I finished the game an hour ago. Here is my full thoughts. There's nothing spoiler wise but I don't want to put up a wall of jarring text:
After 39 hours and 33 minutes, I have beaten the Final Fantasy VII Remake.
I was not expecting to like this game as much as I did. I’d say I even loved it. It’s a fantastic game filled with top-notch cut scenes, acting, combat, characters, and soundtrack! Unfortunately, though it does have some flaws.
97% side missions are pretty much just bottom of the barrel padding that just makes the game longer than it has to be and don’t have the same effort as the quests. Speaking of effort, another glaring issue in this game is the inconsistency with visuals. The textures are just straight-up bad outside of the main significant sequences. Another thing I didn’t like but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a “flaw,” is the use of pre-rendered CGI cut-scenes. It’s quite annoying that there’s such a contrast between the regular vs pre-rendered, which makes the transitions jarring.
Overall, the inconsistency in visuals is, unfortunately, immersive breaking and should probably be sorted out. I do wonder though if the level of fidelity in the pre-rendered cut scenes will be achievable in part 2 of the remake on next-generation.
But besides inconsistency in textures & lazy side missions, it’s a hell of a game filled with action-packed sequences & exquisite character interaction, with the overall style of the blend between gameplay to pleasant cinematography and glorious soundtrack to be wowing to the eyes, ears, & hands. I can safely say that I’m in love with what this game had to offer me as a first time Final Fantasy player, and I am very hyped for the 2nd part of this remake to see the “unknown adventure continue” with hopefully some imperfections straightened out.
The Final Fantasy 7 Remake truly is now one of my favorite games this generation and I can’t recommend it more than enough.
8.9/10, a must-play.
I've avoided buying 7R until a big patch rolls in, but if it hasn't happened yet, I'm not sure when it will, considering the Covid situation and SE's history of laziness with patches. Aside from the bad textures, are there any game-breaking bugs or other bad problems? Or is it perfectly playable as is, and I should just go ahead and buy?
(Sorry if it's been mentioned, haven't been reading the thread, trying to avoid spoilers)
I've avoided buying 7R until a big patch rolls in, but if it hasn't happened yet, I'm not sure when it will, considering the Covid situation and SE's history of laziness with patches. Aside from the bad textures, are there any game-breaking bugs or other bad problems? Or is it perfectly playable as is, and I should just go ahead and buy?
(Sorry if it's been mentioned, haven't been reading the thread, trying to avoid spoilers)
All right, bought and downloading. Anybody know what the fractional "Data to Start Application" portion of the overall 80+ GB download lets you do in the game? Or is it just the opening movie?
Last thing I tried playing the partial D/L with was Deus Ex: MD. It let me go through part of the opening cinematic and then crashed every time.
All right, bought and downloading. Anybody know what the fractional "Data to Start Application" portion of the overall 80+ GB download lets you do in the game? Or is it just the opening movie?
Last thing I tried playing the partial D/L with was Deus Ex: MD. It let me go through part of the opening cinematic and then crashed every time.
You can play the first chapter after 13 GB download, then it's another 30 - 50 minute wait before game is playable again, you can just keep playing chapter 1 until then.
Uhh......FYI, for anyone wondering if Hard Mode is really hard after beating the game....
....Yes, it's a decent challenge. Even with all your skills you wont be one-shotting anything in Chapter 1, and they actually changed the AI on the scorpion boss a bit, so i assume other bosses/enemies will get changes.
It actually feels REALLY amazing to be able to go all-out from Chapter 1 and still struggle to kill stuff.
The guard scorpion managed to kill me twice....once cloud died and i forgot that I couldnt use Phoenix Down......second time, barrett died and i didn't know the Hard Mode scorpion uses the laser TWICE.
tier 3 spells with the Magnify Materia look pretty damn insane imo.
Also, I want to commend Square for the high-level lightning actually making electric sounds....Thundaga sounds like an Arc Flash and i love it.
Pummeling an enemy with its weakness? Yeah, even with the base spells it still does enough damage, esp if your mag atk is high. The goal is to build stagger quick. Also if you can trap an enemy in one place long enough, chi-trap can help you fuck an enemy into unconsciousness easily.
Beat the game. Everything in Shinra HQ was amazing. Last few bosses were CRAZY good (Rufus is probably my favorite fight in the game). Seriously, it was amazing.
And then the ending hit
And I don't know how to feel anymore
People weren't joking. It's like FFXIII and Kingdom Hearts had a lovechild and Dissidia raised it.
the game goes FULL Kingdom Hearts and i'm trying so hard to not have it retroactively ruin the whole experience
Regardless, If you didn't play the original game then the ending is going to be so mother fucking stupid.
Maybe replaying the game will have me feel better about it, but i doubt it....i'm really sad now.
I was so confident that this was gonna be the beginning of the best of FF again, and this ending just reminded me that it's never coming back
As for the "Remake"...99% of the game felt amazing. Great battle system, incredible music, made me fall in love with the cast all over again....until the end. Now I just feel so turned off. Nomura Nonsense at it's worst. Square is a shell of their former self. This game proves it.
As for the "Remake"...99% of the game felt amazing. Great battle system, incredible music, made me fall in love with the cast all over again....until the end. Now I just feel so turned off. Nomura Nonsense at it's worst. Square is a shell of their former self. This game proves it.
There are times when I enjoy the combat, but others where it just feels like a clumsy mess. When there are many enemies on screen and you need to target a specific one, it can be a problem. If you move the camera with lock-on enabled, it switches targets, if you don't lock-on, it cycles through everything on the screen really quickly when you just want Barret to shoot the fucking turret.
Sometimes you can parry an attack, sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can roll dodge away from something, other times it is like a heat-seeking missile that tracks you even through a perfect dodge. I'm 14 hours in and still can't tell if I am great at the combat after a good fight or have no fucking clue what I'm doing after a clumsy one goes poorly. But, I'm doing the same thing in each scenario so it's not always clear why things go so poorly.
I'm at chapter 9 and I'm enjoying the game a lot so far. I don't know if it is better than the original one or not as I've never played it so I'm playing it as a completely new FF.
What I cannot stand with is how buggy the game is:
Disgusting textures every now and then,
Weird NPCs' animations and AI (e.g. they collide with you as if it was a PS2 game),
Weird colleague's AI (e.g. you can overlap them while climbing stairs, etc.),
Sometimes it takes a lot of time from pressing the button to talk to a NPC until the "talking animation" starts.
If they fix these issues (or at least most of them) with a "Day 1" patch, the game would be a masterpiece. I will put some hours into FFXV for a better comparison but, as far as I remember, it was a much more polished game that VII Remake.
Beat one of the endgame bosses for one of my female friends(the way she screeches and squeaks when she's frustrated is hilarious) who was having the worst time with it using shareplay, on an absolutely awful connection lmao.
There are times when I enjoy the combat, but others where it just feels like a clumsy mess. When there are many enemies on screen and you need to target a specific one, it can be a problem. If you move the camera with lock-on enabled, it switches targets, if you don't lock-on, it cycles through everything on the screen really quickly when you just want Barret to shoot the fucking turret.
Sometimes you can parry an attack, sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can roll dodge away from something, other times it is like a heat-seeking missile that tracks you even through a perfect dodge. I'm 14 hours in and still can't tell if I am great at the combat after a good fight or have no fucking clue what I'm doing after a clumsy one goes poorly. But, I'm doing the same thing in each scenario so it's not always clear why things go so poorly.
I can get really messy sometimes indeed. Sometimes I wish it were full turn-based, sometimes I love the hack 'n slash aspect of it. It's a mix of feelings but I still like it a lot. I don't know about you but combat being so fast makes me not pay attention to buff and debuffs in general, I can't even see when I'm poisoned for example, the only thing I notice is when they put me to sleep lol.
