Final Fantasy VII: Remake

[Cassius_Smoke]

Probably the game I'm most looking forward to. I don't even mind that it's just Midgar, it was always the most alurring section. I want to walk the streets and slums and explore it alot more. I just hope they do it justice.

[fuse]

Concerts have been announced for this already - https://ffvii-remakeconcerts.com - once again lead by Arnie Roth (who's also doing the NieR orchestra concerts right now). London is the only European leg.

[Cassius_Smoke]

The demo is up for this. I haven't tried it yet.

[Cassius_Smoke]

OK I played the demo so here are my thoughts.

The good:
The graphics are very nice. It's a good looking game, with colourful backgrounds and characters.
I really like the combat. Its very well balanced compared to FF15. It still has that frantic vibe of 15, but having your characters pinned to the ground rather than dancing through the sky helps. It's surprisingly tactical too and amid all the chaos it's quick to learn.
It has some useful vocal and visual cues to let you know when you should heal or attack which helps keep your eyes on the action rather than glancing down at your status bar.
I enjoyed the banter between cloud and barret, its similar to 15 in that sense.

The bad:
The level design is quite linear and plain. I would have like to have opened doors and Checked side rooms but I was forced down a path instead. I also think the reactor was a bit boring inside. It was missing all the grimy pipes and that 'diesel-punk' design.
The camera also sucks. The default distance is way too close. You can move it back which helps, but you'll still find that you have to move the camera around way too much and it has a nasty habit of going behind a box or something and completely blocking your view. This shouldn't be a thing in 2020.

Overall...its OK. I'll get it and play it, but it's not without problems.

Edit: I should add, I still had a great sense of nostalgia playing this and when the opening scene finished and I was in control of cloud I couldnt believe I was actually playing the game. Its felt like a long time coming.

[Hirst]

I played it, enjoyed it - feels a bit like XV and I like XV. I was going through it slowly so I could look at all the little details and posters and what-not. It is linear as mentioned, though I suspect that's intentional with it being the opening mission (it was in the original). Would like to explore the main city as that's where the meat of it is, but so far I like it! I'll get it.

[hudson]

It upset me a little every time I remember it's in 2 parts.

->Open Spoiler<-

Will we leave Midgar and then get a message about preordering Part 2?

[Cassius_Smoke]

Yeah. At the end of the demo it says Preorder for £60. And I thought 'for part 1 of how many??'

[Adam]

7 out of 10 from me the combat and camera really poop all over the pretty graphics and nice music.

[Hirst]

I played it again on a whim and I enjoyed it more, properly got the hang of the combat. I don't tend to buy games on release but I might for this.

[fishbowlhead]

First impressions are that it tickles the nostalgia buds nicely and i got really excited while playing it for the fact that its not a total turd. Yay.

Then i got thinking about how long its going to take to get the next (and then final 3rd part?) out.

I may just wait for the complete pack on PS5 to come out.

[tokyochojin]

It made me wish it was turn-based, then I realised there was already a backport on PSone..

[Digfox]

Finally got around to playing this last night, and for a demo I thought it was stunning. And that's coming from someone who isn't heavily into the FF series. The sense of nostalgia was overpowering and I loved all the little touches. Technically a real marvel.

I not 100% a fan of the combat although that might be that I don't play FF (or KH) games. My biggest complaint though, is the camera. It's far too zoomed in and very easy to lose enemies off-screen. Which is really annoying when you can be hurt from unseen enemies.

[Golgo]

I also played it yesterday and just like [MENTION=2982]Digfox[/MENTION] I'm not a massive FF fan either but I thought it was great. Still makes for a really exciting start to a game. The camera was indeed a pain, but for me this this was more for being unable to lock on to flying enemies easily. The idea of being hit by enemies behind you is standard enough fare for the action games that they are trying to reference here. I guess it's just up to the player to be aware of enemy location. Switching between players as things got busy was really cool although I can't imagine how chaotic it would be with more than two (I haven't played FF15). I was interested to read just now that there's a 'classic' battle mode option in the old line-dancing style, and I could imagine giving that a go.

[Neon Ignition]

I've watched a few video's of the game and it's undopubtedly stunning but I find it hard to get that hyped for it largely because A-FFVII for me was always an overrated entry and B-Square hasn't really done FF well since... well... a very long time.

[Nu-Eclipse]

I've watched a few video's of the game and it's undoubtedly stunning but I find it hard to get that hyped for it largely because A-FFVII for me was always an overrated entry and B-Square hasn't really done FF well since... well... a very long time.

I can understand where you're coming from.

For me, while there's no doubting the history, legacy and/or impact that FFVII has had, it's hard to escape the feeling that the franchise has dined off of FFVII for a LONG time now. Barring a few spin-offs here and there, FF has been generally underwhelming since VII IMO.

In a funny way, I almost feel that the franchise would be coming in for a lot more criticism if it were a NIntendo property.