Lurker > Kotetsu534

Yasujiro Ozu
Hayao Miyazaki
Ingmar Bergman
Sergio Leone

Nolan and Hitch didn't feel like they met the spirit of the question so left them off.

Future

Yup

Kim
Madeline
Chloe

Malenia - Elden Ring
Mike Tyson - Punch-Out
The Matador - SMT: Nocturne
Sephiroth - Kingdom Hearts 1 [Feel slightly weird about this as its an optional fight, but it's probably the (non-MMO) fight I've discussed most in person.]

Hmm read the thread and convinced by the anti Wii arguments.

Replace Wii with NES.

PS2
Wii
SNES
PS5

PS2 defined console gaming in most of the world. It was the biggest console when console gaming was the biggest deal relative to other platforms. Wii broke new markets and sold an absolute ton, and had a cultural presence others didn't (I was not a fan, but I'm acknowledging its pre-eminence and impact). SNES is legendary and so many of the greatest console series and genres really came into their own on it. PS5 is a bit of an out there pick but I wanted something to capture the modern 'tentpole' game era of console gaming - where it's not growing or establishing itself, just being what it's been for 20 years and being very good at it.

I actually learned because of this mini-game that I am much better at spamming button presses with my right hand than my left (in hindsight this seems obvious, but it wasn't till the alternating challenge that I realised).

Hojo is the best villain in the game. An unremitingly slimy evil piece of work, who absolutely lives to experiment on living creatures and has earned the direct enmity of most of the party. Even Aerith daydreams of torturing him.

Roche has his moments but I wasn't entirely unhappy to see him robed. Thanks for the keychain, buddy.

Hey Jude
Eleanor Rigby
A Hard Day's Night
I Want to Hold Your Hand

I think Hey Jude and Eleanor Rigby are my "lock" picks. The other two really could be from 15 tracks.

I greatly enjoyed Yuffie in this game. Felt like she fit the game's "natural" tone to a T - overflowing with relentless energy and confidence, and at its most fun when being camp and over the top. She also improved the party's dynamic a fair bit, which was already excellent, but as more members are added it needs someone to force more interactions between them. I especially liked her and Barret starting to bond a bit over their shared resentment of Scarlet. Her English VA does an incredible job (linked her singing her theme song below if you want a listen - can't imagine many would be able to such a good job). They could have toned down the materia obsession a little.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZdb4EsWBXc&list=PLqoNvBHIgpJF3bPBOVLGTeXaHtvLGe7-w&index=158

And from a gameplay PoV she was my favourite character. The shuriken dynamic letting you swap from range to melee freely makes her such a versatile main - I thought she was clearly a step above the first four characters in Intermission - and almost every one of her abilities is useful. There's a fair amount of depth to her kit too which most players probably won't unearth (not to the same degree as Tifa though), setting aside the broken interaction between Brumal Form and ATB Ward.

If I was the sort of person who wrote wonky 2000 word blogposts, I'd write one about why the cool, reserved semi-undead dude was the breakout star of the 1997 OG while the over the top cute girl is the breakout start of Intermission/Rebirth.

And yeah this game's battle system absolutely kicks ass. On a level all its own when it comes to turn-based action combat. The depth of the characters is almost without precedent in a single player action game. I think when people go back to Remake they'll start to realise how much this game added (not picking your own party, not having synergy spells and abilities etc.). The RPG elements around the system could have been substantially improved though.

The arenas though... Musclehead just spams the same enemies over and over again and Chadley has like 50 challenges many of which are 5 or 10 rounds bouts (creating a bad kind of difficulty where the player has to go through the same fights they've won 10 times to try the one they're dying at again). And while the music is incredible, the setting is so boring, more of the post-game should take place in iconic settings, fitting for all out battles against the biggest foes. I've forgotten 95% of them already.

wg64Z posted...

I honestly think Rebirth is probably the best video game I've ever played, full stop. My gripes with it are so incredibly minor and I loved 99.5% of my experience top to bottom.

