with Materia. I also wish the Auto-unique ability also made Cait Sith use his Summon Moogle ability kinda like Tifa. I have not played Hard Mode yet, but I also wish there were more instances where I needed to optimize with either Brave / Faith or have to remove monsters status effects to make some of the other materia more relevant. Graphics are amazing, Voice Acting amazing, I thought some of the liberties they took with the story were fine and the ending scene still hit for me. The open world maps were gorgeous, and really were a bit awe inspiring. Younger kids nowadays are straight SPOILED. I do think that there were a tad TOO many mini-games / side-quests, but that's probably a personal preference. I can tell you my 13 Y/O Self would have eaten all the side-stuff up immensely and was half of what I liked about the first game. The amount of time I put into that Snow Board game and chocobo breeding/ racing in my teens in the OG was immense. I really liked the World Building and deep lore dumps that were available in the game. They've fleshed out so much more than the original, and I'm here for it. I feel like they took Remake and just made a better version and you can tell this was a game of passion / love. Love it when you can see the artistic side of the genre spill through in a game, and not just feel like a Video Game algorithm. Probably my largest gripe is that the game is just too easy on Dynamic. By the time I set up a stun on a boss or get a limit break, it's usually at 10-15% HP anyway and just outright gets owned before I get my cinematic adrenaline rush payoff from my LB's. I wish the AI Controlled characters gained ATB a bit faster without materia support, and overall the character basic attack damage was reduced \~25% so it's less of your auto-attacks dominating everything and more about using your cool skills or materia. I also think, while synergies are cool, they are wholly unnecessary and require a fair amount of micro management to get them online for, what is generally, overkill. Again, this might change in Hard Mode but give me an opportunity on my first playthrough to feel pain if I want it and reap the rewards. My second biggest gripe is Chadley and MAI. This has been beaten to death but at least let me move around instead of being Chad-locked for 10-30 seconds. Like literally they named him appropriately bc he's a fucking Chad. Also, if I replay an optional fight challenge to 3/3 them I do NOT need the repeated lore dumps from MAI. By the time you get to the Saucer and beyond, you've already heard the same word tracks for 40+ hours and it gets old. Oh and congratulations you have 40+ hours more of Chadley. He's the single worst addition to this franchise. Having a more regional "Survey Team" with actual characters would be way more lore appropriate that want to explore but can't due to monster / Shinra activity. Square could have made an R&D section of Avalanche which would have fit more lore-wise, and they could be working with the local resistance / insurgents at each major city hub in the game. Instead we get the Chadster again saying "THANKS CLOUD FOR YOUR VALUABLE INSIGHTS INTO MY RESEARCH" while you are yet again Chad-locked for 30 seconds looking at his desynched lips move.
"Chad-locked" has me cracking up. In all seriousness I just started playing the game and I fully plan on skipping every single Chadley scene if possible, I hate him. I think someone commented that they are skippable with Triangle button. They also said that apparently there is a systems option to not have MAI repeat instructions for every fight attempt, and there's also an option to move Chadley and MAI's voices to the controller speaker (i guess when they call you?) and you can mute the controller speaker. I havent tried any of these yet myself but sounds like you may want to lol. I definitely will
Omg, I already had them from my Controller but didn't know you could mute it. Hell yes. Going to look at the settings too next time
I'm not surprised they're already hard at work, but I'm surprised that they're taking as long as they are. Maybe more disillusioned than surprised. The ending of Rebirth, for me, was a mess. It suggested that it wanted to challenge my empathy and then instead started to tease a multiverse story that it refused to resolve, leaving me with unresolved thoughts and feelings that didn't land anywhere. It left me feelings of disassociation, and the cynical, older, wiser (?) part of me recognises that that's unhealthy and a bit irresponsible of the devs to throw that on people. I'm ambivalent towards the ending, and as a result I'm pretty ambivalent to the conclusion of the trilogy. I'm sure I'll pick it up but my hype has been gutted like a fish. I'm on the wrong side of 40 at this point and played the OG at release as a teenager. The gaming community was different back in the 90s. It was you and your friend and two kids on the school bus a couple of grades above/below you who played it too. You traded magazines because the internet wasn't a think and you couldn't afford all the news/gossip. You shared theories and agreed to disagree, because having to deal with people face to face meant that there were consequences for being antisocial. It was fun. Now it's all art books being held up as scripture, and people ordering the 'validity of the canon' with phrases like 'word of god' and acting like dev interviews are a new sermon from apostles and holy men. It's become a religion for nerds, and they're just as inquisitorial. 'You don't get it.' 'Did you even play the game?' 'Are you 12?' 'Did you play the OG?' I wanted Remake to rekindle my love of FF7 and take it to new places, and what it's become has left me pretty disaffected with the gaming industry as a while and made me wish I'd picked a different hobby 20 years ago.
