I dunno, I loved the original and find the remake is so over produced it’s boring and tedious.
I haven’t played the remake. But I found the original boring and tedious. I don’t think I would have gotten past the tower defense mini game if I didn’t have speed up from the remaster.
It’s from a different time, when it was new it was amazing. But I’m old and was young when it came out.
I grew up on PS1 RPGs. VIII is in my top 5 favorite games. VII is just so chock full of janky, mandatory mini-games that don’t really work as well as they should.
Having said that, I didn’t get into RPGs until the PS1 and I didn’t start that generation with FFVII.
My memory doesn’t serve me, I don’t remember the mini games. The FF I loved best was 9. My middle child (now an adult) is named after one of the characters.
off the top of my head:
Pressing buttons simultaneously in the reactor
Squat competition in the gym in Wall Street Market
Escaping Midgar on motorcycles
Hunting chocobos
The Fort Condor battles
Submarine battle
Mr Dolphin and CPR
Temple of the Ancients
Snowboarding
Meg and Mog in the Gold Saucer
edit: also marching in junon parade and the slap battle with Scarlett
Garnet?
I’ll start calling my kid that, see if they figure out why! 😂
8 had amazing mechanics but the story was shit and I didn’t like or identify with any of the characters. 7 was much better in that regard.
Considering the controversial mechanics and the protagonist with trust issues, that opinion is pretty opposite of what I expect to hear generally speaking.
I love the mechanics too. But I found the cast to be pretty relatable either for myself or for people I deal with. I thought the story, particularly Squall’s evolution and internal conflict, to be fascinating and cause for self reflection.
In 7, Tifa and Aerith and interesting. Both anesthetics that are polar opposites of their personalities, and story appropriate too. Aerith in particular giving off major “preacher’s daughter” vibes. But outside of those two, I can’t imagine being able to identify with a single other cast member. I didn’t particularly like the story either after Cosmo Canyon.
I hate the remake’s combat so much. So so much. It’s so fucking boring. God why couldn’t they have just kept the core gameplay mechanic the same?
Making one game a “saga” was pretty messed-up.
I still don’t like the combat system.
That fucked a lot of the game up, aside from the whole “releasing in parts across two console eras”
After 22 years and having finally played Kingdom Hearts, I can say that it feels like faster, less technical version of that.
In FF7 you just mash square (was it square?) against bosses and doge mid-attack, the ATB fills up while waiting and guarding, while in KH you have to wait for openings because the boss throws like 5 combos at you and gives you enough time to hit it with 4 hits and magic, which only fills up after being completely drained.
Edit: (Probably biased opinion because I finished all 13 Kingdom Hearts games for the first time over the past 8 weeks)
There’s a lot more nuance with standard attacks in rebirth. Lots of mechanics that just aren’t explained sadly with each character acting different in different situations.
I would mostly agree with you for remake though. Although I still absolutely love the combat in both versions. To me they’re the perfect in between of action and ATB
100%. I literally keep falling asleep during combat being it’s so mindless and boring.
Well in contrast to the other comments so far, I loved the original and remakes so far. I don’t mind that they are split into different games and in fact think it is allowing them to expand on the game in ways I’m enjoying. I love the combat, voice acting, minigames. It’s such a solid hit in the nostalgia center of my brain. It’s very much got the vibe of “this is how it always looked in my head when I was a wide-eyed ten year old”. Can’t wait for the last part!
I’m absolutely in love with the remakes. Exactly what I wanted out of them and more.
I don’t know why so many people wanted a shot for shot remake. It being different enough allows me to be a kid again like I’m playing for the first time not knowing what’s going to happen. I wish more remakes took this route.
I’m still always going to play the original on a regular basis, and now I have more games in the remakes to do the same to, instead of the remake just replacing the original.
I’ve always loved every bit of FFVII media so I’m heavily biased, but even my girlfriend who hadn’t got into it prior to being with me has loved the remakes. She really enjoyed crisis core too (a personal favourite of mine as well) and almost attempted to 100% it, insane :') haha
I just don’t want this half-assed combat. If they wanted to make this an action game, go full action and give us a DMC-like experience. If they want it to be an RPG, either stick to classic turn-based or iterate in some way that isn’t a shitty compromised half-step between two things, don’t give us this shallow Kingdom Hearts-like (but worse) half & half. I guess I’m in the minority on this but I personally find action RPG hybrid combat systems almost always unsatisfying; very few games offer me something that doesn’t feel like a cheapened knock off of some better game style.
I hard disagree on it being half assed completely. It’s a really good fresh take on party combat in real time that isn’t just ai fighting alongside you whilst also being able to take a breather for actual tactical choices.
I would not want this game to have been action only line kh. Even though I love kh, but that would not have been ff7. And if they just went full turn based then I don’t think It’s have liked it as much. To be they’ve really pioneered a new and really good way of doing combat in an rpg. I want more of this.
Also you describing this combat system as kh-lite makes me feel like you haven’t spent that much time with either these games or kh. They couldn’t be any more different.
I’m not saying it’s exactly KH, I’m saying it’s in the action-rpg hybrid combat genre like KH. I don’t enjoy either of their combat. As for my experience, I completed the first KH game and I’m like 90% through FFVII remake, but it is a fucking chore every single time combat happens. I think basically all action-rpg crossover combat is shallow. I want them to give me either a fully satisfying action experience or a fully satisfying RPG combat experience, stop dicking around in this dumb compromise space
Strange. I really think the fact it’s a hybrid gives it a lot of depth it otherwise wouldn’t have on either end of the spectrum. Remake itself does feel very bare bones compared to rebirth now though. Maybe you’d have more fun out of that.
The only real complaint I have with remakes combat is fighting airborne enemies with characters without ranged. Which rebirth (and intermission) fixes completely
cool, next get us that pc port please.
