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Final Fantasy VII Remake |OT| - The Reunion is coming

Final Fantasy VII is not just another game for me, its my jam. Its the game I completely lost myself in back as a teenager when week long video store rentals were still a thing. When that came to an end, my quest was to go buy a copy and since that time its been the game thats made the biggest impact in gaming on me with the unforgettable characters and story, its been there for me like an old friend. With a bunch of Final Fantasy VII collectibles, various physical copies, the original game on various consoles/ PC, a full sleeve tattoo complete with Cloud, Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, Bahamut and now my First Class Edition of FFVII R. It feels like I've been waiting forever for this to actually happen.

I've been working my way through hard mode after finishing the story last week. There were so many times this game had my jaw on the floor, parts nostalgia, parts updated visuals, parts soundtrack, parts new additions to the story. The end was a wild ride from that last floor in the Shinra building to the credits rolling, I might add it was all very fun to play through and yes there was a definite Advent Children vibe in parts of the game. It would seem the structure of OG story is very much intact but at the same time, in a generalization of everything, they are telling the story they wanted to tell in 1997 but were limited due to the technology. That being said I'm not sure where the next episode will take us but I am very excited to find out, Square-Enix take the wheel!

Just finished fighting Bahamut tonight, I've been waiting 20ish years after playing the original and this didn't disappoint I love this game!

 
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West Texas CEO

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
Tifa looks good with a beard.

tenor.gif
 

Zephir

Member
Got the Platinum today, loved every single minute of it! The only thing that's missing in my report is the third night encounter in chapter 14, but i can live without it...I'll keep the game installed for a bit, then I'll have to remove it because 500GB are tiiiiiiiiiiight

Big spoilers so only read this if you've cleared the game.


I mean...it was kind of obvious which sephiroth was a illusion and which one was a robbed guy...as for the final boss, I assumed it was just the arbiters of fate taking his form, since they all converge into him at the end, trying to stop the party with a desperate move...and then, the last sephiroth is the closest thing to the real one, buuut I still have questions on that...
 
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Kev Kev

Member
they did such a good job on the characters in this game. and their voice actors sound exactly like i would have expected each character to sound like.

its not just that though. the way they really dig into each character and flesh them out, and make you give a shit about them, is so well done. i was on team "not so good VA" when i first played this game. but after multiple play throughs, using surround sound at first and now headphones, i'm actually really impressed at how good of a job everything flows. there isnt crazy long silences in between dialogue (well, sometimes theres a little bit, but its nothing like other JRPGs).

additionally, i really want to praise the feel of the environments, especially places like wall market and shinra HQ. i've even been playing with the music off just to hear more of the ambient city/people noise, and with headphones it's amazing! i feel like i'm walking through i real, living place. don't just take my word for it. try it out. get the camera real close using the menu setting (set it to 1), turn the music all the way down, go to wall market at night, and just walk (dont run) and get up close to the food trucks, vendors, bars and clubs, hang ot and listen to the conversations and swivel the camera around to get up close to everything, and really take in the environment. it's so cool.

i dunno if im just becoming desensitized to the flaws bc ive been playing the game so much, but the things they did right in this game, they seriously fucking nailed
 
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wzy

Member
I mean, this kind of exposition is pretty common in films and games. It's not totally out of the realm of possibility that a dude would tell you about his friend whose parents youre about to rob.

I don't know what films you're watching but in any medium it's considered a giant no-no to have characters just blurt out exposition, especially another characters' backstory. And anyway, good or bad, it's the definition of telling and not showing.

Another example: In that same sequence, Wedge tells you that Biggs is a worrier. He paces around and stays up all night ruminating about things which could go wrong. Okay, assuming somebody actually wanted to know this, you could just go talk to Biggs and observe him.... worrying, pacing around, and ruminating about all the things that might go wrong on the next mission.

This kind of stuff is supposed to be left as an exercise for the audience. You know that whole thing about art fostering empathy, compassion, and human understanding? The underlying mechanism is that the good stuff will ask you to use your own brain cells to interpret what is happening in the story. FFVIIR is full of end-runs around this process. Barret is constantly explaining his motivations (Ah, you helped Marlene therefore I like you. Oh, you scared Marlene, I don't like you!). The cast practically throws Cloud a surprise party and parade to signal moments of character growth. It's just silly.

