Final Fantasy VII Remake

Figure now’s a good time to make one of these. Anyone else played the demo? Thoughts?

Personally think it seems promising, ATB gauge seems pretty smart and I like that they brought back stagger and made it refill your meter faster. The stances with Cloud could be cool depending on enemy compositions.

Also, the music is fantastic and I love the art style. Will pick this up day one.

I want to know how materia works in a non turn based setting.

I think this fits into "Various Action Games". If FFXV is in that category, so does this one.

My PS4 is homebrewed, and I can't be bothered to update it, so I'll be waiting for a PC release.

Did any of you guys hear anything about Gravity being in this part of the game? I'm very curious to see how they make that spell work.

Just finished it for the first time. I thought it was pretty decent. Combat is really nice but exploration leaves a lot to be desired. I know you can ignore these but man the boxes were a little disappointing since it can refill your magic bar and gives you more potions than a treasure chest. I did enjoy the difficulty curve though. That was a good boss fight. Nice to know that you can use magic to stagger. All in all, I think this will be good.

>Gravity

Never played FF7, but I'm gonna take a stab, and guess that it'll ground flying enemies. And maybe slow down enemies already on the ground.

I can barely remember it in the original but pretty sure it takes like a quarter of enemy HP, so the damage gets lower the lower their HP is and can never deal the final blow.

There's a few materia abilities I think they'll remove due to the action system. Pre emptive, mime, sneak attack.

Thinking further ahead, how will the larger summons work? Dont they actually fight alongside you now?

Did a few runs, quite liked it. Like how effective you can be, simple interface etc. That said, not a fan of the delays between attack and evasive moves, nor how the game auto changes fighting styles at times when switching around etc. Feels really annoying. Game looks gorgeous though. Can you imagine showing this to someone 20 years ago?

I downloaded the original last night. Oh, the memories.

Going to try all the crazy materia combos I never knew as a kid and test some ideas I have.

Regarding Gravity, I was just hoping to see if they make it work like it did in KH1. I don't know the exact mechanics behind it (I know the formula, I'm referring to how it works against bosses vulnerable to it) but I know for a fact that it is lethal against regular enemies (except in later entries, like CoM).

Here's how I'd want it to work:



And here's how I would not want it to work:



Since the dev who worked in both KH1 and 2 is also working on this game, I imagine there's a certain chance to see that spell work like it did in KH1 (again, if it's going to appear at all).

Of course... I do have my concerns.

It was fun, though everything changed in the music, voice acting and graphics kills the atmosphere imo.
It really is an ARPG, much more than what I played of 15. It seemed like you just attack to build meter, then pause and unleash the big moves. Dodging didn't seem very responsive, I would dodge the sweeper and he would just flip 180 and do damage the whole time.
This really makes me just want to finally play 15.

Makes me wonder by the way, when did Final Fantasy go full on action? Because I barely noticed RPG elements. Didn't that meet with opposition? Or was it a slow transition?

I think the action elements are somewhat recent.

I played from 7 to 10 and they were all turn-based. X-2 was too but I think you could interrupt enemy attacks with your own. Don't quote me on that though. My brothers played it but I only watched a little because I lost interest halfway through 10.

Not really familiar with any other after that except for World of FF and 12.

What was 13? That weird juggling one?

It was Crisis Core then Type-0, they did their action experimenting on the psp. They let the director of those games do 15 for some reason. I guess those psp games did well.

That jumping obsessed guy is at it again.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/168653-final-fantasy-vii-remake/78450941

Anyone picking this up? I think I’ll pre-load it tonight.

Sadly no. I have a big backlog I need to do. Oh yeah and about the demo. I played it a few more times and I find it too easy to do until the boss fight. I understand why though. Hopefully there can be a harder mode to unlock or the difficulty curve being good.

I think a Hard mode is confirmed which also disables items. It’ll probably get a re-release with a harder mode like the KH games did.

I just want to know how materia works.

