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RPGs are my love, but I love a good action, fighting, puzzle game too. Platformers were my childhood.
RPGs are my love, but I love a good action, fighting, puzzle game too. Platformers were my childhood.
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This game goes a lot harder than it has any reason to.
I am a pretty big fan of the Prince of Persia series. I had played Sands of Time and thought it was a pretty great game, but one day during my adolescence I had a fever dream about the 2008 game (it had the music from Sigur Rós that played in the commercial and everything). That one dream sent me off on a path of playing every Prince of Persia game that came out post Sands of Time, save for some spin offs. I enjoyed most of what I played, but those are all far gone memories now and I can't say where I'd stand on them now.
One thing I know for sure though? This is the best Prince of Persia game since Sands of Time.
THIS is how you take something back to its roots while adding to it in a meaningful way. The OG Prince of Persia games were difficult platformers with very touchy combat. This game is a difficult platformer with very solid combat. It adopts many Metroidvania elements, such as gaining power-ups that aid progression and encourage backtracking to find new discoveries. Each upgrade felt satisfying, and by the time you reach the end you'll wonder how you lived without any of them.
The combat itself is simple, but also has enough depth to really keep you going. You really can just mash your way through a lot of enemies, but you are also rewarded for learning how to extend combos. Though sadly, most bosses won't be affected by it.
After the passing of Akira Toriyama, the Ubisoft twitter posted about how this game's art and style was inspired by Dragon Ball Z. I was surprised, but it only made me more curious about this game. Once you reach a certain point, you'll realize just how true that statement was. Unlike the previous stories in the Prince of Persia series, this world has more emphasis on a connection to the gods and powers that enhance the characters. The original Prince in Sands of Time was a simple sword-fighter who also had time powers. Sargon is the same, but with Ashra energy. This is equivalent to Dragon Ball's Ki, in that it enables characters to do all kinds of crazy techniques. These are manifest in the Ashra Surges that you can use in combat. Not only are they over the top, but the animations go extra hard. These Ashra Surges, parry animations, and a lot of cutscenes in general go raw. You can tell they put work into making the action LOOK cool, and it really sold a lot of the fights for me. So much so that if I missed a parry animation on a boss, I would get frustrated because I wanted to see how it looked in that specific fight.
The story is good enough to keep you going as well, and it's a great length at around 20 hours to earn the Platinum. The characters of the Immortals themselves were all pretty great (and their entrance was really cool too).
All in all, if this is the future of the series, I'm all for it.
I am a pretty big fan of the Prince of Persia series. I had played Sands of Time and thought it was a pretty great game, but one day during my adolescence I had a fever dream about the 2008 game (it had the music from Sigur Rós that played in the commercial and everything). That one dream sent me off on a path of playing every Prince of Persia game that came out post Sands of Time, save for some spin offs. I enjoyed most of what I played, but those are all far gone memories now and I can't say where I'd stand on them now.
One thing I know for sure though? This is the best Prince of Persia game since Sands of Time.
THIS is how you take something back to its roots while adding to it in a meaningful way. The OG Prince of Persia games were difficult platformers with very touchy combat. This game is a difficult platformer with very solid combat. It adopts many Metroidvania elements, such as gaining power-ups that aid progression and encourage backtracking to find new discoveries. Each upgrade felt satisfying, and by the time you reach the end you'll wonder how you lived without any of them.
The combat itself is simple, but also has enough depth to really keep you going. You really can just mash your way through a lot of enemies, but you are also rewarded for learning how to extend combos. Though sadly, most bosses won't be affected by it.
After the passing of Akira Toriyama, the Ubisoft twitter posted about how this game's art and style was inspired by Dragon Ball Z. I was surprised, but it only made me more curious about this game. Once you reach a certain point, you'll realize just how true that statement was. Unlike the previous stories in the Prince of Persia series, this world has more emphasis on a connection to the gods and powers that enhance the characters. The original Prince in Sands of Time was a simple sword-fighter who also had time powers. Sargon is the same, but with Ashra energy. This is equivalent to Dragon Ball's Ki, in that it enables characters to do all kinds of crazy techniques. These are manifest in the Ashra Surges that you can use in combat. Not only are they over the top, but the animations go extra hard. These Ashra Surges, parry animations, and a lot of cutscenes in general go raw. You can tell they put work into making the action LOOK cool, and it really sold a lot of the fights for me. So much so that if I missed a parry animation on a boss, I would get frustrated because I wanted to see how it looked in that specific fight.
The story is good enough to keep you going as well, and it's a great length at around 20 hours to earn the Platinum. The characters of the Immortals themselves were all pretty great (and their entrance was really cool too).
All in all, if this is the future of the series, I'm all for it.
This is mostly what I would've wanted from a sequel to Dragon's Dogma. I'll never forget being in high school and playing the demo for it. It is probably the most I've ever played a demo, and it was barely 20 minutes long. I'm a huge fan of the first game, and am a part of its cult following that it has gained over the years. I got the Platinum Trophy for it a few months ago in preparation for this sequel.
Before I talk about the game though, I will say I was very upset by the dishonest, knee-jerk reaction a lot of people had to this game's microtransactions. No, the game doesn't lock fast travel behind a paywall. No, the game does not keep your character in jail if you don't buy the goal keys. Everything is obtainable inn ready supply just by playing the game normally. You wouldn't even know there are microtransactions unless you searched the game's store page. I usually don't get too involved with this kind of controversey, but this title is near and dear to my heart and I couldn't stand seeing people be so wrong.
