Final Fantasy Omnibus

[Eivion]

Finished Chapter 9 last night. That dancing part was both amazing and annoying as fuck. Also Aerith's look of pure glee during all of it was so damn hilarious.

[Raziel]

In getting deeper into builds and replaying through for the alternate path's and watching the story closer, I'm on board with some of the wacky theories, and have started to think this is less FF7 Remake and more FF7-2.

[Eivion]

15 hours ago, Raziel said:

In getting deeper into builds and replaying through for the alternate path's and watching the story closer, I'm on board with some of the wacky theories, and have started to think this is less FF7 Remake and more FF7-2.

I want to hear more about this, but I suspect I should finish the remake first.

[Craig H]

On 5/9/2020 at 11:37 AM, John E. Dynamite said:

I just realized that if they keep remaking FFVII, they're going to have to pronounce Cait Sith.

"Kate" Sith. Right? ...Right?

[John E. Dynamite]

4 hours ago, Craig H said:

"Kate" Sith. Right? ...Right?

"Ket Shee". Probably.

 

[Raziel]

On 5/10/2020 at 1:47 PM, Eivion said:

I want to hear more about this, but I suspect I should finish the remake first.

Yeah, you need the ending before getting into the specifics.

[J.T.]

On ‎5‎/‎12‎/‎2020 at 3:11 PM, John E. Dynamite said:

"Ket Shee". Probably.

That's correct!  When this game was out originally, I was in the private sector and worked with a Scottish guy who gave me dirty looks whenever I butchered the name.

One day out of pure frustration he just yelled out KET SHEE, DAMMIT~!

[Craig H]

I'm up to chapter 8 on FF7 and so far I love it. I think my daughter is up to chapter 9 and she's digging it a lot as well, which is surprising because the combat can be pretty difficult. If I had any gripes it's that the dialogue is kinda shitty at times, but this is also essentially anime so that's to be expected. 

[Eivion]

I'm in Chapter 13 right now. The drop held a lot more weight to me this time around than it did in the original. The changes are also starting to feel a bit more pronounced as well. That or maybe its just been too long since I last played the original.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Eivion

[Red is Dead]

Question from the cheap seats - do you have to have played original polygon FFVII to understand FFVIIR?

[JLSigman]

30 minutes ago, Red is Dead said:

Question from the cheap seats - do you have to have played original polygon FFVII to understand FFVIIR?

No, not really. I'm a few chapters in (my hands have been giving me hell the last couple weeks, can't hold a controller for any length of time) and they are introducing the characters the same way they did in the original. You will be just as confused/intrigued as those of us who first played the old version without spoilers.  

[Matt D]

51 minutes ago, JLSigman said:

No, not really. I'm a few chapters in (my hands have been giving me hell the last couple weeks, can't hold a controller for any length of time) and they are introducing the characters the same way they did in the original. You will be just as confused/intrigued as those of us who first played the old version without spoilers.  

Just with years of wait to figure out what's going on.

Though, to be fair, I played it as a teenager and I don't think I really figured out what was going on until I replayed it in the 00s.

[Raziel]

1 hour ago, Red is Dead said:

Question from the cheap seats - do you have to have played original polygon FFVII to understand FFVIIR?

No, although some of the bigger reveals won't have the impact if you're not familiar with the Compilation.  And not come close to understanding half the theories about the storyline.

[Craig H]

I think @Raziel said it, but I do tend to agree that there's way too much Materia in the game or that it's too easy to obtain. I'm still on chapter 8, I just beat Shiva in the VR training to get her summon Materia, and along with that I got 4 more Materia from that kid. I have so much Materia that I know I'll never use. Even worse, it takes so long to level up Materia and there's no real grinding in this game like there was in FF7 and so 75% to 80% of all of this Materia will never get higher than level 1. Part of that is also a lack of diversity to who and what you're fighting. I almost always use Fire, Lightning, Assess, and Cure Materia. That's it. I'll see multiple enemies that are weak against Wind and Ice Materia, but Fire and Lightning still fuck them up pretty bad.