Friend has been playing it for a week now since the game broke streetdate here thanks to Corona, seems pretty excited about it. Game is pretty 'short' too from what I hear, 100% runs clocking in at around 30 hours, which honestly seems like a good thing to me. You picking it up Infinity?

30 hours sounds good to me, this seems like a game I’ll want to play multiple times. And yep, I have it pre-loaded and ready to go. I work tomorrow morning but I’ll be playing it when I get home.

That preorder DLC can fuck right off.

Haven’t had too much time to play yet. Seems decent enough, but the pacing is wack. I’ll post impressions later if anyone cares.

Please do, interested to read some quality notes. The game seems to enjoy its 'immunity' for any discussion for now, so not a lot of information is availble on it it seems.

There is too much noise around this game. Perhaps after a month or two, if people are still passionately talking about FF7R, maybe there is something special going on.

My bro has it and he told me a lot about the mechanics. I'm not liking what I'm hearing.

ATB and stagger doesn't sound very fun. Not being able to fire off spells just because I have MP is dumb.

Summons are limited to tough fights and certain areas.

Red XIII shows up late Midgar in the original which is end game in this so he's not playable. That's unforgivable.

> too much noise surrounding the game

This is why I try not to listen to impressions early on, it tends to be mostly casuals being caught up in hype without meaningful discussions.

That being said, here’s some randomness after 7 hours or so:

-No hard mode to start, had to go with normal. Game so far has been a lot of mashing square with the occasional spell to build the stagger meter. Some weaknesses so far(lightning for machines, fire for dogs), but other than that, haven’t had to use too many different tools so far.
-Magic seems to have unique hitboxes to an extent. Fire is a projectile for one target but can hit more than one enemy. Thunder is an overhead that can knock flying enemies to the ground(think KH2 style). Haven’t found much use for ice yet.
-Specials have different properties so far(braver is a damage tool for when an enemy is staggered, the other one that I can’t remember the name of builds stagger and has a longer range).
-Normals tend to have big hitboxes and the first hit of Cloud’s string will make him stinger to enemies. Holding the button is a bigger AOE but it doesn’t seem different enough from the other normals.
-Punisher mode is slower but the attacks have more of a 360 AOE effect. The big draw is being able to counter while blocking in this stance, but the nice thing is that switching to the stance can also initiate a counter. There’s shield enemies early on that almost need to be countered.
-A lot of enemies have near-hitscan weapons and the block isn’t a true block, you still take chip damage. Doesn’t seem like a game that you can no-hit, could be wrong though. The roll isn’t nearly as good as it was in KH2 either.
-Have some mixed feelings about the ATB bar. I like that you’re encouraged to be aggressive to get access to your more powerful and utility based moves, but the fact that you take chip damage and the roll lacking iframes(not that I need it to be a Souls roll full of them, but maybe just a few) means you’re kind of caught with your pants down if your meter is empty and you’re fighting several enemies with machine guns. The obvious answer would be to leave some meter in the tank but so far I only have 2 pips of ATB, so there doesn’t feel like there’s much room for flexibility.
-Can’t comment too much on the other characters, but I do like that Cloud has context-specific jump attacks to reach flying enemies so you’re not forced to control Barret every time one appears.
-The summon system is just bizarre. They only become available during boss fights, which doesn’t give you the opportunity to become familiar with how they even work imo. I used Ifrit but have no idea what the hell even happened.
-Bosses have a crazy amount of health, while a lot of normal enemies are made out of paper. Taking a page from the book of Yakuza.
-Weapons and armor come equipped with set materia slots. The slot for summons is entirely separate, which is weird. Finding a lot of duplicate materia(cure and ice). In the original game you could pair certain ones together depending on how the equipment was laid out or something? I don’t know, haven’t played the game in over a decade. But I’m not seeing that yet here, unless I missed a tutorial.
-Game is very, very linear so far. Next to no opportunity to go off the beaten path aside from the typical “hub of bland side quests, like finding cats”.

