Final Fantasy VII REMAKE Catch All

Blind_Evil wrote:
farley3k wrote:

It is great so far - except for the forced "walk slow" parts. To add dramatic tension developers love to have sections where you can't run as you can normally but instead must slowly walk though horror/dangers/etc.

I am sure from a narrative standpoint they want to make us care but I still find them really, really annoying.

That’s possibly just a way to hide loads. Games have used it since like, Gears of War. Tight corridors that your player has to squeeze through (recently in Jedi Fallen Order) or inexplicably long elevators are the same.

Hiding load times is one of those things like seeing the arrow in the FedEx logo; once you know it's there, you don't know how you missed it. You start to notice that these slow walks or elevator rides or whatever always seem to precede entering a large/complex area.

It still sucks, but it makes me more forgiving to know it's devs making the best of technical limitations.

It is really obvious that this is the same engine as FF15. In fact I am pretty sure Dave has moved from The Crow's Nest to Midgar. So much of the questing, icons, colors etc. look the same.

Which is great to me. No need to re-invent the wheel for every game.

I don’t know if I love or hate this, but it’s really something that in the aftermath of the (first 2 hours of the game, first train)...

Spoiler:

reactor explosion, when everyone is talking about terrorists, nobody on the train questions the guy with the giant sword, the guy with the gnarly gun arm, or the guy with the grenade launcher strapped to his back.

One example of how the increased fidelity can kinda mess with the believability of some elements XD

Yes. One would think they would be disguised when interacting with the public.

Damn... just finished the 1st chapter (the one from the demo) buy boy oh boy.. what a great game. I will need to organize and manage time with kids, wife and myself to distribute playtime. GAME LOOKS AMAZING

farley3k wrote:

It is really obvious that this is the same engine as FF15. In fact I am pretty sure Dave has moved from The Crow's Nest to Midgar. So much of the questing, icons, colors etc. look the same.

Which is great to me. No need to re-invent the wheel for every game.

Yeah... no harm in that... to use a GREAT ENGINE ff15... this game looks amazing

farley3k wrote:

It is really obvious that this is the same engine as FF15. In fact I am pretty sure Dave has moved from The Crow's Nest to Midgar. So much of the questing, icons, colors etc. look the same.

Which is great to me. No need to re-invent the wheel for every game.

This is using Unreal engine, while 15 was the in-house Luminous engine

farley3k wrote:

It is really obvious that this is the same engine as FF15. In fact I am pretty sure Dave has moved from The Crow's Nest to Midgar. So much of the questing, icons, colors etc. look the same.

Which is great to me. No need to re-invent the wheel for every game.

Actually the game is using Unreal Engine 4 rather than the Luminous Engine built for FFXV. That they got this performance out of it is kind of surprising, though I've already run into some standard Unreal Engine hiccups. My favorite was sprinting from the town section of Sector 7's slum to the gate with the two guards, only the guards weren't there yet. The woman I needed to speak with to continue a quest was there, but the guards weren't. So I spoke to her and thought I froze/crashed the game a while because nothing happened... and then ten seconds later the guards suddenly pop in and the cut-scene progresses as intended.

Classic Unreal.

The UI is certainly near-identical, though. Blended down to be a bit more "classic", but even many of the sound effects for quest completion are the same. If I'm being honest, this feels more like a remake of Final Fantasy XV with a VII skin. Which, for me, isn't a bad thing, but it's definitely got me asking a bunch of questions regarding what it is others want in games compared to myself. Here and elsewhere I've heard people say "Now they can do all the things they couldn't back on the PlayStation!", and I sarcastically nod and respond "Ah, yes, like that time-padding fetch quest to run across Sector 7 looking for cats. We just didn't have the capability to create such tedious errands in 1997. Thank God for modern technology". Really, though, the notion that there'd be "so much they couldn't do" is a purely hindsight perspective that completely disregards the jump from Super Nintendo to PlayStation. Do you think game developers think in terms of reality and then continue to abstract those ideas until they fit within the confines of the technology? Or do you think they start out considering the tech and what's possible with it first? In that sense, when you compare the bike race in Chrono Trigger to the bike chase in Final Fantasy VII, do you really think the developers were sighing and thinking "Man, if only we could portray it like X, Y, and Z..." or do you believe they were excited at what the PlayStation allowed them to accomplish?