Anyone whining about the mini games needs to either skip them, or stop sucking. Also why would you want no variety in the gameplay at all? Then you get FFXVI and that game was mid minus.

I was thinking I might consider it the best single-player game ever during and between Chapters 6 and 9, but the fall off in average quality from 11 to 14 plus the messy design of the post-game hold it back. Especially 11 (last half) and 14 which were oofs.

The Last of Us. Driven by its lighting, animations and textures.

World

Congrats! Good luck with the rest (if you haven't already done them). The legendaries are a lot more fun than that set IMO.

Chris

With you on liking the moogle mini game. I especially liked how you'd just round a corner and suddenly the music would change away from the area theme to the slightly manic moogle theme (this happened to me in both Gongaga and Cosmo while deep in "exploring" mindset), letting you know it was time for the zaniness. And the cadence of the actual game is unusual in that the threat level starts out maximised and you have to quickly subdue a moogle or two to make it manageable (rather than ramping threat like many others). I also only failed once, on the second to last version.

Chadley though... okay, one of my problems with Chadley is a bit unfair, in that whenever he piped up to give his rote, wordy, exposition, I was aware of what we could have had instead. I.e. suppose instead of Chadley making basically the same comment over and over at every piece of field intel, why not have Aerith comment on a particular type of rare flower, or Barret marvel at how the lifestream's still going, or Tifa say something about the summon? If you took one third of his lines and reallocated them to the party in the field, little would be lost and much would be gained.

The more fair issue is that he can just be annoying. Why are you having a go at Cloud for not having gathered much field intel in a region we just landed in?! And why do you insist on saying the same line I've heard seven times when I pop out of the simulator to change my accessory before I can get back in?! Just a bit of editing and polish would have sanded these edges off, but over time I found them a bit grating, and in general substantially more annoying in Rebirth than Remake. Still, he's cool though, and I look forward to seeing what they do with him in R3.

Presumably Palmer next...

YoBlazer posted...

I don't want to hijack the topic, but Resident Evil fans have been complaining about this exact thing for at least 15 years. Being a pretty big fan, a part of me has always resented how Western Hollywood Action Explosion-Time rotted what was such a cool part of the franchise.

Resident Evil 1 - dual female/male leads, female character way more popular
Resident Evil 2 - dual female/male leads, about equally popular
Resident Evil 3 - female lead
Code Veronica - dual female/male leads, female character more popular
Resident Evil 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 - male leads

I'm also a fairly big RE fan (although I've skipped a few entries) with RE2R is one of my favourite games in recent years, and part of the reason is Leon and Claire co-starring in it. The dynamic works very well with the 'survival horror' leaning too. I'd love to know if the shift towards singular male protagonists is just what the developers wanted or if it's led by focus group or fan sentiment analysis.

Yeah I liked what they did with Tifa in this game but I want her to be a stronger / more forthright presence, even if she's careful about picking her moments (I can live with her deciding random hippies just aren't worth the bother). It is at least implied there's a fair bit going on off screen between her and Aerith on how to handle Cloud's increasingly loose grip on reality, but showing more of that would go a long way to making her come off less passive.

I also found it plain weird that Cloud nearly killed her in Chapter 9 and it was almost ignored in their conversation afterward. That was a shocking act that was written in to this version of the story and it should have had more of a direct impact on their relationship IMO (even if Tifa just acknowledged he was out of control and forgave him for it).

It's up in the air whether Tifa gets more of a leading role in part 3 with Aerith essentially out of the picture (setting aside lifestream / weird alternate reality pop ups) or she gets further sidelined because her best relationship isn't there. I very much hope she has a prominent role throughout the story. The worst thing they could do is shoehorn Zack into being a surrogate lead for some reason while Cloud is out of action, essentially finding an excuse for a minor male character to have a leading role which pushes the natural female lead (in FFVII's back half) to the side.

It is somewhat odd that FF games had more agentic and prominent female characters 25 years ago than they do now (see FFXV and XVI).

