Final Fantasy

[Guest]

The fleshing out of these places still blows my mind. Cosmo Canyon town.. Wow.

[hogso]

22 hours ago, Dante_Lockhart said:

I took ages to get through Gongaga. It seemed to go on forever (to fully complete the area that is).

I'm blitzing through Cosmo Canyon now. In 2 hours I'd complete over half the intel. My drive is now back lol

I think Gongaga is an interesting spot in the game, as most players by the sounds of it feel a bit fatigued by the exploration side of things by that point, and because of the design of that particular zone it can feel like a bit of a slog at times. I didn't like it to start with, so basically ignored everything and concentrated on progressing the story - which was great and totally unexpected in that area - and I went back later and cleared everything. Best music in the game probably helped in that regard, and I actually liked it upon return. 

Cosmo Canyon is perhaps the best area in the game, and then Nibelheim is pretty much perfect considering what many people complain about with Gongaga, the devs clearly knew they were pushing their luck a bit with the size of everywhere up to that point.

And the surprises don't stop with the zones either, it keeps giving and giving until the very end of the game. I'm still in awe at some of it, although haven't touched the game for a few weeks now. 

[Guest]

Spoiler

The fleshed out Gi bit surprised me. Didn't expect it to go any further once you'd found Seto

 

[Hobsons Choice]

Just maxed Grasslands, about to head to Mythril Mines. Hoping lvl 22 is enough for this area.

[villa4europe]

On 30/05/2024 at 13:08, hogso said:

I think Gongaga is an interesting spot in the game, as most players by the sounds of it feel a bit fatigued by the exploration side of things by that point, and because of the design of that particular zone it can feel like a bit of a slog at times. I didn't like it to start with, so basically ignored everything and concentrated on progressing the story - which was great and totally unexpected in that area - and I went back later and cleared everything. Best music in the game probably helped in that regard, and I actually liked it upon return. 

Cosmo Canyon is perhaps the best area in the game, and then Nibelheim is pretty much perfect considering what many people complain about with Gongaga, the devs clearly knew they were pushing their luck a bit with the size of everywhere up to that point.

And the surprises don't stop with the zones either, it keeps giving and giving until the very end of the game. I'm still in awe at some of it, although haven't touched the game for a few weeks now. 

Just finished gongaga and I'd agree with that, I'd say two things though, it clicked straight away what the area was and that it would piss me off so I decided to streamline it and then I'm not completing all the areas anyway, I'm doing a good chunk of stuff but not everything, the only area I've 100% is junon - what's people's thoughts on the new fort condor mini game? I liked it, not sure if I'd say it's better but it's close 

I'm 32 hours in, not a clue on level, I would say that amongst all the new functions and abilities and stuff that unfortunately imo the role of materia has diminished, I think there's too much materia, the abilities mean I'm not longer dependent on materia anyway, a huge part of the original for me was grinding so that fire levelled up to fira, that's long gone now

So this game, which is superb no doubt about it, has the weird juxtaposition it that they've created a brilliant action game while imo removing the RPG element that in the context of the FF series defines 7 and sets it apart 

[Guest]

IM just finishing the last 2 quests in Cosmo then moving on. I AM 100% clearing an area before moving on lol. Think im level 42 or 43? The only thing I haven’t done is the Mindflayer Vr mission, cos it was pissing me off.

[Hobsons Choice]

Can I ask those who are ahead of me- 

Can you go back to all the locations later and 100% them? 

I'm in Junon at the moment on about 60-70%, after 100%ing the Grasslands, and while I'm enjoying it, I'm itching to progress the story. I don't want to miss anything, but it feels like I'm making it more of a slog for myself than I'd like.

The game is so good that I don't want the abiding memory of it to be grinding (although if I'm honest the original was heavy on this sort of thing also). 

[villa4europe]

7 hours ago, HKP90 said:

Can I ask those who are ahead of me- 

Can you go back to all the locations later and 100% them? 

I'm in Junon at the moment on about 60-70%, after 100%ing the Grasslands, and while I'm enjoying it, I'm itching to progress the story. I don't want to miss anything, but it feels like I'm making it more of a slog for myself than I'd like.

The game is so good that I don't want the abiding memory of it to be grinding (although if I'm honest the original was heavy on this sort of thing also). 

Did you play the original? I'm at Cosmo canyon and the answer seems to be yes you can but it becomes increasingly difficult to do so

Spoiler

Like once you've got the boat from junon to the beach place you cant just fast travel back you have to get a boat back, then when you've flown to Cosmo canyon on tiny bronco you can't fast travel back to the gold saucer you have to fly back etc etc

I've 100% grasslands, junon and I'm about to do it for CC as I liked that area, i get what people say about gongaga and that not working but for whatever reason CC did work for me, I've enjoyed that area 

[Hobsons Choice]

38 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Did you play the original? I'm at Cosmo canyon and the answer seems to be yes you can but it becomes increasingly difficult to do so

  Hide contents

Like once you've got the boat from junon to the beach place you cant just fast travel back you have to get a boat back, then when you've flown to Cosmo canyon on tiny bronco you can't fast travel back to the gold saucer you have to fly back etc etc

I've 100% grasslands, junon and I'm about to do it for CC as I liked that area, i get what people say about gongaga and that not working but for whatever reason CC did work for me, I've enjoyed that area 

Cheers. 