If I perceive games simply as entertainment and not as art, then none of this matters. The Remake and its silly side quests entertain me. But if I perceive the original game as a work of art, then I can't help but look at these changes and ask "Is this necessary?" It is, I think, a conflicting thought process, because the nature of being a "remake" (though even four hours in I'm pretty sure such a word is deceptive to the reality of the product) means it demands comparison, and so the ability to just view the game as its own thing becomes more difficult.

With that bag of hot air released, I'm clearly having a good time, and will probably go right back upstairs to play more now that I've completed all the side quests in Chapter 3. There's still a part of me that scowls whenever they change something in the narrative, but I'm trying to keep an open mind to what it is they're attempting to accomplish as a singular experience.

And in that regard, I'll try and keep my thoughts geared towards the positive from here on, as I know most people are probably just going to be loving this and not thinking about the obnoxious questions I do.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I don’t know if I love or hate this, but it’s really something that in the aftermath of the (first 2 hours of the game, first train)...

Spoiler:

reactor explosion, when everyone is talking about terrorists, nobody on the train questions the guy with the giant sword, the guy with the gnarly gun arm, or the guy with the grenade launcher strapped to his back.

One example of how the increased fidelity can kinda mess with the believability of some elements XD

I had that exact thought myself, it was like 3 wolves in a field with a bunch of sheep & nobody batting an eyelid

ccesarano wrote:

If I perceive games simply as entertainment and not as art, then none of this matters. The Remake and its silly side quests entertain me. But if I perceive the original game as a work of art, then I can't help but look at these changes and ask "Is this necessary?" It is, I think, a conflicting thought process, because the nature of being a "remake" (though even four hours in I'm pretty sure such a word is deceptive to the reality of the product) means it demands comparison

I had a few more thoughts in this direction after playing 4 or so hours.

I bought a new car last year because it was becoming really hard to get my kid into my coupe. The new car, objectively, is superior in all ways to the old one. It is quite a bit faster, has more features, fewer miles, lower payment, etc. I was also seduced by the look of it.

The looks part wore off after about two weeks. The other parts that make it superior are ultimately superfluous. Do I need cooled seats? Bluetooth? Built in GPS? They’re nice, but they don’t really change the experience of getting from point A to B. And something was lost subjectively in moving from the coupe to a sedan. My coupe was the first actually nice car I’d ever bought. The sedan is better, but less special.

I think the same would happen with this game if it were a shot for shot retelling of FFVII. Yes, when we heard rumors for years about this game, I thought about how cool the characters and locations would look in HD. But that thrill would be temporary, and I would get used to the updated visuals quickly. Then I’d be stuck playing the same game I went through last September, with the added dissonance that would come from having such advanced graphics married young very dated mechanics. I can’t get excited for that game.

Going back to my lame analogy, what we got appears not to be a better car, but a mysterious boat. Completely different experience. That’s the kind of thing I can feel good shelling out $60 for, rather than waiting for a sale or PS+ or whatever (see: Shadows of the Collosus).

Finished the demo section. I'm really liking the combat after doing that section twice. Felt even better the second time through. Can't wait to get the ability to log weaknesses and stuff. As far as the remake aspects go, I'm really digging it. It sure is a strange thing to exist!

I am loving this game so far and enjoying it.

There is definitly be divided opinions on this game as it will be impossible to please and impress everyone. For it.. it comes down to the following.

1. FF7 was what got me back into gaming. I will forever hold a ver special place in my heart.

2. My current lifestyle as a small business owner, husband and father of two, has me with VERY limited
playtime. So replaying games, even current games is almost a "no-go" for me. I havent done ANY Game+ games and I dont think I ever will.

