I must have had my opinion on this game shift a dozen times while playing it, but now that I'm finally achieved the platinum trophy (a demanding one, for sure) I think I can safely say I liked it.
I don't have the history with OG7 the way most people going into this had, so I was and am intrigued with the direction of the 7 remake project, it's definitely looking more like a reimaging than anything else.
Being that this is expanding the Midgar sequence to a full game, there is a lot more added that ranges from good to not so much. The extended sequence in Wall Market and Corneo's trio was a delight and lots of fun, the part early on where Cloud gets kicked out of Avalanche before the next chapter added a lot to character the interactions (also super effective at making me feel really bad, lmao). Jessie, Wedge, and Biggs in particular became fully fleshed out and I ended up becoming very attached to them.
The game has pacing issues, this has certainly been discussed many times but I can't disagree. There are many forced walking sequences, along a few moments where you won't be be able to spring for some reason, the camera often forces focus on specific setpieces, there are conversations where you can skip lines but not the scene itself, and certain context sensitive traversal (such as ceiling/rail climbing) is pretty slow. These moments can be used to make scenes memorable, but here they add up really quickly and make the game feel padded out. My first playthrough was pretty rough, though the long cutscenes didn't really bother me (I'm a Metal Gear fan from back in the day, I'm immune to "long cutscenes" being a criticism).
Thankfully the combat is more than enough to make up for shortcomings. While I felt limited and underpowered during my first playthrough, once you lock materia slots and level up said materia, you have a pretty damn deep combat system. The transition from turn-based to ARPG while bringing over the ATB system makes combat interactions very strategic and meaningful. It has a bit of a learning curve, but after learning weapon skills and opening up materia slots there are tons of options for all characters, and the combat is pretty great. Boss fights were mostly good or great (I still dislike Rufus though), hard mode bosses often required specific strategies (plus you learn to appreciate character skills that take for granted on earlier difficulties).
Going for completion was super demanding. I noticed lots of people hate going for the dresses, but I needed to get the side quests done anyway so it didn't feel particularly like extra busywork. There weren't too many minigames and the ones that were here were mostly harmless (I don't even think Tifa's lifting was as bad as people said it was, it was just a matter of trial and error). The VR missions also required specific playing during the later stages, and the final one with the summons was visious and I needed all of the hard mode manuscripts to pull it off. It was a test of patience and it almost broke me multiple times, but taking some strategies and tweaking them slightly ended up working in my favor.
The PS5 Intergrade expansion comes with two Yuffie-centric chapters that take place alongside the main story. It's not too much, but Yuffie is pretty fun to play, and works with the AI partner's moveset. Definitely looking forward to playing more of her in Rebirth.
So I do love this game very much, in spite of what annoys me about it. I had a rollercoaster of conflicting feelings, the story takes directions that deviate from the OG in interesting ways that we will have to wait and see how they play out, but there is lots of fun to be had here and I kinda loved it. Definitely excited for my copy of Rebirth to come in.
9/10
I don't have the history with OG7 the way most people going into this had, so I was and am intrigued with the direction of the 7 remake project, it's definitely looking more like a reimaging than anything else.
Being that this is expanding the Midgar sequence to a full game, there is a lot more added that ranges from good to not so much. The extended sequence in Wall Market and Corneo's trio was a delight and lots of fun, the part early on where Cloud gets kicked out of Avalanche before the next chapter added a lot to character the interactions (also super effective at making me feel really bad, lmao). Jessie, Wedge, and Biggs in particular became fully fleshed out and I ended up becoming very attached to them.
The game has pacing issues, this has certainly been discussed many times but I can't disagree. There are many forced walking sequences, along a few moments where you won't be be able to spring for some reason, the camera often forces focus on specific setpieces, there are conversations where you can skip lines but not the scene itself, and certain context sensitive traversal (such as ceiling/rail climbing) is pretty slow. These moments can be used to make scenes memorable, but here they add up really quickly and make the game feel padded out. My first playthrough was pretty rough, though the long cutscenes didn't really bother me (I'm a Metal Gear fan from back in the day, I'm immune to "long cutscenes" being a criticism).
Thankfully the combat is more than enough to make up for shortcomings. While I felt limited and underpowered during my first playthrough, once you lock materia slots and level up said materia, you have a pretty damn deep combat system. The transition from turn-based to ARPG while bringing over the ATB system makes combat interactions very strategic and meaningful. It has a bit of a learning curve, but after learning weapon skills and opening up materia slots there are tons of options for all characters, and the combat is pretty great. Boss fights were mostly good or great (I still dislike Rufus though), hard mode bosses often required specific strategies (plus you learn to appreciate character skills that take for granted on earlier difficulties).
Going for completion was super demanding. I noticed lots of people hate going for the dresses, but I needed to get the side quests done anyway so it didn't feel particularly like extra busywork. There weren't too many minigames and the ones that were here were mostly harmless (I don't even think Tifa's lifting was as bad as people said it was, it was just a matter of trial and error). The VR missions also required specific playing during the later stages, and the final one with the summons was visious and I needed all of the hard mode manuscripts to pull it off. It was a test of patience and it almost broke me multiple times, but taking some strategies and tweaking them slightly ended up working in my favor.
The PS5 Intergrade expansion comes with two Yuffie-centric chapters that take place alongside the main story. It's not too much, but Yuffie is pretty fun to play, and works with the AI partner's moveset. Definitely looking forward to playing more of her in Rebirth.
So I do love this game very much, in spite of what annoys me about it. I had a rollercoaster of conflicting feelings, the story takes directions that deviate from the OG in interesting ways that we will have to wait and see how they play out, but there is lots of fun to be had here and I kinda loved it. Definitely excited for my copy of Rebirth to come in.
9/10