Maybe all of this can change, but this is what I got so far. Will post more in the next few days.

Summon on a separate slot? That's trash.

So you can't pair them at all?
This is so limited compared to the original where you can put summons into your attack or def and gain their properties.

Played a bit more, still don’t have enough time in to know most of how things work, but here goes:

-You can pair materia, but I’m not sure how it works or what it does. Again, I think I missed a tutorial somewhere.
-Different weapons are quite different in terms of passive strengths and weaknesses. Each weapon has its own upgrade grid(similar to FFX’s) with the abilities varying for each. You have points that you pour into these upgrades specifically for each weapon. They also each have their own special move that you permanently keep once you use the weapon enough. They also have their own materia slot layout, as expected. 
-Learning some differences between the characters. Cloud is good at crowd damage and control, while Tifa kind of sucks in this department but has the highest DPS. You can really change their focus on magic depending on which weapon you go for and how you level up materia. 
-This is a game where you have to take damage. Shouldn’t come as much of a surprise since it’s an RPG I suppose, but it still always makes me feel like I’m playing wrong. The guard has you taking chip damage as noted, and the evade is more for re-positioning than anything else(getting behind enemies, getting into cover). Not a bad thing I guess, a big part of the game is managing ATB and healing factors into this. 
-It seems like everything in the game is weak to magic to an extent, either through a knockdown or a huge hit to the stagger bar. Sort of seems like the end goal of every battle is to do melees just to ultimately use magic, rather than using them both smartly in contrast.
-Boss fights are long, until some good strats come up I think that’s just the way is going to be for a while. 

Playing this makes me want to revisit XII and XIII, fantastic games. Also want to see how much I still like XIII after all these years.

If it's anything like the original you should be able to link say restore+all. Any spell linked to All makes it target everything onscreen.

If you have elemental, you can add an element to your attack or defense. I loved this in the original.

Anyone get through this? What's the final word?

IIRC @Infinity got it, but not sure.

Finished it. Ended up liking it quite a bit, meter management is very interesting, characters are different enough to consistently swap between them, good bit of customization and play style tailoring, weaknesses can be neat, some actual action elements like enemies being able to interrupt your specials and different characters having different dodges, punisher mode counter is cool, etc. I liked that the number of weapons is lower to give them pretty significant differences(different special that can be learned from each, different number and arrangement of materia slots, some are geared towards melee while some raise magic more, etc).

I think I was put off by the game at first because it wasn’t just KH2 again, but this is partially why I like to wait before I really get into a game. I’m finding that when I play a game at launch I tend to either be overtly positive or negative about it right away, I stepped away from this for a few months and came back and ended up enjoying it for what it was. Will play Hard soon.

Good luck with Hard. IMO some flaws are also more noticeable once you get to Hard difficult. I rarely have any games that will piss me off, not even when it comes to difficulty or clunky controls, but VII Remake unexpectedly was one of those few.

In what way? Due to the lack of healing or did some mechanics shine less well under the added circumstances?

I don't quite get the design of having to use ATB bars and at the same time also costs you MP for magic. It's like double the costs for you to cast a magic and it seems rather unbalanced for gameplay to me. I much rather they do it like XIII where every skill is subjected to the same ATB bar. If magic is OP in this game then I would understand, but it's really not the case in here. Not to mention when you cast a magic or use any skill there is a chance it will get interrupted by enemies or mid-battle animation. So in the end you could lost 1 ATB bar AND the MP without the magic being properly casted (on Hard your MP won't replenish from rest). The interruptions even extend to your Limit Break too which I find quite absurd because unlike ATB bar, your Limit Break takes quite some time to fill up so I'm not sure why they would have Limit Break subjected to the same interruption.

The battle also emphasizes in your positioning sometimes but the dodge button isn't really optimal in helping you to do that. Like for those Shinra grunts with shields I believe the optimal position will be attacking them from behind, but it most likely gonna take you two dodges to get behind him and by the way you are on your feet again to input an attack (even with shortcut) he is probably facing you with his shield again.

