Final Fantasy VII is Back

I love TIm Rogers, here is his 3 hours video review of FFVII Remake. Enjoy! (bias: I am backing him on patreon).

Thank you so much for linking that. That was a glorious three hours, 18 minutes, 55 seconds and unknown number of frames.

I am still watching ;) Disc 4

I made my way through it doing a ‘disc’ or two a day for about a week. The extra impressive thing about it is that a 3+ hour video only has a ten-minute section of spoilers (for the Remake itself, it assumes some familiarity with FFVII, but even then there is not anything I’d consider major).

His next video is going to be about The Last of Us, which I have no interest in or experience with, but I’ll watch it anyway.

That 10 minute spoiler section was really impressive to me, in terms of respect for this game. I plan on playing this game one day, but I don’t mind spoiling myself about it anyway. It’s funny that Tim Rogers says that you can only use that story-telling device once. The reason I dislike certain Japanese games is precisely because they use a story-telling device like that multiple times, so it will be interesting to see if that holds true here.

And that spoiler section really made me want to play Final Fantasy VII Remake for the first time.

I’m playing through this game.

The game started slow. I persevered and started to really enjoy it. Then I hit chapter 9. It’s like the designers took a list of all the things I hate about games and rolled them into one section! Confusing city to navigate. Obnoxiously over the top NPCs. Two long, plodding boss battles. Nonsensical plot points - why were they going to “rescue” Tifa? Fetch quests. Not just one but two rhythm mini-games. Based on the 18 chapter count I’m halfway through. I hope it gets better.

Tim Rogers saying in that review that the midgard portion of the original game is only 8 hours even if you take your time made me fire it up today.

Well it was that, and this 2 hour discussion on the FF 16 trailer and the FF 7 Remake.

Is there a FF XVI thread yet? Didn’t see one but not sure so I’ll put this here:

This is giving me some FFXII vibes, but one character control only??? Where’s your party? And it looks even more like an action title than the last few. Ugh, SquEnix, looks like I need to stick to the handhelds for my classic JRPG fix. Seems to be Sony exclusive, so doesn’t matter, I guess.

Only temporarily. I don’t mind waiting for other platforms. There’s a big discussion in the above video on whether they should announce FF 7 Remake part 2 for all platforms simultaneously or not since Part 1 will be out on PC and Xbox platforms by then.

I watched the trailer and came out feeling very…meh? Feels like Square’s trying harder to appeal to Western sensibilities and that doesn’t seem to really play well into Square’s strengths.

Is he related to John Laraquette? Kinda looks like him. Especially now that he’s 40.

Wow, he kinda does. It’s really the hair, but I can see shades of the nose and cheekbones, too.

Coming to PS5 on June 10th. I except news of a PC version will follow shortly.

So I guess this is part 2?

I wish they’d hire a better voice director.

This is still Part 1, but with enhanced graphics for the PS5.

Plus some additional Yuffie story content. Likely will bridge into part 2.

I guess she’s no longer an optional/secret party member then. Curious to see what they have her do during the Midgar portion of the game, but she was by far the least developed character in the original so they essentially have a blank canvas to work with.

I don’t mind an excuse to replay this - I loved it - but I was going to do a replay when Part 2 had a release date, somewhere closer to said date, and that’s still my plan. I’m going to look forward to this though, and it’s awesome it will be a free upgrade to my PS5 and keep my saves, though… I just realized my saves were on a PS4 I just nuked and sold. Shoot. Ah well, like I said, I was going to replay it anyway.

The upgraded version drops today, and is a free upgrade for PS5 players* that might want to play again on newer hardware with more bells and whistles (I’m not sure what was added/changed for the PS5 version, but there is a distinct PS5 version available). *PS Plus members that own the game via that method don’t get the upgrade for free, I have read.

The $20 DLC appears to be a stand alone story with all new characters that sounds really cool so I’m grabbing that as well (exclusive for the PS5) and I may dive right into that - I’m looking forward to a replay of FFVII though so I may do that first, but I need to get back to Mass Effect Legendary Edition before I dive into anything new on the PS5.

The VO. This game is too anime for me. I played the original on PC and had the benefit of just text.