The actual game itself is fire. A lot of people use the word "friction" to describe many of the game's elements. Combat feels rough, but that makes it all the more satisfying. I played as a fighter class mainly, switching to Warrior and Mystic Spearhand throughout my playthrough. One thing that I felt more in this game than the first was how important it was to avoid being staggered. It works similar to the first one, but in this the enemies are much more aggressive. One bad hit will lead to you being combo'd by a whole group. It really changes how you approach a lot of situations. In the first game, I never really played any of the magic or rogue type classes, so I was never too vulnerable to stagger and I almost always had a shield on hand. Even with a shield in this game I felt myself being cautious when surrounded. It is a small change that alters the entire way you go about combat. Any time you stunned an enemy, the heavy finisher felt so satisfying, especially on boss monsters. And I found a lot of joy in pinning or grabbing smaller enemies and tossing them around. I also had a lot of fun pushing big monsters down when they were off balance. Nothing will make you feel more bad ass than stabbing a dragon in the heart!
The other bits of friction involve things like limited fast travel and lack of guidance in many situations. The fast travel system is much the same as the first game, ferrystones are needed if you want to travel to a Portcrystal and both are in limited supply (early on). Since this game's map is much bigger, ox carts are provided to travel to very specific areas at a low cost. The director was right though in that making a world fun to explore takes away the need to have fast travel... To an extent. It was fun to go around fighting monsters, exploring caves and finding treasure. But by the time you reach the post-game, you're gonna be traveling back and forth across the world for certain missions. And at that point, you're gonna only want to use fast travel if you don't want it to take forever! Some sidequests could feel a bit frustrating though, as the game never really tells you what to do in certain situations. You either have to think logically, or search REALLY hard for a solution. There were a few instances where I gave up and looked online. I wouldn't consider this cheating too much since if you recruit a pawn that has knowledge of the quest, they'll usually give the the guidance you need. Speaking of...
The pawn system is back and it is still a great and unique system that unites players indirectly. The AI is sharper, and more helpful in many situations than in the first game. Though, I wish that the inclinations had more options. Maybe I missed them, but the one I used for my main pawn, the Logistician, was very handy in sorting inventory and automatically fusing items for me.
One thing I felt was very lacking compared to the first game was the enemy variety. I find it pretty disappointing. The original game has just about ALL of the enemy types you find in this game, PLUS several boss monsters that simply didn't make a return in this game. It's pretty disappointing, but at the very least there's huge DLC potential for that so here's hoping they deliver. Dark Arisen was a fantastic, challenging, almost-sadistic expansion to the original. I'm hopeful they'll deliver again with however they expand on this game.
The story is very much what one could expect if they played the first game. The original DD answered basically all the questions about the Arisen and the cycle with the Dragon and what Pawns are. They could only tell a new story and include some new things to shake things up. And judging from what people have talked about online... The ending to this game changes severely depending on choices made. I look forward to my next playthrough.
Though I do give this a 4/5, just know it's one of the best 4/5 games you'll ever play!
Before I talk about the game though, I will say I was very upset by the dishonest, knee-jerk reaction a lot of people had to this game's microtransactions. No, the game doesn't lock fast travel behind a paywall. No, the game does not keep your character in jail if you don't buy the goal keys. Everything is obtainable inn ready supply just by playing the game normally. You wouldn't even know there are microtransactions unless you searched the game's store page. I usually don't get too involved with this kind of controversey, but this title is near and dear to my heart and I couldn't stand seeing people be so wrong.
The actual game itself is fire. A lot of people use the word "friction" to describe many of the game's elements. Combat feels rough, but that makes it all the more satisfying. I played as a fighter class mainly, switching to Warrior and Mystic Spearhand throughout my playthrough. One thing that I felt more in this game than the first was how important it was to avoid being staggered. It works similar to the first one, but in this the enemies are much more aggressive. One bad hit will lead to you being combo'd by a whole group. It really changes how you approach a lot of situations. In the first game, I never really played any of the magic or rogue type classes, so I was never too vulnerable to stagger and I almost always had a shield on hand. Even with a shield in this game I felt myself being cautious when surrounded. It is a small change that alters the entire way you go about combat. Any time you stunned an enemy, the heavy finisher felt so satisfying, especially on boss monsters. And I found a lot of joy in pinning or grabbing smaller enemies and tossing them around. I also had a lot of fun pushing big monsters down when they were off balance. Nothing will make you feel more bad ass than stabbing a dragon in the heart!
The other bits of friction involve things like limited fast travel and lack of guidance in many situations. The fast travel system is much the same as the first game, ferrystones are needed if you want to travel to a Portcrystal and both are in limited supply (early on). Since this game's map is much bigger, ox carts are provided to travel to very specific areas at a low cost. The director was right though in that making a world fun to explore takes away the need to have fast travel... To an extent. It was fun to go around fighting monsters, exploring caves and finding treasure. But by the time you reach the post-game, you're gonna be traveling back and forth across the world for certain missions. And at that point, you're gonna only want to use fast travel if you don't want it to take forever! Some sidequests could feel a bit frustrating though, as the game never really tells you what to do in certain situations. You either have to think logically, or search REALLY hard for a solution. There were a few instances where I gave up and looked online. I wouldn't consider this cheating too much since if you recruit a pawn that has knowledge of the quest, they'll usually give the the guidance you need. Speaking of...
The pawn system is back and it is still a great and unique system that unites players indirectly. The AI is sharper, and more helpful in many situations than in the first game. Though, I wish that the inclinations had more options. Maybe I missed them, but the one I used for my main pawn, the Logistician, was very handy in sorting inventory and automatically fusing items for me.
One thing I felt was very lacking compared to the first game was the enemy variety. I find it pretty disappointing. The original game has just about ALL of the enemy types you find in this game, PLUS several boss monsters that simply didn't make a return in this game. It's pretty disappointing, but at the very least there's huge DLC potential for that so here's hoping they deliver. Dark Arisen was a fantastic, challenging, almost-sadistic expansion to the original. I'm hopeful they'll deliver again with however they expand on this game.
