Final Fantasy 7 OG/Remake

[Wc707]

Looking at the trophies I have, it looks like I beat Ultima but not Zodiark. I remember the fight being a huge pain in the ass with constant AOE and debuffs that I couldn't react to while still doing damage. Rough fight!

I have absolutely no memory of weapons in that game and how you got them. Knowing me, I probably did whatever was necessary to get the best weapons before going after the high level espers and hunts. But, if any of them were really low drop rates or something maybe not.

Zodiark is a mega pain. He becomes immune at like 10 or 15% health.

A lot of them had low drops rates in the OG, and it was time consuming. Kinda like beating Yiazmat

 

[wankerness]

Zodiark is a mega pain. He becomes immune at like 10 or 15% health.

A lot of them had low drops rates in the OG, and it was time consuming. Kinda like beating Yiazmat

Yeah, looking at trophies, it doesn't look like I beat Yiazmat either. I don't remember if I tried. I know some of the really late hunts were very frustrating and tedious cause you'd have to fight the enemy for ~15 minutes but you had to control positioning, and with how stupid the AI was, you were constantly having to pause the game, tell one of your dumb characters to move to a certain point, and then having to do it again 10 seconds later when they'd already moved themselves back into range of tail swipe or the monster had moved or whatever. It was a great battle system in concept but needed some more kinks worked out of it. I think it was probably just too ambitious for the time it came out in. The Dragon Age games, especially 2 and Inquisition, I think were probably the fully developed version of what they were going for here. You could "program" the AI, or you could control them somewhat manually, but they had the benefit of guys actually staying where you moved them and being able to switch who you were controlling much more quickly.

I remember now, using a guide for doing a bunch of completionist stuff in FFXII, and seeing notes here and there like "if you're playing Zodiac Age, it's here, if you're playing regular, it's [insert something incredibly tedious or nonsensical]." So, I'm guessing grindy RNG stuff is mostly gone from it compared to the original.

 

[Wc707]

Yeah, looking at trophies, it doesn't look like I beat Yiazmat either. I don't remember if I tried. I know some of the really late hunts were very frustrating and tedious cause you'd have to fight the enemy for ~15 minutes but you had to control positioning, and with how stupid the AI was, you were constantly having to pause the game, tell one of your dumb characters to move to a certain point, and then having to do it again 10 seconds later when they'd already moved themselves back into range of tail swipe or the monster had moved or whatever. It was a great battle system in concept but needed some more kinks worked out of it. I think it was probably just too ambitious for the time it came out in. The Dragon Age games, especially 2 and Inquisition, I think were probably the fully developed version of what they were going for here. You could "program" the AI, or you could control them somewhat manually, but they had the benefit of guys actually staying where you moved them and being able to switch who you were controlling much more quickly.

I remember now, using a guide for doing a bunch of completionist stuff in FFXII, and seeing notes here and there like "if you're playing Zodiac Age, it's here, if you're playing regular, it's [insert something incredibly tedious or nonsensical]." So, I'm guessing grindy RNG stuff is mostly gone from it compared to the original.

Yeah it was a very grind-driven game. I never played Dragon Age, but a buddy of mine did. Im a huge Mass Effect fan, and he said it was very similar, but not as good.

Thats kinda nice they may have fixed those issues. Makes it a little more worthy of going back to now.

 

[thebeesknees22]

the dragon age serious has become my most favorite ever. Inquisition really nailed it. Fantastic soundtrack, great characters.

 

[wankerness]

I really like Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition. They aren't perfect games (2 is a bit too small-scale, 3 has too much filler content), and I think Mass Effect 2 and 3 are better, but they have some of the best team-based single-player combat I've ever experienced. They're really impressive with how much micromanagement you can do if you want, and the way you can adjust the camera all over the place for perfect positioning and spell aiming, etc. The spell commands are very similar to the gambit system, if you want to get into the weeds with them. You can also just do everything manually and not mess with it at all. Or you can set the game to easy and just never have to do any micromanagement OR changing of AI programming, and basically play the game as a single player action RPG where you have buddies surrounding you in combat!