I recognize that games have an autism threshold to overcome, that the original pulled this shit nearly as often as the remake does (although it didn't spend quite so much time robbing the player of opportunities to think) and there are good reasons not to rely on voice actors and facial animations to get your point across, but no one is ever going to get anything out of a story told in this manner. It's impossible because the game doesn't ask you to put in anything of your own.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
Lol I read that post and have no idea what the fuck he is talking about

story is perfectly fine. I think people don’t grasp that this is a Japanese language team writing a 40 hour story that is then translated to English.

obviously confessions have to be made to appeal to such a wide audience. obviously the translation itself is going to have an impact. the complaints above are largely just nit picking bullshit
I recognize that games have an autism threshold to overcome
sounds like you need to be less controlling over how you want the story told. try to realize the world isn’t organized around you. that’s the real autism threshold. stories can be straight ahead and not need interpretation and be fine. not every artists needs to give your intellect a blowjob

you seem to be demanding it fit a very narrow form of storytelling and declaring it to be the only good way to tell a story. Lighten up
 
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Nymphae

Banned
I'm in Chapter 14 now and cleaning up sidequests before moving onto Shinra Tower.

Still enjoying the game a ton, but man the sidequests have consistently been a drag for me. Just don't care about half of these newly introduced characters and it all just feels like busy work with very little reward for the troubles.

I'm looking forward to the final chapters though. I like when this game is retelling the original story, I really don't care for the stretched out filler stuff and I find myself being able to see now how they could have stuck closer to the original and kept it a bit tighter.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
i've even been playing with the music off just to hear more of the ambient city/people noise, and with headphones it's amazing! i feel like i'm walking through i real, living place. don't just take my word for it. try it out.
Using surround sound headphones with this game is amazing. I'm using an Astro mixamp with regular headphones to simulate surround sound, and it's crazy accurate with the spatial positioning for the audio. I can close my eyes, run around and rotate the camera, and I can still tell where people are by the sound direction only. It's really great.
 

wzy

Member
They do both. Open your eyes to the showing part. You might appreciate the story more that way.

The one invalidates the other. Look, this really isn't complicated. The rule isn't "show, but also tell". It's "show, don't tell."

Obviously it's only been applicable to storytelling for more than five thousand years of recorded history across cultures spanning every inch of the settled Earth, and I'm sure the dumbfuck director of Kingdom Hearts has his reasons, but don't you think things like subtext, ambiguity, and innuendo are a little more effective when there's not someone tapping you on the shoulder every five minutes to tutorialize every moment of characterization and plot development?
 

wvnative

Member
After complaining about how stupid it is, i've decided to try hard mode.

Anyone got best materia setups and general tips?
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
dunkey has dropped his review


Funny review as usual, but dissing the voice acting? For me, that was easily the best part of this game.
 

wzy

Member
After complaining about how stupid it is, i've decided to try hard mode.

Anyone got best materia setups and general tips?

People have been really gunshy about using their MP from what I've seen online but it's honestly not as bad as it's made out to be. Think of MP like ammo in Resident Evil games: yes, it's a limited resource, but not using it will get you killed. Use your best judgment.

The short version is learn to love Binding materia. It's damage mitigation is incredibly efficient (second only to defensively-slotted Elemental materia), it can be paired with Ward to protect against a lot of the most dangerous attacks in the game, and you can Berserk staggered or helpless enemies for a decent damage steroid. Assess will tell you everything you need to know about how or whether to use Binding in a given encounter.

You can cast Stop on staggered enemies to get an absolutely enormous boost to damage. This isn't necessarily in Normal mode because almost nothing can survive getting staggered in the first place, but on Hard mode it's great for taking out Sweepers and other large enemies before they can recover.

This is also a good time to master using shortcuts if you haven't already. You'll generally be making much quicker moves in Hard mode and some of the potential ability combos (juggling with Maximum Fury, etc.) don't work as well if you use them through the menu.
 

wvnative

Member
People have been really gunshy about using their MP from what I've seen online but it's honestly not as bad as it's made out to be. Think of MP like ammo in Resident Evil games: yes, it's a limited resource, but not using it will get you killed. Use your best judgment.