The story is very much what one could expect if they played the first game. The original DD answered basically all the questions about the Arisen and the cycle with the Dragon and what Pawns are. They could only tell a new story and include some new things to shake things up. And judging from what people have talked about online... The ending to this game changes severely depending on choices made. I look forward to my next playthrough.
Though I do give this a 4/5, just know it's one of the best 4/5 games you'll ever play!
This review contains spoilers
Turn away now if you're expecting a short review. I finished this one at about 87 hours. Considering the content of this game, my history as an FF fanboy, and the fact that I actually took notes while playing a game for once, I have a lot to say.
Context as usual: My favorite video game of all time is Final Fantasy X. I have played every mainline game in the franchise to completion except for Final Fantasy XI. I have played through several of them multiple times, and have the Platinum trophy for a lot of them as well. I recently got an FF7R Cloud Static Arts statue when it went on sale. I love this franchise, if it was of any doubt to you.
I'm going to talk a little bit about Remake as well, since I haven't reviewed it on this site. So... Where to begin...
There were a lot of expectations going into this game. Before Remake came out, people were wondering how things would play out, considering they were making it into 3 parts. I was excited, and by the end of Remake, I, like many people, had many questions.
The course of fate had changed. There was no way to know what would happen in the main events of the story now. Of course all the purists got upset and dismissed this trilogy from the get-go, but I fully excepted that this isn't a trilogy to remake the games, but a trilogy to tell a new story and deliver all kinds of fan service. But of course, I also had my doubts. It has all the potential to get REALLY messy if they don't do it right. But I wanna talk about the gameplay before we get to the meat of the story. I'll mark when I get into spoilers.
GAMEPLAY
First off, whoever planned out the demo bonus needs a timeout. If you played the demo, you were given save data to carry over and skip a huge part of the beginning. However, when you start the actual game, it starts with the same cutscene, and when it ends you begin as Zack in his alternate timeline. I, and many people online, skipped the cutscene and had to start over unawares that that they interjected content before where the demo picks up. Not only that, but you're still required to play part of the demo section up to a certain point. At a certain point, you kinda wonder why they even bothered with that save data lol Just let the player skip the entire part if you're gonna do demo transfer, it makes no sense.
I was getting worried when going through the Nibelheim flashback. There was a lot of stuff to slow you down: moving vacuum cleaners and limping through the firey village. I was getting a bit worried because a common complaint with Remake was how often the game would slow you down or add padding. Some dungeons do go on a bit long, but it never felt that bad after the flashback.
Getting into Kalm, one of the first mini games you're introduced to is Queen's Blood. I've seen it gain quite some popularity these past few weeks, but I gotta say I'm kinda indifferent to it. I was annoyed that the tutorial didn't really tell you how to win, just how to play. So you're kinda forced to lose that first game unless you catch on quickly. I enjoyed putting together a deck as I got more and more cards (my main method was just boosting the hell out of my own cards so the opponent can't contend with their own score). However, the last challenge just throws all the established rules out the window, invalidating most decks that people will probably be comfortable with at that point. It's not fun to have your methods invalidated, and there were already other Queen's Blood challenges that would take you out of your comfort zone and try new things. The story of this side quest itself I thought was pretty funny. Some commenter online said this side story was more serious than the main story, which made me kinda laugh but I still disagree. As this game's main side content, I didn't hate it. I made sure to always go after any players that became available, but that's mainly because I do intend to do everything in this game... Eventually.
Getting into the open world, I enjoyed it quite a bit. As much as I wanted to get through the story quickly, the moment that you unlock Chadley's intel, I found myself doing everything. It was a good call to limit the amount of content by area. It forces you to progress the main story after a certain point. The pacing of stories can be ruined by open world games as is, but at least it's some remedy to that issue. It's strange to me how we're still getting Ubisoft towers in the year 2024, despite this game's open world exploration taking cues from Ghost of Tsushima with the owls and chocobo chicks that guide you to areas of interest. I'm also glad that treasure in the world is only located in specific areas, and labelled so you know how many are missing, rather than having to scour the entire continent. The rewards for completing intel were also great, so overall the open world element of this game was handled pretty well. It wasn't too overwhelming and it rewards you enough for your effort.
I do wish though that the main party would talk a little more. Final Fantasy XV's open world has major issues, but at the very least the main cast was always bantering and felt somewhat real. It's so funny to me that during almost every side quest, Cloud and one party member relevant to that quest will just talk to the NPC while everyone else stands and stares at a strange distance from the conversation. It feels so... Unnerving and unnatural everytime I see it lol There were few good quests though that involved more than one party member. The children's book author quest with Barret and Red XIII comes to mind, but that still leaves everyone else quiet. You know who doesn't stay quiet though...?
CHADLEY, MY MAIN MAN! PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP!! I'm not the kind to get annoyed easily by characters. I'm usually pretty chill. I understand he's an android, and so he probably won't have the same self-awareness and understanding of social cues as a normal person... But my god. It was just excessive. It gets even worse when he introduces MAI. You can tell they're trying so hard to be funny with the bits between the two, but they're never funny (outside of when Chadley shuts MAI up, but that's only because it's the one self-aware gag that works). I can't understand why they made it so that any time you do Fiend Intel, MAI has to just talk nonstop through the whole fight. Combat is messy and flashy enough sometimes as is, I don't need someone yapping in my ear about information I don't need while I'm trying to clear objectives (and heaven forbid you fail to do them all in one go, forcing you to start over and continue listening to MAI's ramblings). Speaking of combat...
It feels so much better now. The decision to make Deadly Dodge Materia innate for Cloud and Tifa was a brilliant idea. Everything feels so much smoother, and air combat actually feels viable now. Synergy Abilities are really cool, but I found myself almost never using Synergy Skills. Combat is busy enough as is, I couldn't bring myself to use them too often. I do have one big complaint, however...
