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I just watched a couple YouTube videos about the demo and it sounds and looks like a faithful remake. I was so impressed I repurchased a PS4 PRO. When I was 15 I played through the first iteration and I was impressed enough to play through it twice. It remains one of my favorite RPG play throughs of all time. Is anyone else excited to pick this one up? I look forward to updating this thread once I play through the demo.

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I'm excited but wary. Like you, I played through the original a few times and it's one of my more memorable life experiences, not just gaming experiences. So probably any change to it is something I'm not going to see as an improvement, because it's changing something that's almost a sacred memory for me. But at the same time, I've been waiting for a re-release of the original game with updated graphics for so long, so I can't just not buy it. It'd be like being a Star Wars fan since 1977 and then not buying the Blu-Ray release, when all that you had before was a VHS copy.

 

I played the demo and while the graphics are really nice and the story seems more or less faithful, I am having a really hard time getting used to the battle system. I gave up on FF games about the time they went fully real-time, and this FF7 is fully real-time. Even "classic" mode is just real-time for dummies. The FF7 battle system was so intricate that it basically had to be turn-based for you to have the time to understand and properly deal with everything that was going on in the more high-level special battles. I can't even follow the action in the initial scenes of the remake! I kept winning by just attacking and doing what the tutorial was telling me to, but I had no real sense of what the hell was happening. And I have no idea how that kind of fast-paced action is going to work in the bigger battles. The demo felt like winning a fighting game by button mashing.

 

I'm also a little concerned about the initial release taking place solely in Midgar (at least that's what I understand is happening). They're breaking the game up into smaller individual chapters, each priced at full price. I remember not *really* feeling like FF7 was all that great until I got *out* of Midgar. Then the world opened up, new characters appeared, various new environments each with their own personality were available, and the plot really got going. I feel like staying in Midgar for an entire game could feel really stifling.

 

I'll still buy it, though.

  • Like 3
I'm excited but wary. Like you, I played through the original a few times and it's one of my more memorable life experiences, not just gaming experiences. So probably any change to it is something I'm not going to see as an improvement, because it's changing something that's almost a sacred memory for me. But at the same time, I've been waiting for a re-release of the original game with updated graphics for so long, so I can't just not buy it. It'd be like being a Star Wars fan since 1977 and then not buying the Blu-Ray release, when all that you had before was a VHS copy.
 
I played the demo and while the graphics are really nice and the story seems more or less faithful, I am having a really hard time getting used to the battle system. I gave up on FF games about the time they went fully real-time, and this FF7 is fully real-time. Even "classic" mode is just real-time for dummies. The FF7 battle system was so intricate that it basically had to be turn-based for you to have the time to understand and properly deal with everything that was going on in the more high-level special battles. I can't even follow the action in the initial scenes of the remake! I kept winning by just attacking and doing what the tutorial was telling me to, but I had no real sense of what the hell was happening. And I have no idea how that kind of fast-paced action is going to work in the bigger battles. The demo felt like winning a fighting game by button mashing.
 
I'm also a little concerned about the initial release taking place solely in Midgar (at least that's what I understand is happening). They're breaking the game up into smaller individual chapters, each priced at full price. I remember not *really* feeling like FF7 was all that great until I got *out* of Midgar. Then the world opened up, new characters appeared, various new environments each with their own personality were available, and the plot really got going. I feel like staying in Midgar for an entire game could feel really stifling.
 
I'll still buy it, though.


I also feel like I’ve been waiting for a proper remake of this game for a long time. I think that’s part of the excitement and desire to play for me. I also am not to happy about the combat system. I wish it was more turn based. I don’t hate live action RPGs, but I do like a well put together modern turn based RPG like Octopath traveler.
I also remember the game not really starting to get really good until you were out of Midgar. Hopefully they can make it worth it somehow to spend so much time in that city. Maybe some extra exploration and attention to detail can turn it into a type of modern ogrimmar.
I knew they were releasing this in chapters. How much are they going to charge for each one? If they are charging the full $60 for each one, then I am out. Seems like a cash grab to me.

