Topic: Final fantasy discussion thread

@Thrillho Yeah, I must say - I’m rather impressed with the bosses so far. Each one I’ve faced has unique challenges and also creative art style. The game is really beautiful in general, but the bosses are especially well conceived.

I like how having the right materia and spells will make an encounter easier, but it’s not always a necessity if you get creative with your party. In Persona, if you don’t utilize enemy weaknesses then you’re usually toast. In FF, it helps but if you have enough other firepower you can often make due.

So I’m just starting Chapter 12, so I guess I’m probably over half way? Maybe two-thirds?

@Th3solution There’s 18 chapters so technically two thirds I guess.

What is impressive about the game is that there is real depth to the combat and materia mechanics but you can get through without worrying about it too much.

The blue materia is particularly useful when used right. For instance, you could give Cloud fire linked to magnify (the equivalent of “all” from the original) but also link fire to MP absorb so he will attack all enemies with fire but also absorb MP.

They’ve also boosted the synergy materia since I played. That one (got from Chadley) links to an elemental materia and when another character uses any ability requiring ATB, that character will perform the base level magic attack on the same enemy. So you could get Cloud to use one of his ability and Aerith will follow it up with thunder. Originally, it used up an ATB bar and required MP but requires neither now so is essentially a free attack.

@Th3solution Just to respond to your earlier message, I do have the Royal Edition, and as an update I'll say that I've completed chapter 1 now and am on to chapter 2, probably have to camp somewhere for the night soon after progressing the main story somewhat. I just had an interesting battle with some knight-like characters who went down easily enough, but now we're back on the road for the next part of the bro-ad trip heheh. Oh, and as a @colonelkilgore told me to do it, I've been having Igni (I think that's his name) or the "speccy one" cooking for me at camp, I usually choose a crisp cheesy pizza 😛How is 7R going? How's your current game or games going colonel?

@Th3solution just did a bit of a dungeon crawl, you have to acquire specific powers, I'm saying this without spoiling anything I hope, in order to advance the power of your character, but using said powers depletes HP while you use them, N.B these powers aren't spells, I don't want to say too much for fear of giving too much away, but the map gives you the option of returning to the entrance of the dungeon after you've got the goods, which I thought was quite a nice mechanic. Remember that @colonelkilgore?

@TheBrandedSwordsman Sounds good and a nice variety from FF7. It has me more excited to try it eventually so definitely keep me updated.

@TraCuz- I’ve not played any in the last couple days but I’m into Ch 12 and really enjoying it more and more. Having both Tifa and Aerith in my party has been great. I really love playing as both characters during combat as each has their own strengths and strategy. That boss Eligor was no joke. It was pretty intense, but I enjoyed the whole ghost and haunted vibe of that chapter. I don’t remember that section in the original game, but there isn’t much detail I remember about the Midgar section of the original game. And I definitely don’t remember a big dancing mini game at Corneo’s in the original 😅

Overall I like the combat a lot, I like most of the characters and story, and the visuals are really beautiful. It’s a great game to look at. I might have mentioned this, but I wish it had haptics and adaptive triggers and 3D audio. But I’ll take the native 4K and the 60 fps as a nice bonus.

So the Fort Condor mini game in INTERmission is equally a bit rubbish but also incredibly addictive. Shame there’s so few people to play it against in the game.

@Th3solution I'm glad to hear its really grown on you, the gameplay is just sublime. you would be correct Eligor and the haunted train station was not in the original. I wish there was something to warn you! There's a trophy for obtaining all of the items that can be stolen from enemies, that enemy has a staff for Aerith. Haha! That dance scene caught me so off guard, especially the production value that went into.

You're not kidding about the game being great to look at, let me know when you get to the end of Ch. 16. There's a cutscene that I think is one the best I've ever laid my eyes on in all of gaming. You'll know it when you see it.

@TraCuz- Well the train graveyard is in the original game but that section is certainly expanded in the remake! And the enemy you mention is also in the original game;

Link here!

@Thrillho Haha man I recently just played Midgar in FF7(1997) and I completely missed this rare boss fight. 24 years later and still has secrets for people like me!

@Th3solution I just took down a giant mech at the end of Chapter two, very reminiscent of FF7R, greatly enjoyed the boss fight, and now have the ability to drive the car, apparently you can only switch characters in the game after earning the ability to do so during gameplay, so I don't know if that'll put you off or not? How is FF7R going?

@TheBrandedSwordsman Sounds fun. It’s sounding more and more like I want to try FFXV eventually. I’ll probably need a little break after 7R, but I’ve enjoyed it enough to want to experience Noctis and Co.’s journey.

