After years of me bitching that Final Fantasy as a series was suffering from an identity crisis since Sakaguchi left, playing this game was a fascinating experience because it gave me a bunch of epiphanies that made me realize: this isn't an identity crisis, modern FF very much has a pretty clear identity.
Unfortunately, such identity simply doesn't appeal to my personal tastes at best, and is completely misguided or even creatively bankrupt at worst.
Ever since XIII, this series has had an action game structure: a bunch of hallways and corridors, level design consisting of nothing but a series of point of no returns. FFXV had an open world, it's true, but to compensate that, the 2nd half of that game is modern FF's level design in its rawest form possible, even abandoning any pretenses of being an RPG.
VII Remake is no exception, this game is extremely linear, and also features the same "start talking automatically when you approach them" NPCs from FF13. This is very clearly a Motomu Toriyama game, and it's fascinating/puzzling to me that this aspect hasn't had the same backlash that XIII had, so many years ago.
But I feel like FFVIIR wants to have its cake and eat it too, because it has these Uncharted-esque maps but then remembers "oh, we need sidequests!", and expects you to """"explore"""". But backtracking through these hallways is simply a chore, feeling almost claustrophobic and boxed, and it doesn't help that most sidequests are a bore, some consisting of "find the little girl's cats".
Which brings me to my next point: I can't shake this feeling that modern FF's design philosophy feels very... checkbox-y. It's like they go through a list of Things People Want, and just start checking the boxes.
As for the much praised combat, I agree it is pretty fun, but I don't think it's as good as everyone says it is. First off, you need Assess. I am a big fan of getting an enemy's stats to form your strategy, but the thing here is, you absolutely have to waste a Materia slot at all times - and you cannot change your materia setup mid-battle. Both feel like an oversight considering how essential Assess is to the combat.
And secondly, we come to my next epiphany: modern FF sure loves to put spectacle in detriment of something else. In XIII and XV's case, it was storytelling and/or characters that suffered, in VIIR, it's the gameplay.
Every boss battle is crazy exciting (thanks to some S-tier sound direction. I may not think this soundtrack is as good as the original, but the way they use the songs throughout the game is damn impressive), but they can also drag. You don't have the proper Materia to deal with the boss more effectively? Well fuck off then, this fight just got a whole lot longer.
Every fight is also interrupted by cutscenes, which cancel your damage, and this was always infuriating. Again: spectacle over everything else.
And this wants to be an action game, but still features unavoidable damage, like a turn-based game would. Never in my life have I used so many Phoenix Downs, simply because so many enemies seem to have attacks that just bounce you around, with very little you can do. Dodging has no i-frames, and only serves against slow-moving attacks, and the Rufus fight is the perfect example of how much of a miserable time you have if you don't use Assess.
And should I mention the two bosses you face in a motorcycle? The second one in particular felt like such a waste of time, yuck. But again, all for the spectacle baby.
That being said, it is an exciting combat system, and messing around with my Materia to create some cool builds was really fun and satisfying.
The production values in general really do a lot of heavy lifting to be honest, this game looks and sounds pretty damn great. I still cannot believe how good the character models in particular look, it's ridiculous.
Speaking of characters, to my utter shock they actually got this aspect (mostly) right. After years of Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts poisoning the well and giving us edgy, emo Cloud thanks to Nomura... it is Nomura himself that manages to bring back dorky, tryhard, big-hearted Cloud? A true miracle.
Barret and Tifa are also A+, though it bothers me immensely that Tifa's VA direction is pretty normal, but they gave her anime girl body language for some reason. Aerith is decent, but a little too bubbly for my tastes, though Jessie is a big oof, yikes.
Now the elephant in the room: this ain't a remake. I already knew this going in, and the Nomuraisms were being teased throughout the game: like Roche, this completely random, useless story moment that serves literally no purpose other than have some cool shit happening in the screen.
But still, as I was playing the game, I kept thinking "wow, the cutscenes and writing aren't bad like KH... maybe this won't be that bad?". But then it happened: the endgame. And that was when I met again the Nomura-Nojima storytelling I was oh so familiar with.
This game's endgame makes no damn sense, it's like they turn on a switch. Characters (especially Aerith) suddenly begin to talk in cryptic pseudo-deep riddle bullshit, just so they can avoid telling the audience more information. Aerith clearly knows more than she is telling us, but nah, let her talk in rambling nonsense instead. Sephiroth spends the whole damn game talking like that, he's like a constant reminder that Nomura-Nojima are behind the wheel here.
Then the characters do some vague cool-looking nonsense, and fight some vague (but cool-looking!) monstrosities, and the game ends with some vague twists and cliffhanger. It's a whole bunch of nothing, just piling unanswered questions in scenes that look cool to get people excited.
I already knew something like that was coming, and even then I was shocked to see the difference, the game literally turned into Kingdom Hearts in a second. Had I played this game completely blind, I would have most likely hated it. Despised it. I heavily dislike this "mystery box" storytelling, and heavily dislike Nomura-Nojima's writing. It's a recipe for disaster.
This game's VA direction also loves characters doing random grunts, which is always off-putting. Also off-putting are the constant attempts to be "cinematic" - this game has so much arbitrarily forced slow walking. Usually those happen so that the game can load, here it's a very "hello fellow cinematic games" energy.