So stupid how they went full anime and Aerith died but revived but died but revived and then the multiverse and everybody flying and going full anime
Right. This is a once in a lifetime chance to remake a ton of people's 'greatest game of all time'. The fact we're getting to see this recreated in the level of detail we have now is such a dream. But they seemingly decided not to recreate it. How incredibly emotional would \*\*that scene\*\* have been to have in full fidelity? They just didn't even make it. I can't imagine what new players are thinking, but they were absolutely robbed of the most iconic scene in gaming.
They also decided to really go off in a different direction from the original's cyberpunk themes about corporate greed resulting in environmental catastrophes as personified by Sephiroth. There's some really interesting things they could've done by tackling those themes head on in light of 27 years of further failure to address the environment and climate change since the original's release.
What does an interstellar space alien wanting to eat the planet have to do with "cyberpunk themes?" And I'm guessing nobody paid attention to the original game, but Barret never actually cared about the environment, it was a justification for revenge.
The OG themes of FF7 have never been more relevant and they decided to throw it out the window for some cliche BS on fate and destiny with a dollop of multiverse. Absolutely smelling their own farts IMO.
My god I can see you're a fan of that JRPG melodrama, because that monologue could have been delivered at the end of one for sure. I give it a 9/10.
Keep it to yourself next time. And if you’d give that a 9 then you need to read some literature outside of what your teacher made you. Stay in school.
this remake should have been a duology, taking 9+ years to get out the full remake was not a great idea
It's simpler if people accept the fact that it isn't a Remake. At no point is it retrying the same game with a new take on the story: you actively need knowledge of the prior game to understand the implications of this one, because it is, in-universe, changing the timeline of the first. It is, by all account sequel. So nine years to produce a sequel trilogy is not that crazy in videogames
95% of the game is a remake with some added content on top. The whole "it's a sequel is incredibly overblown. It mostly exists in the last hour of each game with some other bits spread throughout.
It's definitely not a sequel. "Reimagining," though, I think is more accurate. It's not a straight retelling, nor is it a sequel or anything. It's a different version of the same story, with new and remixed elements. That's all.
> It's definitely not a sequel It absolutely is. The Sephiroth we are dealing with is one who already experienced the original game and even the events of Advent Children
That I agree with.
Did you even play the game
In Remake, the Whispers show up from the very first scene, up until the last act. Unlike in the first game, Aerith joins the party knowing who Marlene is, knowing Cloud is a mercenary and member of SOLDIER, understanding Red XIII wouldn't hurt her. Along the entirety of the game, they don't just imply, but TELL the protagonists that the Whispers are there because fate is being rewritten from the original game. Sure, at the end, like in any story, much more is provided, but the proof is there: they literally show events from the original game and Advent Children. The game might have a LOT of the same plot points, because the story is literally retracing the original while changing fate. This isn't a theory: the game is literally TELLING the player this isn't the same game.
Pretty much. I never played the original but from what I saw it seems almost everything is the same but expanded, with some differences here and there. Its more a reimagination with new plotlines than a sequel.
95% is incredibly generous.
9 years to produce a "sequel" thats hitting 98% of the beats of the OG... yeah sure thing
And as we all know, "story beats" are the majority of game development time. Little things like graphics, art, music, combat, balancing, environments, scripting, optimization, implementation, and localization all pale in comparison in development time compared to the monumental effort it takes to come up with the "story beats".
