[SPOILERS] FF7 remake discussion time!

[gjoerulv]

I hardly think making it an active rpg is base on market research.... As the majority of action RPGs are fairly niche groups that enjoy them, as are tactical action games so why would they put the effort into creating a new subgenre

Welp all I can say, do some research.

Now, not all of these are exact ARPGs like FF7 pr se, but still not that far off either.

The Elder Scrolls
Diablo
Red Dead Redemption
The Witcher
Dragon Age
The Last of Us
Borderlands
Mass Effect

To mention some. They have all outsold FFs, or was/is at the very least close contenders.
What turn based games outsold these, and/or is in direct contest? Not many. Pokemon perhaps.

And you have action games like Call of Duty, PUGB, GTA, Fortnite, etc, all outselling FFs and other popular traditional turn-based RPGs too by a rather huge margin.
FF as a franchise is almost caught up by Assassin's Creed as a franchise when it comes to sales (counting all games including re-releases and spin-offs). Considering FF has been around 20 years more than Assassin's Creed, that's telling SE's market team something.

SE has since the PS2 days pushed FF in the action direction to be appealing to more people.

 

[Izban]

RPGs as a whole aren't real popular they are a very niche when you bring in sub genres, puritans hate action RPGs and argue over whether ATB or tactical consider RPGs then you have the rps-rpg fanboys or the pokenubs who can't play anything with more then  type advantages who rage when type advantages have to be figured out, then you have the mmorpgers who's life is consumed with there particular addiction and the fpsrpgs which aren't really RPGs cause hand eye coordination actually matters and lootathons... So yeah creating a new sub-genre is goes against common sense or market research.

Basically the typical rpg fanboy picks a subgenre to obsess over, and whinge when there is any divination from there ideal

 

[gjoerulv]

I fail to see the logical connections here; have SE created a new sub-genre? Please explain.

FF7R IS made into an action game, because that's where the money is. Same thing with FF15. The trend in sales goes that way, or rather have never shifted. I'm not saying that the devs works against their wishes. I'm sure many of them, if not all of them are totally hyped about FF7R FF15 and so on. But that's besides the point.

The whole concept of RPG in gaming is rather vague anyway, but most of the games I listed are usually labeled as action-RPGs. FF7R is hardly a new genre.

 

[orichalcon]

SE has since the PS2 days pushed FF in the action direction to be appealing to more people.

SE has pushed FF in the action direction ever since the S added the E

the problem is SE makes games for the japanese market, and if the rest of the world doesnt like it, thats fine (the porn-y action rpg)

squaresoft made playable (well-written) books, thats how i see it

 

[-Ric-]

Finally had time to finish the game.

Spoiler

The ending is... Different indeed. I personally don't hate it but I can't say that I love it either. It's safe to say part 2 will make or break the game.
Most of the story changes/additions before Shinra HQ were fine. Nothing that messed up the story. Infact, some parts were pretty well expanded on and felt better than the original. (Keep your pitchforks down folks!)
The final battles were pretty fun and exciting though. So were a lot of the expanded areas. Not all though, the sewers, train graveyard and the experiments section of Shinra HQ were all pretty aggravating.
The music is a mixed bag for me... some tracks are really good while others are pretty crappy.
The battle system is a win for me. But the weapon customization is lacking.
 

Overall, had a good time. Some things could be better while others were pretty great. I'd give it a solid 8/10 and will definitely go for the Platinum trophy.

 

[gjoerulv]

xP

 

[cbudd]

I pass judgement because I have eyes and ears and can see and hear crap voice acting and an insanely childish script - and very poor battle mechanics inflated by adding HP amounts - the most lazy way of programming battles ever.

If you like this game, it's fine - but I have higher standards. A lot higher.  And certainly, I find it more than foolish to shell out $180 for a full game and in no sane reality should that be considered acceptable.