I remember pushing to play XIII/LR at a higher speed once you get the hang of the battle system and it still felt as slick, but when I tried to do the same with VIIR it just felt like the game couldn't keep up.  It gave you an illusion that it could be played at a high speed but once you tried to do that there was always some weird mechanic trying to hold you back.

Also the mid-battle animation just made me pulled my hair. You could have a special skill still being used on the enemy but it would stop taking damage just because the next mid-battle animation was about to kick in. I rather they have separate HP bar for each phase of boss.

Overall I'm actually very pleased on how smooth you can switch between your characters and how the AI kicked in once you switched away from that character, but somehow it feels like its potential has been held back just because of some weird ideas Nomura put in there. For me the hard difficulty isn't really challenging at all, but it's just super annoying with those weird mechanics.

Very understandable. I only played the demo mind you, but found the presence of two resources a tad much as well for these abilities. Maybe one would've been better.

Always found mana to be a weird resource to begin with, I get that at its core it is supposed to prevent powerful moves from being spammed, but it rarely works out that way. Think it is in a lot of games purely for the reason that people are used to it. What do you think?

> game gives you the illusion of high speed
Sounds very familiar. I feel that a lot of games these days aim to give people the feeling that you can play a certain way, but the second you actually try to you run in a lot of 'dressing' that made the game look epic and stylish at low level play, but the second you eek out that litle but more it comes crashing down.

> mid boss animations
I really feel there should just be a guideline of do's and don'ts that every company should follow i.e. "no midboss cutscenes" and "online MP should also have bots" etc.

Do you think you'll be picking up the next game in the series?

I guess I’ll see about Hard when I get there. It seems just about every major boss has been beat on Hard with no damage taken, so I don’t think it’s going to be a huge issue as long as I have a game plan down. The boss transition animations are definitely dumb and rob you of potential damage though. As for having two resources, one refills quickly if you choose to be aggressive and magic tends to nuke enemies harder so I don’t see a problem in splitting them up, and I almost always advocate for one resource pool.

>Think it is in a lot of games purely for the reason that people are used to it. What do you think?

Interesting.
What about energy sources in other games though? Like isn't your meter in MGR essentially the same thing?

I wouldn't say that.

Energy in games like Vanquish, MGR, ZoE2 etc. are a resource that the game is built around with all your core abilities and there's always the balance of spending and regaining at play. You spend it fast, you gain it fast.

I never had that feeling in most of the RPGs I played. Mana was gone? Use a potion. And most of the time you have passive mana regeneration outside of battle anyway, be it time or step-based.

It wasn't a resource that had to be managed I feel, and when it did it was more cumbersom i.e. running out of mana for problemsolving spells in Golden Sun, forcing you to run around in circles for it to replenish. You use your spells and that's it. The only time it might be a burn is if you're in an excessively long dungeon, and even then the punishment of running out of mana is just "you cannot cast". I don't know, for some reason I'm just not seeing it.

I think there's a lot more mechanically interesting ways of handling it. Traditional DnD works with spell-slots for instance which is pretty neat. And I think a more 'actiony' bar-system would work pretty well too, maybe with the addition that you can 'overdrive' by spending more meter than you have with risks attached to it or something.

Note, this is just me spewing my thoughts out, don't take it too seriously but I don't think mana is the same as energy in those games.

I kinda get what you're saying.

Usually in RPGs once you reach higher levels it becomes far less to no issue because you have so much of it. By the end of games like Blue Dragon I didn't even need to consider it. Not every game works like that though. Not being able to cast is pretty bad in Death end re;Quest due to enemy strengths/weaknesses.

>don't think it's the same
Some action games have items for replenishing energy though.

> item replishment
Fair, but they are either available in very small amounts (i.e. paste in MGR:R) or tank your rank (Devil Stars in DMC) which leads to less upgrade points available. If Elixers had disadvantages that'd be pretty sweet.