3. I have to admit that old games with old graphics DO hurt and affect my enjoyability. And I have come to realize that playing older games on handhelds works better for me. To mention an example, I got Secret of Mana HD REMAKE on the ps4 used and very cheap. I played it very little yesterday and I would have liked to get that on the Switch instead (if there is a version) and play it on handheld. So any other REMASTER OR HD revamp would have not worked for me as this total REMAKE did.

4. It will be very interesting for me to experience the game and a story i love with todays amazing graphics and mechanics. I do not expect this game to be perfect but rather enjoyable enough to be worthy of having its own merit. Which i THINK IT WILL. So despite this being an old game, the way it has been presented to us did justify, -at least for me- to replay it.

I think we should try to see this game as its own game telling a formidable tale from a different point of view.
Also, this opens ups great possibilities.... imagine playing some of the following games with this quality of a remake... I am sure more than one of you will play them

+ FF6
+ Chrono Trigger
+ Chrono Cross

So, IF THIS FF7 remake keeps the fun/quality seen in the 3 hours i have been there, i am sold !

I’d be down for CT and FF6 like this, but it isn’t going to happen. Neither of them sold well enough or hold enough mainstream draw to warrant the resources.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I’d be down for CT and FF6 like this, but it isn’t going to happen. Neither of them sold well enough or hold enough mainstream draw to warrant the resources.

They're both better games than 7. But shiny 1997 graphics swayed a lot of people.

Finished Chapter 2! So much fun. Gotta take a break to do some stuff now unfortunately. Wish I could just play the whole day. I remembered the main thing I hated about FF VII having played it a few years back, and that was the random encounters. It was really difficult and frustrating to either get certain places or explore. I am grateful that is less of a thing in most games these days. Since I tend to want to make sure I poke around everywhere on the map, it really is at odds with doing that.

ARgh...I also has to take a pasue to to soem work stuff and help the wife... or else the house becomes a total mess with two toddlers... will resume back in while... right now i will be FFVII and Bravely second swapping as time allows it. But I so want to go back and play

Darkhaund wrote:

4. It will be very interesting for me to experience the game and a story i love

Don't count on it. Six hours in and I'm already pretty certain this is a very different story whose only similarity is a couple of plot beats and general character outlines. This is a different story, which is going to make speculation for the following episodes all the more interesting.

I do not expect this game to be perfect but rather enjoyable enough to be worthy of having its own merit. Which i THINK IT WILL. So despite this being an old game, the way it has been presented to us did justify, -at least for me- to replay it.

I think we should try to see this game as its own game telling a formidable tale from a different point of view.
Also, this opens ups great possibilities.... imagine playing some of the following games with this quality of a remake... I am sure more than one of you will play them

+ FF6
+ Chrono Trigger
+ Chrono Cross

So, IF THIS FF7 remake keeps the fun/quality seen in the 3 hours i have been there, i am sold !

This is where I don't see eye-to-eye with other people. I played FF9 again last year and FF6 again six months earlier, and I was still able to have a good time. And believe me, using a lot of the criticisms people had here to help guide my evaluation of these games, I found plenty of flaws to complain about. The x-hour tutorial of FF13 is nothing new, seeing as FF6's combat doesn't really get interesting until halfway through, and if you're not the sort to grind then you might have a rough time adapting.

These games are not "bad" just because they have an "outdated" combat system, and it irks me that people think this stuff is obsolete now. Were the rest of you lying to yourselves about enjoying these games back in the day? Did you actually have a bad time and only now can games be fun? I know I wasn't, and I know last time I played Chrono Trigger I had quite a number of revelations as to why it's combat is certainly better than that of Final Fantasy's, despite being a similar system.

The original Final Fantasy VII is not obsolete or irrelevant just as adding color to film didn't make black-and-white movies obsolete or irrelevant. Nor did the existence of movies, television, or video games make books irrelevant ("you mean I have to imagine what's happening based on the words?! How out of fashion!"). If they decided to remake Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger, I'd honestly be upset because they're fine just as they are.