I'm not trying to be argumentative or sway your opinion here - I am just legitimately curious.  What makes the FF7R script "childish" in your eyes?  It seems to me that the story itself (up until the ending) stays fairly true to the original, with some necessary expansions and additions that you have to have in order to make Midgar a 40 hour affair.  I didn't notice anything particular with the dialogue that bothered me outright.  There is definitely some JRPG/Anime sappy dialogue here and there, but that was true of the original FF7 as well. 

I already gave my thoughts about the voice acting earlier, but to reiterate in general I thought it was pretty good.  This is always going to be very personal, so I can definitely understand it not working for some people.  Thinking about it a little more, the only thing that bothers me with the voice acting (which seems to be a direction issue/design choice) is the constant "grunting" and "huh?" stuff that goes on.  It's very reminiscent of Metal Gear to me...  I feel like it may have made some sense in the past to give a little more insight into the characters with limited facial expressions, but small movements in the faces of the FFVIIR characters are really expressive and the extra noises are kind of distracting in my opinion.

 

[Dark Phoenix]

What's wrong with it is we don't get a complete game that makes sense.  We get a bloated, cat rat quest matrix stunt weird spin off -   We don't get a quality release.  We get a money making exercise - which then reinforces the next mediocre money spinner.  So it never ends.

I prefer a game that has quality - the original game is leaps and bounds ahead of this ... thing.  We shouldn't accept mediocrity at $60 a part.

As someone who thought the original game was somewhat mediocre... This is complete trash.  The parts that I actually LIKED about it, torn out to pander to the masses.  This thing no longer holds anything positive for me.

Welp all I can say, do some research.

Now, not all of these are exact ARPGs like FF7 pr se, but still not that far off either.

The Elder Scrolls
Diablo
Red Dead Redemption
The Witcher
Dragon Age
The Last of Us
Borderlands
Mass Effect

To mention some. They have all outsold FFs, or was/is at the very least close contenders.
What turn based games outsold these, and/or is in direct contest? Not many. Pokemon perhaps.

And you have action games like Call of Duty, PUGB, GTA, Fortnite, etc, all outselling FFs and other popular traditional turn-based RPGs too by a rather huge margin.
FF as a franchise is almost caught up by Assassin's Creed as a franchise when it comes to sales (counting all games including re-releases and spin-offs). Considering FF has been around 20 years more than Assassin's Creed, that's telling SE's market team something.

SE has since the PS2 days pushed FF in the action direction to be appealing to more people.

SE has for at least a decade now gone from being one of the leaders on the RPG front, to being one of the biggest followers.  Other companies innovate, and SE simply borrows pieces from their games without understanding why people like them.  I posted this in response to how garbage FF15 is:

The problem is, when it comes to the Final Fantasy series, Square-Enix has changed the wrong things and held on to the wrong things.  FF15 LOOKS like someone wanted to create a modern-style RPG with a world somewhat like Earth, and then one of the higher-ups said "No, no, no!  This is FINAL FANTASY!  Where are the Behemoths?  The Malboros?  The Tonberries?"  They need to stop jumping on every fucking bandwagon other RPGs have done ("What's popular this year?  MMORPG's?  Let's make this game play like an MMORPG! (FF12)", "What's popular this year?  Final Fantasy 7?  Let's steal from it, but merge in terrible battle mechanics! (FF13)", "What's popular this year?  Open world games like The Elder Scrolls and the new Zelda?  Make this an open world game! (FF15)"), stop trying to turn Final Fantasy into Kingdom Hearts (seriously, was ANYONE asking for Final Fantasy to become action-oriented at any time?), and try to figure out why the original games in the series were successful.  Because they're killing this series, and have been pretty much since the end of the Playstation era.  FF10 sold well, but it wasn't a good game.  12 was better, but it was clearly changed at the last minute to appeal to... I don't fucking know who, 12 year old girls?  13 was a trainwreck.  And I'm ignoring the MMO entries, because I'm not an MMO player.
You don't need to keep the series the same and let it stagnate and die, but if you're going to change it, PLEASE put some thought into the changes you're making!  Changing it for the sake of changing it (or to add new bullets in the game description) is always fucking terrible.

 

[-Ric-]

FF10 sold well, but it wasn't a good game.  12 was better

That's a terrible opinion.