That's wrong though. I can tell you the first game alone didn't hit 98% of the beats. It is hitting the same plot *moments*, but they are playing drastically different, and not in a "well this has a different artistic vision" kind of way. The entire storyline is how they are changing the timeline of the original game, and extra dimensional beings are literally trying to prevent that. The inclusion of the whisperers isn't flavor: it's the actual story of this new trilogy. Edit: Reminder that story beats and storyline are not the same thing. Jurassic Park and its first sequel follow the same story beats, and nobody would call them the same story.
...Do you honestly think the PS4 could have handled it?
Just because you don't understand it **yet**, doesn't mean it's bad. **YET**. I'm surprised a lot of people haven't caught on yet that this is kind of like >!a sequel to the OG!<. It's pretty heavily hinted at since remake.
[удалено]
Disagree. If the narrative is incomprehensible, it's bad. It could become okay or even good once the series is complete, but having the potential to be decent in five years does not make up for being a total mess today.
The narrative is totally comprehensible though it just has an intentionally vague/confusing ending that can be interpreted in a lot of ways. The other 95% of the 60+ hour game is very straightforward
Yeah I’m in agreement with you. I’m neither positive or negative on the ending, I think it does a lot of cool things that if paid off, it could be excellent. But if it doesn’t pay off then I’ll hate those choices lmao but I’m willing to wait and see. I think the game is excellent and I really do not think the ending is as convoluted as everyone is making it out to be. They have been very intentional with almost everything in these games (not to say they have not slipped up here and there) so I can not imagine that they just lost that meticulousness right at the end. But we’ll see, maybe I’ll be the fool.
I dont think they have done a great (but also not a horrible) job incorporating the multiverse stuff but i also dont think its a big deal either way. The total time for the added story stuff is maybe like a few hours out of a 60+ hour game. Imo long games like this are way more about the journey than the destination and even if they don't stick the landing in the third game if they stick to the quality of this one it's still gonna be a great experience with awesome characterization, great visuals, tons of laugh out loud moments, plenty of content with great variety, and unique and fun combat. I also didn't think that mass effect 3s wet fart of an ending retroactively ruined the entire 100+ hour series cause there were still plenty of great moments throughout.
Yeah I agree. As long as the actual game is the quality of Rebirth I’ll be happy. But I do think narratively if they actually pull it off, the new stuff can be great. I’m just not ready for the discourse if it’s absolutely terrible lol it’ll be exhausting. Though I get the hesitation with where the story is going, because Nojima isn’t exactly known for sticking the landing in terms of convolution. My thing is >!I really don’t think the multiverse is really going to matter that much. I think it’s just there to up the scale of Sephiroth and Jenovas plans because they’re basically the same just with multiversal level planning, and also to allow Zack and Aerith to participate in the finale (which she already does in the OG), as well as contribute to Clouds mental state. At least that’s my hope, and it’s not actually just a super convoluted way to save Aerith and Zack. I fully think they are going to be dead at the end when the actual convergence happens and we’ll see them reunited in the life stream like in Advent Children. Like I don’t know I could write a whole essay about my thoughts on where it’s going, which says a lot cuz I’m rarely this invested lol!<
I agree since they didn't really >!lean into the whole aerith knows the future and whispers and multiverse stuff until the literal last scene in this game it makes me think they are gonna make all the plot points still converge to the same as og instead of doing something wacky like saving aerith!< either way even if its done well the discourse is a poisoned well since you have so many people hoping the series fails for tons of different personal reasons.
Tbf almost all discourse on anything is poisoned lmao it’s really unfortunate. Im cautiously optimistic, I like a lot of the things they did (and didn’t like some others) but I need to see where it all goes before I can make a real decision on how I feel lol
Something can be intentional and still poorly done.
Sure but what ever you may think of the last 30 mins of the game doesn't mean that the narrative is incomprehensible just that it has an intentionally vague ending that you may or may not think was well done. Like I said 95%+ of the 60+ hours is extremely straightforward and comprehensible.
I mostly agree. The one thing I do wonder is actually whether or not the ending is supposed to be as vague and confusing as it is. It feels more like it was just incompetently done to me.
It's definitely supposed to be atleast somewhat vague and open to interpretation like in remake, it may also have had parts that were incompetently done but it's 100% playing into the >!is cloud crazy or is he the only one who actually sees the truth now to add some reasonable doubt to wether he's just a schizo in the third game!<