A fun game, but someone please take Final Fantasy out of the hands of Nomura and Nojima.
Unfortunately, such identity simply doesn't appeal to my personal tastes at best, and is completely misguided or even creatively bankrupt at worst.
Ever since XIII, this series has had an action game structure: a bunch of hallways and corridors, level design consisting of nothing but a series of point of no returns. FFXV had an open world, it's true, but to compensate that, the 2nd half of that game is modern FF's level design in its rawest form possible, even abandoning any pretenses of being an RPG.
VII Remake is no exception, this game is extremely linear, and also features the same "start talking automatically when you approach them" NPCs from FF13. This is very clearly a Motomu Toriyama game, and it's fascinating/puzzling to me that this aspect hasn't had the same backlash that XIII had, so many years ago.
But I feel like FFVIIR wants to have its cake and eat it too, because it has these Uncharted-esque maps but then remembers "oh, we need sidequests!", and expects you to """"explore"""". But backtracking through these hallways is simply a chore, feeling almost claustrophobic and boxed, and it doesn't help that most sidequests are a bore, some consisting of "find the little girl's cats".
Which brings me to my next point: I can't shake this feeling that modern FF's design philosophy feels very... checkbox-y. It's like they go through a list of Things People Want, and just start checking the boxes.
As for the much praised combat, I agree it is pretty fun, but I don't think it's as good as everyone says it is. First off, you need Assess. I am a big fan of getting an enemy's stats to form your strategy, but the thing here is, you absolutely have to waste a Materia slot at all times - and you cannot change your materia setup mid-battle. Both feel like an oversight considering how essential Assess is to the combat.
And secondly, we come to my next epiphany: modern FF sure loves to put spectacle in detriment of something else. In XIII and XV's case, it was storytelling and/or characters that suffered, in VIIR, it's the gameplay.
Every boss battle is crazy exciting (thanks to some S-tier sound direction. I may not think this soundtrack is as good as the original, but the way they use the songs throughout the game is damn impressive), but they can also drag. You don't have the proper Materia to deal with the boss more effectively? Well fuck off then, this fight just got a whole lot longer.
Every fight is also interrupted by cutscenes, which cancel your damage, and this was always infuriating. Again: spectacle over everything else.
And this wants to be an action game, but still features unavoidable damage, like a turn-based game would. Never in my life have I used so many Phoenix Downs, simply because so many enemies seem to have attacks that just bounce you around, with very little you can do. Dodging has no i-frames, and only serves against slow-moving attacks, and the Rufus fight is the perfect example of how much of a miserable time you have if you don't use Assess.
And should I mention the two bosses you face in a motorcycle? The second one in particular felt like such a waste of time, yuck. But again, all for the spectacle baby.
That being said, it is an exciting combat system, and messing around with my Materia to create some cool builds was really fun and satisfying.
The production values in general really do a lot of heavy lifting to be honest, this game looks and sounds pretty damn great. I still cannot believe how good the character models in particular look, it's ridiculous.
Speaking of characters, to my utter shock they actually got this aspect (mostly) right. After years of Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts poisoning the well and giving us edgy, emo Cloud thanks to Nomura... it is Nomura himself that manages to bring back dorky, tryhard, big-hearted Cloud? A true miracle.
Barret and Tifa are also A+, though it bothers me immensely that Tifa's VA direction is pretty normal, but they gave her anime girl body language for some reason. Aerith is decent, but a little too bubbly for my tastes, though Jessie is a big oof, yikes.
Now the elephant in the room: this ain't a remake. I already knew this going in, and the Nomuraisms were being teased throughout the game: like Roche, this completely random, useless story moment that serves literally no purpose other than have some cool shit happening in the screen.
But still, as I was playing the game, I kept thinking "wow, the cutscenes and writing aren't bad like KH... maybe this won't be that bad?". But then it happened: the endgame. And that was when I met again the Nomura-Nojima storytelling I was oh so familiar with.
This game's endgame makes no damn sense, it's like they turn on a switch. Characters (especially Aerith) suddenly begin to talk in cryptic pseudo-deep riddle bullshit, just so they can avoid telling the audience more information. Aerith clearly knows more than she is telling us, but nah, let her talk in rambling nonsense instead. Sephiroth spends the whole damn game talking like that, he's like a constant reminder that Nomura-Nojima are behind the wheel here.
Then the characters do some vague cool-looking nonsense, and fight some vague (but cool-looking!) monstrosities, and the game ends with some vague twists and cliffhanger. It's a whole bunch of nothing, just piling unanswered questions in scenes that look cool to get people excited.
I already knew something like that was coming, and even then I was shocked to see the difference, the game literally turned into Kingdom Hearts in a second. Had I played this game completely blind, I would have most likely hated it. Despised it. I heavily dislike this "mystery box" storytelling, and heavily dislike Nomura-Nojima's writing. It's a recipe for disaster.
This game's VA direction also loves characters doing random grunts, which is always off-putting. Also off-putting are the constant attempts to be "cinematic" - this game has so much arbitrarily forced slow walking. Usually those happen so that the game can load, here it's a very "hello fellow cinematic games" energy.
A fun game, but someone please take Final Fantasy out of the hands of Nomura and Nojima.