Final Fantasy VII Remake
/Game Structure & Narrative
It’s really interesting that the Mako explosion was bigger than they expected, and they feel some remorse for the damage they’ve caused. Or maybe that was always there and it just never registered with me.
Putting a lot more focus on the people of the slums observing the actions of the party really pushes home the idea that these people are terrorists. Literally, showing the townsfolk looking on in terror
They did SUCH A GOOD JOB of porting the “glitching” effect from the original. I wasn’t sure how they were going to handle that whole thing, or if they would even try, but they nailed the effect, and even the feeling it evokes
They build the narrative association between sephiroth and burning buildings REAL EARLY
The amount of foreshadowing is insane, it feels like every microbeat in the story is hinting at something, which, obviously most people playing this game will know. It’s like, free, instant payoff, it’s actually kind of brilliant
I definitely don’t mind some time to chill and connect with Tifa, and the idea of building Cloud’s merc cred is cool, but these sidequests really hamper the pace of the game. Some is a GREAT addition, this much feels like padding
Same deal with the detour to the Sector 7 warehouse honestly, I really love the worldbuilding, and how much background they are giving Jesse, I appreciate how hard they are trying to make us care for this girl who is going to die, but it feels so tacked on and arbitrary
I think one of the biggest things that this game adds narratively is just how much better fleshed out the bond between Tifa and Aerith is, it’s really endearing, and it makes me like both of them more
There’s a moment where you get this view of this vista of the rubble of sector 6 after the plate dropped on it, and it’s like, it would be a lot easier to process the sorrow of that characters and of that moment, if it hadn’t been 2 dungeons and a side quest chapter ago
This game is so in love with Midgar, and it wants you to be obsessed with it too. It wants to slowly, painfully show you everything there is to know, regardless of how interested you might be. It will literally force you to sit and watch.
Shinra HQ is a great microcosm of this game’s issues. Things that were interactive puzzles in FF7 (eg. Mayor’s password, model of Midgar) are now just… Passive, non-interactive scenes. They just don’t work as well as the integrated narrative in original FF7, even if there is more detail and more lore in FF7 Remake
It feels like they managed to completely screw up the pacing inside of Shinra HQ, and almost literally every story beat is either missing, or screwed up
I have no idea what’s going on when you get to President Shinra’s office, I’m fine with the boss fight that happens, but there’s a lot of bullshit that is just screaming plothole here
I kind of hate what they’ve done with Sephiroth in this game. I appreciate that they felt the need to include him in some way, because he’s so iconic, but his story really doesn’t work as well when he’s on your ass before you know anything about him, and when Shinra are still supposed to be the bad guys
Oh god, what have they done, what is any of this, things… sure go off the rails in the remake, huh...
Combat & Progression
Cloud’s attacks are super weighty and feel great, other than the fact that you’re super locked into them. It doesn’t feel like dodge does a lot for him because you kind of have to premeditate every dodge by not attacking
The FIRST attack in his punisher combo is like 1.5s long and 4 actual slashes, it feels super awkward, you can’t really tell when you get control back, and it leaves you hella open. But I guess it’s meant to be a literal “punish”
Enemies who don’t flinch when they are attacked are like, my #1 pet peeve in action games, especially action RPGs
1 on 1 fights are kind of interesting, they almost feel turn based
Command materia and Magic materia don’t feel super differentiated, they all take ATB. Maybe the distinction becomes greater in the future when spells cost more.
Debuff design feels kind of lacking honestly. They aren’t that useful for you to use, and yet are pretty annoying to be inflicted by. They’re usually pretty hard to avoid, and there aren’t really many good ways of curing them because of how ATB works (and even the warding materia just decreases the duration - ie. it still sucks, but for 10 seconds instead of 20, wowee)
The character switching mechanics don’t quite work for me. You always switch back to Cloud at the start of a battle, so controlling another character is a chore. I ALWAYS have to change twice before landing on the character I’m trying to play, too
As a result of the character switching being a bit jank, I feel like I don’t have much agency over what my party members are doing. In the turn based games it felt like you are controlling your allies just as much as you are Cloud, but here, they don’t often get a chance to shine at all in battle
I don’t know why all the enemies in this game have so much health. Maybe I’m just not fighting some of them right, but bosses especially feel like they just take FOREVER. Often it’s not even a case of the boss being hard, it’s just a matter of, you’re managing their attacks perfectly, but no matter what attack you use, it just does no damage
I feel like the battle system actually works a lot better against simpler enemies. When you can successfully select the right options, it’s satisfying, but that scenario just doesn’t exist against a lot of the harder enemies. They all have some weird gimmick, or ultra mobility that prevents you from doing the things you want to do outside of a few seconds window. It can feel like you aren’t engaging with the battle system so much as running around with your head cut off
I think I like the idea of the weapon upgrade system better than the actual implementation. They set it up as though you can use different weapons for different builds, but realistically you’re usually best off just using the newest weapon, especially since you can just learn it’s ability and carry that over to other weapons
When combat is more than 1on1, things get super chaotic super quickly, and it just becomes really hard to tell what’s going on in order to stay on top of it. I can’t really tell what my allies are doing at any given time, but it’s probably safe to assume that the answer is essentially “nothing”
UI/UX
The equipment screen feels like it has so much wasted space, which is weird when it’s combining what was previously 2 screens. It looks stylish, but I don’t like the layout- it feels unnatural, like they have to try a bit too hard to get your eye to scan the screen correctly
The equip screen is a little unintuitive, there are too many functions, and some of them require pressing non-obvious buttons to get to
I really like the weapon upgrade system, but it’s super tedious to do. You can’t easily swap between weapons (even though you get SP for ALL your weapons simultaneously!), and selecting the nodes you want is a pain (you can’t see which is which easily, and you don’t scroll through them in a predictable, logical order)
Seems like they could have added a shortcut between upgrade weapon, and equip materia, considering how many of the weapon upgrades are adding materia slots
It’s a little weird that they made a point of building the weapon assets such that they could show equipped materia directly on the weapon, and yet, they don’t have any support for doing this for additional material slots unlocked through weapon upgrading. It kind of turns this into anti-feedback, because now the weapon is actually lying to you about what materia is equipped
It feels a little weird that they would have a newness indicator at the equip screen level, but not at the level above it, I don’t find I have trouble knowing what slot equipment goes into, if I have trouble with anything, it’s because I missed that I got a new piece of equipment in the first place
The degree to which this game uses the slow walk is absolutely maddening, I don’t know why they even put a run button in this game, you can barely ever use it. I don’t mind taking some time to soak in the world or a conversation, but I’m so sick of the game arbitrarily deciding I can’t move at top speed because I hit a switch, or I’m 10 feet away from a POI
When flipping through weapon upgrades, the controls are SCREEN RELATIVE, even though the little orbs are constantly revolving, so the order is completely inconsistent, who thought it was a good idea to have non-deterministic menu navigation!?
Miscllaneous
Having the world map music play in the sector 7 slums is really weird, but not entirely unwelcome. I’m just really glad it’s here, just like the entire game
Just in general, it seems like they did a pretty good job of weaving in the old classic songs in new places
This game has a really severe problem with directional audio. Considering you’re constantly listening to your teammates’ chatter, they duck it super aggresively, and I wish they wouldn’t. I want to hear this chatter! Yes, even when I am walking forward slowly