While the companion AI is improved, one of the resolutions to make it better was to... Make AI tied to Materia... Yeah, I don't like this. Materia slots are precious enough as is, but now you wanna tie companions Unique and Weapon abilities to specific Materia? Realistically, a player who is skilled enough can switch between all three party members and know exactly what skills they want to throw out at a moment's notice. So, all it really does is make things more convenient. Convenience for the cost of materia slots. This AI is already in the game, why not just let the party members do the skills anyways? Or better yet, let the player program the AI!
I got so annoyed when I played the Gears & Gambits minigame. For anyone who is unfamiliar, it uses the Gambit System that was core to the gameplay of Final Fantasy XII. A system that gives you complete control over party member AI by adjusting what actions you want them to take, under what conditions, and at what target. The fact that this system is present in Rebirth in a mini game, but they couldn't have any form of AI control over party members outside of Materia really irks me. I can attach Auto-Cast materia to someone's Cure magic, but it'll cause them to heal me sometimes when I either don't really need it, or would rather save their ATB for something else. They are SO close to having the AI party members be the best they can be, but it really still is ideal to just control everyone yourself. It can be pretty overwhelming at times.
Chocobos remain just as cute as ever. Riding them, I wasn't feeling as much. I try not to compare other FF games too much as they all have different ideas and design philosophies. Chocobo riding is something that happens in numerous games. And in the modern era, they've become somewhat more sophisticated, allowing you to drift and whatnot. I don't like how your three move speeds in this are: slow, moderate and LIGHTNING FAST. Just hopping on your chocobo while sprinting will cause them to move at high speed, even if you barely started moving before hopping on. There were too many cases where I did that and ran into a wall. Outside of that, I didn't find it terrible by any means. I just think FFXV and XVI handled it a bit better. The race controls were good enough at least. Speaking of...
The chocobo races are just one of an ENDLESS number of mini games present. There's enough here to make Mario Party blush! Now, this brings me to the idea of bloat in AAA games. There's a lot of content for the sake of making sure the player feels like they got their money's worth. FF7 Rebirth does it more so to stay true to the original. However, when you get to the point where picking mushrooms becomes a mini game, you have to wonder if they've gone too far. Every section where you don't play as Cloud has some sort of puzzle unique to the character you're playing as. At the very least, there was always something new to do and nothing ever got too repetitive. Some of the mini games were hellish on Dynamic Difficulty though. Fort Condor and Gears & Gambits simply weren't fun at a certain point. Speaking of...
The Dynamic Difficulty feels... Wierd in this game. I would say maybe 80% of the game still felt rather easy. Even bosses felt like they died far faster than I would've hoped to get a good challenge. There were some fights that felt like insane difficulty spikes out of nowhere. And the end of the game definitely had me sweating at certain points. I don't know how things were balanced but rather than feel consistent, I feel like it was a lopsided experience. I don't know what to think of it.
Since Yuffie had already been introduced in the Integrade DLC for Remake, the two new characters to note for the team are Red XIII and Cait Sith. I was very surprised with the direction they took Red XIII in his gameplay. In the original game, he has the second highest HP and the the highest speed of all party members. The rest of his stats are average. I always thought that he made a decent speedy magic caster, but maybe that was just my own head canon. His counter gameplay was pretty neat, but building up his Vengeance Gauge without gear skills boosting the charge speed felt like eternity. It was almost pointless to even try charging it in most regular encounters. Still, when it is active, he becomes an absolute monster.
Cait Sith was probably my favorite character to play as! I was struggling at first, trying to figure out what made him good. I was not happy when I realized he still took damage on the moogle, and the moogle itself had limited HP as well. Moving the moogle felt extra slow and I thought to myself "How the hell is this any good?" And that's when I realized... Like any good parent, you gotta just let the kid go so they can spread their wings.Cait Sith is a puppet master, but one who doesn't need to control his mount. Since he's able to cast spells and use certain abilities without interrupting the moogle's actions, you get a character that can quickly build ATB, spam abilities and cast magic while consistently doing damage. It can be risky, as the moogle will always close the gap on nearby enemies, but once you understand how they work together, Cait Sith is arguably one of the strongest party members. I was NOT a fan of his gameplay segment later in the story, however... (Those throw controls were awful and you even had to throw at a switch that was within arm's reach???)
It's also still cute how party members will randomly sing the victory theme after battles. It started with XV's Prompto and I'm glad it's still going.
The simulation battles are back and they're still fun and good for grinding. The summon battles have been made much harder though. Now for an optional challenge, you can fight the summons at either full power or at a lower level depending on the number of sanctuaries for the related summon entity you complete. This was cool, but it felt too hard in most cases to fight them at any level higher than the second lowest. Odin was the one summon that made me look up information online. It just seems too obtuse and doesn't present enough information in the Assess menu to help you fully understand the fight. At the very least, I'm glad there's more difficult optional content.
One thing I don't like about the simulations and tournies is the fact that you can't change materia while in them. You will definitely spend quite a bit of time in the simulations, but without a menu to manage equipment, you'll have to leave and listen to Chadley talk about something you don't care about before being able to actually move again. It would make things 10x more convenient if they do that. Speaking of convenience...
People online will complain about yellow paint that marks climbable areas breaking their immersion, but there are two issues with that:
1. Many people are quite literally blind, or close to it. Have some consideration
2. They won't complain about the abundance of benches and vending machines that are conveniently located everywhere lol
I didn't like the whole concept of the folios. At the end of Remake, your only method of fully maxing the characters was to get their manuals on Hard mode from defeating bosses. It was a nice compromise that didn't really need to make a lot of sense. Here, folios are just... A part of the world? these books that enhance your character? Why are they a core part of every village? Why are there vending machines for these things? I don't mind that the weapons level up automatically now, I just wish that I didn't need to find one of these places to level up the characters.