But for example meter-management in a game like Tales of Symphonia is absolutely absent for me aside from the Unison gauge. Run out of TP? I'm carrying 99 Orange Gels so suck it up demons. Wonder what Khayaam would say about this.

> If Elixers had disadvantages
Losing a turn could be considered a negative in a TB game. It truly is early game but later you wind up with ultimate stats and equipment so it doesn't matter.

Putting a limit on stuff is probably the only way. I'm not sure how I'd do that in an RPG.

That's fair about spending a turn, in that sense I always liked the way Pokemon handled it since a turn is all you get. You can heal, sure, but you might get the same damage again next turn. In a game where you have 4 units on the front lines it gets harder though since you only lose one option.

I wouldn't want any horrible limits on my abilities in RPGs though.

I like having all my tools and just having fun with them.

Here's my take.

Mana is a resource. Resource management is REALLY important in RPGs, and Mana is one of the ways in which resource management happens. You're not really supposed to leave a dungeon every time you get hurt. If you challenge yourself to make it through a dungeon in one go, that's where the importants of items and the limits of MP really get tested, and it's fun!

But sometimes there are RPGs that aren't about treks through dungeons. Sometimes they're more about individual battles themselves. Some games can mix, long dungeons, or short ones with difficult enemies. I definitely feel that MP as a system can work for all of these!

...

But that doesn't mean it's always successful.

Royta/Raeng wrote:Think it is in a lot of games purely for the reason that people are used to it.

I can provably say this is fact. Have you ever played Final Fantasy 1? If so, which version? There's a big reason many prefer the original NES or PS1 port versions. And that's because of the magic system.

FF1 uses Spell charges, similarly to DnD. Each level of spell has a certain amount of times it can be used until you replenish it by resting. The amount of times it can be used increases by levelling up. So for example, your red mage might have 5 uses of level 1 spells, 3 uses of level 2 spells and 1 use of a level 3 spell left. All level 1 spells share charges, so you have to choose whether to use them between fire and cure. But no matter how many times you use them, your level 2 and 3 charges won't be used, so you can conserve them for bosses or tougher fights. This system is REALLY interesting and fun, and at higher levels let mages fire off basic spells without worrying about running out of magic for harder enemies.

This changed in later versions. Every version after that, such as the GBA and PSP ports switch to a basic MP system. No explanation given, I feel like it's purely because people are too used to MP. Maybe also because Final Fantasy 8 also used spell charges (albeit differently from FF1) and a lot of people complained about FF8's gameplay (not me though, I think FF8 is fantastic).

So yes, while MP can be used to great effect, it's also true that many games use it just because it's standard. When a game uses it well, it's great. Examples:

Bravely Default, I was really hurting on resources making my way through vampire castle, which is a LONG dungeon with *really tough enemies* when by that point in the game in many other RPGs I'd forget MP existed entirely. It gets even more fun when you add items that do spells without any cost (but they can't get high level spells) and specials that restore MP (but require you to cast certain spells to unlock them)

Kingdom Hearts 1. It's not really resource management in this game since it's a platformer with levels rather than a dungeon crawler, and savepoints restore it, but managing it is still fun, because MP is used for most of your moves (which are all useful) and you replenish it by landing regular attacks or, with MP rage, taking damage. This is called MP charge, and makes even counting MP a lot more complicated than what you see on the screen (an MP stat of 3 means 3 MP bars, so you'd think it means 3 uses of 1MP magic like Fire, but with MP charge it actually can be 5 or 6 uses in a row!) It introduces an interesting effect with balancing. The MP stat and the magic stat are the same in this game, meaning the more MP you have, the more powerful your magic is. However, the amount of MP restored through MP Charge depends on the damage you deal, so strength builds will have an easier time restoring and maintaining MP to continuously use than magic builds.