I guess with turn based, it is what it is. If a leviathan attacks you, there's nothing you can do to impact is, which gives a lot of clarity. If leviathan attacks you in this game it gives you a feeling that you can impact the result, that you should dodge or do something. With attacks that cannot be dodged this becomes frustrating because you'll feel like you are doing the wrong thing.
There are times when I enjoy the combat, but others where it just feels like a clumsy mess. When there are many enemies on screen and you need to target a specific one, it can be a problem. If you move the camera with lock-on enabled, it switches targets, if you don't lock-on, it cycles through everything on the screen really quickly when you just want Barret to shoot the fucking turret.
Sometimes you can parry an attack, sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can roll dodge away from something, other times it is like a heat-seeking missile that tracks you even through a perfect dodge. I'm 14 hours in and still can't tell if I am great at the combat after a good fight or have no fucking clue what I'm doing after a clumsy one goes poorly. But, I'm doing the same thing in each scenario so it's not always clear why things go so poorly.
It's much worse than that. You also never know if your attack will hit at all. Or you will waste your ATB on doing nothing.
In boss battles, boss turns and your attack to a boss part is wasted. Boss starts some special move and your ability or spell is wasted. Etc. etc.
It's much worse than that. You also never know if your attack will hit at all. Or you will waste your ATB on doing nothing.
In boss battles, boss turns and your attack to a boss part is wasted. Boss starts some special move and your ability or spell is wasted. Etc. etc.
I don't think I'll be in the majority here, but I liked both the full game and the ending as well
Despite the bullshit "another timeline" trope, this time I'm intrigued and interested in what they're going to do, add and change, because, quite frankly, I do want things to be different this time.
I love that all the Avalanche survived because this time I actually cared for all three of them...maybe they'll play a major role during the Weapons attack (if they keep the weapons). In my opinion, Aerith will still die, but it'll probably be at the endgame.
I'll be honest, I was gonna love this game even if it was just FF7 with pretty graphic, but now it's FF7 with pretty graphic and totally unpredictable, which is always a plus for me.
I'm on Chapter 14 where the game prompted me to go do all the side quests, I've done all but the Stash quest because apparently you gotta keep going to finish that one.
I also did the battle arena stuff at wall market, up to the two man team battle.
My question is, is that everything I can do right now? The battle arena list seemed really short...
I'm on Chapter 14 where the game prompted me to go do all the side quests, I've done all but the Stash quest because apparently you gotta keep going to finish that one.
I also did the battle arena stuff at wall market, up to the two man team battle.
My question is, is that everything I can do right now? The battle arena list seemed really short...
Yeah, you have to proceed a bit to get the rest of the Stash quest. You'll find it in a section you'll be doing soon. That's it for the arena stuff until after the game, I think.
Yeah, you have to proceed a bit to get the rest of the Stash quest. You'll find it in a section you'll be doing soon. That's it for the arena stuff until after the game, I think.
Absolutely. Everyone who's played the original knows what the storyline and the events that occur mean. I think that's where everyone fell in love with the game.
I had a blast playing the Remake. I couldn't put it down. I just don't feel optimistic about the future of "the story"...at all. Nomaru just doesn't know how to put a compelling narrative together. He's a mess when it comes to that.
So, I finished the game last night, and I have some complaints and frustrations I need to vent.
Don’t get me wrong! I really like the game, but there are a mega shit ton of decisions they made that has left me scratching my head wondering what the hell they were thinking. There were times I was literally laughing at how dumb something was in the game, like how the hell could anyone have thought that was a good decision!?
That being said, a lot of these complaints were fired off while I was playing the game, so many of them come off as nitpicky and whiny (because, well, they are). But like I said, I want to get this shit off my chest and see if anyone else agrees with me, disagrees with me or, if you have a better understanding of game development, could maybe shed some light as to why they made some of the decisions they did. Maybe some of this stuff is just a culture thing, and I don’t get it because I don’t get Japanese culture, I dunno…
I’ll come back after I’ve put more time into the game and talk about the things I liked and loved (sorry, only one essay post at a time for this Gaffer)
Magic, abilities, summons abilities, limits, etc should not be able to miss
This one I wrote early on in the game. I somewhat changed my mind over the course of the game, as I realized it would be a little OP in certain situations to never be able to miss. However, there are enough times that crucial commands missed (including limit breaks are you fucking kidding me!?) that I had to make a comment about it
Too many corridors (is it a loading thing?)
So, this is a usual for JRPG, and I kind of get, but at the same time I really fucking hate it. Why why why why do Japanese gaem dev’s think this is such a great idea. It’s so boring and just downright bizarre for there to be these perfect pathways through each level. Perhaps this is a loading thing, like they are having oyu run through these long corridors whil the next sections load… but other times it just seemed like they wanted to make the world feel larger by having run along absurdly long hallways from one destination to the next. Byt the end of chpter 14, I wasn’t as annoyed but still… enough with the corridor Square, enough.
Textures
Self-explanatory. The low-res textures are like N64 graphics. While the character models and other elements of the game world are some of the best I’ve ever seen! I dunno, maybe it’s another development thing I don’t understand. But it definitely takes you out of the game when you notice it.
Battle too fast, never have time to use status ailment items
This is another thing I felt different about by the end of the game. In fact, I almost deleted it off the list just now, but I wanted to keep it in as I know many others share the opinion, and I guess I kind of still do in some situations. To put things into perspective I sell all of my status ailment items. I don’t use any of them in battle because everything is moving so fast it’s not worth the time. So why even have them!? I also feel some of the strategy is lost with everything moving at break-neck speed, but like I said by the end of the game I had the hang of it. Still, a little slowing down of enemy attacks and movements would go a long way.
Map is weird and confusing, they should just show me the whole map, not break it down into weird sections
I hated how they laid out the map screen in this game. It was so weird how I could only see sections, never the big picture. Trying to figure out where I was or where I was going in relation to the rest of the game world was confusing. I don’t understand why they didn’t just give us a big map. Then I could have a better understanding of how each area relates to the other and really get a better feel for the game world, as well as not be confused as to where to go next.
Lock on in battle does not rotate with my character, so I’m constantly tryin to readjust camera position in battle
I tried adjusting the setting, but I couldn’t find anything that let me stay hard focused on an enemy. Especially after switching to another character, the game would have the camera facing in the wrong direction, and not on what I’m already locked onto. And sometimes I’d just be trying to move around the arena and would have to stop and adjust the camera. Just leave it focused on the fucking enemy I locked onto! It was infuriating when the battle was getting heated and I switched to another char only to have to adjust the camera first, and by that time (bc battle moves so god damn fast) the enemy could already be pummeling me and my other characters. This is a huuuuge complaint from me. If anyone knows how to address this, please tell me!
More interactivity in the world, searching book shelves, reading signs, other fun things like that
I loved searching pots, book shelves, barrels and other world items and finding hidden items in RPG’s when I was a kid. It’s something that’s been absent from RPG’s for along time, but I’d love to see it make a return. Spoon feeding my chests and stacks of boxes for items is boring and uncreative. Give me a reason to check out your beautiful game world by searching interesting looking things in the world. There doesn’t always have to be an item in there, it could just be something I search and text pops up saying “it’s a book about weapons and armor” or some such shit (hopefully more interesting than that but you get the idea). I feel it would go a long way to really fleshing out some of the game world, and give me a reason to explore and enjoy all of the artists hard work.