The first Dragon Age is the biggest-scale one but I found the specs/classes/combat to be incredibly boring compared to the sequels. It was harder, though, so it required more strategizing mid-combat.

The characters are definitely one of the strongest aspects of 2/3. They're similar to Mass Effect 2 in that the characters are so great that you love spending time with them even though the story is stupid and the zones and enemies aren't always that great. Final Fantasy has never managed to equal these games or Mass Effect in terms of having memorable, developed characters with dialogue that didn't make you cringe non-stop. FFXV tried really hard, but god, the writing was SO bad. Plus everyone was just a guy in black. I like plenty of characters in FF games I've played, but it has always been a problem that they act really forced and unnatural compared to good western rpgs. Plus Final Fantasy plots are always ridiculously convoluted nonsense.

 

[Ralyks]

The reason for the large size for FFVII Remake is supposedly no assets were reused.

 

[wankerness]

The reason for the large size for FFVII Remake is supposedly no assets were reused.

Well, that's one way for them to spin "we didn't feel like spending any time optimizing storage space and decided to just put it all on the consumer." Considering FFXV was NOT one of the better looking games on the system and was mostly a bunch of empty fields and highways yet somehow took up more space than any other game I have besides Borderlands 3 with all the dlc, and the frickin FFXII remaster is 40 gigs when the same game was ~10 gigs on PS2, I'm going with laziness instead of "the graphics are just so amazing and varied that it HAD to be this big!!" Who knows, maybe it will really look great and it will make sense when I play it. I'm just very skeptical. Square has engendered mainly ill will from me ever since I bought FFXV with all the currently existing DLC for a lot and then they released one more piece of DLC, and then suddenly released the ROYAL EDITION just after which you could not buy an upgrade to and had slightly more content, meaning I would have had to either rebuy the whole game and lose my saves or pay MORE for the season pass and the "royal upgrade." Awesome.

This "Haha, the DLC is ps5 exclusive" thing is actually something I didn't see anyone anticipating. People guessed they'd trickle this thing out over decades, constantly making people pay full price for the new chapters, but mid-release DLC being locked to PS5? That seems extra scummy. Though weirdly it doesn't seem like Square really benefits from it unless Sony paid them extra to do it that way, since barely anyone has a PS5 and no one's going to get them besides scalpers for the forseeable future.

 

[Wc707]

I really like Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition. They aren't perfect games (2 is a bit too small-scale, 3 has too much filler content), and I think Mass Effect 2 and 3 are better, but they have some of the best team-based single-player combat I've ever experienced. They're really impressive with how much micromanagement you can do if you want, and the way you can adjust the camera all over the place for perfect positioning and spell aiming, etc. The spell commands are very similar to the gambit system, if you want to get into the weeds with them. You can also just do everything manually and not mess with it at all. Or you can set the game to easy and just never have to do any micromanagement OR changing of AI programming, and basically play the game as a single player action RPG where you have buddies surrounding you in combat!

The first Dragon Age is the biggest-scale one but I found the specs/classes/combat to be incredibly boring compared to the sequels. It was harder, though, so it required more strategizing mid-combat.

The characters are definitely one of the strongest aspects of 2/3. They're similar to Mass Effect 2 in that the characters are so great that you love spending time with them even though the story is stupid and the zones and enemies aren't always that great. Final Fantasy has never managed to equal these games or Mass Effect in terms of having memorable, developed characters with dialogue that didn't make you cringe non-stop. FFXV tried really hard, but god, the writing was SO bad. Plus everyone was just a guy in black. I like plenty of characters in FF games I've played, but it has always been a problem that they act really forced and unnatural compared to good western rpgs. Plus Final Fantasy plots are always ridiculously convoluted nonsense.

Maybe i'll give it a shot if i get bored of FF7R soon.

Dude dont even get me started on FF15!
The story was soooo bad. Its lame how they split up the guys' extra dlc instead of including it into the gamr because you really miss some strong character development.
Noctis is a moron. Lunafreya is an uninspiring martyr.

