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[Unknown?]

I don’t get why “seamless” is a good thing in this case. The cool thing about old school JRPGs with a world map was that they created the illusion of being a big globe-spanning adventure. It’s a good thing that Kalm and the Chocobo farm are presented in full 1:1 because that’s where the interesting shit happens, whereas we don’t need the same level of detail for every inch of grassland in-between.

Not to mention, the more “in-between” terrain they add, the more they’re going to try to fill that area with stuff to do in order to justify it. Open-world game design usually sucks, and Square-Enix definitely sucks at it.

Guess we’ll see how it turns out, but 99% chance they’re just going to fill it with bullshit busywork.

We'll see and I agree with you, bigger isn't better. I'd rather not take 20 minutes to go from one part of the map to another just to make it feel big.

 

[iorek21]

I like that this is going to be more open, but I hope it's not too open.

Bloat is the open-world curse nowadays.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

This sounds awful TBH. The distance from Midgar to Junon should be something like the distance from Seattle to Los Angeles.

If they do it 1:1 like this, it’s going to feel like Junon is a 3 minute Chocobo ride away. Like Junon is a suburb of Midgar instead of being half a continent away.

Haven't we learned that scale is one of the welcome areas games can cheat on realism for a more fun gaming experience?

 

[Die Namek Ability]

This is going to be special. No reason other than story not to let the player back into Midgar to explore

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Having never played the original, what does that mean for part 3? If 2 is so expansive and includes the entirety of the map, perhaps there shouldn't be a part 3 at all if it doesn't take place in different locations? I have no idea, just thinking out loud.

They probably will have a lot of the dungeons / etc gated off on story progression. Also, you weren't able to explore the entire world in FF7 original at first, there were various traversal methods you had to unlock. They could reasonably save a continent and a return to midgar for the third part. In the original FF7, the third disk was really just the final dunegon iirc.

Or, they could add absurd amounts of filler to part 2 and continue to change the plot some more, like they decided with part 1.

 

[jimmypython]

I may boldly guess that FF7R-3 will feature an all new world and map, and be called FF17

 

[Damigos]

This sounds awful TBH. The distance from Midgar to Junon should be something like the distance from Seattle to Los Angeles.

If they do it 1:1 like this, it’s going to feel like Junon is a 3 minute Chocobo ride away. Like Junon is a suburb of Midgar instead of being half a continent away.

i would not prefer it to be half a continent away. I want to play a game, not take a flight

 

[KrazyKrelian]

It will also need an epic version of the Main Theme to complete it.

 

[March Climber]

I like that this is going to be more open, but I hope it's not too open.

Bloat is the open-world curse nowadays.

From the impressions that have been popping up from the TGS demo and interviews, it sounds like the FF7 Rebirth dev team got ahold of games like Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring, because they were telling and showing multiple outlets that you can simply disregard a large chunk of areas and side story content, and run straight to the goal. They also brought up how they wanted the side stuff to be fun, varied, and engaging, thus showing off some of the various different gameplay mechanics in the trailer.

It seems like their aim is for fun and variety, so I'm hoping they manage to pull it off. I know a lot of people are skeptical because of FF16's side content being filled with fetch quests and combat(with nothing else), but thankfully the FF7 team has the original game to build upon, and the original game had a lot of cool stuff you could discover.

I asked a question in the FF16 |OT| simply asking 'What does Clive like to do for fun? What are his hobbies?' and I was met with the response that pretty much summed it up as 'We aren't allowed to know because he's constantly in battle and in dire situations'. Yet earlier protagonists, like Tidus or Cloud, still managed to find the fun and have fun side content while they were dealing with multiple issues including giant looming world ending threats . It was really telling as to how the side content creators of FF16 really dropped the ball.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

I remember that…

Anyone ever max it out?

Definitely, you have to if you want to get the Master Summon materia! It's not so awful using 3x AP weapons and whatnot on the pots and orb enemies.

 

[havoc00]

Will the combat be better?

 

[Lokaum D+]

Does that mean...

I wanna see that summon

think FF14 Thordan if the only modern rendition of this summon.

 

[EruditeHobo]

Much prefer that to this to not being seamless or being some procedural starfield planet.
Give me a nice compact, pretend planet, please and thank you

Exactly. How could someone want anything else?

Can't do it to the scale of fucking North America... doesn't make any sense.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

i would not prefer it to be half a continent away. I want to play a game, not take a flight

I think you are misunderstanding me. I’m not advocating for a full Earth-sized map with realistic travel times between destinations.