Less interrupting magic and abilities
This must have been the point where I came around to being okay with some interruptions, but I still wanted less
Enemies exploding and hurting/killing me after they’ve already been “defeated”, at least keep me in attack/battle mode to let me know it’s not quite done yet! Or a warning or something
This some baby back bullshit. Some enemies will explode and damage you’ve after you’ve defeated them. And the worst part is, the game gives you zero indication that this is going to happen. In fact, the game has Cloud and gang put away their weapons and relax like everything is over and then BAM! 1,000HP damage. And I’m all “WTF WAS THAT!?”. Ugh, this one didn’t happen often but when it did it infuriated me. Like, give me a flashing red light, a timer, anything! Or at the least don’t have the party put their weapons away like the battle is over, bc it isn’t!
Stop putting me in a position where I can’t physically attack something, leading to very slow turns because I can’t fill gauge
This one I got a little better at as I went along. But I feel it still deserves a complaint. There were too many times I was in a situation where I was having trouble filling the ATB gauge. Some enemies will by flying around and spinning, which hurts you and is immune to physical attack, and since my ATB gauge isn’t full, I can’t use magic. So, I literally have to hold block, put myself in the path of this spinning death monster and use the damage I take as a way to fill my ATB. And since it doesn’t fill quickly, it takes kind of long time and really ruins the flow of battle. It’s not a huge thing for me as I got better at not putting myself in those situations as the game went on, but I still it deserves to be addressed.
Less fetch side quests. They don’t have to be super overproduced either but make the objective something more interesting. Here’s where you should be getting creative, not JUST fleshing out the world
The side quest ranged from okay to pretty uninspired to downright like doing house chores. I really think they can do better with this. I always reference Saints Row 2 when I’m having this discussion. Bc from what I remember that game had some super fun and creative side missions. I dunno, it’s a long time since I played that game so maybe I way off base… but I’d love to see more creative side quests content. Maybe have it led to mini games, fun platforming sections or something. A couple vanilla fetch quests or monster hunts is fine but it felt like it was like that for every single side quest.
After battle exp, items, etc need to display for a couple seconds longer
I hate missing all of that stuff (especially in a battle where the enemy blows up after he dies, and I’m worried about running away so I miss all that!)
Be more creative hiding items, they don’t always have to be in chests.
This ties into what I was saying before about hiding items in places like pots, barrels and bookshelves like they used to do in old school RPG’s. Additionally, I feel like the chests can be hidden even better. They did a better job than in most JRPG’s… but I think they can get even more creative here.
The stacked boxes of power ups, they dont have to be these weird out of place things, be more creative
Same thing here. This was a really big groan for me when I realized they were going to be a regular thing. It takes me right out of the game world to see those everywhere. And they didn’t even try to be creative with them, just these standard size boxes neatly stacked in the corner of every other room. So bizarre and uninspired. They could have made some of them wooden boxes, barrels, pots and pans, stacks of rubble, wood, trash etc
What’s up with all the items you can shit kick around, so weird and takes me out of the game. Literally hilarious and just so bizarre that they would add that in
This is the most head scratching and hilarious complaint of the list. I sut can’t for the life of me understand why they made all of these items so easy to kick around. And for no reason! Other than the moogle mini game where smash the boxes for points, there was basically no use for all of these items in the world. I remember one room where I was literally kicking around a dozen lunch tables and even more chairs (like a cafeteria or something) and I was cry laughing at how ridiculous and pointless it was. They need to do something with that or just remove it from the game because it’s really fucking stupid.
I like the level length, but if they are going to be the same looking rooms and corridors every new area then they need to be shorter. It’s exhausting
Pretty self-explanatory and ties into my corridor complaint earlier. The length of the game is certainly padded by these long corridors and room after room of the same looking environment and more hallways, more rooms, blah blah blah. It really got exhausting in the first half of the game. I will say that it got much better by the end. And Hojo’s mako lab was a big improvement over sections earlier in the game.
Limits are too hard to achieve, I never get to see them
I also changed my mind about this one over time, but still, it’d be nice if they were a little easier to achieve…
Also, again with the battle speed, I never have time to watch the cool attacks and beauty animations bc everything is moving at break neck speed, sloooow down. Maybe allow the rest of the enemies and characters to pause while certain magic and abilities, limits or summons at being used
This one is a real shame. They put all that work into the animations and movements and I almost never got to slow down and appreciate them. I used to loooove watching all that stuff in the original. I’d love if they could pause for limits and summons, at the very least (although, I think it does pause a couple times for summons, like when they enter and leave, but not for any of their attack… boo)
Don’t make me sit there and wait to heal my players (out of battle), just let me use a potion as fast as I need. Yeah, we get it, the animation looks nice but if it affects functionality and fluidity of gameplay it probably needs to go
This bullshit right here. This is so head scratching I can only imagine they completely overlooked it, or they were so proud of their use potion animation that they let it stop me from using potions quickly and efficiently. Holding L1 to use multiple item was a great idea but making me sit there and wait for the animation to finish instead of just letting me use 10 in a row real fast is beyond dumb. They need to speed that up, or just let me do it quickly from the menu like in the original.
Stop slowing me down to a walk (maybe it’s for loading times?) it even happens when an area is not loading
I swear to god this happens at the dumbest times, where it’s not loading something, it’s just slowing my down to a walk and fixing the camera on something, completely forcing me to go one direction agonizingly slooooow. It’s so fucking stupid. Stop taking control away from or spoon feeding me which direction to go. I can figure it out, or at the very least, be creative in getting players to go where you want them to go, don’t force them into a slow ass walk, that is almost never a good idea.
Less pointless jumping/hurdling over things, walking across balance beam segments. It’s weird and slows everything down for no reason (loading?)
Again, maybe this a loading thing in some cases, but there were so many time where your character was jumpin over one steel beam or having to do a balance walk over a strut or whatever, and it felt so cheap and pointless. I can see doing some of that once in a while, but there was so much of it in every level it just bothered me.
Sections like grappling hook, or when Barrett uses his gun to blow rocks up, are not fun because they don’t feel natural, they feel like simulations and point and click, totally not fun and pointless.
This was such a shame because they had the right idea but it was executed poorly. Changin up the gameplay and being creative, like the part where Barrett has to shoot rocks to get through, was a great idea! But then they literally just had you hold triangle. You couldn't even aim the fucking gun arm by yourself, a dream I've had since playing the original in 97, are you kidding me!? You're one opportunity to let players fucking finally go bananas with Barretts gun arm and you fucked it up! Ugh, such a waste. Same thing with the grappling hook. It literally tells you where to point with a big circle arrow thing and then you just press triangle. Like, let me actually aim the grappling hook or the gun arm around, let me use it to get to different sections where you might have a hidden chest. You don’t have to spoon feed me every grappling hook point or which rocks to blowup, I can figure it out, and it’s more fun to give me control of the aim and have to explore the beautiful game world trying to find those points.
Ties into last one, stop giving me button prompts for every little thing, trust the player to be able to figure some of that stuff out
This is mostly a complaint about those little blue arrows every-fucking-where. Whenever there is a ladder, narrow squeeze through point or any kind of a jump it gives you these immersion breaking blue arrows all over it. It would have been so much more fun and given me reason o explore the world if they took those out, or let it be something I can toggle in the menu. I really think removing those would have gone a long way in making the world feel less plastic.
Why does a potion heal 350 HP and cost 50 Gil, while a hi-potion heals 700 HP and costs 300 Gil.