 

After a quick look at the GameStop website it looks like the Standard Edition is $59.99 and the deluxe is $79.99. I’m gonna say it’s partly a Nostalgia cash grab, but they can still take my money for fulfilling some of my childhood adult dreams. That sounds creepy. Also, it looks like it requires a 100GB+ install. It’s a good thing I just upgraded to a 860 evo 1TB SSD. I’m sure those load times are going to be crazy with a standard Hard Drive.

 

I’m glad they are doing this in many different parts. Hopefully it will last longer that way. I also think it’s nice to have a great game to look forward to playing. It’s been a long time since I’ve looked forward to playing a modern game. The last time I felt this way was looking forward to Breath of the Wild.

 

 

On 3/13/2020 at 11:58 PM, spacecadet said:

I played the demo and while the graphics are really nice and the story seems more or less faithful, I am having a really hard time getting used to the battle system.

Agreed. I enjoyed the demo, but the battle system is difficult to manage. I found keeping both characters busy doing what I wanted them to do was challenging. Maybe I'll get used to it, but the AT battle system of the original is superior IMHO.

  • Like 1
Agreed. I enjoyed the demo, but the battle system is difficult to manage. I found keeping both characters busy doing what I wanted them to do was challenging. Maybe I'll get used to it, but the AT battle system of the original is superior IMHO.


Maybe the full version will have a choice between the new battle system and the classic one.

Yeah, I couldn't get into the combat on the demo either. Also annoyed by the fact that SE claimed the Classic Mode plays similar to turn-based RPGs when it really doesn't. It's the same real-time combat as Normal Mode, with the AI turned on for the main character as well. 

 

I did enjoy everything else with the demo, and loved how the Avalanche members interacted with each other. Not going to buy it, but wouldn't mind watching someone stream the game.

  • Like 1

Strange cross-promotion with FF7 Remake and Butterfinger candy bars: https://butterfingerff7r.com

 

DLC reward for every 2 candy bars that you buy. 5 possible rewards if you buy 10 candy bars. Bonus Tifa dynamic theme included with the first DLC reward code. Theme is available now, DLC available at game launch.

 

ff7-2x_0.thumb.png.1b4d19a13311d00c759d6e9e75f5b675.png

I finished the demo when it came out on PS4, I try to keep in mind it's a demo but: honestly the only parts I enjoyed was the quiet time when you talk to the characters and just walking around,  the action is just chaotic, I had no idea what was going on, the scorpion boss was ridiculous, most of it I didn't even bother looking at the screen I was just looking at the options i had, at one point I looked up and tried to figure out what was happening....

 

Classic mode was kind of a joke I mean it's basically playing the game for you (instead of just making it turn based). The animation is quite jerky during the action sequences making it even worse to try and follow what's going on.

 

The cut scenes looked unbelievable lifelike, but the game was dark and rather blurred/grainy didn't think the graphics were all that great in-game. 

 

Truthfully and honestly it's a severe disappointment for me, there's no way I'd pay $60.00 for this, I'll probably get it on sale at some point on steam....I can't imagine walking around the world just hacking things with that sort of combat.  In terms of combat mechanics, it's basically a low budget Devil May Cry or a horrifically bad version of Dragons Dogma…whose combat is superb over this in every way. 

 

The music was the same it really sucks hearing that music and watching this mixed bag. I love the way the demo ends, just a screen for you to purchase the game or the soundtrack. ?

 

Another thing that turns me off (of part 1) of this remake....is the fact that it only goes to the Escape from Midgar section
Which means no Yuffie/Cid/Vincent/Cait Sith...
No Nibelheim flashback...
No Cosmo Canyon with Seto...
No Gold Saucer...
No Mt. Corel...
No City of the Ancients...

A better end would have been the end of disc 1 with Aerith's death. Everyone escaping Midgar is kind of a silly endpoint. I'm guessing 3-4 more episodes at probably $60 a pop. 

1 - Leaving Midgar
2 - City of the Ancients (maybe)
3 - Mideel and the Lifestream (maybe)
4 - North Crater (maybe)

Those would be my guesses beyond the first installment, but that could be years out and that is all the time in the world to screw things up. Do we get to keep our saves? Can we migrate to PS5 (for free)? Do we start at a specific level in Part 2?