I’m saying I’d rather just have a world map instead of having a seamless traversal that ruins the sense of scale.

 

[peronmls]

Man, I hope this team remakes Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 with there characters.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

More details

FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH interview: talking combat, chocobos, minigames and more! | Square Enix Blog

The Director of FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH talks about the game's story, vehicles, the Queen's Blood minigame and much more!

www.square-enix-games.com

The world does look massive! How difficult was it to interpret the world map of the original FINAL FANTASY VII for this new game?

This was one of the hardest challenges we faced when developing FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH. There are a lot of games out there that let you explore in a limited area of a specific location, but we haven't seen all that many games that let you travel and explore a whole world.

If that world is too massive then it makes it harder for the game to work, but if it is too small then you don't get the feeling of being in a massive world in the first place. We put a lot of thought and hard work into getting that balance right to fulfill both requirements

What about the Tiny Bronco plane? Can we expect to see that too?

Of course, the Tiny Bronco will appear too!

Due to the events of the story, the time that it can actually fly is very short, but you can still use it after the wings have been damaged to cross the oceans freely - just like in the original game.

How does that new content affect the structure of the game?

Unlike the previous title, which had new content made available to the player following developments in the story, FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH has been designed to allow the player to freely select what order to play much of its content in.

Accordingly, it has also been structured so that none of the side content becomes cut-off and you never lose the opportunity to go back and play it, regardless of how far you progress in the story. That means that you can always take a detour and explore the expansive and vibrant world whenever the mood takes you.

 

[Damigos]

I think you are misunderstanding me. I’m not advocating for a full Earth-sized map with realistic travel times between destinations.

I’m saying I’d rather just have a world map instead of having a seamless traversal that ruins the sense of scale.

Now i get you. The sweet spot for me is God of War style maps. Not linear not open world, something between

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

New card game too

What’s your personal favorite minigame?

Out of all the different mini games available, the card game, “Queen’s Blood” could be said to be one of the headliners.

It’s an in-world card game that is very popular in the world of FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH, and a minigame that can be played many times from the start of your adventure to the end.

Winning matches doesn’t just let you enhance your deck - you can also follow a unique Queen’s Blood story as well. The narrative progresses as you engage more challenges in matches.

 

[CGNoire]

This was a PS3 era and early PS4 era problem when a lot of Japanese devs struggled for many reasons.

They were trying to make HD games with similar team sizes and with the same development time as their PS2 games despite the massive jump in visual complexity and detail. They also had awful game engines not fit for purpose and up to the task at hand. So they essentially spent 10 years trying to get to grips with it and to catch up.

Now UE4/UE5 and similar easy to use modern engines have become viable for Japanese devs. They've found companies across Asia to outsource the grunt work to and they've learned to only announce games once they've finalised the fundamentals of the project. So we can see the big improvement.

Thanks to Epic and all those Japanese Translation efforts theve kept up with.

 

[CGNoire]

2 100GB discs

...before decompression.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

 

[March Climber]

How does that new content affect the structure of the game?

Unlike the previous title, which had new content made available to the player following developments in the story, FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH has been designed to allow the player to freely select what order to play much of its content in.

Accordingly, it has also been structured so that none of the side content becomes cut-off and you never lose the opportunity to go back and play it, regardless of how far you progress in the story. That means that you can always take a detour and explore the expansive and vibrant world whenever the mood takes you.

Someone at SE must have sat the man down and made him play Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild.

 

[Larxia]

I would stay very cautious about this and not get too excited.

EVEN if it's true, it's important to note that they probably have a very different definition of "seamless" than what you could expect. When we think of seamless open world, we think of stuff like Ubisoft, Rockstar, typical giant modern AAA open world with no barriers anywhere. This won't be the case in Rebirth,

There will be places in the world with clearly defined paths, invisible walls etc, like here for example from the preview demo:

This means that their definition of "seamless" could be something like the recent God Of War for example, you can go from one point to another without loading transition, but it's still linear for a big part of it.
I'm not saying this is bad, I'm just saying people might be disappointed if they expect something different.

This also raises the question of the different traversal methods. We see flying chocobo, swiming, we can expect airship too... But how will this work when you have areas like the one I just posted as an example, with invisible walls everywhere? Most of the environment outside of that specific path are most likely not made to be seen from different angle, maybe not even solid, and definitely not meant to be explorable, which means traversal will need a lot of restriction too, and if that translates to random invisible walls in the air when you are flying an airship, that kind of sucks.