 

[Manakaiser]

That's a terrible opinion.

agreed; in fact apart from story, ffx was actually fantastic imo. mechanics and endgame was top notch imo.

 

[The Black-caped Man]

I wouldn't call it a "terrible" opinion but I also disagree. Since the debate between the combat systems would probably be endless as they are just entirely different I'll focus on the story alone. FFX had still a good main story and a really good twist in the end that made everything that happened have sense(smth that FF games after that never had). Yes Tidus is not a cool protagonist, he's often annoying and lost but I think that is also normal and believable for a 17 year old whose entire world he knew was crushed and he was thrown into this "other" world...but the way he narrates the story while you play it was very good and really made you "feel" you're in this game, this universe now. FFXs characters had a good reason for what they were doing at all points in time as did their villains have(Seymour especially but also Sin, Jecht and Yevon in general).

That is the complete opposite in FFXII: The characters have little to no reason for being in this story at all(with the exception of Bash and maybe Ashe). But especially Vaan is so useless and plays absolutely no role for the story, it really dissappointed me hard the first time I played through. Same for Penelo, Balthier and Fran. They are just not relevant for the war, the Nethecites or have any real....reason to fight against Vayne other than "We don't like evil....we have to stop it". Hell even Gabranth has a deeper personality and story than all the previously mentioned ones.  Balthiers only story relevant sentence ever is "oh yeah Cids my father"....wow....and not even when you kill Cid is there any deeper interaction, just...nothing.

Vayne on the other hand was what I would call a fantastic villain. Similar to Darth Sidious he plays political games to ascend to the top, manipulates and eventually gets rid of all obstacles while still keeping the public behind him. To me, he was who carried the story all by himself. But in the end, that is not enough for me to label the story of a game that involves all characters "good". Through Vayne it rose to mediocre though.

The protagonists(and really all of them) just lacked depth...background....childhood memories, what they did in their life before the game starts, etc. You could sum up each of their story arcs before and what they do during the game in 1-2 sentences. You cannot do that with FFVII-FFX characters, they always had complex and well thought through storylines and they often also "evolved" during the games.

 

[-Ric-]

Vayne on the other hand was what I would call a fantastic villain. Similar to Darth Sidious he plays political games to ascend to the top, manipulates and eventually gets rid of all obstacles while still keeping the public behind him. To me, he was who carried the story all by himself. But in the end, that is not enough for me to label the story of a game that involves all characters "good". Through Vayne it rose to mediocre though.

I never understood the hate Vayne gets. Sure, he doesn't blow up the world or summon meteors, and he doesn't have a 5 meter long sword but the character is great. A strategic genius, ruthless, cold blooded, 100% focused on his task. Plus everytime he speaks, no one's skipping that.

10 is still a better game though.

 

[The Black-caped Man]

Vayne gets hate?

 

[Dark Phoenix]

agreed; in fact apart from story, ffx was actually fantastic imo. mechanics and endgame was top notch imo.

Sorry, but FF10 was the game that ended my streak of buying the latest FF as soon as it came out, because I didn't find it engaging in the slightest.  It was also the first in the series I never bothered to finish.  I only played the first 15 or so minutes of FF12 and realized I wasn't going to like it, either, and since then I stopped playing the new games in the series entirely.

Also...

That is the complete opposite in FFXII: The characters have little to no reason for being in this story at all(with the exception of Bash and maybe Ashe). But especially Vaan is so useless and plays absolutely no role for the story, it really dissappointed me hard the first time I played through.

Yeah, that's what the line "but it was clearly changed at the last minute to appeal to... I don't ferning know who, 12 year old girls?" was getting at.  It's pretty clear that someone over at SE ordered them to add Vaan because "The game needs a whiny emo 16 year old as the main character!"...  Really, if they didn't want to make Basch the main character for whatever reason, they really should have made Balthier the main character...

 

[-Ric-]

Vayne gets hate?

Yup.

Really, if they didn't want to make Basch the main character for whatever reason, they really should have made Balthier the main character...

