Final Fantasy Omnibus

[Craig H]

I’m only at the very beginning where Cloud is telling everyone about his connection to Sephiroth, and I guess Tifa’s connection to him, but I’m very confused with the timeline. It starts with what looks like where remake ends, except it’s Zack and Cloud, and that’s not how Remake ends. Then it goes back to 5 years earlier, Cloud on the mission with Sephiroth and Tifa, and then back to present where Cloud is telling the story to the gang, but the beginning of the game makes it look like it’s the present talking about the tornadoes that ripped through, but that happens during the ending of Remake. I’m kinda spinning in circles here, but I’m hoping some of this gets cleared up.

[Contentious C]

Hell, I watched the end of the Rebirth cutscene after...you know, THAT...and it was a bunch of befuddling nonsense.  My guess is it will only get more needlessly confusing once everything is finished.  I'm glad I was only marginally nostalgic about the original in the first place and won't feel compelled to waste hundreds of dollars on their overblown do-over.

[Craig H]

Played it some more and got through the flashback portion to where Nibelheim is on fire. I gotta say, that scene from the original is burned into my brain, but seeing it, ahem, reborn in 4k was pretty fucking cool. So now I’m back in the present day…? I think? And I still have no clue at what point that stuff with Cloud and Zack at the very start is supposed to take place, but my gut feeling is that since Cloud, Sephiroth, and the rest of the gang said fuck whatever the timeline was supposed to be let’s just fuck around and find out at the end of Remake that maybe this Cloud and Zack stuff at the very start is in yet another universe or timeline and given that most folks that reviewed it commented on the ending being confusing, I’m almost wondering if there is something of a Crisis on Infinite Earths thing going on.

But again, I’m just taking some shots in the dark and I’m probably 100% wrong but speculation is fun.

The other thing is, man, I went from being really, really good at combat probably halfway through Remake to getting so good at it that I beat the end without dying, and now I just completely fucking suck at combat. But in the almost 4 years since Remake came out, my muscle memory has gotten used to a whole bunch of different games, which is one reason why I may not get the Elden Ring DLC. As good as I was at that game, there’s no way I could get back to the point where I could beat Malenia or the final two bosses again, much less whatever hard as fuck bosses there DLC will have.

[Casey]

I won’t play this for years (I just now crashed through the church where Aerith is in Remake, so…) but I really hope there’s shit in Rebirth that makes it absolutely certain that it’s a different timeline/universe because my coworker is STILL convinced that the three games are just straight up remakes with some expanding of the story.

I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense - kill Tifa instead or something.

[Chaos]

8 hours ago, Casey said:

I won’t play this for years (I just now crashed through the church where Aerith is in Remake, so…) but I really hope there’s shit in Rebirth that makes it absolutely certain that it’s a different timeline/universe because my coworker is STILL convinced that the three games are just straight up remakes with some expanding of the story.

I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense - kill Tifa instead or something.

I have the Demo installed, but I'm still trying to finish 16 (just not home in front of a console much these days), and then I'll probably jump into FF7 Remake again. I believe my last playthrough had me in Wall Market, which I've heard takes awhile.

I've watched snippets of people playing the game on Twitch, and the game does look stunning. I'm not a huge fan of adding crafting to the game (crafting is just not a gaming feature that excites me), and I am not sure I like the bench HP/MP refills being itemized. 

[Raziel]

The only benches that are itemized are the Chocobo Stops, which only unlock after you catch the region's wild Chocobo.  There are still regular benches that are unlimited use.

So, thoughts 5 hours in:

 

I think the intro is just telling us how fucked the timelines are right now after whatever occured during the ending of Remake.  I loved Remake so I'll just finish this before I say anything about the story.

So I wasted about a hour looking around at stuff before progressing through the first 3 stops post Calm and unlocking the Chocobo and Chadley's stuff, and now the game is wide open and there's a fuckton to do.  I do know that all Chadley's shit is region specific so I'm going to clear it out a region at a time, so it's going to take me a while to get out of teh Grasslands and move onto the Mythril Cave and Junon.  I can see this game taking forever.