Was this to make it more punishing to use in battle? You lose a ton of hp in many battles, it’s doesn’t make sense to make me just have to buy potions, especially considering it takes so long to use them bc I have to wait for the animation to finish. By the end of the game I was just using Curaga spells and ethers, or I was running all the way back to a bench bc sitting there using potions with the slow ass potion animation took s long, if not longer, than just running a couple rooms back. Maybe it was exactly like this in the original, I can’t remember, but it seems fucking retarded to make buying regular potions more economical, but have it take forever for me to use them (ties into the potion animation complaint form earlier)
Why are enemies so much more powerful than me. There physical attacks hit me for hundreds and hundreds while I’m over here only hitting for 60 or 70 at a time. Sahagin prince for example hair feel insanely over powered. I barely scratch him while one of his attacks does 700 damage
This was a rage complaint while I was in the Shinra combat simulator. I still feel like it’s kind of a valid complaint though. Enemies really get at your HP in this game. Again, I got better as I went through the game, but I still would have appreciated a bit of a nerf on some of the harder enemies like Sahagin Prince (God I hated those fuckers when ever I cmae across them)
Why the fuck is the enemy intel (bestiary) not in alphabetical order. Why make it so hard to find the enemy I’m looking for?
Self-explanatory. This the dumbest shit ever. Put in alphabetical order you morons.
When I switch weapons, just remove all the material from the last weapon I was using, it makes it confusing when I’m looking through my list of materia, even though they are faded out, it still fucks with me
This complaint I went round and round with through out the game. Sometimes I liked that it remembered my materia, so that way if I switched back to that weapon, the materia I had on it would still be equipped and I wouldn’t have to redo it. Except, that by the time I got back to using that other weapon, my materia would be all moved around, or I’d have new materia or I’d have moved it form one char to another. By the end of the game, I just removed all materia from any weapons that any party member wasn’t using. This made it easier to manage in the menu. Still though, I think it could be useful, in certain situations, to have it remember materia for all weapon variants… meh…
On materia set for all screen, leave the list there after I equip something.
The list disappears for some stupid reason and I have to scroll all the way back down to find equip the next piece of materia. Seeing how moving around materia can be strategic and helpful, navigating the menus needs to be easier and more fluid. As it is now, the list disappears and it show a big beautiful orb of materia, which yeah looks nice, but again if it interrupts functionality, there needs to be a change
Don’t give me “platforming” sections where I just make one button press or hold forward in the left stick, be more creative
Self-explanatory. Many of these sections you can literally just hold the left stick forward and get through it. It was a good idea to change up the pace and gameplay, but Square for the love of holy god please stop spoon feeding these sections to us like we are babies. It’s more fun for the player to have to figure these things out.
Stop making me hold triangle for buttons and stuff, it is beyond stupid. Is this another game design thing?
This one I don’t get. Maybe they are loading something, maybe they’ve found players like to hold triangle (lol), I dunno, but it seems pretty dumb. Just have me press triangle and be done with it, no reason to make players wait and hold something.
Stop throwing battles at me that make me change my materia before every fight. The enemies should be similar and have similar abilities. There are times where I’m constantly changing characters and materia be its tedious and annoying (hojo lab part)
This one I’m still on the fence bout. On one hand I love moving materia around and changing my set up to be more strategic, but on the other hand, I hate getting into battle only to realize I need to change my materia all around. So, if I die, I do exactly that, and I go back into the battle and win. But then, the next fight is something wildly different… so again, I have to die first and then go in, change my materia, go back into the battle and then I win. I felt like I had to do that too much in areas where all the enemies should have been similar and I shouldn’t have had to do that. It got really tedious especially toward then end with all the boss battles and various monsters in hojo’s lab/mako lab area.
The conference room scene with all the villains was absolutely perfect
I added this in because I don’t think that scene could have been more perfect.
Well, I don’t imagine anyone is going to actually read all that, but I feel better having bitched and moaned bout all my little gripes. Let me end this book of a post by saying that I loved the game and I feel Square can chalk this up to a victory. But they have a lot of work to do (and let’s not get started on what the hell they are thinking with the story parts towards the end... for the record thoguh, i don't mind it all that much, the rest of the original story is still intact... but yeah the whole changing destiny thing is bizarre, and if you're not seeing the kingdom hearts parallels here then you are not looking very hard... the giant monster itself at the end of the game looked a lot like that giant black monster you see all the time in KH).
So, I finished the game last night, and I have some complaints and frustrations I need to vent.
Don’t get me wrong! I really like the game, but there are a mega shit ton of decisions they made that has left me scratching my head wondering what the hell they were thinking. There were times I was literally laughing at how dumb something was in the game, like how the hell could anyone have thought that was a good decision!?
That being said, a lot of these complaints were fired off while I was playing the game, so many of them come off as nitpicky and whiny (because, well, they are). But like I said, I want to get this shit off my chest and see if anyone else agrees with me, disagrees with me or, if you have a better understanding of game development, could maybe shed some light as to why they made some of the decisions they did. Maybe some of this stuff is just a culture thing, and I don’t get it because I don’t get Japanese culture, I dunno…
I’ll come back after I’ve put more time into the game and talk about the things I liked and loved (sorry, only one essay post at a time for this Gaffer)
Magic, abilities, summons abilities, limits, etc should not be able to miss
This one I wrote early on in the game. I somewhat changed my mind over the course of the game, as I realized it would be a little OP in certain situations to never be able to miss. However, there are enough times that crucial commands missed (including limit breaks are you fucking kidding me!?) that I had to make a comment about it
Too many corridors (is it a loading thing?)
So, this is a usual for JRPG, and I kind of get, but at the same time I really fucking hate it. Why why why why do Japanese gaem dev’s think this is such a great idea. It’s so boring and just downright bizarre for there to be these perfect pathways through each level. Perhaps this is a loading thing, like they are having oyu run through these long corridors whil the next sections load… but other times it just seemed like they wanted to make the world feel larger by having run along absurdly long hallways from one destination to the next. Byt the end of chpter 14, I wasn’t as annoyed but still… enough with the corridor Square, enough.
Textures
Self-explanatory. The low-res textures are like N64 graphics. While the character models and other elements of the game world are some of the best I’ve ever seen! I dunno, maybe it’s another development thing I don’t understand. But it definitely takes you out of the game when you notice it.
Battle too fast, never have time to use status ailment items
This is another thing I felt different about by the end of the game. In fact, I almost deleted it off the list just now, but I wanted to keep it in as I know many others share the opinion, and I guess I kind of still do in some situations. To put things into perspective I sell all of my status ailment items. I don’t use any of them in battle because everything is moving so fast it’s not worth the time. So why even have them!? I also feel some of the strategy is lost with everything moving at break-neck speed, but like I said by the end of the game I had the hang of it. Still, a little slowing down of enemy attacks and movements would go a long way.
Map is weird and confusing, they should just show me the whole map, not break it down into weird sections
I hated how they laid out the map screen in this game. It was so weird how I could only see sections, never the big picture. Trying to figure out where I was or where I was going in relation to the rest of the game world was confusing. I don’t understand why they didn’t just give us a big map. Then I could have a better understanding of how each area relates to the other and really get a better feel for the game world, as well as not be confused as to where to go next.
Lock on in battle does not rotate with my character, so I’m constantly tryin to readjust camera position in battle
I tried adjusting the setting, but I couldn’t find anything that let me stay hard focused on an enemy. Especially after switching to another character, the game would have the camera facing in the wrong direction, and not on what I’m already locked onto. And sometimes I’d just be trying to move around the arena and would have to stop and adjust the camera. Just leave it focused on the fucking enemy I locked onto! It was infuriating when the battle was getting heated and I switched to another char only to have to adjust the camera first, and by that time (bc battle moves so god damn fast) the enemy could already be pummeling me and my other characters. This is a huuuuge complaint from me. If anyone knows how to address this, please tell me!
More interactivity in the world, searching book shelves, reading signs, other fun things like that
I loved searching pots, book shelves, barrels and other world items and finding hidden items in RPG’s when I was a kid. It’s something that’s been absent from RPG’s for along time, but I’d love to see it make a return. Spoon feeding my chests and stacks of boxes for items is boring and uncreative. Give me a reason to check out your beautiful game world by searching interesting looking things in the world. There doesn’t always have to be an item in there, it could just be something I search and text pops up saying “it’s a book about weapons and armor” or some such shit (hopefully more interesting than that but you get the idea). I feel it would go a long way to really fleshing out some of the game world, and give me a reason to explore and enjoy all of the artists hard work.