I'm getting long in the tooth on gameplay, so the last things I'll bring up are the black robes in Nibelheim side quest. Who thought it was a good idea to make you follow slow, lumbering dudes to a certain point?? Just let them already be at the place you're supposed to go! They would eventually gather there anyways! Also, the junk that's everywhere in the game. It's kinda funny when your characters are just running and things go flying everywhere. Sometimes it just took me out of the game though lol
MUSIC
There's not much to say. It's still 10/10 like the first game, but I gotta say, I got kinda annoyed with the audio mixing. There are too many moments where someone is talking and the music is just going ham and you can't hear anything. It's fine though! It'll be the 3rd time I ever get a full game soundtrack on my iTunes (right after Remake's soundtrack and Chained Echoes). I don't care how many renditions of Aerith's theme I hear, I still love it to death.
STORY + SPOILERS
Well... here we are. I wanna go over the characters first.
Cloud himself is just as good as in Remake, but now with the increasing draw of Sephiroth that was present in the original, you get to see just how scary it is for Sephiroth (and Jenova) take have control over someone. I loved his relationship with the 7th Infantry unit. The game did everything in it's power in the beginning to seperate Red and Barret from him so he would have moments with Tifa and Aerith lol
Barret's arc is improved and he is still the heart of the main party. He has so many touching moments, and it's hard not to like this man with such a rough exterior.
Tifa... I have a weird view of her simply because I am so tired of people online being endlessly horny for her. She's a 10, no doubt, but I am exhausted from seeing her lol She's just as kind and beautiful in this game. Her relationship with Aerith is so heartwarming to see. They're best friends, and fully supportive of each other (even when Cloud chooses one over the other)! I will say though, I was... 'Touched' during the Costa Del Sol section when you talk to her on the beach and she's in the swimsuit. Something in me grew three sizes that time, and it wasn't my heart.
Aerith has such a strong presence in this game. Of course, this ties back to the original. She has a plan, one that would save the planet. And it's hinted in Remake that she knows the truth of what happens in the original story. Some complain that this makes her, essentially, a different character than the Aerith we know in the original game. Having already accepted that this remake trilogy would be different, I don't hate the change so much. I chose her as my main "romance" option, knowing full well what would happen in the Golden Saucer. It honestly touched me in a way I didn't expect. I could've fallen in love with Aerith. That's how strong these moments of interaction were.
Red XIII kinda disappointed me. He feels like he's just a dog in many situations. Most of his side quests revolve around him using his nose because he's the animal character. They barely made any attempts to give him more character outside of his main quests in Cosmo Canyon. I honestly didn't like his voice change. Even as the story progressed, I never 100% got accustomed to it. I don't hate it, it just feels like a weird choice, even in the context of the original game. It was cute that he did the moonwalk though lol And his side quest with the chickens made me bust out laughing when it played the game over music!
Yuffie is such a fun character. You know what to expect from her, but she has such contagious spirit. I could never bring myself to dislike her! She gets to be a real character now with meaningful inclusion in this story because she's not optional. I think that's pretty cool. She also makes an FFX-2 reference with the Yuffie Recon Patrol (YRP), so that's neat.
Cait Sith STILL feels awkwardly handled. The way he joins feels more natural than the original, but his betrayal later in the story doesn't. The main party seemed way too forgiving of him despite what he did. Again, these characters are fighting for the sake of the WORLD. You'd think that someone betraying that mission would get a bit more heat.
The main party and the characters of this world are still filled with so much charm and personality. Outside of Chadley, I doubt you'd find many characters that are easy to hate. Gilgamesh makes a big comeback in this game! Any true fan of FF can appreciate his cameo, the one true multiversal character that can appear in any FF game. The story is great, the set pieces are cool or beautiful depending on the context and the boss fights are still epic. I must complain first...
How the hell does the party get captured so easily in Corel Prison? These are the same people that have consistently gone toe-to-toe with Shinra, the strongest military force on the planet, fought numerous monsters and THE ARBITERS OF FATE ITSELF. Any time characters with that kind of resume get overwhelmed by nobodies, it's really hard to believe.
Going back to my earlier comment about the Queen's Blood side quest, some people think this game's tone is too silly for the story it wants to tell. I think it's just fine. The game gets more serious as it goes on because that's really how the stakes worked in the original game too.
I liked that in this version of the story, Shinra feels like they're much more aggressively pursuing the main party. While the Turks would pop up here and there, it felt like Shinra just kinda forgets about you after the party leaves Midgar in the original.
The Gold Saucer was very much the Honeybee Inn on steroids. The intro was cool and the Loveless Performance was awesome (I really wish you didn't have to focus on QTEs so you could watch it instead)!
I really don't have much other thoughts about the story outside of the ending.
The whole scene of Cloud giving Sephiroth the Black Materia was so wierd. Sephiroth picks it up, beckons Cloud to come over, drops it and tells Cloud to give it to him. WHY!? It was a powerful moment in the original because the player could struggle as Cloud in that moment to not surrender it, but Sephiroth already has it now in the first place! It's so dumb.
Everything that follows this scene is just madness. We get a fakeout of Aerith's death while still delivering it. The two worlds (timelines?) mash up and we get an epic crossover of Cloud and Zack taking on Sephiroth. Aerith's ghost and Cloud having these visions of her. It's all so confusing, and too much to process before writing this interview. With time, I'm not sure how I'll feel about it all. Maybe I'll update this review when I am.
This game is incredible from top to bottom. I asked myself early on if this is the ultimate Final Fantasy. From a gameplay standpoint, it just might be. From every other aspect... I can't say. This is part 2 of a trilogy of remakes for a game that is almost 30 years old now. If this was it's own story, I might say yes. I won't feel comfortable saying anything until part 3 is over.