I've been trying to figure out for ten minutes how to conclude this post or if I should even post it, so I'll just cut it off there. I don't want to derail further into the merits of remakes as a whole.

I just reached chapter 4 and I'm loving this so far. FF7 always had a strange disconnect between avalanche and them essentially also being terrorists, it was lightly touched on but I think it's great they are fleshing it out more in this.

Biggs, Wedge and Jesse are great characters as well, I'm really enjoying how much they got fleshed out. The added story is really working for me and it's not just nostalgia there is some pretty interesting character development happening. It feels fresh and even if I know how the whole story plays out it's going to be fun seeing how these new takes on characters develop.

My biggest worry going in was how bland Midgard was going to get, being in a darkened city slum seemed like it would wear thin. The environments have been great and diverse though it's a gorgeous game. I love how alive sector 7 feels.

All the comparisons to FF15 are making me want to give that another shot after I beat this. I have the royal edition and really enjoyed the game but I never got past Titan I just kind of fell off.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I’d be down for CT and FF6 like this, but it isn’t going to happen. Neither of them sold well enough or hold enough mainstream draw aged poorly enough to warrant the resources.

FTFY.

hbi2k wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

I’d be down for CT and FF6 like this, but it isn’t going to happen. Neither of them sold well enough or hold enough mainstream draw aged poorly enough to warrant the resources.

FTFY.

I think both points are true. I know I’ve heard that VI was a low seller for Square in Japan at least.

ccesarano wrote:
Darkhaund wrote:

4. It will be very interesting for me to experience the game and a story i love

Don't count on it. Six hours in and I'm already pretty certain this is a very different story whose only similarity is a couple of plot beats and general character outlines. This is a different story, which is going to make speculation for the following episodes all the more interesting.

I do not expect this game to be perfect but rather enjoyable enough to be worthy of having its own merit. Which i THINK IT WILL. So despite this being an old game, the way it has been presented to us did justify, -at least for me- to replay it.

I think we should try to see this game as its own game telling a formidable tale from a different point of view.
Also, this opens ups great possibilities.... imagine playing some of the following games with this quality of a remake... I am sure more than one of you will play them

+ FF6
+ Chrono Trigger
+ Chrono Cross

So, IF THIS FF7 remake keeps the fun/quality seen in the 3 hours i have been there, i am sold !

This is where I don't see eye-to-eye with other people. I played FF9 again last year and FF6 again six months earlier, and I was still able to have a good time. And believe me, using a lot of the criticisms people had here to help guide my evaluation of these games, I found plenty of flaws to complain about. The x-hour tutorial of FF13 is nothing new, seeing as FF6's combat doesn't really get interesting until halfway through, and if you're not the sort to grind then you might have a rough time adapting.

These games are not "bad" just because they have an "outdated" combat system, and it irks me that people think this stuff is obsolete now. Were the rest of you lying to yourselves about enjoying these games back in the day? Did you actually have a bad time and only now can games be fun? I know I wasn't, and I know last time I played Chrono Trigger I had quite a number of revelations as to why it's combat is certainly better than that of Final Fantasy's, despite being a similar system.

The original Final Fantasy VII is not obsolete or irrelevant just as adding color to film didn't make black-and-white movies obsolete or irrelevant. Nor did the existence of movies, television, or video games make books irrelevant ("you mean I have to imagine what's happening based on the words?! How out of fashion!"). If they decided to remake Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger, I'd honestly be upset because they're fine just as they are.

I've been trying to figure out for ten minutes how to conclude this post or if I should even post it, so I'll just cut it off there. I don't want to derail further into the merits of remakes as a whole.

I appreciate and admire yor post.
And it is complex and i totally get where you are comming from.

And well, we will all have our opinions and should respect that. I do have to admit that i find hard going back to games with older graphics.... that does not mean they suck just that well things evolve and its a personal thing.