Less interrupting magic and abilities
This must have been the point where I came around to being okay with some interruptions, but I still wanted less
Enemies exploding and hurting/killing me after they’ve already been “defeated”, at least keep me in attack/battle mode to let me know it’s not quite done yet! Or a warning or something
This some baby back bullshit. Some enemies will explode and damage you’ve after you’ve defeated them. And the worst part is, the game gives you zero indication that this is going to happen. In fact, the game has Cloud and gang put away their weapons and relax like everything is over and then BAM! 1,000HP damage. And I’m all “WTF WAS THAT!?”. Ugh, this one didn’t happen often but when it did it infuriated me. Like, give me a flashing red light, a timer, anything! Or at the least don’t have the party put their weapons away like the battle is over, bc it isn’t!
Stop putting me in a position where I can’t physically attack something, leading to very slow turns because I can’t fill gauge
This one I got a little better at as I went along. But I feel it still deserves a complaint. There were too many times I was in a situation where I was having trouble filling the ATB gauge. Some enemies will by flying around and spinning, which hurts you and is immune to physical attack, and since my ATB gauge isn’t full, I can’t use magic. So, I literally have to hold block, put myself in the path of this spinning death monster and use the damage I take as a way to fill my ATB. And since it doesn’t fill quickly, it takes kind of long time and really ruins the flow of battle. It’s not a huge thing for me as I got better at not putting myself in those situations as the game went on, but I still it deserves to be addressed.
Less fetch side quests. They don’t have to be super overproduced either but make the objective something more interesting. Here’s where you should be getting creative, not JUST fleshing out the world
The side quest ranged from okay to pretty uninspired to downright like doing house chores. I really think they can do better with this. I always reference Saints Row 2 when I’m having this discussion. Bc from what I remember that game had some super fun and creative side missions. I dunno, it’s a long time since I played that game so maybe I way off base… but I’d love to see more creative side quests content. Maybe have it led to mini games, fun platforming sections or something. A couple vanilla fetch quests or monster hunts is fine but it felt like it was like that for every single side quest.
After battle exp, items, etc need to display for a couple seconds longer
I hate missing all of that stuff (especially in a battle where the enemy blows up after he dies, and I’m worried about running away so I miss all that!)
Be more creative hiding items, they don’t always have to be in chests.
This ties into what I was saying before about hiding items in places like pots, barrels and bookshelves like they used to do in old school RPG’s. Additionally, I feel like the chests can be hidden even better. They did a better job than in most JRPG’s… but I think they can get even more creative here.
The stacked boxes of power ups, they dont have to be these weird out of place things, be more creative
Same thing here. This was a really big groan for me when I realized they were going to be a regular thing. It takes me right out of the game world to see those everywhere. And they didn’t even try to be creative with them, just these standard size boxes neatly stacked in the corner of every other room. So bizarre and uninspired. They could have made some of them wooden boxes, barrels, pots and pans, stacks of rubble, wood, trash etc
What’s up with all the items you can shit kick around, so weird and takes me out of the game. Literally hilarious and just so bizarre that they would add that in
This is the most head scratching and hilarious complaint of the list. I sut can’t for the life of me understand why they made all of these items so easy to kick around. And for no reason! Other than the moogle mini game where smash the boxes for points, there was basically no use for all of these items in the world. I remember one room where I was literally kicking around a dozen lunch tables and even more chairs (like a cafeteria or something) and I was cry laughing at how ridiculous and pointless it was. They need to do something with that or just remove it from the game because it’s really fucking stupid.
I like the level length, but if they are going to be the same looking rooms and corridors every new area then they need to be shorter. It’s exhausting
Pretty self-explanatory and ties into my corridor complaint earlier. The length of the game is certainly padded by these long corridors and room after room of the same looking environment and more hallways, more rooms, blah blah blah. It really got exhausting in the first half of the game. I will say that it got much better by the end. And Hojo’s mako lab was a big improvement over sections earlier in the game.
Limits are too hard to achieve, I never get to see them
I also changed my mind about this one over time, but still, it’d be nice if they were a little easier to achieve…
Also, again with the battle speed, I never have time to watch the cool attacks and beauty animations bc everything is moving at break neck speed, sloooow down. Maybe allow the rest of the enemies and characters to pause while certain magic and abilities, limits or summons at being used
This one is a real shame. They put all that work into the animations and movements and I almost never got to slow down and appreciate them. I used to loooove watching all that stuff in the original. I’d love if they could pause for limits and summons, at the very least (although, I think it does pause a couple times for summons, like when they enter and leave, but not for any of their attack… boo)
Don’t make me sit there and wait to heal my players (out of battle), just let me use a potion as fast as I need. Yeah, we get it, the animation looks nice but if it affects functionality and fluidity of gameplay it probably needs to go
This bullshit right here. This is so head scratching I can only imagine they completely overlooked it, or they were so proud of their use potion animation that they let it stop me from using potions quickly and efficiently. Holding L1 to use multiple item was a great idea but making me sit there and wait for the animation to finish instead of just letting me use 10 in a row real fast is beyond dumb. They need to speed that up, or just let me do it quickly from the menu like in the original.
Stop slowing me down to a walk (maybe it’s for loading times?) it even happens when an area is not loading
I swear to god this happens at the dumbest times, where it’s not loading something, it’s just slowing my down to a walk and fixing the camera on something, completely forcing me to go one direction agonizingly slooooow. It’s so fucking stupid. Stop taking control away from or spoon feeding me which direction to go. I can figure it out, or at the very least, be creative in getting players to go where you want them to go, don’t force them into a slow ass walk, that is almost never a good idea.
Less pointless jumping/hurdling over things, walking across balance beam segments. It’s weird and slows everything down for no reason (loading?)
Again, maybe this a loading thing in some cases, but there were so many time where your character was jumpin over one steel beam or having to do a balance walk over a strut or whatever, and it felt so cheap and pointless. I can see doing some of that once in a while, but there was so much of it in every level it just bothered me.
Sections like grappling hook, or when Barrett uses his gun to blow rocks up, are not fun because they don’t feel natural, they feel like simulations and point and click, totally not fun and pointless.
This was such a shame because they had the right idea but it was executed poorly. Changin up the gameplay and being creative, like the part where Barrett has to shoot rocks to get through, was a great idea! But then they literally just had you hold triangle. You couldn't even aim the fucking gun arm by yourself, a dream I've had since playing the original in 97, are you kidding me!? You're one opportunity to let players fucking finally go bananas with Barretts gun arm and you fucked it up! Ugh, such a waste. Same thing with the grappling hook. It literally tells you where to point with a big circle arrow thing and then you just press triangle. Like, let me actually aim the grappling hook or the gun arm around, let me use it to get to different sections where you might have a hidden chest. You don’t have to spoon feed me every grappling hook point or which rocks to blowup, I can figure it out, and it’s more fun to give me control of the aim and have to explore the beautiful game world trying to find those points.
Ties into last one, stop giving me button prompts for every little thing, trust the player to be able to figure some of that stuff out
This is mostly a complaint about those little blue arrows every-fucking-where. Whenever there is a ladder, narrow squeeze through point or any kind of a jump it gives you these immersion breaking blue arrows all over it. It would have been so much more fun and given me reason o explore the world if they took those out, or let it be something I can toggle in the menu. I really think removing those would have gone a long way in making the world feel less plastic.
Why does a potion heal 350 HP and cost 50 Gil, while a hi-potion heals 700 HP and costs 300 Gil.