I've been typing for 2 hours now. I just wanna leave it here so I can give myself more time to reflect. Thanks for sticking it through this long winded review.
No Promises Await at Journey's End
Context as usual: My favorite video game of all time is Final Fantasy X. I have played every mainline game in the franchise to completion except for Final Fantasy XI. I have played through several of them multiple times, and have the Platinum trophy for a lot of them as well. I recently got an FF7R Cloud Static Arts statue when it went on sale. I love this franchise, if it was of any doubt to you.
I'm going to talk a little bit about Remake as well, since I haven't reviewed it on this site. So... Where to begin...
There were a lot of expectations going into this game. Before Remake came out, people were wondering how things would play out, considering they were making it into 3 parts. I was excited, and by the end of Remake, I, like many people, had many questions.
The course of fate had changed. There was no way to know what would happen in the main events of the story now. Of course all the purists got upset and dismissed this trilogy from the get-go, but I fully excepted that this isn't a trilogy to remake the games, but a trilogy to tell a new story and deliver all kinds of fan service. But of course, I also had my doubts. It has all the potential to get REALLY messy if they don't do it right. But I wanna talk about the gameplay before we get to the meat of the story. I'll mark when I get into spoilers.
GAMEPLAY
First off, whoever planned out the demo bonus needs a timeout. If you played the demo, you were given save data to carry over and skip a huge part of the beginning. However, when you start the actual game, it starts with the same cutscene, and when it ends you begin as Zack in his alternate timeline. I, and many people online, skipped the cutscene and had to start over unawares that that they interjected content before where the demo picks up. Not only that, but you're still required to play part of the demo section up to a certain point. At a certain point, you kinda wonder why they even bothered with that save data lol Just let the player skip the entire part if you're gonna do demo transfer, it makes no sense.
I was getting worried when going through the Nibelheim flashback. There was a lot of stuff to slow you down: moving vacuum cleaners and limping through the firey village. I was getting a bit worried because a common complaint with Remake was how often the game would slow you down or add padding. Some dungeons do go on a bit long, but it never felt that bad after the flashback.
Getting into Kalm, one of the first mini games you're introduced to is Queen's Blood. I've seen it gain quite some popularity these past few weeks, but I gotta say I'm kinda indifferent to it. I was annoyed that the tutorial didn't really tell you how to win, just how to play. So you're kinda forced to lose that first game unless you catch on quickly. I enjoyed putting together a deck as I got more and more cards (my main method was just boosting the hell out of my own cards so the opponent can't contend with their own score). However, the last challenge just throws all the established rules out the window, invalidating most decks that people will probably be comfortable with at that point. It's not fun to have your methods invalidated, and there were already other Queen's Blood challenges that would take you out of your comfort zone and try new things. The story of this side quest itself I thought was pretty funny. Some commenter online said this side story was more serious than the main story, which made me kinda laugh but I still disagree. As this game's main side content, I didn't hate it. I made sure to always go after any players that became available, but that's mainly because I do intend to do everything in this game... Eventually.
Getting into the open world, I enjoyed it quite a bit. As much as I wanted to get through the story quickly, the moment that you unlock Chadley's intel, I found myself doing everything. It was a good call to limit the amount of content by area. It forces you to progress the main story after a certain point. The pacing of stories can be ruined by open world games as is, but at least it's some remedy to that issue. It's strange to me how we're still getting Ubisoft towers in the year 2024, despite this game's open world exploration taking cues from Ghost of Tsushima with the owls and chocobo chicks that guide you to areas of interest. I'm also glad that treasure in the world is only located in specific areas, and labelled so you know how many are missing, rather than having to scour the entire continent. The rewards for completing intel were also great, so overall the open world element of this game was handled pretty well. It wasn't too overwhelming and it rewards you enough for your effort.
I do wish though that the main party would talk a little more. Final Fantasy XV's open world has major issues, but at the very least the main cast was always bantering and felt somewhat real. It's so funny to me that during almost every side quest, Cloud and one party member relevant to that quest will just talk to the NPC while everyone else stands and stares at a strange distance from the conversation. It feels so... Unnerving and unnatural everytime I see it lol There were few good quests though that involved more than one party member. The children's book author quest with Barret and Red XIII comes to mind, but that still leaves everyone else quiet. You know who doesn't stay quiet though...?
CHADLEY, MY MAIN MAN! PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP!! I'm not the kind to get annoyed easily by characters. I'm usually pretty chill. I understand he's an android, and so he probably won't have the same self-awareness and understanding of social cues as a normal person... But my god. It was just excessive. It gets even worse when he introduces MAI. You can tell they're trying so hard to be funny with the bits between the two, but they're never funny (outside of when Chadley shuts MAI up, but that's only because it's the one self-aware gag that works). I can't understand why they made it so that any time you do Fiend Intel, MAI has to just talk nonstop through the whole fight. Combat is messy and flashy enough sometimes as is, I don't need someone yapping in my ear about information I don't need while I'm trying to clear objectives (and heaven forbid you fail to do them all in one go, forcing you to start over and continue listening to MAI's ramblings). Speaking of combat...
It feels so much better now. The decision to make Deadly Dodge Materia innate for Cloud and Tifa was a brilliant idea. Everything feels so much smoother, and air combat actually feels viable now. Synergy Abilities are really cool, but I found myself almost never using Synergy Skills. Combat is busy enough as is, I couldn't bring myself to use them too often. I do have one big complaint, however...