 

[Wc707]

Well, that's one way for them to spin "we didn't feel like spending any time optimizing storage space and decided to just put it all on the consumer." Considering FFXV was NOT one of the better looking games on the system and was mostly a bunch of empty fields and highways yet somehow took up more space than any other game I have besides Borderlands 3 with all the dlc, and the frickin FFXII remaster is 40 gigs when the same game was ~10 gigs on PS2, I'm going with laziness instead of "the graphics are just so amazing and varied that it HAD to be this big!!" Who knows, maybe it will really look great and it will make sense when I play it. I'm just very skeptical. Square has engendered mainly ill will from me ever since I bought FFXV with all the currently existing DLC for a lot and then they released one more piece of DLC, and then suddenly released the ROYAL EDITION just after which you could not buy an upgrade to and had slightly more content, meaning I would have had to either rebuy the whole game and lose my saves or pay MORE for the season pass and the "royal upgrade." Awesome.

This "Haha, the DLC is ps5 exclusive" thing is actually something I didn't see anyone anticipating. People guessed they'd trickle this thing out over decades, constantly making people pay full price for the new chapters, but mid-release DLC being locked to PS5? That seems extra scummy. Though weirdly it doesn't seem like Square really benefits from it unless Sony paid them extra to do it that way, since barely anyone has a PS5 and no one's going to get them besides scalpers for the forseeable future.

Agreed.
Yeah no one expected the dlc to be ps5 exclusive (even the Aerith should live fanboys haha), let alone a Yuffie DLC thats 20 bucks. Sony really made a shitty move.
I figured theyd trickle as well, but not like this.

 

[Ralyks]

I feel like not reusing assets seems like the opposite of "lazy"...

 

[thebeesknees22]

@Wc707 - I literally just sat down and for a split second thought about popping on FFXV and noped right out of that. So agreed. The story was atrocious. The characters were just annoying all around. I can't even remember if I finally beat it once or not. The whole game was just really forgettable.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

FFXV's story was surprisingly straight forward. Pretty refreshing considering the trainwreck of XIII. Of course it shoots itself in the kneecaps by releasing itself as an unfinished multi media experience. Then finishing the rest of the story as a novel when nobody cared anymore.

I've gone on record as the guy who didn't sing song and praises to FF7R Ep 1 The Phantom Menace. The no assets reused view is fine, and it certainly shows as it's beautifully made and aesthetically pleasing. But it's to the detriment of the gameplay, since the game is so forcefully stretched and padded to breaking point, then stretched and padded some more.

 

[Wc707]

FFXV's story was surprisingly straight forward. Pretty refreshing considering the trainwreck of XIII. Of course it shoots itself in the kneecaps by releasing itself as an unfinished multi media experience. Then finishing the rest of the story as a novel when nobody cared anymore.

I've gone on record as the guy who didn't sing song and praises to FF7R Ep 1 The Phantom Menace. The no assets reused view is fine, and it certainly shows as it's beautifully made and aesthetically pleasing. But it's to the detriment of the gameplay, since the game is so forcefully stretched and padded to breaking point, then stretched and padded some more.

I agree, 13 was rough, but 15 just felt kinda weird, unfinished and forced. It had a lot of potential, but i dont think they executed the storytelling aspect well.

Yeah theyre really milking 7 for everything they can so they can get that money. On one hand, its vile, on another, i love it

I did enjoy seeing Midgar stretched out as it satisfied my childhood imagination of what the OG was like.

 

[diagrammatiks]

I agree, 13 was rough, but 15 just felt kinda weird, unfinished and forced. It had a lot of potential, but i dont think they executed the storytelling aspect well.

Yeah theyre really milking 7 for everything they can so they can get that money. On one hand, its vile, on another, i love it

I did enjoy seeing Midgar stretched out as it satisfied my childhood imagination of what the OG was like.

I think it's funny when people are like 13 sucked because it's a hallway simulator. then ff7r is literally just a hallway simulator.