Tales is an example of... the good AND the bad. It doesn't apply to all Tales games, only the ones that use TP. TP essentially is MP, it's just not for magic exclusively, and you'll be using it for every battle if you want more than the basic AAA combo. Managing resources is especially important in the first 3 games, where the only way to restore them is orange gels and resting, but you'll need to use them because most of the damage comes from spellcasters, and the physical attacker's job is not to deal damage but to do extended combos to keep enemies busy until spellcasters are ready. Destiny 2 evened out the damage between the two roles (though it didn't quite use TP). Symphonia took many of destiny 2's systems and brought back TP. Now you can restore TP with basic attacks. Management isn't as important now because you can fight many battles with only basic attacks to get TP back for harder enemies. And then at high enough levels you might forget about TP costs entirely.

However, what makes it still good is the item system. On a regular run, you can only hold up to 15 of one consumable (NG+ has uncapping this limit as an option) so you can't just buy 99 at one shop and be good for the rest of the game. But more importantly than that, it's how it interacts with the grade system. Tales scores you per battle, do better to get higher grade, and the total is given when you beat the game, adding an arcadey element. Using items in battle means grade penalties (and you can get negative grade from a fight, detracting from your total). Items outside is ok, though. This is interesting because it has the rank penalty you'd expect from a more arcadey game, so you don't want to use them in battle... but you're allowed to use it outside of battle, meaning you can still use it as a resource that way. Smart use of items outside of battle can help you avoid using items in battle to get the penalty! It can get even more complicated than that too. Perhaps you want to avoid using items in battle because of the penalty... but a character death is an even higher penalty, and then you'd have to use a revive item to dig yourself deeper! Using an apple gel to heal, or an orange gel to keep your healer going can prevent that, basically meaning you got a smaller penalty to avoid a bigger one.

Of course, Symphonia didn't have Grade breakdowns, so I wouldn't blame someone for not knowing about the item penalty. Later games let you see exactly how you got your score.

That was a bit of a tangent, but I'm sure you can see how Mana is one piece of a greater puzzle and can shape an experience like that. Of course, you have to care about getting a higher grade in the first place, so it wouldn't matter to people doing more casual runs.

I suppose I should mention Kingdom Hearts 2 and 3, but the MP system in those games is more of a traditional meter that's just *called* MP, that has a period of automatic recharge where you can't use any MP abilities when it reaches 0 until you get full again.

Some SMT games. It's not that MP management itself is all that special, so much as it is that *physical* skills cost *HP*. Using MP for magic skills would be preferable in games with this system, but skills on both spectrums are useful!

Those were just a few examples, but long story short I feel like MP can work really well, but as a component in a bigger system rather than as a system itself. It's doubly true that many RPGs might simply put it there because it "balances" magic attacks, or something. Ironically despite my complaints about Final Fantasy 1 I think Square is one of the developers willing to put more thought into the MP system because they admittedly don't think everything needs to be balanced.

I've read this post a few times now wanting to reply to it, but I could only come up with "damn, great post". I think you nailed the aspect that it *can* be an interesting system. Speaking from experience in DnD, my Cleric was a joy to play as every session I had to plan out my spell-list which was very interesting and rewarded preparation but also on-the-fly thinking when something weird and unexpected happened (like in most pen-and-paper games).

In a sense card-based games like Baten Kaitos or 'monster trainer' games like Pokemon do this as well. Sure you can have a full Electric team, but enter that rock dungeon and you'll be in a world of hurt.

> spell items
Golden Sun has these too, and they are great for specialty runs like low-level etc since they deal % based damage. I think the example you gave of Bravely Defaul'ts vampire castle feels more like an exception to the rule though, is it? As in, there's this great one dungeon, but the rest you barely need mana (as you noted, you almost forgot it existed).

So limitations would make MP systems better?

Started playing this 2 days ago.

I just got Tifa and she's way more fun to play than Cloud. She's so much faster.

It's been mentioned, but dodging is weird. There are attacks that just can't be dodged. I guess they wanted to encourage blocking but I'm not used to that.

The dodge move does not have invincibility frames.