While the companion AI is improved, one of the resolutions to make it better was to... Make AI tied to Materia... Yeah, I don't like this. Materia slots are precious enough as is, but now you wanna tie companions Unique and Weapon abilities to specific Materia? Realistically, a player who is skilled enough can switch between all three party members and know exactly what skills they want to throw out at a moment's notice. So, all it really does is make things more convenient. Convenience for the cost of materia slots. This AI is already in the game, why not just let the party members do the skills anyways? Or better yet, let the player program the AI!
I got so annoyed when I played the Gears & Gambits minigame. For anyone who is unfamiliar, it uses the Gambit System that was core to the gameplay of Final Fantasy XII. A system that gives you complete control over party member AI by adjusting what actions you want them to take, under what conditions, and at what target. The fact that this system is present in Rebirth in a mini game, but they couldn't have any form of AI control over party members outside of Materia really irks me. I can attach Auto-Cast materia to someone's Cure magic, but it'll cause them to heal me sometimes when I either don't really need it, or would rather save their ATB for something else. They are SO close to having the AI party members be the best they can be, but it really still is ideal to just control everyone yourself. It can be pretty overwhelming at times.
Chocobos remain just as cute as ever. Riding them, I wasn't feeling as much. I try not to compare other FF games too much as they all have different ideas and design philosophies. Chocobo riding is something that happens in numerous games. And in the modern era, they've become somewhat more sophisticated, allowing you to drift and whatnot. I don't like how your three move speeds in this are: slow, moderate and LIGHTNING FAST. Just hopping on your chocobo while sprinting will cause them to move at high speed, even if you barely started moving before hopping on. There were too many cases where I did that and ran into a wall. Outside of that, I didn't find it terrible by any means. I just think FFXV and XVI handled it a bit better. The race controls were good enough at least. Speaking of...
The chocobo races are just one of an ENDLESS number of mini games present. There's enough here to make Mario Party blush! Now, this brings me to the idea of bloat in AAA games. There's a lot of content for the sake of making sure the player feels like they got their money's worth. FF7 Rebirth does it more so to stay true to the original. However, when you get to the point where picking mushrooms becomes a mini game, you have to wonder if they've gone too far. Every section where you don't play as Cloud has some sort of puzzle unique to the character you're playing as. At the very least, there was always something new to do and nothing ever got too repetitive. Some of the mini games were hellish on Dynamic Difficulty though. Fort Condor and Gears & Gambits simply weren't fun at a certain point. Speaking of...
The Dynamic Difficulty feels... Wierd in this game. I would say maybe 80% of the game still felt rather easy. Even bosses felt like they died far faster than I would've hoped to get a good challenge. There were some fights that felt like insane difficulty spikes out of nowhere. And the end of the game definitely had me sweating at certain points. I don't know how things were balanced but rather than feel consistent, I feel like it was a lopsided experience. I don't know what to think of it.
Since Yuffie had already been introduced in the Integrade DLC for Remake, the two new characters to note for the team are Red XIII and Cait Sith. I was very surprised with the direction they took Red XIII in his gameplay. In the original game, he has the second highest HP and the the highest speed of all party members. The rest of his stats are average. I always thought that he made a decent speedy magic caster, but maybe that was just my own head canon. His counter gameplay was pretty neat, but building up his Vengeance Gauge without gear skills boosting the charge speed felt like eternity. It was almost pointless to even try charging it in most regular encounters. Still, when it is active, he becomes an absolute monster.
Cait Sith was probably my favorite character to play as! I was struggling at first, trying to figure out what made him good. I was not happy when I realized he still took damage on the moogle, and the moogle itself had limited HP as well. Moving the moogle felt extra slow and I thought to myself "How the hell is this any good?" And that's when I realized... Like any good parent, you gotta just let the kid go so they can spread their wings.Cait Sith is a puppet master, but one who doesn't need to control his mount. Since he's able to cast spells and use certain abilities without interrupting the moogle's actions, you get a character that can quickly build ATB, spam abilities and cast magic while consistently doing damage. It can be risky, as the moogle will always close the gap on nearby enemies, but once you understand how they work together, Cait Sith is arguably one of the strongest party members. I was NOT a fan of his gameplay segment later in the story, however... (Those throw controls were awful and you even had to throw at a switch that was within arm's reach???)
It's also still cute how party members will randomly sing the victory theme after battles. It started with XV's Prompto and I'm glad it's still going.
The simulation battles are back and they're still fun and good for grinding. The summon battles have been made much harder though. Now for an optional challenge, you can fight the summons at either full power or at a lower level depending on the number of sanctuaries for the related summon entity you complete. This was cool, but it felt too hard in most cases to fight them at any level higher than the second lowest. Odin was the one summon that made me look up information online. It just seems too obtuse and doesn't present enough information in the Assess menu to help you fully understand the fight. At the very least, I'm glad there's more difficult optional content.
One thing I don't like about the simulations and tournies is the fact that you can't change materia while in them. You will definitely spend quite a bit of time in the simulations, but without a menu to manage equipment, you'll have to leave and listen to Chadley talk about something you don't care about before being able to actually move again. It would make things 10x more convenient if they do that. Speaking of convenience...
People online will complain about yellow paint that marks climbable areas breaking their immersion, but there are two issues with that:
1. Many people are quite literally blind, or close to it. Have some consideration
2. They won't complain about the abundance of benches and vending machines that are conveniently located everywhere lol
I didn't like the whole concept of the folios. At the end of Remake, your only method of fully maxing the characters was to get their manuals on Hard mode from defeating bosses. It was a nice compromise that didn't really need to make a lot of sense. Here, folios are just... A part of the world? these books that enhance your character? Why are they a core part of every village? Why are there vending machines for these things? I don't mind that the weapons level up automatically now, I just wish that I didn't need to find one of these places to level up the characters.