Thanks for your input and ill play with that in min

ccesarano wrote:

These games are not "bad" just because they have an "outdated" combat system, and it irks me that people think this stuff is obsolete now. Were the rest of you lying to yourselves about enjoying these games back in the day? Did you actually have a bad time and only now can games be fun? I know I wasn't, and I know last time I played Chrono Trigger I had quite a number of revelations as to why it's combat is certainly better than that of Final Fantasy's, despite being a similar system.

The original Final Fantasy VII is not obsolete or irrelevant just as adding color to film didn't make black-and-white movies obsolete or irrelevant. Nor did the existence of movies, television, or video games make books irrelevant ("you mean I have to imagine what's happening based on the words?! How out of fashion!").

To be clear, I think FFVII is a-okay. I’ve just played it three or four times and prefer new experiences. This mindset is built into the core of the series, with all of the mainline series being set in different worlds. I just had a ton of fun playing FFI for the first time - the mechanics were old, but new to me. So I guess rather than outdated, I should have called the mechanics stale-to-me.

I dig the English voice acting. I usually instantly switch to the Japanese language track because the mouth movements being off sucks. For whatever reason, the mushier mouth movements don't seem so bad with the English.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I dig the English voice acting. I usually instantly switch to the Japanese language track because the mouth movements being off sucks. For whatever reason, the mushier mouth movements don't seem so bad with the English.

Based on the demo I was pretty sure that they modified the lip syncing based on spoken language, but maybe I was making that up.

Speaking of, playing in Japanese, and can confirm, she's not saying "Aerith", it's supposed to be Aeris, but whatever I guess it's just another thing the English language can get wrong.

Ten hours of playtime got me to the Chuch. It's amazing how much they padded this game out.

Something I realized earlier today, and backing up on some of what was discussed in the demo:

Spoiler:

One of the more iconic memories I had of Midgar was walking into the weapon store and having a kid try and hustle money out of me for a place to sleep. The kid was doing this while firing a gun at a target on the wall. It really painted a picture of this dangerous world, a place where kids grew up too fast and your life might get cut short.

That kid's not in the weapon store in Sector 7's weapon shop. Nor does Barret fire his gun in the air to scram people out of Seventh Heaven. When you connect it to the Avalanche bomb being a dud, I'm starting to wonder if the developers wanted to convey the world a bit less dark than before. While the game is, in some way, acknowledging that our heroes have yet to kill any civilians, it still wants to dabble in the gray morality that the original game had. The only difference is our characters think their hands are stained with blood when they actually aren't.

Tifa stopping Cloud from killing Johnny is one such example, though it's not just Johnny. They're trying to establish that Cloud's heart has gotten colder (which, it turns out, he merely needs to see Jessie's dad lying in bed in a coma to suddenly be more kind), that he's willing to kill someone he deems a risk, only for Tifa to stop him. Tifa's softer heart is now a bit more of a plot point, where she is not in line with Barret's more extreme approach to things, and this becomes clear when she also says "let's leave before the Shinra soldiers wake up". I don't know if Cloud didn't kill those particular soldiers, but everything else you fight disperses into lifestream dust once you kill it.

It just feels like, to me, that grittiness of the setting that was once treated as if it was normal for that world is now kind of gone. We'll have to see once I hit Wall Market, but Midgar just feels... different. I'm curious to see if they're trying to do something with it or not, though.

Lordy, I played 10 hours in one day (well, technically 8 hours). I might just end up burning through this.

ccesarano wrote:

Speaking of, playing in Japanese, and can confirm, she's not saying "Aerith", it's supposed to be Aeris, but whatever I guess it's just another thing the English language can get wrong.

At the risk of drive-by posting (I don't have a PS4, so it's going to be a while before I can play this myself... much like with the original game, now that I think about it), isn't the whole Aerith/Aeris thing based on the way the Japanese substitute 'su' (す) for 'th' sounds (since Japanese doesn't have a native 'th' phenome)? It's something I've encountered when translating Japanese into English (as an amateur), and I pretty much immediately thought to myself "oh, that'll explain the Aeris/Aerith thing in FF7". So it's always been 'Aerith' (as defined by Squaresoft Japan, who gave sort-of romanised names to their characters from the beginning), but it would have naturally been pronounced in Japan 'Aerisu', and then the European and American translations just went their separate ways for whatever reason.