I'm ok with the crafting as it seems a cheaper alternative to get stuff (possibly better than store stuff?) given the abundance of materials and how quickly they and other fiends respawn.  I do like how regular stuff are in yellow chests and equipment are purple.  It also looks like the Folio is doubling as Remake's Weapon upgrade stuff, as it looks and acts like the Sphere Grid from 10, which given some other theories and how the Fiends "die", makes a lot of sense depending on how you feel about the "7 and 10 are in the same universe" theory.  I do like the Weapons' unique abilties go quickly.  Also, that non-active party members also get XP and Materia levels as you go, although I'm guessing there's some issue with Synergy if you don't swap around when needed.

[Ramo2653]

Working through my 2nd playthrough on FF16 on Final Fantasy mode. I'll actually platinum the game once I finish it which is rarity for me. Maybe I'll actually play FF7 Remake after. Or I'll be stuck playing 2k24 when it releases.

[Craig H]

Rebirth is fucking incredible. I made it to the grasslands and I’ve spent so much time just exploring, finding mats, and practicing combat against whatever mobs are around. The other thing I’m addicted to is Queens Blood. I could never get into Gwent and so I always skipped it in the Witcher 3 even though that’s the gold standard for in game card games. Queen’s Blood just feels similar, but more accessible and easier to understand. 

If Squeenix decided to put out a standalone Queen’s Blood game in the style of Slay the Spire, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

But yeah, Rebirth is just everything and is really scratching about every gameplay itch I have. I think my one complaint is that with all the systems in the game, like party structure, folios, materia loadouts, and transmuters and crafting, there’s no quick and easy way to access them. I know it’s a dumb first world problem to have, but it’s a pile annoying to always have to go into the start menu find the thing I want to tinker with, go to another menu, and then another. It would be nice to get to that stuff with fewer clicks, but I’m guessing that won’t happen until a pc release.

[odessasteps]

I watched Chugs play the first 10 hours or so on his stream. He was getting nostalgia tears acouple times, esp during the Nibelheim flashback. 
 

he was talking about Sepiroth’s villain arc but I so wanted him to say “heel turn.” 

[Ramo2653]

Finished up my NG+ of FF16 yesterday and got the Platinum in the process for my first PS5 Platinum. I enjoyed the 2nd playthrough and using the different abilities in all sections of the game. Getting the ability points to use different combinations of abilities with the Ikons was fun and my strategy changed a lot over the course of the playthrough based on if I was dealing with a boss/big stagger enemy or waves of lesser enemies. 

[Raziel]

Rebirth continues to be fucking awesome.  I'm about 20 hours in, level 25, done most of the sidequests (man, the Summon Shrines make getting the summons way easier.) and I only now got on the boat to Costa del Sol.  I also finally got the hand of how Synergies and Summons work now, with having to stagger monsters to start the summon timer, and Synergies needing ability use to charge up.  Comes in handy when you're fighting a boss to do massive damage, get a cool affect like unlimited MP or fast ATB charges, and be able to mop up.

If the story stays much the same, I know I have a Jenova fight coming up.  But that's going to be on hold as the boat has a Queen's Blood Tournament going on!

Thing I like about QB is that it gradually introduces you to different card mechanics as you go, so if you're playing as you go, you'll ramp up to.

Shops are mostly useless though, outside of the Folio shops to work on the "Not the Sphere Grid" and the crafting mats at the Chocobo ranches.  

 

I think I made the Junon Parade harder on myself than I needed to, but I'll eventually circle back to that to see if there really was any value to going hardest difficulty.

Edited March 6 by Raziel

[JLSigman]

Final Fantasy XIV will be on XBox on March 21!

 

Edited March 6 by JLSigman
the tweet was deleted then resent

[odessasteps]

I have to desire to play it, but I’ve been watching Chugs stream it. 
 

I loved the fight with the Midgard Serepnt and the immediate aftermath.

and watching the Nibelheim flashback made go back and watch the original on YT. 

[Craig H]

I love Rebirth so much. Right now I’m in Junon. I 100%’d the Grasslands and when the next area was end tunnels, which reminded me of some of the parts of Remake that were a drag, I got pretty bummed thinking Grasslands was going to be the only open world, find all of this stuff, do things in whatever order you want place in the game. And then I got to Junon and was pretty happy that the open world stuff returned there.

Raziel’s words about combat should help because I was getting a little overwhelmed at all of the combat options and not really understanding them or finding a groove like I did in Remake.

The other part that I feel is lacking is, well, the lack of Queen’s Blood opponents. I was probably hoping for too much that Queen’s Blood would be as big and as important here as Gwent was in the Witcher 3, even though I didn’t play any Gwent. I just remember there being a ton of Gwent opponents and high level quests revolving around that game.