I just took down a major summon boss and am onward to try and save some of my squad mates from Shinra. I’m probably about 2/3 finished, based on my playtime and what chapter I’m in. The game is getting noticeably harder and even some of the basic fights lately have pushed me a little. But my materia and equipment is getting stronger and so it’s a lot more fiddling in the menus to change up equipment. I’m enjoying it though, and sometimes such a thing will annoy me when there is too much equipment shuffling to constantly do, but it strikes a good balance here where a player can constantly optimize the load out if they want, but I’m also able to spam certain builds which work for most encounters.

How about FFXV, is there a lot of equipment change outs or is the leveling up skill tree type of stuff?

@Th3solution Your four swords are linked to the arrow buttons, and I haven't come across the use of materia except for spells, one of your swords is a greatsword that does lots of damage, more as your level up, so that's usually my go-to weapon, also in terms of leveling up you tend to do that every night when you set up camp and have a meal, so that occurs regularly enough to make a positive impact on gameplay.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake just keeps getting better and better.
@TraCuz- I’ll leave some more detailed impressions later, but I’ve been really pleased with these last few chapters I’ve played.

@Iver I agree. The first dozen hours or so I felt like it was a pretty good game, but it just seemed a little ‘off’ from what the original game did. However, over time, it has really grown in my mind and ultimately has become something all its own. It’s a strange combination of nostalgia and also something new and unique. These latter chapters seem to really ramp up the production quality too. The HDR visuals are fantastic.

@Just2Milky I figured I’d respond over here to keep from derailing over yonder. 😄 It’s definitely worth $50. As far as time-wise, the in-game clock has me at about 45 hours. I think I have about 2 chapters left and so I’ll probably finish around 50-55 hours maybe. That’s with me playing pretty slow, I’ve done all side quests and spent some time grinding in the coliseum and whatnot. There is some replay value too, and a lot of people replay on Hard because apparently there are some unlockables only available that way (and not to mention platinum trophy requires the Hard run). For me, I don’t think I’ll turn around and replay right away, but maybe later.

If you’re a fan of Final Fantasy then I think it’s a no brainer. I have seen it preowned for as low as $25, if you are tolerant of buying used. And the PS5 upgrade is free if you own the disc, so it’s a great deal to experience the native PS5 version, which I think looks beautiful. Not much DualSense support, but the 4K and the 60fps are both super, as it the lightning fast load times.

Been following this talk about FF7 and it's put me in the mood to finally give the original FF7 a go. Played for about an hour now on Vita and it's pretty good so far. Will definitely share more thoughts when I've played a bit more.

On a side note, ever since I started playing through the FF series back in 2016, I've never had a proper good time with any of the games. FF1 was okay, FF2 was awful, FF3 was too difficult, FF4 was decent enough but I couldn't finish it due to the difficulty spike with the final boss, FF5 had a very engrossing gameplay system but not a good story, FF6 was just like FF4, i.e. decent enough but I didn't finish it either. So hopefully, FF7 will be the game that will finally make me like the series.

Well, I spoke too soon. I was all grins and accolades about FF7 Remake and then I got to the Motor Ball boss fight. 😒
That was awful. I almost just shut the game off because I was so discouraged by the whole thing, but I didn’t know how far back my save would start me and I didn’t want to have to do all those preliminary fights again too. Ugh, what a mess. Well, I finally killed him after my 5th attempt, but it was not fun and not satisfying, just annoying. It wasn’t even that the boss was that hard, it was just a poorly executed idea — the controls were awful, the game didn’t really tell you what to do, and the hit detection was lousy. Also, for some reason they decided to put in some half-baked DualSense support with adaptive triggers and haptics for that section and it somehow made the whole experience worse.

Oh well, it’s a blemish on an otherwise good final stretch of bosses. There’s been some tough ones in Ch 17. I’ve got to put down the game now for a day or more and regain my composure after that motorbike fiasco, but I reckon I’m close to the end.

@Th3solution Let’s just say that if FF7 remake was at all faithful then Motor Ball would have been the final boss!

@LtSarge I have to agree about FF6 (I haven't played any of the earlier ones). I loved the game, played it twice, never finished it because it becomes ridiculously hard after that big event (I guess you're supposed to power up through side quests and a general grind but it's really discouraging). I should try again some day

7, 9 and 10 are much better in that regard.

@Voltan It's very reassuring to hear you say that because I kinda quit preemptively without actually finding out if the final parts of the game were that difficult. I had barely used any other characters besides like Terra, Sabin, Locke and Edgar, so I had like 10 characters that hadn't been used at all and you have to use all of them in the final level of the game. So I didn't want that to ruin my experience with the game when the rest of it had been decent.

Glad to hear that at least 7 won't be like that because I'm enjoying it a lot so far and I don't want anything to ruin that.

@LtSarge I mean, last time I played 7 was 20+ years ago but I know I don't remember anything being too hard (other than some entirely optional endgame stuff).