 

Again, I wish I was excited, but after playing the demo - battle system feels like I’m playing some cheap imitation in a beautiful package. It’s disappointing because I wanted a remake with enhanced graphics & expanded content, but this means the one I dreamed of will never happen. It wasn’t hard to get right either - all they had to do was combine classic FF7 battle system with DQ11 modernizations (enemies show on field/no random battles, speed up & automated options for grinding/trash mobs) which would have negated a need for changes to materia & Summon.

  • Like 2

One thing I should point out is that the original FF7 (for PC, anyway) had basically this same demo, and at least *some* of the criticisms apply to that as well. The first few minutes of the game, which is literally what this demo is IIRC, are just not that great. The battles in the original too were very simple; they were turn based, but they involved almost nothing but physical attacks, just like the remake. If you took that and just made it real-time, which is what the remake demo does, it's going to feel basically like a hack-n-slash game.

 

The original game battle system became almost obscenely complex as the game went on. I have no doubt that that's going to happen with the remake as well, and it's not really going to feel much like a hack-n-slash by the end. I am mainly concerned that it's going to be too chaotic to really *do* anything with all that complexity, though, but maybe the game's got a trick up its sleeve that we don't know about. The demo in general only shows a tiny fraction of what the overall game has to offer, that's for sure.

  • 2 weeks later...

9 hours into the game and only then I realized its a linear game, but still enjoying it a lot.

 

I guess over the years playing FF7, FF Crisis Core (worthy of a remaster as well) and having watched that movie Advent Children made it feel like coming home when I first booted it up.

 

No clue how they're planning to open up the world in later installments though.. is there any coverage on this?

ive been lurking and reading stuff about the remake off and on, i have the same questions i think everyone does on the episodic nature of the games.  a lot of it's rhetorical stuff i know has no answer, but still curious.

 

1) are the games intended to be self-contained?

2) do items/stats/etc carry over?

3) how far apart are the games' release dates going to be?

On 4/8/2020 at 11:12 AM, digdugnate said:

ive been lurking and reading stuff about the remake off and on, i have the same questions i think everyone does on the episodic nature of the games.  a lot of it's rhetorical stuff i know has no answer, but still curious.

 

1) are the games intended to be self-contained?

2) do items/stats/etc carry over?

3) how far apart are the games' release dates going to be?

 

Not enough information is known at least I couldn't find any. An episodic game is basically a game thats part of a series of games tied together by a story, kind of like a television show season. Individually fully functional games all with an “ending”, usually a cliffhanger,  split up into parts with the whole series coming to an end with the final episode (or part)


Doing it this way they can monetize each episode which basically means charge you a lot more for each episode rather than wait until the end and getting the whole thing in one package usually a lot cheaper. 

 

It's out the reviews are generally really good, for me though it's not worth the money even if you have 30 hours of game time. I just didn't care for the changes then again I'm old school, I'm also old pushing 50, prefer remakes that don’t gut the entire system to make it “modern” (whatever that means) so it's definitely not geared for me so whatever I say…take it with that in mind. What I think probably won't apply to the majority of (young?) people today. :)

Edited by cimerians
  • Like 3

I bought it and am now about 15 hours in. Overall I think it's pretty great - it's actually *very* faithful to the original, both in that it recreates everything you remember in some cases shot for shot or line for line, but even the new stuff they've added feels like something that would have been in the original game at the time if only the technology was there. I feel like they've really pulled off a game that feels like it's what the original FF7 would have been if it had been made by the same people, but just today instead of 23 years ago. So far, at least, nothing feels out of place. They have done a much better job at that than I expected. I thought it would have been changed a lot more just for the sake of change, but that's not the case.

 

And I love seeing these characters again fully fleshed out and voiced. I just feel like I'm seeing old friends again, but now they've grown up. I'm playing through with the English voices right now, which can occasionally sound a little too rehearsed, but that's better than bad acting. I plan to play through a second time with the Japanese voices. (The game is fully subtitled as it is, unless you turn that off.)