Was this to make it more punishing to use in battle? You lose a ton of hp in many battles, it’s doesn’t make sense to make me just have to buy potions, especially considering it takes so long to use them bc I have to wait for the animation to finish. By the end of the game I was just using Curaga spells and ethers, or I was running all the way back to a bench bc sitting there using potions with the slow ass potion animation took s long, if not longer, than just running a couple rooms back. Maybe it was exactly like this in the original, I can’t remember, but it seems fucking retarded to make buying regular potions more economical, but have it take forever for me to use them (ties into the potion animation complaint form earlier)
Why are enemies so much more powerful than me. There physical attacks hit me for hundreds and hundreds while I’m over here only hitting for 60 or 70 at a time. Sahagin prince for example hair feel insanely over powered. I barely scratch him while one of his attacks does 700 damage
This was a rage complaint while I was in the Shinra combat simulator. I still feel like it’s kind of a valid complaint though. Enemies really get at your HP in this game. Again, I got better as I went through the game, but I still would have appreciated a bit of a nerf on some of the harder enemies like Sahagin Prince (God I hated those fuckers when ever I cmae across them)
Why the fuck is the enemy intel (bestiary) not in alphabetical order. Why make it so hard to find the enemy I’m looking for?
Self-explanatory. This the dumbest shit ever. Put in alphabetical order you morons.
When I switch weapons, just remove all the material from the last weapon I was using, it makes it confusing when I’m looking through my list of materia, even though they are faded out, it still fucks with me
This complaint I went round and round with through out the game. Sometimes I liked that it remembered my materia, so that way if I switched back to that weapon, the materia I had on it would still be equipped and I wouldn’t have to redo it. Except, that by the time I got back to using that other weapon, my materia would be all moved around, or I’d have new materia or I’d have moved it form one char to another. By the end of the game, I just removed all materia from any weapons that any party member wasn’t using. This made it easier to manage in the menu. Still though, I think it could be useful, in certain situations, to have it remember materia for all weapon variants… meh…
On materia set for all screen, leave the list there after I equip something.
The list disappears for some stupid reason and I have to scroll all the way back down to find equip the next piece of materia. Seeing how moving around materia can be strategic and helpful, navigating the menus needs to be easier and more fluid. As it is now, the list disappears and it show a big beautiful orb of materia, which yeah looks nice, but again if it interrupts functionality, there needs to be a change
Don’t give me “platforming” sections where I just make one button press or hold forward in the left stick, be more creative
Self-explanatory. Many of these sections you can literally just hold the left stick forward and get through it. It was a good idea to change up the pace and gameplay, but Square for the love of holy god please stop spoon feeding these sections to us like we are babies. It’s more fun for the player to have to figure these things out.
Stop making me hold triangle for buttons and stuff, it is beyond stupid. Is this another game design thing?
This one I don’t get. Maybe they are loading something, maybe they’ve found players like to hold triangle (lol), I dunno, but it seems pretty dumb. Just have me press triangle and be done with it, no reason to make players wait and hold something.
Stop throwing battles at me that make me change my materia before every fight. The enemies should be similar and have similar abilities. There are times where I’m constantly changing characters and materia be its tedious and annoying (hojo lab part)
This one I’m still on the fence bout. On one hand I love moving materia around and changing my set up to be more strategic, but on the other hand, I hate getting into battle only to realize I need to change my materia all around. So, if I die, I do exactly that, and I go back into the battle and win. But then, the next fight is something wildly different… so again, I have to die first and then go in, change my materia, go back into the battle and then I win. I felt like I had to do that too much in areas where all the enemies should have been similar and I shouldn’t have had to do that. It got really tedious especially toward then end with all the boss battles and various monsters in hojo’s lab/mako lab area.
The conference room scene with all the villains was absolutely perfect
I added this in because I don’t think that scene could have been more perfect.
Well, I don’t imagine anyone is going to actually read all that, but I feel better having bitched and moaned bout all my little gripes. Let me end this book of a post by saying that I loved the game and I feel Square can chalk this up to a victory. But they have a lot of work to do (and let’s not get started on what the hell they are thinking with the story parts towards the end... for the record thoguh, i don't mind it all that much, the rest of the original story is still intact... but yeah the whole changing destiny thing is bizarre, and if you're not seeing the kingdom hearts parallels here then you are not looking very hard... the giant monster itself at the end of the game looked a lot like that giant black monster you see all the time in KH).
So, I finished the game last night, and I have some complaints and frustrations I need to vent.
Don’t get me wrong! I really like the game, but there are a mega shit ton of decisions they made that has left me scratching my head wondering what the hell they were thinking. There were times I was literally laughing at how dumb something was in the game, like how the hell could anyone have thought that was a good decision!?
That being said, a lot of these complaints were fired off while I was playing the game, so many of them come off as nitpicky and whiny (because, well, they are). But like I said, I want to get this shit off my chest and see if anyone else agrees with me, disagrees with me or, if you have a better understanding of game development, could maybe shed some light as to why they made some of the decisions they did. Maybe some of this stuff is just a culture thing, and I don’t get it because I don’t get Japanese culture, I dunno…
I’ll come back after I’ve put more time into the game and talk about the things I liked and loved (sorry, only one essay post at a time for this Gaffer)
Magic, abilities, summons abilities, limits, etc should not be able to miss
This one I wrote early on in the game. I somewhat changed my mind over the course of the game, as I realized it would be a little OP in certain situations to never be able to miss. However, there are enough times that crucial commands missed (including limit breaks are you fucking kidding me!?) that I had to make a comment about it
Too many corridors (is it a loading thing?)
So, this is a usual for JRPG, and I kind of get, but at the same time I really fucking hate it. Why why why why do Japanese gaem dev’s think this is such a great idea. It’s so boring and just downright bizarre for there to be these perfect pathways through each level. Perhaps this is a loading thing, like they are having oyu run through these long corridors whil the next sections load… but other times it just seemed like they wanted to make the world feel larger by having run along absurdly long hallways from one destination to the next. Byt the end of chpter 14, I wasn’t as annoyed but still… enough with the corridor Square, enough.
Textures
Self-explanatory. The low-res textures are like N64 graphics. While the character models and other elements of the game world are some of the best I’ve ever seen! I dunno, maybe it’s another development thing I don’t understand. But it definitely takes you out of the game when you notice it.
Battle too fast, never have time to use status ailment items
This is another thing I felt different about by the end of the game. In fact, I almost deleted it off the list just now, but I wanted to keep it in as I know many others share the opinion, and I guess I kind of still do in some situations. To put things into perspective I sell all of my status ailment items. I don’t use any of them in battle because everything is moving so fast it’s not worth the time. So why even have them!? I also feel some of the strategy is lost with everything moving at break-neck speed, but like I said by the end of the game I had the hang of it. Still, a little slowing down of enemy attacks and movements would go a long way.
Map is weird and confusing, they should just show me the whole map, not break it down into weird sections
I hated how they laid out the map screen in this game. It was so weird how I could only see sections, never the big picture. Trying to figure out where I was or where I was going in relation to the rest of the game world was confusing. I don’t understand why they didn’t just give us a big map. Then I could have a better understanding of how each area relates to the other and really get a better feel for the game world, as well as not be confused as to where to go next.
Lock on in battle does not rotate with my character, so I’m constantly tryin to readjust camera position in battle
I tried adjusting the setting, but I couldn’t find anything that let me stay hard focused on an enemy. Especially after switching to another character, the game would have the camera facing in the wrong direction, and not on what I’m already locked onto. And sometimes I’d just be trying to move around the arena and would have to stop and adjust the camera. Just leave it focused on the fucking enemy I locked onto! It was infuriating when the battle was getting heated and I switched to another char only to have to adjust the camera first, and by that time (bc battle moves so god damn fast) the enemy could already be pummeling me and my other characters. This is a huuuuge complaint from me. If anyone knows how to address this, please tell me!