I'm also nearly at the halfway point so maybe that will change for the other half of the game. So far though, there's Materia everywhere. 

EDIT: I think it would have been better to limit the amount of Materia available and just keep the leveling at the same speed or keep the abundance of Materia the same and increase how fast you can level it up.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Craig H

[Raziel]

The higher it levels, the slower it goes.  However, by the end of the game, I had Lightning, Cure, and Fire maxed.  And while you can get a ton of the green and pink materias, Yellow and Blue are rarer and the really helpful stuff, like the Absorbs and Elementals, and Enhance, are pretty much only 1 or 2, period (can't grind chapter playthroughs).  

However, maxed Materia and different builds are necessary for Hard mode.  I got the team up to Level 42 and haven't found the fight builds to beat Bahamut yet.  They kinda built the system for endgame and replays, as you can't get deep into character builds until later.  And I'm still not sure how it's going to carry over to Part 2 yet (Yuffie stealing everything is a cop out, but taking a maxxed Level 50 team into the next game would be serious overkill since Cloud can get to Max damage.)

[Craig H]

Eh, I doubt I play this on Hard mode. Honestly, Normal is hard enough. My daughter played this first because it was her game for her birthday and she was getting her ass kicked very, very early on. Some of that is because of the learning curve, but it's not like she's terrible at video games. She's good enough at Celeste, which requires a ton of quick button presses in a precise amount of time, and she's on her second playthough of Breath of the Wild, which can be as brutal as Dark Souls at times. I still thought that maybe it's because she's 10 and she's just not that good at video games yet or whatever.

And then I played it and was surprised at how many times after basic fights against lowly Shinra enemies or other lowly creatures that my health would be at half. Potions are extremely abundant though (I don't think I've had less than 30 potions and I'm probably at 50 potions at 20 hi-potions right now) so you can always heal, but the power level of enemies and how much some enemies are damage sponges is pretty crazy. Given that, I can't imagine how difficult hard mode would be.

[Craig H]

Someone answer this question for me. I swear I recall that Tifa was very attitude-y and was pretty hard nosed in FF7. In remake she's really sweet and kind. Am I confusing Tifa with someone else or am I just conflating personalities from across the multiple FF games I've played? I mean, it could be the latter, but I'm almost positive Tifa wasn't sweet at all in the original FF7.

Oh, one last gripe: I think I prefer Cloud as a silent protagonist. He is such a little punk ass bitch throughout this entire game so far. I really, really don't like him and I almost want to see him get run through by Masamune than someone else. I don't even think he was like this in Advent Children. Personally, I think they fucked up the tone of Cloud and that comes to a head when he's just a complete piece of shit to the kids in the slums of Sector 5. I sat there wondering what the fuck his problem was. It was as bad when he was at Aerith's house. Aerith's mom should have bitch slapped him.

[Raziel]

Hard mode has no item use, and benches don't restore MP, so yeah.  It's hard (The Scorpion Bot still kicks my ass)

You might be conflating things.  Tifa was this nice in OG.  Cloud is pretty much the same as he was in the Original, and he was worse in Advent Children.  And to be fair, there's a pretty good reason he's cold to everyone.

 

I mean, he *is* a clone of Sephiroth with 2 other personalities and sets of memories imprinted over that all in conflict with each other, plus in this game add in Sephiroth and Aerith's uncanny foreknowledge pulling him way more actively than it was in the original...

 

Edited May 18, 2020 by Raziel

[Eivion]

Yeah Tifa was always a generally nice person, and Cloud was always a bit rough. I do think something about the voice acting here makes him come off a little worse than he should. That said not sure what he did to piss anyone off at Aerith's house. Its the mom who comes across rather poorly to me. He wasn't particularly mean tot he Sector 5 kids either save for maybe one moment.

