Gaming Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4, PS5) | Put discussion of chapters etc in labelled spoilers as people will be at different points

amolbhatia50k

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I've been trying to play this on and off for about two months now, it's a struggle to be honest. This is not a good game and I'm baffled why it's considered that by a lot of people. It's been nothing but corridors of unappealing browns and greys, filled almost exclusively with mindless padding. I'm not just talking about side quests, which are inane, but normal progression stuff.

Just now I've had a couple of sequences where I had to move around agonizingly slow mechanical hands to proceed. Seriously, it felt like it took ages. This in the middle of another long, boring corridor section. Who on earth thinks this is even a mildly enjoyable activity? Yeah sure there's the nostalgia factor and seeing these characters interact in 2021 is great, like a childhood dream come true, but the actual game around it isn't any better than FF XIII in my opinion. Before I played it, I feared that the only way to create an entire, lengthy game from the Midgar section was to include staggering amounts of filler. Imagine my lack of surprise when that's exactly what this is.

It's a massive shame because I do enjoy the story moments and big set-pieces. For that reason alone I'm going to keep playing this for as long as I can stomach it but, man, I seriously don't understand how anyone can consider this a good game.
I'm quite disappointed by FF7. As a disclaimer, I've grown to be a pretty finicky gamer. If I actually complete a game from start to finish, it means I genuinely loved it. In most cases though, the moment I lose interest, and it starts feeling like a drag, I put the game down and just read/watch the ending. As a second disclaimer I do not enjoy turned based combat however Persona 5 somehow made it fun for me.

Now back to FF7, I was actually enjoying the game up to the 20 or so hour mark. The game looks superb, the combat was alright and the storytelling/dialogue was very well done. Until that point, I was conveniently side stepping the truly horrendous side quests. But the longer my game time grew the more any patience I had in me for the game mechanics due to sheer novelty factor slowly died. The whole loop of enter corridor fight three creatures via turn based combat rise and repeat was too much for me to take. And there's shitloads of such sections in the game just like that. Then the whole entertainment market wall Street thing and the dancing was vomit inducing. After that I was pretty much done with it. The story which seemed pretty tightly woven at the start was now falling apart at the seems completely with completely unnecessary and cringeworthy detours.

All in all, I'm surprised this got the ratings it did. In terms of packaging, visuals and all it's excellent. But as a video game as you rightly say it's got enormous holes. For me I'd rate it a lot higher if it were half the length. I was done by that point and another 10 hours of that would have been torture to be honest. I'd also add that I finished Remnant and nearly finished Subnautica after I started FF7 which says something too. Finally, I did watch the cutscenes to see where the story goes and it's really all over the place.
 

fellwin

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So will level and gear transfer through the different parts of the remake? (save game transfer I guess)
 

fellwin

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I think they mean something like Golden Sun, where your existing setup could transfer to the sequel.

So in FFVII:R's case, the gear and levels from your save file would transfer from Part 1 to Part 2, but I doubt they'll do it like that.
Indeed as Damien described it.

Thats too bad, I feel a better connection when its the same char that you keep and such that extra work done will benefit later. I guess it would make it very hard to balance the start of next part if some are new to the game and some have plat the first part.
 

Ainu

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That explains it. Maybe get that before part 2 of the remake comes out.
That doesn't make sense. A game isn't going to drag less (in their opinion) just because they played the legacy title it's based on. The original didn't drag, this does. I've played through the original several times and had a serious nostalgia trip during the remake, but that didn't stop me from feeling the remake has a ton of filler.
 

esmufc07

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That doesn't make sense. A game isn't going to drag less (in their opinion) just because they played the legacy title it's based on. The original didn't drag, this does. I've played through the original several times and had a serious nostalgia trip during the remake, but that didn't stop me from feeling the remake has a ton of filler.
It certainly had too much filler but I still enjoyed the game as a whole. I’m hoping there’ll be less filler in part 2 as they have so much to explore and I don’t think there’d be a need for it. They kind of boxed themselves in with Part 1 just making up the Midgar section.
 

Ainu

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It certainly had too much filler but I still enjoyed the game as a whole. I’m hoping there’ll be less filler in part 2 as they have so much to explore and I don’t think there’d be a need for it. They kind of boxed themselves in with Part 1 just making up the Midgar section.
Honestly, I don't believe they're ever going to finish this project, unless they cut entire sections of the original, and even then I'm sceptical that it's going to happen in the PS5/Series X|S era. They've given themselves an impossible task after the Midgar game.
 