Ashe should've been the main character, not Basch or Balthier. Basch is a glorified bodyguard, filled with regret for having failed both his homeland as well as Dalmasca. Balthier tags around out of sheer curiosity up to the point where he realizes he's on a collision course with his father as well as the empire, then he's all in. As for Vaan and Penelo... Honestly, who the fuck knows lol.

It's Ashe's story. They should have made her the main character instead of designing her with a hooker's outfit and going with useless characters instead.

I have to say I found FF10 to be an amazing game.

Well, there's one thing we agree on after all. Haha.

 

[Dark Phoenix]

Ashe should've been the main character, not Basch or Balthier. Basch is a glorified bodyguard, filled with regret for having failed both his homeland as well as Dalmasca. Balthier tags around out of sheer curiosity up to the point where he realizes he's on a collision course with his father as well as the empire, then he's all in. As for Vaan and Penelo... Honestly, who the fern knows lol.

It's Ashe's story. They should have made her the main character instead of designing her with a hooker's outfit and going with useless characters instead.

Well, I agree, but my understanding is that the writers wanted Basch to be the main character, and they were overridden by the higher-ups, who felt that Basch was too old to be a protagonist, and they pretty much had to come up with Vaan as the main character at the last minute.  I think they wanted to do something LIKE FF10, where the main character of the game wasn't the main character of the story, and that Basch was meant to be the player avatar... And then they pretty much had Vaan pushed on them at some point.  Which is why his connection to the story is pretty much nonexistent, unlike any of the other characters (well, except Penelo, but she's there because otherwise Vaan has NO connection to anybody in the party whatsoever).

 

[Unwise Owl Tattoo]

FFXII is a perfect example of death by committee. Kinda mystifying how they took all the talent from Final Fantasy Tactics and produced that mess.

 

[MysticLord]

FFXII is a perfect example of death by committee. Kinda mystifying how they took all the talent from Final Fantasy Tactics and produced that mess.

They fired the guy from FFT/VS because he had a nervous breakdown and let the Sa-Ga goofball finish it.

IMO Vayne is the hero.

 

[Manakaiser]

Something interesting happened to me. I cant seem to finish the game X_X.

Ive breezed through the game until chapter 16 with long gamplay sessions of up to 3 hours but since ive started climbing (and now entered) shinra building my drive has significantly died down and im unsure why. Since ive reached ch16 the longest ive played in 1 go was about 30 minutes and ive been sitting in this chapted for almost a week until i reached chapter 17 and since then i havent touched the game and a this point im not even sure im going to pick up the game again and I cant really rationally explain why, it just happened fluidly.

Kind of a shame as I started off really enjoying it but the gameplay outstayed its welcome it seems for me, combat gets boring very fast once you have everything and cant look forward to new stuff adding to it like materia which happens too early in the game imo. The ultimate stuff was always only possible to unlock at the very end in previous titles which was a highly motivating factor as in stuff to look forward to, here im peaked midway chapter 14; Not kotr, no ultimate materias, no ultimate weapons to grind for so you can beat the ultimate bosses you can then grind for so all it has to keep you motivated really is only seeing the story unfold now and thats not motivating at all...

Not sure mayb killing bahamuth which was a joke, didnt even equip any materia i was wearing random ass apleveling weapons and materia purely based on materia slots and what needed ap like atb stagger etcetc, in chapter 14 was the secret killing blow as postgame/superbosses were always a big drive for me in FF for the more recent games; I Know there is hardmode but still, a boss being harder in an extra mode (especially if the difficulty comes from mainly restrictions) doesnt feel the same as a boss just being hard in the first place)

Kinda sad but Ive had enough hours I kinda enjoyed so Im overall fine with the investment but my rating definitely changed to about 6,5/10 from mayb 7,5-8/10 i was at initially =/

 

[orichalcon]

that really is a shame because the shinra building (1st time) is literally my favorite part from the original

everytime i get there i take my sweet ass time, even walk on the treadmill a little bit, so i dont get through it too fast

but part of that fun was knowing you have a long way to go