More interactivity in the world, searching book shelves, reading signs, other fun things like that
I loved searching pots, book shelves, barrels and other world items and finding hidden items in RPG’s when I was a kid. It’s something that’s been absent from RPG’s for along time, but I’d love to see it make a return. Spoon feeding my chests and stacks of boxes for items is boring and uncreative. Give me a reason to check out your beautiful game world by searching interesting looking things in the world. There doesn’t always have to be an item in there, it could just be something I search and text pops up saying “it’s a book about weapons and armor” or some such shit (hopefully more interesting than that but you get the idea). I feel it would go a long way to really fleshing out some of the game world, and give me a reason to explore and enjoy all of the artists hard work.
Less interrupting magic and abilities
This must have been the point where I came around to being okay with some interruptions, but I still wanted less
Enemies exploding and hurting/killing me after they’ve already been “defeated”, at least keep me in attack/battle mode to let me know it’s not quite done yet! Or a warning or something
This some baby back bullshit. Some enemies will explode and damage you’ve after you’ve defeated them. And the worst part is, the game gives you zero indication that this is going to happen. In fact, the game has Cloud and gang put away their weapons and relax like everything is over and then BAM! 1,000HP damage. And I’m all “WTF WAS THAT!?”. Ugh, this one didn’t happen often but when it did it infuriated me. Like, give me a flashing red light, a timer, anything! Or at the least don’t have the party put their weapons away like the battle is over, bc it isn’t!
Stop putting me in a position where I can’t physically attack something, leading to very slow turns because I can’t fill gauge
This one I got a little better at as I went along. But I feel it still deserves a complaint. There were too many times I was in a situation where I was having trouble filling the ATB gauge. Some enemies will by flying around and spinning, which hurts you and is immune to physical attack, and since my ATB gauge isn’t full, I can’t use magic. So, I literally have to hold block, put myself in the path of this spinning death monster and use the damage I take as a way to fill my ATB. And since it doesn’t fill quickly, it takes kind of long time and really ruins the flow of battle. It’s not a huge thing for me as I got better at not putting myself in those situations as the game went on, but I still it deserves to be addressed.
Less fetch side quests. They don’t have to be super overproduced either but make the objective something more interesting. Here’s where you should be getting creative, not JUST fleshing out the world
The side quest ranged from okay to pretty uninspired to downright like doing house chores. I really think they can do better with this. I always reference Saints Row 2 when I’m having this discussion. Bc from what I remember that game had some super fun and creative side missions. I dunno, it’s a long time since I played that game so maybe I way off base… but I’d love to see more creative side quests content. Maybe have it led to mini games, fun platforming sections or something. A couple vanilla fetch quests or monster hunts is fine but it felt like it was like that for every single side quest.
After battle exp, items, etc need to display for a couple seconds longer
I hate missing all of that stuff (especially in a battle where the enemy blows up after he dies, and I’m worried about running away so I miss all that!)
Be more creative hiding items, they don’t always have to be in chests.
This ties into what I was saying before about hiding items in places like pots, barrels and bookshelves like they used to do in old school RPG’s. Additionally, I feel like the chests can be hidden even better. They did a better job than in most JRPG’s… but I think they can get even more creative here.
The stacked boxes of power ups, they dont have to be these weird out of place things, be more creative
Same thing here. This was a really big groan for me when I realized they were going to be a regular thing. It takes me right out of the game world to see those everywhere. And they didn’t even try to be creative with them, just these standard size boxes neatly stacked in the corner of every other room. So bizarre and uninspired. They could have made some of them wooden boxes, barrels, pots and pans, stacks of rubble, wood, trash etc
What’s up with all the items you can shit kick around, so weird and takes me out of the game. Literally hilarious and just so bizarre that they would add that in
This is the most head scratching and hilarious complaint of the list. I sut can’t for the life of me understand why they made all of these items so easy to kick around. And for no reason! Other than the moogle mini game where smash the boxes for points, there was basically no use for all of these items in the world. I remember one room where I was literally kicking around a dozen lunch tables and even more chairs (like a cafeteria or something) and I was cry laughing at how ridiculous and pointless it was. They need to do something with that or just remove it from the game because it’s really fucking stupid.
I like the level length, but if they are going to be the same looking rooms and corridors every new area then they need to be shorter. It’s exhausting
Pretty self-explanatory and ties into my corridor complaint earlier. The length of the game is certainly padded by these long corridors and room after room of the same looking environment and more hallways, more rooms, blah blah blah. It really got exhausting in the first half of the game. I will say that it got much better by the end. And Hojo’s mako lab was a big improvement over sections earlier in the game.
Limits are too hard to achieve, I never get to see them
I also changed my mind about this one over time, but still, it’d be nice if they were a little easier to achieve…
Also, again with the battle speed, I never have time to watch the cool attacks and beauty animations bc everything is moving at break neck speed, sloooow down. Maybe allow the rest of the enemies and characters to pause while certain magic and abilities, limits or summons at being used
This one is a real shame. They put all that work into the animations and movements and I almost never got to slow down and appreciate them. I used to loooove watching all that stuff in the original. I’d love if they could pause for limits and summons, at the very least (although, I think it does pause a couple times for summons, like when they enter and leave, but not for any of their attack… boo)
Don’t make me sit there and wait to heal my players (out of battle), just let me use a potion as fast as I need. Yeah, we get it, the animation looks nice but if it affects functionality and fluidity of gameplay it probably needs to go
This bullshit right here. This is so head scratching I can only imagine they completely overlooked it, or they were so proud of their use potion animation that they let it stop me from using potions quickly and efficiently. Holding L1 to use multiple item was a great idea but making me sit there and wait for the animation to finish instead of just letting me use 10 in a row real fast is beyond dumb. They need to speed that up, or just let me do it quickly from the menu like in the original.
Stop slowing me down to a walk (maybe it’s for loading times?) it even happens when an area is not loading
I swear to god this happens at the dumbest times, where it’s not loading something, it’s just slowing my down to a walk and fixing the camera on something, completely forcing me to go one direction agonizingly slooooow. It’s so fucking stupid. Stop taking control away from or spoon feeding me which direction to go. I can figure it out, or at the very least, be creative in getting players to go where you want them to go, don’t force them into a slow ass walk, that is almost never a good idea.
Less pointless jumping/hurdling over things, walking across balance beam segments. It’s weird and slows everything down for no reason (loading?)
Again, maybe this a loading thing in some cases, but there were so many time where your character was jumpin over one steel beam or having to do a balance walk over a strut or whatever, and it felt so cheap and pointless. I can see doing some of that once in a while, but there was so much of it in every level it just bothered me.
Sections like grappling hook, or when Barrett uses his gun to blow rocks up, are not fun because they don’t feel natural, they feel like simulations and point and click, totally not fun and pointless.
This was such a shame because they had the right idea but it was executed poorly. Changin up the gameplay and being creative, like the part where Barrett has to shoot rocks to get through, was a great idea! But then they literally just had you hold triangle. You couldn't even aim the fucking gun arm by yourself, a dream I've had since playing the original in 97, are you kidding me!? You're one opportunity to let players fucking finally go bananas with Barretts gun arm and you fucked it up! Ugh, such a waste. Same thing with the grappling hook. It literally tells you where to point with a big circle arrow thing and then you just press triangle. Like, let me actually aim the grappling hook or the gun arm around, let me use it to get to different sections where you might have a hidden chest. You don’t have to spoon feed me every grappling hook point or which rocks to blowup, I can figure it out, and it’s more fun to give me control of the aim and have to explore the beautiful game world trying to find those points.