Yeah, the original was pretty much my favourite game of all time. 

I was assuming that you get the 

Spoiler

Airship

later on, like in the OG, so can revisit areas, but with the slight tweaks to the remakes I thought I'd check.

[hogso]

Absolutely nothing is missable, the game makes it quite clear when the point of no return is, and you also get more than one option for going back to previous locales towards the end. 

So you definitely don't need to worry about 100%ing everywhere first time. Take it at what ever pace you like! 

[villa4europe]

I'd say just before driving the story forward at junon I was overwhelmed by it and not really enjoying it so I cracked on

Might be wrong here hornso but it seems to me like any weapons you miss pop up later on in shops?

Also glad I did Cosmo canyon because up until that point I hadn't used red a lot, that's another departure from the RPG elements of the original, everyone levels up together so you don't have to grind and then change your team and grind some more, it's rare that I change from cloud Barrett and tifa and I usually just go overly aggressive and then heal afterwards 

[Guest]

Red is amazing in battle, I've been using him a lot more along with Yuffie/Barrett. I know Tifa is great, but I use her for bosses mainly.

[hogso]

3 hours ago, villa4europe said:

I'd say just before driving the story forward at junon I was overwhelmed by it and not really enjoying it so I cracked on

Might be wrong here hornso but it seems to me like any weapons you miss pop up later on in shops?

Also glad I did Cosmo canyon because up until that point I hadn't used red a lot, that's another departure from the RPG elements of the original, everyone levels up together so you don't have to grind and then change your team and grind some more, it's rare that I change from cloud Barrett and tifa and I usually just go overly aggressive and then heal afterwards 

What is a @Hornso I don't even know man, jeez

Yeah, all weapons pop up in shops further down the line, so again, not missable. You generally get them as something of a reward for exploring in certain places - although some of those purple chests might as well be unmissable.

As for team members, everyone has their little things that they're good at. Everyone. Even Cait, who although chaotic can be fun. 

Yuffie is all sorts of fun, and Aerith when used well can be really OP. 

[Keyblade]

Took me a while, but I'm finally about to wrap up FFVI. Just doing the Phoenix Cave before I head over to Kefka's Tower. Did just about everything else and recruited just about everyone I could. Some thoughts on the game:

The WoR/second half of the gane is a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, thematically and in terms of narrative, it was an awesome shift.

Spoiler

Kefka actually succeeding in his plan and proceeding to destroy the world was a very cool twist. I can only imagine how novel it was when the game came out.

Starting out as Celes and seeing the new world through her eyes and how she dealt with that was just top drawer (she was just about my favourite character up to that point, but that put her clear over the top).

But in terms of gameplay, it didn't really grip me as much as the first half of the game. I didn't really like the open world nature of the WoR. I get that it's all optional, but finding things is all a bit obtuse, and I do want to find stuff. You have to visit every town and talk to every NPC to get some cryptic message from one of them if you're lucky, then having to decipher it, and figure out where to go often wasn't very fun. I like finding things off the beaten path, but a little direction is appreciated.

But the biggest offender for me is the Magicite system. It just turned all the characters into homogeneous copies of each other. The first half of the game was fun because all the characters were unique in battle, for better or worse. You had to build your team around these strengths and weaknesses and strategize.Terra had magic before anyone, then so did Celes. Gau's Rages were fun and different. Edgar's tools had their own utility, being physical for the most part. Cyan's Bushido was kind of weak but again, it was unique. And so on and so forth. This is where Chrono Trigger absolutely clears imo (also its ATB implementation is better). Every character has unique magic and moves.

Once they all got magic, while they still all have those abilities I just mentioned, they all just kind of take a back seat to magic. Which isn't so bad in a vacuum, but everyone can literally learn every spell. Gau can fire off a Firaga just as well as Terra (well not just as well, but close enough that it doesn't really matter as much). From what I recall this was an issue with Materia in FFVII, but I'll properly sink my teeth into that as well, as I was too young in my farthest play through of that game. 

There's also the issue of the level up bonuses from each esper. That I found fun, and allowed for at least some degree of customisation. The problem with that though is that it requires foresight and planning to get right, and it can be kind of tedious constantly tracking EXP levels and switch out Espers. But it's the kind of tinkering and customisation that I like in these games, as I try to accentuate the characters stronger base stats. Same thing with the Espers, I try to teach only certain characters certain spells as I feel fits their character, but some spells do slip through the cracks given the aforementioned stat leveling. I feel that I shouldn't need to go out of my way to do this though.

Not to mention that this stat bonus system also completely breaks the game. Leveling up certain stats will just make everyone busted. Like why am I doing 9999 damage with Sabin with Bum Rush and a level 3 spell with just getting his Magic stat up to a mere 50? That's without even getting into Ultima. I'm at the point where near everyone can dish out max damage quite easily, some even more than once in 1 turn (Celes with Thamasa Soul and Quick is just silly). I fear the final dungeon and boss will be a cake-walk.