The short version is learn to love Binding materia. It's damage mitigation is incredibly efficient (second only to defensively-slotted Elemental materia), it can be paired with Ward to protect against a lot of the most dangerous attacks in the game, and you can Berserk staggered or helpless enemies for a decent damage steroid. Assess will tell you everything you need to know about how or whether to use Binding in a given encounter.

You can cast Stop on staggered enemies to get an absolutely enormous boost to damage. This isn't necessarily in Normal mode because almost nothing can survive getting staggered in the first place, but on Hard mode it's great for taking out Sweepers and other large enemies before they can recover.

This is also a good time to master using shortcuts if you haven't already. You'll generally be making much quicker moves in Hard mode and some of the potential ability combos (juggling with Maximum Fury, etc.) don't work as well if you use them through the menu.


Yeah i didn't really use bind on normal much.

Do all weapons for all 4 characters have access to reprieve or only certain ones? That sounds essential based on some googling.

Also do you think elemental is worth attaching an element to on your weapon? Worried about enemies absorbing certain elements and i don't wanna play musical materia if i don't have to.
 

wzy

Member
Yeah i didn't really use bind on normal much.

Do all weapons for all 4 characters have access to reprieve or only certain ones? That sounds essential based on some googling.

Also do you think elemental is worth attaching an element to on your weapon? Worried about enemies absorbing certain elements and i don't wanna play musical materia if i don't have to.

I was trying to avoid that too but for certain sections it's just not very practical, I'm afraid. I much prefer defensive elemental materia, in any case. It's just a much more dramatic, potent effect to be able to absorb enemy attacks for a free heal than to get a typed damage bonus. It depends on your preferred weapon and whether that weapon offers improved elemental damage, I think.

I wouldn't sweat enemies potentially absorbing elemental damage, however. It's a small portion of damage dealt with regular attacks and only a small handful of enemies actually have this ability.

I'm not sure that all weapons offer Reprieve, but I know that they all unlock a new upgrade node when you hit max level, which will happen early on. This node gives every weapon the full compliment of six linked materia slots and usually a second round of Attack and Magic Attack upgrades (which are very important). Only one character really needs to have reprieve though, as long as they have a mastered Revival materia.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
The one invalidates the other. Look, this really isn't complicated. The rule isn't "show, but also tell". It's "show, don't tell."

Obviously it's only been applicable to storytelling for more than five thousand years of recorded history across cultures spanning every inch of the settled Earth, and I'm sure the dumbfuck director of Kingdom Hearts has his reasons, but don't you think things like subtext, ambiguity, and innuendo are a little more effective when there's not someone tapping you on the shoulder every five minutes to tutorialize every moment of characterization and plot development?
I think you are under the impression that dialogue exchange cannot be "show" by definition? That's not correct. It really does apply, especially in a character driven audio visual interactive medium like video games where you choose to interact with characters in order to hear what they have to say. Don't be caught up on the fact that they're describing anything at all. Pay attention to how they are doing it, and its impact on surrounding characters. Also pay attention to the passive audio you hear walking past NPCs as their conversations contribute to the world building as well.

Here's a short and to the point video explaining how this works.

 
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Hi folks, so I've been diggin FF7R for the past few days. And besides many weird texture problems which does bother me my greatest concern is actually the translation.
So I am a nativ polish been raised in germany but like to watch and play many things in english ( german dubs often suck and don't really reflect the characters voice )
My issue is , playing with English Dub and German Subs i've witnessed MASSIV differences in the translations.
So huge entire conversations and the things they say/transmit differ completly. So I am wondering - how can this be? Didn't they talk between each other to make sure every translations at least translates the stuff with the same meaning?

This is really strange and I haven't witnessed such great differences anywhere before in a game.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
After complaining about how stupid it is, i've decided to try hard mode.

Anyone got best materia setups and general tips?
Here:

Be grateful the debuffs even work. In most JRPGS, debuffs are useless on all bosses. You need to use debuffs on this game at the right times. For example, use STOP when the window for pressure is tight or after you stagger.

You have to think more creatively on hard mode. The secret to healing more damage is not taking it in the first pace. DPS is key to killing monsters before they kill you. Counter with Cloud as much as possible. Remember the enemy patterns.