 

The graphics are really impressive, as is the city of Midgar itself. But my worry about it feeling a little stifling after a while is one of the few negative things I can say about it; that did come true to some extent. They've done a good job making Midgar seem huge, giving it different types of areas, lighting it brightly (I don't remember it ever not being night in the original game!) and giving you really long distances that you can see so it doesn't feel so oppressive, but it's still like walking around in a Fallout game most of the time. It doesn't feel very "fantasy-like", except that it's always obvious that you're on some other planet in a universe with different physics.

 

I've mostly gotten used to the battle. I'd still prefer a standard turn based system but if you use ATB the way it's intended (and ATB was in the original game!), it's not actually that much different. As soon as a character's ATB gauge fills up, if you press X or R2/L2, time slows to super slo-mo and you can then think about what you want to do. You can actually hit X at any time and basically pause to think about your next actions, or to do certain actions, but you just can't do anything that requires the gauge to be filled up until it is. So it's not turn-based but it's also not just everybody running around doing whatever and you have no idea what's going on. The one thing I really don't like is not being able to directly control all the characters; you control one while the other two do what they want, though you can hit R2/L2 at any time to command them to do an ATB action, and you can switch to any character at any time to control them directly. That does feel a little chaotic, but the one thing that really bothers me is that the ATB gauges of whoever you're *not* controlling fill up super slowly. I mean, you can fill up a gauge yourself in less than 5 seconds of button-mashing physical attacks, but let the AI do it and it might take a full minute.

 

So if, for example, you've got lightning materia equipped for all three characters to just bludgeon a mechanical boss with lightning spells all battle long, you end up having to constantly switch between characters to build up their ATB gauges manually. Ironically that makes it kind of "turn based" by accident! But it's a manual process and pretty hectic in battle. Unless there's something I'm not doing right, which is always possible. I don't know if there's a way to get the other guys to fight "better" or queue up specific actions; if there is I just don't know about it.

 

I could see that being a bigger problem later but so far it's only been the couple of big boss battles I've had where it was an issue. I will say it does make the boss battles a lot more action-packed and they even get my heart racing a bit. I can see why some people might like that better, I just prefer more strategic turn-based stuff.

 

But overall, great game, and worth it just for the story and characters IMO, but the gameplay is fun too. The puzzles, quests and everything else other than the battle system feels totally like FF7.

  • Like 2
On 4/14/2020 at 5:00 AM, spacecadet said:

I could see that being a bigger problem later but so far it's only been the couple of big boss battles I've had where it was an issue. I will say it does make the boss battles a lot more action-packed and they even get my heart racing a bit. I can see why some people might like that better, I just prefer more strategic turn-based stuff.

 

But overall, great game, and worth it just for the story and characters IMO, but the gameplay is fun too. The puzzles, quests and everything else other than the battle system feels totally like FF7.

 

Please don't change my mind! Damn demo's to hell. ;)

On 4/16/2020 at 9:45 AM, cimerians said:

 

Please don't change my mind! Damn demo's to hell. ;)

32 hours in now. I am obsessed with this game. It has just brought back all the feelings I had about the original and then some. The creators of this remake are really going for the jugular in terms of every type of emotion you could have about this game. But they know what they're doing; it never comes across as self-conscious. I love all these characters. Except Cloud, who is still a massive dumbass at this stage of the overall story, but then it wouldn't have been a faithful remake if he wasn't. (He is slowly getting better at the 32 hour mark.)

 

Keep in mind in the demo, you have not even met Tifa or Aerith yet, much less experienced really any of the story at all. I had forgotten a lot of it, and they've added to it as well, but it is a great story and the characterizations alone make the game worth it.

 

I don't want it to end. I think it was Gamespot that said they finished it in 37 hours, and I'm at 32. If it ends at 37, I am going to feel like it was way too short. Most people say they get to around 40, but even that seems like not enough. But that just shows how into it I am; very few games these days do I spend more than 20-25 hours with before losing interest. Even Persona 5, which I think is a fantastic RPG, I just decided I didn't really have the brain space to deal with anymore at around the 25 hour mark, and I never finished it. (It's also a much longer game, so I never felt like I was making much progress.)

 

Probably the last game I felt anything like this about was Final Fantasy X. And before that, the original Final Fantasy VII. But this just has a whole bunch more layers to my feelings about it because it's the return of something I loved in a vastly improved fashion 23 years later. There's just a whole lot going on with it, in a good way. No game this ambitious is ever 100% perfect and this one is no exception, but I really think they could not have done a better job than they did.

