Final Fantasy VII: Remake

This probably deserves its own thread at this point considering it's got a release date and all now. March 3rd 2020!

I'm looking forward to this one a lot. I really enjoyed FFXV's real time battling and it's going to make replaying the story of FFVII a lot more engaging than had it remained a turn-based battler. It looks the business too, which was to be expected, I suppose.

I'm curious if they'll add in any new scenes and story scenarios or if they'll remain true to the original. The bit in the linked trailer with Aerith and Cloud getting pestered by Dementors or something certainly looked new.

The biggest curiosity to me is if we're getting the complete game at release. I really do think this is going to be an episodic game as they've shown nothing outside of the first hour or so of the game. Having said that, if Squeenix blow my socks off at their conference tonight by showing off the full game and overworld and reveal it to be a fully fledged release, I'll happily eat my worlds.

Does anybody else share my excitement? Or is there scepticism in the air for you?

I'm really excited for FFVIIR, the whole being in two parts is a odd one still with the whole next gen on the way and how are they getting 20-40hours from just Midgar.

The combat did look pretty cool in this but I don't think that alone is enough to make me try it out.

I would try XV which is cheap now as that has very similar combat, if you weren't sure.

@The_Jaster wrote:

The combat did look pretty cool in this but I don't think that alone is enough to make me try it out.

I know you're not big on JRPGs and whatnot Jas, but what do you reckon it'd take to get you to check out FFVII:R? I'd point at this one being the most newcomer friendly Final Fantasy yet - the combat seems much more action oriented this time around.

Mas: From the E3 gameplay trailer, that boss fight against the robot scorpion seemed to take a good wee while whereas I remember it being over in minutes in the original. Couple some longer battles with some new scenes and bigger environment to traverse and explore and I can easily see FFVII:R hitting the 20-40 hour mark.

@Jay - Not sure tbh..........maybe reviews that are from folk that don't have a heap of nostalgia for the game or series? I get that's a big thing to expect though.

I'd imagine there'll be some reviews out there from new players of the series. For what it's worth, they seem to be designing this with new players in mind - a totally new combat system, reworked dialogue and more. The dialogue doesn't sound like stilted anime trash from reports from E3 and I do think this will be one to watch closely next year.

Oh that's good to know & I am more open to a lot of different games these days so who knows.

I hope the game gets a demo put up on PSN at some point - I think getting hands-on with that battle system will be enough to convince most people.

Has anyone else seen this?



I've followed Max on YouTube for a good wee while now and this must have been such an incredible moment for him.

Inject this trailer into my veins. They're really putting together something special here, it seems.

It looks so good

We've got a demo, folks! Anyone played it yet?

I don't think I will as I've suddenly got a lot to play and I'm buying the game no matter what.

@JayMoyles wrote:

We've got a demo, folks! Anyone played it yet?

It's funny that the demo went up on the date that you said it was meant to be released when you started the thread!

I'm on a sick day today so I downloaded the demo and played through it - took me about an hour. I've never played FFVII before, so I guess it's a totally different experience for me - I really only know random characters and tunes (I have listened to One Winged Angel a fair number of times and obviously there's a little bit from SSBU), but I really enjoyed it. I can see myself buying it when it comes out. From what I can tell they've expanded things out quite a lot, so for example there's a boss which generates a shield that you have to take out which I don't think happened in the PS1 version of the fight.

The demo was the business.

The combat was brilliant and I can't wait to get to grips with it fully and battle with a full suite of abilities and three party members. Graphically, it was top notch too. I am beyond excited for this now.

@Rum Rapture wrote:

From what I can tell they've expanded things out quite a lot, so for example there's a boss which generates a shield that you have to take out which I don't think happened in the PS1 version of the fight.

Aye, the boss took a bit longer to take down in the demo than in the original version. It was a nice challenge too - not overwhelmingly tough, but I couldn't just button mash my way to victory.

Ya boy was very fortunate to receive this a week early in the post, so I've been playing a fair chunk of it these past couple of days.

No spoilers, natch, but I will say that I'm very impressed. The combat goes from strength to strength as I unlock more abilities and fight fiercer enemies, and the way they've expanded the world really makes the story shine. The characters are brimming with life and energy, which is reflected in the dialogue as well. I'm surprised by the amount of content that was absent from the original release as well - it's all been great.

I'm happy to answer any questions for those thinking about buying it or eager to know more before their copy turns up!

Mine has just been dispatched, I'm on early tomorrow and off Thursday that I hopefully should get some of FFVIIR in.

I'm hearing the new soundtarck is a banger

I'm nearing the end of this and it's kept up its quality throughout! There's been a couple of slower chapters and some pacing issues, but the combat and character moments have more than made up for that. And yes, the soundtrack is bloody brilliant.

I'm just starting Chapter 9 and it is really good, I'm even tempted to try for the platinum once I've done my normal run depending on how hard hard mode is but a guess would be new game+ with level 30+ party but we will see as talk about ACNH elsewhere that another 30hrs could be used to play Nier Automata for instance.

I finished it a couple of days ago - I can't be arsed to write up something in the Last Game Finished thread tonight, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and I actually think they've been really bold with some of the choices they've made in this game.

Regarding Hard Mode - there's definitely been a noticeable jump in difficulty. You can't use items at all in Hard Mode and the rest spots only refill your HP, not your MP, so I think MP management is going to become a problem. The extra XP and AP you get means I'll hit the level cap pretty quickly, which is nice, but I'm dubious about how I'll manage in some of the trickier chapters.

What you can't use items that seems harsh especially in a FF game where you often use them, also how you getting MP back if you can't use a item & benches aren't restoring them?

You can get some of the small mako shards from the destructible crates, but you really need to be careful about your MP usage and conserve the majority of it for the major boss battles. Skills like Prayer become invaluable. To be fair, I've not had much of a problem keeping my HP topped up with Prayer though.

I'm nearly at Chapter 10 of my Hard Mode run, so it's going pretty well. I've enjoyed the extra challenge in combat and they've remixed some of the boss battles by giving them new moves, which is cool.

I nearly had a massive roadblock in Chapter 9 though:

Chapter 9 boss spoilers:

 

The Hell House was, well, hellish.

It's bad enough that it changes its vulnerabilities regularly and has a part of the battle where it's essentially invulnerable, but the Hard Mode version also spawns in enemies at different points of the battle. And we're not talking shitty drones or anything... it spawns in TONBERRIES. Yes, those one-hit kill green murder machines. Fortunately, they go down quickly but I've never been more terrified by a random boss mook enemy. It also spawns in those two mechs you fight in the round prior of the tournament at a particularly difficult part of the battle. I was running very low on MP at this point and I'd almost definitely have failed had my summon not used its ultimate attack at that point and saved my ass by killing the two mechs and severely damaging the boss. Dicey as hell!