Ties into last one, stop giving me button prompts for every little thing, trust the player to be able to figure some of that stuff out
This is mostly a complaint about those little blue arrows every-fucking-where. Whenever there is a ladder, narrow squeeze through point or any kind of a jump it gives you these immersion breaking blue arrows all over it. It would have been so much more fun and given me reason o explore the world if they took those out, or let it be something I can toggle in the menu. I really think removing those would have gone a long way in making the world feel less plastic.
Why does a potion heal 350 HP and cost 50 Gil, while a hi-potion heals 700 HP and costs 300 Gil.
Was this to make it more punishing to use in battle? You lose a ton of hp in many battles, it’s doesn’t make sense to make me just have to buy potions, especially considering it takes so long to use them bc I have to wait for the animation to finish. By the end of the game I was just using Curaga spells and ethers, or I was running all the way back to a bench bc sitting there using potions with the slow ass potion animation took s long, if not longer, than just running a couple rooms back. Maybe it was exactly like this in the original, I can’t remember, but it seems fucking retarded to make buying regular potions more economical, but have it take forever for me to use them (ties into the potion animation complaint form earlier)
Why are enemies so much more powerful than me. There physical attacks hit me for hundreds and hundreds while I’m over here only hitting for 60 or 70 at a time. Sahagin prince for example hair feel insanely over powered. I barely scratch him while one of his attacks does 700 damage
This was a rage complaint while I was in the Shinra combat simulator. I still feel like it’s kind of a valid complaint though. Enemies really get at your HP in this game. Again, I got better as I went through the game, but I still would have appreciated a bit of a nerf on some of the harder enemies like Sahagin Prince (God I hated those fuckers when ever I cmae across them)
Why the fuck is the enemy intel (bestiary) not in alphabetical order. Why make it so hard to find the enemy I’m looking for?
Self-explanatory. This the dumbest shit ever. Put in alphabetical order you morons.
When I switch weapons, just remove all the material from the last weapon I was using, it makes it confusing when I’m looking through my list of materia, even though they are faded out, it still fucks with me
This complaint I went round and round with through out the game. Sometimes I liked that it remembered my materia, so that way if I switched back to that weapon, the materia I had on it would still be equipped and I wouldn’t have to redo it. Except, that by the time I got back to using that other weapon, my materia would be all moved around, or I’d have new materia or I’d have moved it form one char to another. By the end of the game, I just removed all materia from any weapons that any party member wasn’t using. This made it easier to manage in the menu. Still though, I think it could be useful, in certain situations, to have it remember materia for all weapon variants… meh…
On materia set for all screen, leave the list there after I equip something.
The list disappears for some stupid reason and I have to scroll all the way back down to find equip the next piece of materia. Seeing how moving around materia can be strategic and helpful, navigating the menus needs to be easier and more fluid. As it is now, the list disappears and it show a big beautiful orb of materia, which yeah looks nice, but again if it interrupts functionality, there needs to be a change
Don’t give me “platforming” sections where I just make one button press or hold forward in the left stick, be more creative
Self-explanatory. Many of these sections you can literally just hold the left stick forward and get through it. It was a good idea to change up the pace and gameplay, but Square for the love of holy god please stop spoon feeding these sections to us like we are babies. It’s more fun for the player to have to figure these things out.
Stop making me hold triangle for buttons and stuff, it is beyond stupid. Is this another game design thing?
This one I don’t get. Maybe they are loading something, maybe they’ve found players like to hold triangle (lol), I dunno, but it seems pretty dumb. Just have me press triangle and be done with it, no reason to make players wait and hold something.
Stop throwing battles at me that make me change my materia before every fight. The enemies should be similar and have similar abilities. There are times where I’m constantly changing characters and materia be its tedious and annoying (hojo lab part)
This one I’m still on the fence bout. On one hand I love moving materia around and changing my set up to be more strategic, but on the other hand, I hate getting into battle only to realize I need to change my materia all around. So, if I die, I do exactly that, and I go back into the battle and win. But then, the next fight is something wildly different… so again, I have to die first and then go in, change my materia, go back into the battle and then I win. I felt like I had to do that too much in areas where all the enemies should have been similar and I shouldn’t have had to do that. It got really tedious especially toward then end with all the boss battles and various monsters in hojo’s lab/mako lab area.
The conference room scene with all the villains was absolutely perfect
I added this in because I don’t think that scene could have been more perfect.
Well, I don’t imagine anyone is going to actually read all that, but I feel better having bitched and moaned bout all my little gripes. Let me end this book of a post by saying that I loved the game and I feel Square can chalk this up to a victory. But they have a lot of work to do (and let’s not get started on what the hell they are thinking with the story parts towards the end... for the record thoguh, i don't mind it all that much, the rest of the original story is still intact... but yeah the whole changing destiny thing is bizarre, and if you're not seeing the kingdom hearts parallels here then you are not looking very hard... the giant monster itself at the end of the game looked a lot like that giant black monster you see all the time in KH).
You need to hit R3 to actually Lock-on to an enemy. That'll swing the camera behind you and focus on the enemy you're targeting. You can then switch target and the camera will swing to behind you but focus on the next target. I don't recall the game every mentioning that but it's super useful.
Materia loadouts are a huge part of the strategy and you'll need to set roles for your chars then make decisions on whether you want to prioritize more materia slots or defense/magic defense on it. Once I got comfortable with it, I didn't switch too much outside of when characters swapped in and out. If you go for more Materia you'll take more damage and you'll see your limits a bit more. There's also accessories that helps with building limits too
It helps only the fist time, and camera is facing the enemy at that time anyway. If for some reason you turn away, there is no way to snap-turn to the locked enemy again.
It helps only the fist time, and camera is facing the enemy at that time anyway. If for some reason you turn away, there is no way to snap-turn to the locked enemy again.
they need to just keep the camera locked to the enemy, even after switching characters... or something, i dunno but they way the have it now is fucking annoying
It helps only the fist time, and camera is facing the enemy at that time anyway. If for some reason you turn away, there is no way to snap-turn to the locked enemy again.
It's not that - when you're locked on an enemy, you switch targets by turning the right stick left or right. Which, as far as design choices go, is pretty braindead (why in $DEITYs name that isn't D-pad left/right instead).
As for the "Remake"...99% of the game felt amazing. Great battle system, incredible music, made me fall in love with the cast all over again....until the end. Now I just feel so turned off. Nomura Nonsense at it's worst. Square is a shell of their former self. This game proves it.
I've just decided to take that last 1% as them definitively setting up the next few games and making absolutely sure that you know exactly what's coming.
99% of the game is what we expected. 1% was sacrificed to ensure that when you play the next one, you come in with an open mind.
I'm not necessarily afraid for the remaining entries anymore, because aside from that 1%, Square has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're CAPABLE of recreating the magic.
Something that should make you feel better is knowing that the ghosts/fate arbiters are not going to be in Pt.II because we killed them here. The game shouldn't become Kingdom Hearts.....hopefully.
It helps only the fist time, and camera is facing the enemy at that time anyway. If for some reason you turn away, there is no way to snap-turn to the locked enemy again.
they need to just keep the camera locked to the enemy, even after switching characters... or something, i dunno but they way the have it now is fucking annoying
It's not that - when you're locked on an enemy, you switch targets by turning the right stick left or right. Which, as far as design choices go, is pretty braindead (why in $DEITYs name that isn't D-pad left/right instead).
If you lock-on to an enemy and use the d-pad to switch characters, the camera will swing to that character and keep the enemy your locked on in focus. If you're pressing right stick, it changes the target you're focused on. I loaded up the game didn't have any issue with the camera swinging back to the target as I switched characters just now. I can even record some footage if necessary to show this.