If you need specific builds that will help :

Healer paladin Barret:
Weapon: Big Bertha gun with HP boosts, defense boosts, and healing effectiveness boosts.

Materia: HP up, Chakra, prayer, first attack, atb boost

Accessory : that +healing effectiveness one.

Barret will start with at least one bar ATB. Shoot for about 2 seconds or do one overcharge to fill it up, and then prayer.

Do his skill lifesaver. Some of the others damage will be transferred to Barret. He can tank this way. You can even use stoneskin and barrier to make it even more effective. Don't heal until you're in the red. When you are in the red do one Chakra to heal you almost back to full, because of healing boost on Big Bertha and your accessory.

HP absorb build :

Either Cloud, or Tifa, or Barret with melee weapon, with high magic stat.

Materia : First strike, blocking, magic up, HP absorb + enemy skill materia.


Use the ice aura + spirit siphon and stand in the middle of a bunch of enemies. With the blocking materia you can block all day long and take low damage and gain mad ATB.

Trash mob DPS:

Cloud with hardedge and all damage boosters

Materia: first strike, luck up.

Accessory : fury ring

Immediately spam triple slash at the start of every battle. You'll one shot most of em.

To enhance this, you can give cloud ATB stagger materia and put ice + magnify on another party member. Before you triple slash, use blizzard or blizzara because ice spells put enemies into pressure. If you're strong enough you'll stagger, gain more ATB, then slam whatever you want.


Also, put the bloodsucker skill on your weapons so you regain health every battle.
For the camera to focus on the non-active character:

Go to camera settings, Camera View: Ally Commands - set to "non active characters"

In battle, say Cloud is your current active character. L2/R2 to bring up the ability menu of a non-active character, say Aerith.

Note that the camera will not switch yet.

Hover over a skill that targets an enemy. At that point, the camera will switch to Aerith's perspective while you choose the target of her skill or spell. (Note that you can't do this if you don't have any ATB because you can't do skills without ATB)

Alternatively, you could just switch to Aerith really quick, do the skill really quick, and switch back to Cloud really quick. Both methods should take approximately the same amount of real time.

To your point, I think it would be nice if there was also a way to switch active characters while in bullet time.


Additional battle camera tip - if you're disoriented because of weird lock on behavior, then do this: Slow down time with the ability menu, unlock the target, then freely look around with R3.
Yeah i didn't really use bind on normal much.

Do all weapons for all 4 characters have access to reprieve or only certain ones? That sounds essential based on some googling.

Also do you think elemental is worth attaching an element to on your weapon? Worried about enemies absorbing certain elements and i don't wanna play musical materia if i don't have to.


Equip the elemental. It's +23% damage. That adds up. The odds of you encountering something immune are low. Besides, you've already beat the game once so you should have an idea of what's coming up.
 

wzy

Member
That Enemy Skill + HP Absorb combo is such a waste. You'll get 10x more healing out of Deadly Dodge + HP Absorb, especially with Cloud.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
That Enemy Skill + HP Absorb combo is such a waste. You'll get 10x more healing out of Deadly Dodge + HP Absorb, especially with Cloud.
Not as much (single target) DPS though. It's also suitable if you can't think fast enough in battle to do dodge attacks. Sitting back, chilling and just blocking is EZ.

Different styles for different players.
 
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wzy

Member
Not as much DPS though. It's also suitable if you can't think fast enough in battle to do dodge attacks. Sitting back, chilling and just blocking is EZ.

Different styles for different players.

Yea. I guess there's really only two things to pair HP Absorb with and only two HP Absorb materia so you may as well do both. I doubt many people have seen this, incidentally, but melee Barret has an incredibly good deadly dodge that gives him Hyper Armor and hits multiple times. Maybe Mythril Blade with Enemy Skill and Wrecking Ball with Deadly Dodge could work well.
 
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wzy

Member
I think you are under the impression that dialogue exchange cannot be "show" by definition? That's not correct. It really does apply, especially in a character driven audio visual interactive medium like video games where you choose to interact with characters in order to hear what they have to say. Don't be caught up on the fact that they're describing anything at all. Pay attention to how they are doing it, and its impact on surrounding characters. Also pay attention to the passive audio you hear walking past NPCs as their conversations contribute to the world building as well.