 

[DragoonKain]

This is the thing I was most worried about and glad they didn't make it linear and short change us all.

 

[March Climber]

I would stay very cautious about this and not get too excited.

EVEN if it's true, it's important to note that they probably have a very different definition of "seamless" than what you could expect. When we think of seamless open world, we think of stuff like Ubisoft, Rockstar, typical giant modern AAA open world with no barriers anywhere. This won't be the case in Rebirth,

There will be places in the world with clearly defined paths, invisible walls etc, like here for example from the preview demo:

This means that their definition of "seamless" could be something like the recent God Of War for example, you can go from one point to another without loading transition, but it's still linear for a big part of it.
I'm not saying this is bad, I'm just saying people might be disappointed if they expect something different.

This also raises the question of the different traversal methods. We see flying chocobo, swiming, we can expect airship too... But how will this work when you have areas like the one I just posted as an example, with invisible walls everywhere? Most of the environment outside of that specific path are most likely not made to be seen from different angle, maybe not even solid, and definitely not meant to be explorable, which means traversal will need a lot of restriction too, and if that translates to random invisible walls in the air when you are flying an airship, that kind of sucks.

The exciting news here isn't that it's seamless, the exciting news here is that you can sequence break and play content in any order. That is a much, much bigger deal than the game just having open biomes.

 

[rofif]

I neer played original 7. Only 7 remake and absolutely smashingly loving it.
I installed 7 this year with mods and all... and finished Midgar but couldn't get myself to play more.

So I think I will stick with remake and play rebirth without playing original past midgar first.
I just hope it's not too bloated. 7 remake had some bloat but it was so amazing I can turn a blind eye. And it was like 35 hours. not 1000

 

[Larxia]

I like that this is going to be more open, but I hope it's not too open.

Bloat is the open-world curse nowadays.

To be fair big doesn't have to mean bloat. I agree it's the case 95% of the time with AAA open worlds, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Rockstar games for example have very big open worlds, but they don't (in my opinion at least) feel bloated like ubisoft games for examples. The problem is when developers try to put content every 5 meters in a map just for the sake of having content, which is also a problem because of players. A lot players will complain if an open world doesn't have quest markers / objective every 10 seconds and will then say the open world is empty... It's complicated.

 

[sendit]

Making the FF16 team look totally incompetent by going back to the FFX, FF13 linear formula.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Haven't we learned that scale is one of the welcome areas games can cheat on realism for a more fun gaming experience?

Yeah I really don’t get this. People still have this assumption that the ultimate ideal that all games should strive for is open-world, go anywhere do anything, huge terrain with total freedom of exploration, as close to 1:1 real-world scale as possible.

Seems like this has zero (or negative) value for a Final Fantasy game, especially after seeing how XV and XVI turned out. I’d gladly give up all the big open areas (and all the bullshit MMO quests they filled them with) in exchange for greater focus on the stuff that actually makes FF good.

 

[Faust]

I would stay very cautious about this and not get too excited.

EVEN if it's true, it's important to note that they probably have a very different definition of "seamless" than what you could expect. When we think of seamless open world, we think of stuff like Ubisoft, Rockstar, typical giant modern AAA open world with no barriers anywhere. This won't be the case in Rebirth,

There will be places in the world with clearly defined paths, invisible walls etc, like here for example from the preview demo:

This means that their definition of "seamless" could be something like the recent God Of War for example, you can go from one point to another without loading transition, but it's still linear for a big part of it.
I'm not saying this is bad, I'm just saying people might be disappointed if they expect something different.

This also raises the question of the different traversal methods. We see flying chocobo, swiming, we can expect airship too... But how will this work when you have areas like the one I just posted as an example, with invisible walls everywhere? Most of the environment outside of that specific path are most likely not made to be seen from different angle, maybe not even solid, and definitely not meant to be explorable, which means traversal will need a lot of restriction too, and if that translates to random invisible walls in the air when you are flying an airship, that kind of sucks.

I believe that you won't have an airship in Rebirth. The closest you get will be the Bronco which breaks and crashes.

As for how they can make it work, it could be like FFXIV and earlier games where there are areas you just can't land. Plenty of early games, even FF7 OG had places you could not land and had to go elsewhere or find another route. Same could happen here. They will allow you to fly over those "walled off areas", but not land in them.

 

[Dream-Knife]

This game is sounding pretty incredible now.

Revist this 3 weeks after the game is out.