13 was ok. the character plot and writing was kinda wtf in some places. but the combat system was fun once you could actually use it to fight hard enemies.

10 wasn't fun either until all you were doing was monster challenges. so I'll give both of those a pass.

I didn't get past the first 10 minutes of 15 though.

 

[wankerness]

I feel like not reusing assets seems like the opposite of "lazy"...

Not optimizing things is the lazy part!

FFXV's story is more straightforward than XIII? Sure, if you are willing to watch movies outside of the game and then buy the DLC to fill in the missing chunks of plot! XIII had all the muddiness and confusion with things like constantly using L'cie and Fal'cie and expecting you to know what the heck anyone was talking about, but at least all of the plot was IN THE GAME. I basically gave up on anything in FFXV making sense. Besides that I should buy Cup O Noodles.

 

[Wc707]

I think it's funny when people are like 13 sucked because it's a hallway simulator. then ff7r is literally just a hallway simulator.

13 was ok. the character plot and writing was kinda wtf in some places. but the combat system was fun once you could actually use it to fight hard enemies.

10 wasn't fun either until all you were doing was monster challenges. so I'll give both of those a pass.

I didn't get past the first 10 minutes of 15 though.

The area ff7r covers is a linear part of the game. Its not until you get past midgar does the game really open up. Theres not much they could have done besides going past midgar [which i wouldve been happy with] to really open it up. Besides, lots of the beginning sections of FFs are linear.

10 was a fun game, aside from the laughing...

13 was confusing because they didnt explain jack. Like wankerness said, they just expect you to know the jargon.

I wish theyd just release games as a whole and stop this bullshit.

 

[diagrammatiks]

The area ff7r covers is a linear part of the game. Its not until you get past midgar does the game really open up. Theres not much they could have done besides going past midgar [which i wouldve been happy with] to really open it up. Besides, lots of the beginning sections of FFs are linear.

10 was a fun game, aside from the laughing...

13 was confusing because they didnt explain jack. Like wankerness said, they just expect you to know the jargon.

I wish theyd just release games as a whole and stop this bullshit.

I still have no idea what happened in 13.

 

[wankerness]

I couldn't tell you exactly what happened all the way through any FF game I've finished (6, 9, X, XII, XIII, XV). 6 at least is simple scene-to-scene, it just sort of ends up completely non-memorable thanks to the back half. I remember many specific sequences, but not how they all tied together or what the ending was. 9, X, XII, XIII, XV, I barely remember a thing besides characters.

Their stories are always a giant mess, but they usually at least have memorable characters. I could tell you about characters in many of the games. I mainly just remember 13 went heavy on the jargon and you had to read the in-game glossary if you really wanted to know what they were talking about, while 15 went the extra mile of not even including explanations and expecting you to go to extra-game sources to get chunks of the plot. Or wait for months for DLC to come out explaining what happened in sections of the game. Some of which ended up cancelled, leaving plot holes!! 13 is widely despised, but I really don't think it's that bad. The biggest problem I had with it apart from the jargon was that many of the characters were unlikable, particularly the odious Hope.

 

[thebeesknees22]

6 at least is simple scene-to-scene, it just sort of ends up completely non-memorable thanks to the back half. I remember many specific sequences,

...blasphemy! lol

You take that back! haha

FF6 is one of the all time greatest rpg's ever made! ..granted the World of ruin is a bit of an afterthought story wise though and you can skip 80% of the things to do in it and beat the game.

I played that game so much when i was a kid though, that I used to have almost all the dialogue memorized. ..or most of it anyway. Can't remember much of it now though except for bits here and there.

 

[Wc707]

...blasphemy! lol

You take that back! haha

FF6 is one of the all time greatest rpg's ever made! ..granted the World of ruin is a bit of an afterthought story wise though and you can skip 80% of the things to do in it and beat the game.

I played that game so much when i was a kid though, that I used to have almost all the dialogue memorized. ..or most of it anyway. Can't remember much of it now though except for bits here and there.

Honestly wish they would have remade 6, because Kefka is the ultimate villain. He actually won