The one thing I need to do is break myself away from Tifa and Aerith. They and Cloud were my go to companions in Remake and other than when I was forced to not use any of them, I have only used them. I guess the good thing is that I have yet to cast Prayer once whereas I cast it often in Remake. Aerith also isn’t even a glass cannon. She’s just a glass, uh, nerf gun. I’ve seen others successful dominate fights with her by teleporting all over the place, but I don’t know how that works and her ranged attacks not only hit so softly, but she pulls aggro way more than Cloud or Tifa. I switch over to Aerith to get in a couple shots just to pump up her ATB meter so I can cast a spell. I fire off one shot with her and immediately all enemies stop what they’re doing and swarm on her. But if I don’t do that, then she just sits there basically does fuck all except for casting Cure once every few fights and that’s with having Auto Cast materia on her. 

One last random thing, I’m almost surprised that no one has knocked the game for not changing practically anything with summons especially after they were a high point with 16. At the same time, I appreciate them not really changing things that much because it keeps a sort of gameplay continuity with Remake. It gives me hope that since they basically have a winning formula that we won’t need to wait nearly as long for part 3 as we did for part 2. I still have no clue how big this game is or where it’s going to end, if that end will mirror a part of the original which I think it will, if it will go in a totally new direction, or really where things are headed. I do feel based on cutscenes I’ve experienced and conversations that the characters have had with each other that there really is some kind of Crisis on Infinite FF7s going on here.

I hope this isn’t spoiling much, but outside of the start of the game, for saying that fate and destiny are basically thrown out the window after the end of Remake, this game so far has been almost one for one with the original. More than Remake was. With a lot of games I have a decent idea for where things are going. With this, I really don’t know where it’s going and I like that. For now…

[Raziel]

Jesus tapdancing Christ on a Motorbike, this fucking Cactuar fight.

[Raziel]

So my main complaint about this game is that it's just too fucking big.  I'm past 20 hours and I just finished the main story from the first visit to the Saucer and got the Buggy, and I'm not near done the Corel region and the story has me moving on.  I am hitting some weird scaling areas as I'm level 29 and some regular mobs are deleting me with haste but I'm mostly able to brute force the bosses without much issue.

Once i can find a region fast travel I'm going to roll back and wrap up some earlier stuff and hunt for some Materia I know I missed, because I know I'm not getting the best out of the characters (Craig is right about Aerith being glass until you find the right combo of stuff to turn her into a magic spammer), but for sure the way I built Cloud and Tifa in Remake isn't translating to Rebirth the same, so I'm going to have to do some build research to see if I can clean that up a bit.  I do know that Assessing and exploiting the weakness and stagger is paramount to combat this game, as even shit I know I should be melting is taking a bit.

I also just finally got Cait Sith and between not having figured out Red yet despite 20 hours and a couple boss fights with him, I'm not looking forward to having to learn him too, especially since I HATED using him in OG.

[Craig H]

I’m…45!!! hours in and I’m only on chapter 7. I think I’m at the midway point of chapter 7 though. A friend of mine is playing it too and he’s on chapter 9, but with only 30 hours in. I just keep hunting and hunting for materials and shit to do. It’s very Horizon Zero Dawn in that sense where in that game I spent so much time farming materials and wandering around.

[Casey]

My coworker has logged around 100 hours and he’s at Chapter 9 I believe.

meanwhile I’m slowly playing Remake, at like 10 hours, and I’m halfway through the story already.

[odessasteps]

Watching Chugs play it, it can be a bit frustrating as a viewer to see him smash open every single box and explore every single area of the map. It’s probably something we all do at some extent, but it can be annoying when you are just watching someone do that and constantly play “Materia Tetris” every time you find some and how that just eats up time. 

[Raziel]

I'm hitting the end? maybe of chapter 9 at 40 hours, 5 of which were figuring out that 1 fucking boss fight.  Even trying to builds, Aerith is slow as molassas getting going, but at least I figured out Yuffie is the exact opposite speed wise and it was enough to whittle that boss down finally.  Fuck, if I wanted to spend 20 minutes on a boss fight, I'd play Dark Souls.

 

If I did everything I could do (which is near impossible first time through Corel anyway), I'd be up near 50-55 hours.  