(I've always wondered about why Europe and America got different versions of the name. I'm not aware of the translations being otherwise different, so who was the first person to argue 'Aeris not Aerith', and felt strongly enough about it to change it for a specific region?)

For the record, as a name I've always liked 'Aeris' better.

If my understanding is correct, there should be a similar phonetic substitution for 'Sephiroth', by the way. So maybe keep an ear out when playing with the Japanese voices and let me know.

Perhapth thomeone jutht thought it thounded thilly.

Ravanon wrote:

At the risk of drive-by posting (I don't have a PS4, so it's going to be a while before I can play this myself... much like with the original game, now that I think about it), isn't the whole Aerith/Aeris thing based on the way the Japanese substitute 'su' (す) for 'th' sounds (since Japanese doesn't have a native 'th' phenome)? It's something I've encountered when translating Japanese into English (as an amateur), and I pretty much immediately thought to myself "oh, that'll explain the Aeris/Aerith thing in FF7". So it's always been 'Aerith' (as defined by Squaresoft Japan, who gave sort-of romanised names to their characters from the beginning), but it would have naturally been pronounced in Japan 'Aerisu', and then the European and American translations just went their separate ways for whatever reason.

(I've always wondered about why Europe and America got different versions of the name. I'm not aware of the translations being otherwise different, so who was the first person to argue 'Aeris not Aerith', and felt strongly enough about it to change it for a specific region?)

For the record, as a name I've always liked 'Aeris' better.

If my understanding is correct, there should be a similar phonetic substitution for 'Sephiroth', by the way. So maybe keep an ear out when playing with the Japanese voices and let me know.

Y'know that's a good point I hadn't even considered. Maybe the intention was Aerith, but it's kind of strange that they'd make up a name with a sound they don't have in their own alphabet. I actually started going back in my head trying to think of all the Final Fantasy character names I know and if any of them have a "th" sound in them, and thus far nothing's coming up. The closest might be Faris from FFV, though I don't recall any debate over whether it's Faris or Farith.

Yeah, same thing with Marth in FE. The literal translation is Marusu I think, but sounds like Marth when spoken.

ccesarano wrote:

Y'know that's a good point I hadn't even considered. Maybe the intention was Aerith, but it's kind of strange that they'd make up a name with a sound they don't have in their own alphabet. I actually started going back in my head trying to think of all the Final Fantasy character names I know and if any of them have a "th" sound in them, and thus far nothing's coming up. The closest might be Faris from FFV, though I don't recall any debate over whether it's Faris or Farith.

The only one I can think of is Balthier. Apparently that's transcribed as バルフレア (Barufurea) in Japanese, using 'fu' instead of 'th', I guess because 'su' is too awkward in that construction.

I've found Japanese developers aren't generally afraid of using sounds from outside their alphabet for use in names, but admittedly that's usually for when they use real names from outside Japan. For made-up names, it's a little stranger, but I don't know the background of the person who actually named the characters in FF7; they may have been more comfortable with 'foreign-sounding' names, or may have simply felt it flitted better with the other character names, which after all also mostly don't transliterate perfectly into Japanese phonetics. Or hey, maybe I'm wrong after all.

I've also read that 'Aerith' is supposed to allude to 'earth' in a sort of similar way to 'Cloud' alluding to air, but I think that might be apocryphal.

Oh, and 'Faris' almost certainly is Faris, because it's supposed to be derived from 'Sarissa', Faris' real name. I don't know why I remember these things.

Edit:

Blind_Evil wrote:

Yeah, same thing with Marth in FE. The literal translation is Marusu I think, but sounds like Marth when spoken.

Yeah, that's actually the first instance I encountered it, though it didn't really click until I encountered words actually imported from English into Japanese Katakana, that I then realised had substituted 'su' for 'th' when I tried to translate them back.

Question... several people are complaining about some textures being very low quality...
Can this be patched in the future or not?