Adcuth

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That doesn't make sense. A game isn't going to drag less (in their opinion) just because they played the legacy title it's based on. The original didn't drag, this does. I've played through the original several times and had a serious nostalgia trip during the remake, but that didn't stop me from feeling the remake has a ton of filler.
Filler as in all of the side missions? Simple way around that, play through it just following the story and then if you feel the need. Play it again and do the side missions as you see fit.
 

Ainu

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Filler as in all of the side missions? Simple way around that, play through it just following the story and then if you feel the need. Play it again and do the side missions as you see fit.
No, I've stated in before in this thread, it's not even related to side missions. A lot of the world design is long, drab corridor style progression. It's often painfully slow, like that part with the mechanical hands or the trainyard stuff. In the original, these sections are fairly minor. A couple of random battles per screen and you're through. The remake made all of that stuff so much longer but not a whole lot more interesting.

The mandatory motorcycle sections are another example. It was not interesting or fun in the original but it was fairly short and there was only 1 mandatory section. In the remake these sections are just as bad, but now there are two of them and they are just mind numbingly long and tedious.
 

Adcuth

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But I don't want to. The remakes should be sufficient given they're remakes.
But you don't know what they're remaking and why. The whole reason it is being remade is because of how good the original was. Also the remake isn't exactly how the original story went
 

amolbhatia50k

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But you don't know what they're remaking and why. The whole reason it is being remade is because of how good the original was. Also the remake isn't exactly how the original story went
I should know what they're remaking through the remake. And that's not my problem if they haven't stuck to the original. I have no interest in the original.
 

Desert Eagle

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It's what happens when you drag 5 hours of the original into a full 30 plus hour remake. They did it well it some parts and lots of filler in others. Part of the greatness of the original was its scale and epicness. Cosmo canyon and gold saucer, junon and wutai, the weapons. You don't really get that in just Midgar.
 

Woodzy

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The problem for me is not the length of Midgar section on the remake itself - I personally think the game was great and enjoyed it start to finish.

The problem is going to be how they fit in the rest of the game relative to what they delivered for the Midgar section without it being underwhelming in comparison, changing the direction of the game too much in order to avoid having to remake the remaining content from the original or actually getting it all finished.
 

afrocentricity

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Whole game for Golden Saucer or part of one (like Wall Market)?
 

Desert Eagle

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The problem for me is not the length of Midgar section on the remake itself - I personally think the game was great and enjoyed it start to finish.

The problem is going to be how they fit in the rest of the game relative to what they delivered for the Midgar section without it being underwhelming in comparison
, changing the direction of the game too much in order to avoid having to remake the remaining content from the original or actually getting it all finished.
Great point. I enjoyed the remake too apart from some stuff near the ending. It's a beautiful solid game but the original is in the goat debate and that gap seemed big and possibly about to get bigger.
 

AaronRedDevil

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I actually just bought the original on sale and I’m currently playing it for the first time. I’m very surprised how fast the remake section was actually short enough. Got to the section collapse in 2 hours and there wasn’t an annoying train graveyard part. Just one little level. Now I’m seeing the remake really dragged the arse out of some parts. The remake definetly improved on the characters and a lot of other things. But considering how long it took for it to come out and the unnecessary added storylines and levels. They could finish this whole game sooner, had they just did the remake exactly the way the game was laid out.

Just on part 2 now and I’m after that “death” part. The fact that this was a PS1 game. Just wow. Now I see why people say this is the best PS1 game.
 

Ainu

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Whole game for Golden Saucer or part of one (like Wall Market)?
What? Why would Gold Saucer get its own entire game? :lol: Might be an unpopular opinion, not sure, but I've always sort of hated Gold Saucer. I never did more than the absolute minimum (chocobo races and that battle grounds stuff) there, most of those mini games are simply dreadful in my opinion.
 

afrocentricity

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What? Why would Gold Saucer get its own entire game? :lol: Might be an unpopular opinion, not sure, but I've always sort of hated Gold Saucer. I never did more than the absolute minimum (chocobo races and that battle grounds stuff) there, most of those mini games are simply dreadful in my opinion.
I loved it and I probably play literally everything when I'm there. So on that basis I hope it's massively expanded. Sorry not sorry.