I'm getting long in the tooth on gameplay, so the last things I'll bring up are the black robes in Nibelheim side quest. Who thought it was a good idea to make you follow slow, lumbering dudes to a certain point?? Just let them already be at the place you're supposed to go! They would eventually gather there anyways! Also, the junk that's everywhere in the game. It's kinda funny when your characters are just running and things go flying everywhere. Sometimes it just took me out of the game though lol
MUSIC
There's not much to say. It's still 10/10 like the first game, but I gotta say, I got kinda annoyed with the audio mixing. There are too many moments where someone is talking and the music is just going ham and you can't hear anything. It's fine though! It'll be the 3rd time I ever get a full game soundtrack on my iTunes (right after Remake's soundtrack and Chained Echoes). I don't care how many renditions of Aerith's theme I hear, I still love it to death.
STORY + SPOILERS
Well... here we are. I wanna go over the characters first.
Cloud himself is just as good as in Remake, but now with the increasing draw of Sephiroth that was present in the original, you get to see just how scary it is for Sephiroth (and Jenova) take have control over someone. I loved his relationship with the 7th Infantry unit. The game did everything in it's power in the beginning to seperate Red and Barret from him so he would have moments with Tifa and Aerith lol
Barret's arc is improved and he is still the heart of the main party. He has so many touching moments, and it's hard not to like this man with such a rough exterior.
Tifa... I have a weird view of her simply because I am so tired of people online being endlessly horny for her. She's a 10, no doubt, but I am exhausted from seeing her lol She's just as kind and beautiful in this game. Her relationship with Aerith is so heartwarming to see. They're best friends, and fully supportive of each other (even when Cloud chooses one over the other)! I will say though, I was... 'Touched' during the Costa Del Sol section when you talk to her on the beach and she's in the swimsuit. Something in me grew three sizes that time, and it wasn't my heart.
Aerith has such a strong presence in this game. Of course, this ties back to the original. She has a plan, one that would save the planet. And it's hinted in Remake that she knows the truth of what happens in the original story. Some complain that this makes her, essentially, a different character than the Aerith we know in the original game. Having already accepted that this remake trilogy would be different, I don't hate the change so much. I chose her as my main "romance" option, knowing full well what would happen in the Golden Saucer. It honestly touched me in a way I didn't expect. I could've fallen in love with Aerith. That's how strong these moments of interaction were.
Red XIII kinda disappointed me. He feels like he's just a dog in many situations. Most of his side quests revolve around him using his nose because he's the animal character. They barely made any attempts to give him more character outside of his main quests in Cosmo Canyon. I honestly didn't like his voice change. Even as the story progressed, I never 100% got accustomed to it. I don't hate it, it just feels like a weird choice, even in the context of the original game. It was cute that he did the moonwalk though lol And his side quest with the chickens made me bust out laughing when it played the game over music!
Yuffie is such a fun character. You know what to expect from her, but she has such contagious spirit. I could never bring myself to dislike her! She gets to be a real character now with meaningful inclusion in this story because she's not optional. I think that's pretty cool. She also makes an FFX-2 reference with the Yuffie Recon Patrol (YRP), so that's neat.
Cait Sith STILL feels awkwardly handled. The way he joins feels more natural than the original, but his betrayal later in the story doesn't. The main party seemed way too forgiving of him despite what he did. Again, these characters are fighting for the sake of the WORLD. You'd think that someone betraying that mission would get a bit more heat.
The main party and the characters of this world are still filled with so much charm and personality. Outside of Chadley, I doubt you'd find many characters that are easy to hate. Gilgamesh makes a big comeback in this game! Any true fan of FF can appreciate his cameo, the one true multiversal character that can appear in any FF game. The story is great, the set pieces are cool or beautiful depending on the context and the boss fights are still epic. I must complain first...
How the hell does the party get captured so easily in Corel Prison? These are the same people that have consistently gone toe-to-toe with Shinra, the strongest military force on the planet, fought numerous monsters and THE ARBITERS OF FATE ITSELF. Any time characters with that kind of resume get overwhelmed by nobodies, it's really hard to believe.
Going back to my earlier comment about the Queen's Blood side quest, some people think this game's tone is too silly for the story it wants to tell. I think it's just fine. The game gets more serious as it goes on because that's really how the stakes worked in the original game too.
I liked that in this version of the story, Shinra feels like they're much more aggressively pursuing the main party. While the Turks would pop up here and there, it felt like Shinra just kinda forgets about you after the party leaves Midgar in the original.
The Gold Saucer was very much the Honeybee Inn on steroids. The intro was cool and the Loveless Performance was awesome (I really wish you didn't have to focus on QTEs so you could watch it instead)!
I really don't have much other thoughts about the story outside of the ending.
The whole scene of Cloud giving Sephiroth the Black Materia was so wierd. Sephiroth picks it up, beckons Cloud to come over, drops it and tells Cloud to give it to him. WHY!? It was a powerful moment in the original because the player could struggle as Cloud in that moment to not surrender it, but Sephiroth already has it now in the first place! It's so dumb.
Everything that follows this scene is just madness. We get a fakeout of Aerith's death while still delivering it. The two worlds (timelines?) mash up and we get an epic crossover of Cloud and Zack taking on Sephiroth. Aerith's ghost and Cloud having these visions of her. It's all so confusing, and too much to process before writing this interview. With time, I'm not sure how I'll feel about it all. Maybe I'll update this review when I am.
This game is incredible from top to bottom. I asked myself early on if this is the ultimate Final Fantasy. From a gameplay standpoint, it just might be. From every other aspect... I can't say. This is part 2 of a trilogy of remakes for a game that is almost 30 years old now. If this was it's own story, I might say yes. I won't feel comfortable saying anything until part 3 is over.
I've been typing for 2 hours now. I just wanna leave it here so I can give myself more time to reflect. Thanks for sticking it through this long winded review.
No Promises Await at Journey's End