New Threat's got some good and some bad. The good is that it adds some fun new elements to the game, and adds some challenge in for players who've played the original game multiple times. However, some of the changes went a little overboard, and tried to shoehorn in the Guard Scorpion a bit too much at times. Some of the unlock conditions for Level 4 limit break challenges are a bit undercooked or just plain don't work sometimes. Still, definitely worth a play.
I dare say the definitive way to play FFVII (I'd still recommend the original if it's your first time playing FFVII). Solid balancing was done throughout to make the game actually challenging, but never unfair.
I finished Type A and plan to play type B one day in the future.
I finished Type A and plan to play type B one day in the future.
The last time I played the unmodded FF7 was probably more than a decade ago, but between sessions of my most recent New Threat playthrough I watched a friend play the original for the first time, observing their own reactions and answering their questions about materia loadouts and being reminded why I haven't gone back.
New Threat isn't a challenge mod (which in the world of romhacks usually means "kaizo"-level sadism) but is unmistakably more difficult than vanilla, as a natural consequence of giving the player more meaningful choices. Everyone in vanilla is a jack of all trades by default; equipping magic materia barely affects your physical stats, so you may as well take advantage of the versatility. New Threat creates more tradeoffs, and gives the player three new major tools for experimenting with character builds: (1) materia now carries much larger stat adjustments, presenting more tradeoffs and encouraging specialization; (2) gear also carries large stat adjustments (e.g. Cloud's Ragnarok sword grants +60 Vitality, making him much tankier); and (3) there's a permanent stat upgrade system, too. You can effectively "preview" the effectiveness of permanent upgrades by playing with materia and gear, which is neat.
As for difficulty, if you understand the basics, you can feel your way through most boss fights in 1 or maybe 2 attempts, though the recurring Jenova fights are a fair bit spicier. Knights of the Round, while nerfed, is still very strong. You can still Mime it, or pair it with MP Absorb. It's still the strongest thing in the game, just less absurd.
So far, what I've described is a FFVII that is a little less dull to play; I'm no longer just clearing every Mythril Mines enounter by spamming Matra Magic. For me, that's the main draw of New Threat -- gameplay that feels like vanilla but better -- but there's more here to recommend it. There are a number of quality of life changes. I can't possibly be comprehensive here, but for example...
There's a Fort Condor transport NPC who will pop up in various towns as new Fort Condor fights become available, negating the need for completionists to backtrack allllllll the way to Fort Condor at awkward times. Warp to Fort Condor, complete the fight, warp back. Much better for the pace of the game.
The clockface navigation puzzle in the Temple of the Ancients can be autocompleted, if you don't feel like dealing with it.
* Magic Pots now drop Elixirs instead of Turbo Ethers when killed, so they are a sustainable farming spot even without the bother of the W-Item trick.
Additionally, and potentially controversially, there are script, event, and story revisions/additions, but by the standards of romhacks/mods these are very tasteful, or are at least to my taste. It's a far cry from e.g. the Brave New World hack of FFVI. New Threat adds new bosses, some of whom are references to other FF games, but they pretty much all feel tastefully done. For example, the first boss, the Guard Scorpion, has been renamed the X-ATM Scorpion and is a recurring and ill-fated boss you meet several times over the game, taking its name from the X-ATM092 robot that hounds Squall during the Dollet escape in FFVIII. If this sounds like the Scary Movie of Final Fantasy games, it's not. The references are more akin to those the series has always employed, like when a red chocobo turns up in a Matsuno game and you know you're going to suffer, or when the magical town in FFIV borrowed its name from FFII.
One of the easiest to appreciate additions is that your party members appear in towns, hanging out. Maybe you'll find Tifa lost in thought in a bar, or Vincent skulking alone in a remote spot, or Yuffie repeatedly harassing Red XIII. The modder behind New Threat, who goes by the handle Sega Chief, really has a very good sense of tone, and I think pretty much all of his story changes work. That's more than I can say for the developers of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, as much as I like that game too.
Honestly, my biggest gripes about New Threat aren't what Sega Chief changed, but what he didn't. It's still a hassle to earn GP and BP in the Gold Saucer, the snowboard minigame is still awful, and Bizarro Sephiroth's fight design is, well, I'm not a fan.