Glad to see I'm not the only one bothered by the ridiculous amount of materia provided. Its actually annoying just because of how overwhelming it can be. Has to be at least 3 times the amount yo found in the Midgar section of the original game.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Eivion

[Craig H]

Cloud always sounds like he's rolling his eyes when talking to the kids almost like he'd rather they be dead. His response, even to kids with no money, is "I have a price." And when he could do something for free he, he still winds up charging 3 gil. He couldn't be bothered to find that little girls cats and then when the girl actually rewards him he doesn't say shit. He's a dick to Mog when they first meet and is almost a bully in the way he talks to Mog. Cloud says something like, "Oh yeah? You gonna use your 'magic' for that?" Again, he can't be bothered to just be pleasant. Everyone is a bother to him even when he's getting rewarded pretty handsomely. Also, if he doesn't want to help, then don't help. No one is forcing him to help Avalanche or those kids or whatever. 

A lot of this too is the voice actor for him. The voice acting just makes Cloud look like a little bitch. Everyone else so far is fine in the context of this is how characters in anime sound.

[The Natural]

 

[Craig H]

Dammit, I fucked myself over on this. It wasn't until chapter 14 that I learned on the map screen that hitting R2 would bring up ALL of the quests throughout the game. I had been trying to do every single side quest to get a trophy for that. I learned that my first time through Wall Market I missed out on 2 quests and failed another.

And then while bored at work today I decided to check to see if any other Elemental materia was available and there is...but only if you complete every single side quest from the start of the game up through chapter 14. So that sucks.

I'm also at Chapter 16 now and my Elemental materia is still at level 1. For whatever reason it's taking forever to level up.

It kinda sucks that I'm so close to the end and part 2 of this is probably going to be another two years away. While it definitely feels like there's a lot of filler in this, I loved what I've played so far. Getting to the end of this game is really going to hammer home everything that is still left out there to cover. It's incredible this has all been just Midgar. There's going to be so much more to cover and I wonder how many parts this will have. 

[Raziel]

You actually can't complete all the sidequests your first time through, Chapter 14 has 2 sets of sidequests that trigger on one event.  But if you're in Chapter 16, there's a good place coming up to grind some AP.

[Craig H]

That's good to know. I found that the arena in Wall Market was a really good place for grinding EXP and AP. It quickly allowed me to master all of my weapons abilities to get the Skill Master materia from Chadley. It was also really easy on Normal mode. I think the worst part was just using the nail bat for Cloud or the claw for Barrett. I probably should have kept doing that arena to level up the 12 magic materia types, but I got bored and wanted to move in.

[Craig H]

Finished FF7R on normal mode and I don't think I'm going to go back and do a hard mode run. The game is seriously fantastic aside from a couple issues I had with the end game. Also, maybe it was just me, but I never felt underleveled and none of the fights were hard aside from my first time through fighting Leviathan. The Hell House that got mentioned earlier was incredibly easy. I beat that my first time through because I had a bio materia equipped. Poison spells on the house annihilate it. Leviathan was hard the first time because I'm trying to hack and slash with Cloud. Doing the Assess on it and seeing it's vulnerable to lightning attacks made me figure, ok, just give Barrett the elemental and lightning materias, along with some other beefy stuff, while Cloud and Tifa buff my health, heal, revive, and put barrier on me. After that you simply just shoot the thing down.

The rest of the game was very easy. I would have liked to have had a chance to set materia for everyone AFTER going through the portal at the very end. It just looked like only Cloud would be going through, so I had him stacked full of materia and everyone else had empty slots. That didn't even matter though. I wound up plowing through all of the end game bosses.

The ending is a major WTF. I still keep thinking about it all with how meta it got. On the one hand I'm super bummed because I really, really just wanted to play a remake of FF7. This isn't a remake of FF7. This may as well be Crisis on Infinite FF7s, which is also pretty cool. Where I get concerned is that this storyline they've setup seems overly ambitious for them to successfully pull off and have it make sense. I'm fully preparing myself for there to be no follow up to Sephiroth's 7 seconds comment, and even for some of the wilder shit you see in the closing cinematics to not be followed up on, like...

Spoiler

Zack Fair being alive now

I hope they do pull it off and don't just do some bullshit anime crap and hand wave everything away to instead just have some cool cutscenes to get people talking.