[odessasteps]

Chugs did part 12 of his playthrough yesterday,and usually is 4+ hours a day, so he's prob over 50 hours and only just got to Golden Saucer in part 7. 

[Craig H]

Yuffie is absurdly fast and possibly OP. I think she kind of breaks the game with how powerful she is. You’d think for how fast she is and how hard she hits that she would be a glass cannon and take damage easily, but nope, she eats a lot of damage too. 

I remember playing Remake and figuring out how to play Tifa and thinking something similar, that she’s damn near broken. Yuffie is waaaaay stronger than that. Everything is moving so fast with her that I can barely tell what’s happening.

Meanwhile, I dedicated a lot of time to figuring out what a solid build would be for my group and slotted everyone’s materia, which was then followed by back to back sequences where I’m forced to use specific characters so I had to change things up and then remember how I had it set.

In any event, without YouTube or anything, I decided I would try to figure out how to play Aerith since most YouTube videos I see have titles about her being absolutely nuts with regards to damage. I think I have it figured out. As of wherever I’m at in chapter 7, I finally unlocked her weapon ability for all 4 of the weapons I have for her. I started running around, placing wards, switching back to someone else to pull aggro off of Aerith, then switching back to her. With my wards down, I started doing the thing where I would teleport around, doing double spell damage, letting enemies come up to attack me only for them to be frozen and then teleport away to keep doing all kinds of crazy shit. It’s not…fast. And I don’t think there’s a way to speed it up. With Yuffie, her ATB meter is nearly full after a few seconds. Aerith’s fills up much slower than that. So while I can do some powerful stuff with her, it’s still a little too slow.

 Still having a blast with the game and I did get that one cutscene…

Spoiler

The one with Zack where at the end of it, Aerith’s caretaker says the world is ending. I know others are further than me, but that cutscene just fuels the feeling that this is all happening across multiple universes. One of the things feeding that is that in that cutscene, Aerith’s white material is still white while in the story you’re playing, it has turned clear and was essentially a glass orb. I’m always up for some timeline and multiple universe fuckery so this all has me pretty excited.

 

[Craig H]

One other opinion to make…I don’t see the use in killing that character if they decide to go in that direction. I honestly have no idea if they do or not because I’ve managed to avoid all spoilers for the game. You don’t need this to be 1:1 with the original. I’m sure some hardcore fans will disagree and say that their death is what makes that game, but I never saw that as much in my couple playthrough of FF7.

I keep thinking of the LotR books and trilogy. You didn’t need or have to kill off any of the gang in that. And I don’t really count Sean Bean as being part of that gang. Even Gandolf basically died and was reborn. If you want to keep everyone alive, keep everyone alive. This isn’t a game where I think you need to kill someone off for it to have actual stakes. So if everyone lives, it’s not going to bother me and I sort of hope that happens even though I’m pretty sure that at some point in Rebirth, someone is going to die. It would be fucking hilarious if it was Sephiroth that dies just to really fuck with everyone. If they killed Sephiroth then I would have no idea where this game was going. Shit, figure out a way to pull in Kefka or something wacky like that. It’s their story. Do whatever you want. I doubt you’re going to alienate anyone. More than 1/3 of FF games are not great and yet we all keep coming back. They did an entire trilogy for X, which I think is maybe one of the worst FF games, but I’m pretty sure I’m close to being alone in thinking that.

[odessasteps]

Regarding that cutscene 

Spoiler

Another effin multiverse? I hope not. 

 

[Raziel]

Spoilers about what ya'll talking about

Spoiler

I think it's less multiverse and more timelines collasping in on themselves.  Areith knew something in Remake, and in the aftermath of the Whisper fight it "was taken" from her.  Some stuff happens further down that supports this.  Keep in mind the opening had Zack carrying Cloud and seeing the aftermath of Remake on TV, at least with the bodies of the heroes that we know aren't dead, and Shinra knows aren't dead, but they seemed to be dead.  So I'm still on my theory that Seiphroth figured out how to travel the Lifestream back to prevent Cloud from stopping him, and Aerith figured out how to stop it and it's imploding the Universe.  Still maybe overly complicated, but it's not really  "multi-verse" per say and more Wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff.

I finally got into Chapter 10 (at 45 hours) and Cosmo Canyon and holy shit does it make the slog in Chapter 9 through Gonaga worth it.