 

I definitely recommend you give it more of a chance.

  • Like 1
16 hours ago, spacecadet said:

I definitely recommend you give it more of a chance.

Honestly the demo came at probably the worst time for me, I just got done playing Dragon Quest 11 and they did such a phenomenal job , it was just about perfect. One of the few games that I clocked in over 200 hours and never really got tired of it. So when the FF remake demo came out and I played it I was like… what in the hell? (Combat not story etc). I just checked out a video by a guy named Jim Sterling (most people hate him but I always liked his reviews 'cause they echo my thoughts on games pretty closely )...and just like me the demo wasn't really impressive and he had a lot of concerns. He basically said the same thing you're saying, that it's actually brilliant. Now I have to wait 'cause I plan getting it on steam,  it's a long wait if the rumors are true, that it's a timed one year deal with Sony, but that's OK. Glad to hear that you like it a lot, very reassuring just wish it wasn't a timed exclusive. I'm hoping also that they open up an let people know how long each game will take and how things will transfer over etc.
 

2 hours ago, cimerians said:

Honestly the demo came at probably the worst time for me, I just got done playing Dragon Quest 11 and they did such a phenomenal job , it was just about perfect. One of the few games that I clocked in over 200 hours and never really got tired of it. So when the FF remake demo came out and I played it I was like… what in the hell? (Combat not story etc). I just checked out a video by a guy named Jim Sterling (most people hate him but I always liked his reviews 'cause they echo my thoughts on games pretty closely )...and just like me the demo wasn't really impressive and he had a lot of concerns. He basically said the same thing you're saying, that it's actually brilliant. Now I have to wait 'cause I plan getting it on steam,  it's a long wait if the rumors are true, that it's a timed one year deal with Sony, but that's OK. Glad to hear that you like it a lot, very reassuring just wish it wasn't a timed exclusive. I'm hoping also that they open up an let people know how long each game will take and how things will transfer over etc.
 

 

Yeah I am curious about those things too, but the way things are working in the first game, I have to believe everything is going to transfer over pretty much as is. Because what you get by the end seems like about 1/3 of what you have by the end of the full original game, which would be about right. The one thing I'm really wondering about is if there are going to be 3 or 4 games, are they eventually going to be on the PS5? Because then I am not sure how things will transfer over. But I guess that's one thing you won't have to worry about.

 

I played that same demo for the PC version of the original game and I was kind of underwhelmed at that time too. I don't think it's a very good demo for a story-driven RPG. I think the original PS1 demo was a little different in that it was a section of the middle of the game (or maybe it was vice versa), but that doesn't make much sense either since you don't really have any idea what's going on. I think it's kind of a no-win situation for the developers. I don't know how you can make a good demo for a game like this without a) spoiling anything, or b) just making a confusing mess.

 

The combat grows on you, btw; don't worry too much about that. The longer I've played the more I've realized that it is really not much different than the original except that you can run around. The tradeoff is that physical attacks are automatic by your non-playing characters, but you can switch between them at will and the further you go, the more you'll be doing that. So I've ended up playing basically just like I did in the original game, just quickly and constantly switching between characters, items, spells and abilities. It's just as complex and really just as cerebral too, it's just that there's action on top of that.

Edited by spacecadet
  • Like 1

Played the demo.  Absolutely loved the visuals.  Some of the voice acting seemed slightly questionable, but probably would have grown on me.  But the gameplay?  I didn't like it at all.   I waited a long time for a visual update on FFVII, but it's clear that the game they made is just flatly not for me at all.

  • Like 1
On 4/18/2020 at 10:38 AM, spacecadet said:

I love all these characters. Except Cloud, who is still a massive dumbass at this stage of the overall story, but then it wouldn't have been a faithful remake if he wasn't. (He is slowly getting better at the 32 hour mark.)

I specifically like the part they kept Cloud as the inconsiderate bastard he portrays in the beginning of the original. I was expecting them to tone it down for whatever reason, but when he deadpan asks some old suffering man for 5000 gold in a sidequest I got a good chuckle.

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