While many of the FF romhacks/mods I've enjoyed, like FFIV Ultima, FFVI Brave New World, and Laggy Fantasy Tactics, are really only going to be a good fit for a certain type of player, I think New Threat is more like the Restored & Rebalanced hack for the original FF, in that I would pretty much recommend it over the vanilla version to anybody playing FFVII on PC. Maybe play vanilla first, but for your replays consider New Threat.
New Threat isn't a challenge mod (which in the world of romhacks usually means "kaizo"-level sadism) but is unmistakably more difficult than vanilla, as a natural consequence of giving the player more meaningful choices. Everyone in vanilla is a jack of all trades by default; equipping magic materia barely affects your physical stats, so you may as well take advantage of the versatility. New Threat creates more tradeoffs, and gives the player three new major tools for experimenting with character builds: (1) materia now carries much larger stat adjustments, presenting more tradeoffs and encouraging specialization; (2) gear also carries large stat adjustments (e.g. Cloud's Ragnarok sword grants +60 Vitality, making him much tankier); and (3) there's a permanent stat upgrade system, too. You can effectively "preview" the effectiveness of permanent upgrades by playing with materia and gear, which is neat.
As for difficulty, if you understand the basics, you can feel your way through most boss fights in 1 or maybe 2 attempts, though the recurring Jenova fights are a fair bit spicier. Knights of the Round, while nerfed, is still very strong. You can still Mime it, or pair it with MP Absorb. It's still the strongest thing in the game, just less absurd.
So far, what I've described is a FFVII that is a little less dull to play; I'm no longer just clearing every Mythril Mines enounter by spamming Matra Magic. For me, that's the main draw of New Threat -- gameplay that feels like vanilla but better -- but there's more here to recommend it. There are a number of quality of life changes. I can't possibly be comprehensive here, but for example...
There's a Fort Condor transport NPC who will pop up in various towns as new Fort Condor fights become available, negating the need for completionists to backtrack allllllll the way to Fort Condor at awkward times. Warp to Fort Condor, complete the fight, warp back. Much better for the pace of the game.
The clockface navigation puzzle in the Temple of the Ancients can be autocompleted, if you don't feel like dealing with it.
* Magic Pots now drop Elixirs instead of Turbo Ethers when killed, so they are a sustainable farming spot even without the bother of the W-Item trick.
Additionally, and potentially controversially, there are script, event, and story revisions/additions, but by the standards of romhacks/mods these are very tasteful, or are at least to my taste. It's a far cry from e.g. the Brave New World hack of FFVI. New Threat adds new bosses, some of whom are references to other FF games, but they pretty much all feel tastefully done. For example, the first boss, the Guard Scorpion, has been renamed the X-ATM Scorpion and is a recurring and ill-fated boss you meet several times over the game, taking its name from the X-ATM092 robot that hounds Squall during the Dollet escape in FFVIII. If this sounds like the Scary Movie of Final Fantasy games, it's not. The references are more akin to those the series has always employed, like when a red chocobo turns up in a Matsuno game and you know you're going to suffer, or when the magical town in FFIV borrowed its name from FFII.
One of the easiest to appreciate additions is that your party members appear in towns, hanging out. Maybe you'll find Tifa lost in thought in a bar, or Vincent skulking alone in a remote spot, or Yuffie repeatedly harassing Red XIII. The modder behind New Threat, who goes by the handle Sega Chief, really has a very good sense of tone, and I think pretty much all of his story changes work. That's more than I can say for the developers of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, as much as I like that game too.
Honestly, my biggest gripes about New Threat aren't what Sega Chief changed, but what he didn't. It's still a hassle to earn GP and BP in the Gold Saucer, the snowboard minigame is still awful, and Bizarro Sephiroth's fight design is, well, I'm not a fan.
While many of the FF romhacks/mods I've enjoyed, like FFIV Ultima, FFVI Brave New World, and Laggy Fantasy Tactics, are really only going to be a good fit for a certain type of player, I think New Threat is more like the Restored & Rebalanced hack for the original FF, in that I would pretty much recommend it over the vanilla version to anybody playing FFVII on PC. Maybe play vanilla first, but for your replays consider New Threat.
Pure Redcore. Makes FF7 even more fun to play, has some minor bugs and I don't like the method to unlock the final superboss but an incredible mod nonetheless (played on Type A, will try Arrange Mode soon enough)