 

[Danjin44]

I personally REALLY enjoyed Remake, so I have zero doubts they also deliver on Rebirth.

 

[Needlecrash]

The fact that the game comes in at a whopping 150gb is very telling. This is gonna be a huge ass game for sure.

 

[Danjin44]

This February......

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

I believe that you won't have an airship in Rebirth. The closest you get will be the Bronco which breaks and crashes.

As for how they can make it work, it could be like FFXIV and earlier games where there are areas you just can't land. Plenty of early games, even FF7 OG had places you could not land and had to go elsewhere or find another route. Same could happen here. They will allow you to fly over those "walled off areas", but not land in them.

They showed a flying chocobo, think there could be an airship.

 

[Brock2621]

I cannot handle my excitement for this game. I adore FF7 as top 3 games of all time and while obviously it's not freaking The Witcher or Red Dead Redemption, the fact that they are putting this much effort into recreating some an iconic world, set pieces and characters is amazing. For me to get so much entertainment for $70 when a McDonalds combo costs be $13 now is amazing.

 

[rofif]

Can any of the experts on ff7, without major spoilers advise me... should I really play original first ?
I loved 7 remake. because one of my instant fav games.
This year I intalled original 7 with mods and so on but I only finished up to where remake ends. It kinda plays like a nightmare without nostalgia you know... but I liked playing it well enough.

I just think that maybe it's better if I don't "spoil" myself before rebirth?

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Can any of the experts on ff7, without major spoilers advise me... should I really play original first ?
I loved 7 remake. because one of my instant fav games.
This year I intalled original 7 with mods and so on but I only finished up to where remake ends. It kinda plays like a nightmare without nostalgia you know... but I liked playing it well enough.

I just think that maybe it's better if I don't "spoil" myself before rebirth?

Remake really seems designed for those who know the original. There are scenes designed to surprise those who are familiar with the original story, plus some characters (Aerith, Marlene, those fate ghost things) seem to have some memory of the events from the original game. So nah I don’t think you’d be spoiling anything by playing the original. Instead it would let you experience the remake the way they intended it.

That said, yeah the original has some pretty braindead turn-based combat and is very easy, especially if you put the slightest amount of thought into your materia setup. Definitely better with auto-battle and fast forward.

 

[K2D]

I'm starting to get too excited - time to rein in my expectations..!

...before decompression.

Thankfully still compressed when installed.

 

[Faust]

They showed a flying chocobo, think there could be an airship.

Given that we will meet Vincent and he will be unplayable (like Red was in the previous entry), I doubt we will reach Cid in this adventure. I think they are saving that for the next game.

 

[Muffdraul]

Impossible. There's just no way. I refuse to believe it. I'm asleep and dreaming right now and will wake up in 1, 2...........

 

[Crayon]

God I am getting hammered at work and I'm thinking about this game every time I get to take a breath.

 

[The artful mincer]

This sounds awful TBH. The distance from Midgar to Junon should be something like the distance from Seattle to Los Angeles.

If they do it 1:1 like this, it’s going to feel like Junon is a 3 minute Chocobo ride away. Like Junon is a suburb of Midgar instead of being half a continent away.

Okay but what's the alternative that's fun to play?

You can go zones like FF16 but that game felt small anyway and fast traveling around the map was super unsatisfying.

You can make it literally huge like No man sky's but will that be fun to traverse?

Or you can go old abstract over world like the og which I wouldn't mind to much but stuff like the Junon Canon and gold Saucer are gonna look far more epic and impressive when done this way.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

This February......

Assuming you work, save some leave for each of the Feb games!

 

[Danjin44]

Assuming you work, save some leave for each of the Feb games!

What I might do is buy both Granblue Fantasy Relink and Persona 3 Reload day one but I wont play P3 (its my 4th time buying Persona 3) until I finished with Relink....

That way I can focus on Relink and try to finish it before Rebirth comes out.

 

[The artful mincer]

I remember that…

Anyone ever max it out?

I might have done with the triple speed you get on the modern versions . Didn't actually take too long if you know all the tricks and use W Item glitch.

I think I did that and beat all the weapons and complete the game in about 35 hours.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

 

[Duchess]

2 100GB discs

Yep, because the game is 107GB

 

[Northeastmonk]

Given that we will meet Vincent and he will be unplayable (like Red was in the previous entry), I doubt we will reach Cid in this adventure. I think they are saving that for the next game.

What about the ? That’s going to look good.

 

[Slicker than your average]

Will the edge of creation be available to fly to on a chocobo?