Tl;Dr, amazing game and I learned that I actually much prefer the job systems from older games.

 

[villa4europe]

"finished" it, I reckon I've actually done about 40-50% of it but I'd had enough and just got it out the way to play something else, I reckon close to 50 hours 

I did love it overall, struggled early on as I found it overwhelming then broke though, then couldn't be bothered with it

As per previous post I think disappointingly they've killed materia in the game and that's what made the original so special, I played almost exclusively using abilities, maybe the elemental ones are overkill and took me away from magic, I also tended to use items to heal etc

Didn't bother with the majority of the notice boards, the regional challenges were hit and miss (loved fort condor, didn't finish the catuar one, did the CC one but didn't enjoy it) the moogle stuff was shit, queens blood was brilliant but didn't carry the risk of whatsitsface in FF8

It's an incredible achievement what they've put in to it, it is actually better than I think anyone could have expected, every danger it will end up my game of the year

As a last though....the Weapons look shit, really badly designed

[hogso]

9 hours ago, villa4europe said:

Didn't bother with the majority of the notice boards

Does this mean you didn't do the chicken quest at Gongaga

As for the Weapons, what we've seen so far are very 'Sin' in design, and it'll be interesting to see what Sapphire, Diamond, Emerald and Ruby look like. It'll be disappointing if they're not that similar kaiju/organic mecha design. Maybe the ones we've seen in Rebirth will evolve or something, or be revealed to be a different entity. 

What did you think to the ending? Upon hindsight, I kinda love it. 

[villa4europe]

2 hours ago, hogso said:

Does this mean you didn't do the chicken quest at Gongaga

As for the Weapons, what we've seen so far are very 'Sin' in design, and it'll be interesting to see what Sapphire, Diamond, Emerald and Ruby look like. It'll be disappointing if they're not that similar kaiju/organic mecha design. Maybe the ones we've seen in Rebirth will evolve or something, or be revealed to be a different entity. 

What did you think to the ending? Upon hindsight, I kinda love it. 

Confusing as much as anything, I never bought in to the Zach stuff at any point during the game 

The very very end was touching 

Spoiler

Her ghost or whatever talking to cloud 

Her trial showing her mother's death was even more touching 

But I had 2 main problems with it

Firstly I don't think it's better, they've added more layers to it and made it more complicated even arguably more interesting...but it's not better

Secondly I ended it on something like a 3 hour session, which followed on from a 3+ hour session in the temple the night before, kind of nicely summed my experience of the game up, it was too much, just kept bloody going and by the end I'd just had enough 

[Keyblade]

On 06/07/2024 at 18:15, villa4europe said:

"finished" it, I reckon I've actually done about 40-50% of it but I'd had enough and just got it out the way to play something else, I reckon close to 50 hours 

I did love it overall, struggled early on as I found it overwhelming then broke though, then couldn't be bothered with it

As per previous post I think disappointingly they've killed materia in the game and that's what made the original so special, I played almost exclusively using abilities, maybe the elemental ones are overkill and took me away from magic, I also tended to use items to heal etc

Didn't bother with the majority of the notice boards, the regional challenges were hit and miss (loved fort condor, didn't finish the catuar one, did the CC one but didn't enjoy it) the moogle stuff was shit, queens blood was brilliant but didn't carry the risk of whatsitsface in FF8

It's an incredible achievement what they've put in to it, it is actually better than I think anyone could have expected, every danger it will end up my game of the year

As a last though....the Weapons look shit, really badly designed

The ending was amazing. Bit of a bummer not seeing Shadow's ending because:

Quote

I uh...let him die on the Floating Continent. If I knew I wouldn't!

As I feared, the final dungeon was a tad on the easy side, and I think against Kefka I had only one character die. Just kept pummelling him with 9999 damage from everyone (Setzer with Fixed Dice and Master's Scroll is too ridiculous). Thankfully Terra was the only one who knew Ultima otherwise it would have been a complete joke.

Now it's on to Super Mario RPG and maybe other miscellaneous RPGs before tackling FFVII in the fall. Honestly can't wait.

[Chindie]

I've been plugging away at FF7 Rebirth over the last month or so and finished it this weekend. 

I enjoyed it. But it is padded to ****. And there's too much of the mini game stuff. It's mostly avoidable, but not entirely.

Unusually for me I completed Queens Blood, but I think I kinda did that despite the game itself - it has a point about midway through the questline where the devs seemed to decide they wanted a roadblock where the opponent you face is literally a coin toss whether you win or not, and the big failing for me of Queens Blood generally is how reliant on luck of the draw it is.

Not one I'll be thinking about a platinum on. But good.

[NeilS]

I have been on the ff7 rebirth for the last few weeks. I absolutely loved the first ff7 remake more than rebirth if I am honest.

This second episode is just too full of infuriating mini games. The first one had one or two that were frustrating, this one has 5 or 6 mini games that are frustrating.

I will complete the game for the story, but won’t bother going for platinum like I did with remake. I don’t want to end up hating it, and I can see too many bits that will stress me out. This has left a touch of disappointment with me unfortunately.