Here's a short and to the point video explaining how this works.



I am paying attention to how they are doing it, which is badly. Come on dude, there is no universe in which Biggs pulling you aside to explain every facet of Jesse's character on the way to a big setpiece fight with giant robots is good writing.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Yea. I guess there's really only two things to pair HP Absorb with and only two HP Absorb materia so you may as well do both. I doubt many people have seen this, incidentally, but melee Barret has an incredibly good deadly dodge that gives him Hyper Armor and hits multiple times. Maybe Mythril Blade with Enemy Skill and Wrecking Ball with Deadly Dodge could work well.
Melee Barret is cool too, and has a lot of good combos (overpower > deadly dodge > uppercut > deadly dodge > repeat etc), but I feel he's redundant with Cloud in the party, and his time to get in melee range is slow. Triple Slash > (switch to Barret) Overcharge > (Switch to Tifa/Aerith) level 1 magnify magic takes care of most trash mobs super fast.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I am paying attention to how they are doing it, which is badly. Come on dude, there is no universe in which Biggs pulling you aside to explain every facet of Jesse's character on the way to a big setpiece fight with giant robots is good writing.
Are you though? It seems like you're ignoring a lot of the other stuff they show you.

If we're talking about Jessie's backstory specifically,

The whole section where you infiltrate her parents' house while overhearing conversation, seeing the facade she puts up for her parents, seeing the memorabilia from her childhood, seeing the situation her dad is in, and then hearing about why her dad is in that situation and how that informs her character motivations, is a fine way to go about elaborating on Jessie's character. Just like how you get hints on Bigg's backstory in chapter 8.

Like the video I posted explains, there are many levels to this. There is dialogue, and then there is dialogue that shows. This game has both, as well as additional elements that aren't dialogue to convey the same information. You're representing that one specific instance as if that's all the game ever gives you.


there is no universe in which Biggs pulling you aside to explain every facet of Jesse's character on the way to a big setpiece fight with giant robots is good writing.

^ that isn't an accurate representation of what's going on, and it also uses the games fantasy elements as some kind of mark against it, which isn't relevant for this kind of game. In a more grounded story, heart to hearts before giant robot fights would be weird. But you can't use that as a mark against a game whose universe is based in techno-fantasy from the start. It's part of the context of this world.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
last question. how many stat ups should i farm for bahumut?
Depends how good you are at combat. It's possible to win without healing.

At least one maxed HP+ for everyone is a good start though. If you want to optimize DPS, you're gonna want to have a mage Aerith with two max MP+ too.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I
I didn't really have a problem with it as a mini game exactly, it's fine, it's just that it was an incredibly simple maneuver that just never seemed to register for me, it was a lot more frustrating than it needed to be.
I think the problem with this game is that it's not clear what the prompt is and exactly what is supposed to be synchronized
 

KrisB

Member
Yeah that lever part was a pain. Felt like my timing was fine but took about 7 or so attempts for it to count it as being successful.

Chapter 16-17 spoilers
Red XIII looks great, seeing him pull down those levers is funny. Pity you can't control him in battles, bit of a strange design decision.

Shinra building and everything in it looks ridiculously good. Haven't noticed any texture issues so that really was just an early sector 7 slums thing.

The Jenova Dreamweaver battle was great. So much effects and things going on but the game doesn't skip a beat. I'm on an original launch OG PS4 and the frame rate always feels solid.
 

TTOOLL

Member
Yeah that lever part was a pain. Felt like my timing was fine but took about 7 or so attempts for it to count it as being successful.

Chapter 16-17 spoilers
Red XIII looks great, seeing him pull down those levers is funny. Pity you can't control him in battles, bit of a strange design decision.

Shinra building and everything in it looks ridiculously good. Haven't noticed any texture issues so that really was just an early sector 7 slums thing.

The Jenova Dreamweaver battle was great. So much effects and things going on but the game doesn't skip a beat. I'm on an original launch OG PS4 and the frame rate always feels solid.

About your spoiler, can you imagine the PS5 in its final year? Crazy shit....
 
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