Also you can do some crazy stuff with Tifa if you really understand her kit, e.g. these videos explain some cool techniques (going a bit further than spamming Divekick cancels).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMl3rfHQ2ng
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88T6R99vhnI

Write-in vote for Jim Houseman, Secretary of Defense, MGS1.

Not really serious, but I do love that he was listed in the manual as a member of the cast (along with like, Otacon, Meryl, Mei Ling etc.).

I've been a bit surprised how many people responded emotionally to the Loveless play. I found it enjoyable, but it didn't get much emotional reaction out of me. I guess "Simple and Clean" is more my kind of female vocal song than "No Promises to Keep". But it's fun, Cait Sith's at this best and the QTE choreography is great (and mercifully not difficult). The ferris wheel scenes are the highlight in that stretch though.

Rocket

Yeah, I dunno either.

Godiva

I have the semi-joking opinion that there are at least five villains who are more compelling than Sephiroth in Rebirth and Scarlet's one of the best. Enjoyed Yuffie and Barret bonding over their shared lust for vengeance too.

Desert Rush does prove Square's willing to tone down the difficulty on mini-games, which I wouldn't mind if they did a bit more of for part 3. You basically just need to figure out the route then it's yours, whereas Remake (or was it Intermission?) required a super clean execution as well.

I'd guess Barret for most meme-able?

Jose

Mai would've been fine if her voice didn't come out of the controller super-loud every time you retry an Enemy Intel (in fact, she is fine if you just do the work yourself to sort the sound out). I liked the random enemy lore dumps.

The Johnny quest is one of my favourites; it feels natural when the game leans into a comic tone like that, and it plays out over multiple chapters so feel more substantial than some of the others. I found Yuffie teasing Cloud about cloning Tifa during it quite funny too. It's also quite believable to see a goofball like Johnny getting scammed while trying to do something good - seen that story play out in the real world before.

Peach's Castle (SM64)
File City (Digimon World 1)
The House of Hades (Hades)
The Normandy (Mass Effect 2/series)

I love hub worlds where you bring characters back from your adventures and they help develop it, and the best example I can think of for that is Digimon World 1 (the game is better remembered as a town builder than a digimon game, which I'm not sure was at all intended).

Lille - Villa was a good game, even if the referee lost contol. The Conference League is the best thing UEFA have done in a long time.

Ellie
Cave

Grats on the Plat. I'm not aware of any calendar of ingame play time, but PSNProfiles will show when you get trophies during the day by hour - sometimes I'll look back and notice some insanely long stint marked by a trophy in the middle of the night.

This lovely, sombre remix of On Our Way for the Chapter 8 date where Cloud's on his own is one you might not have heard yet (because I'd guess few players ever go stag on the Chapter 8 date unless specifically trying to). Great drinking alone vibes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL__x_jma1M

I could write thousands of words on how music is used in this game. So many songs, arrangements and motifs woven in, adding so much.

Enjoyed Cissnei a lot. Love the authority she demonstrates and it comes across in some of the sidequests too (esp. her exchange with Cloud at the end of Woodland Vigil). Definitely a big step up from the other mayors and helps give Gongaga a much sharper identity.

If you skip going for the towers the open world stuff (Mako springs, summon shrines etc.) is so much better to stumble on (okay, get led to by an owl). And the Mako springs get some godly music.

I would have had 3D Brawler much lower, but you can certainty do Sephy without pausing once you learn his animations. Should have just had a simple basketball game like the ones you do in CoD's Zombies. They're fun and quick.

Wild run/rocket league rip-off was one of my favourites. They got the difficult right with it too - not a total pushover but doesn't require mastering it to pass either.

Aerith's trial got a tear out of me. Yes it's manipulative, but it is very well done. I especially liked the lower camera angle (making the adults and setting tower over her) and being able to pointlessly ask for help. The last scene retaining a sense of urgency and speed despite the tragedy supported the sense of her actually being on the run (often games writers choose to have loads of dialogue before the characters get moving in such situtations).

Going from peak GameFAQs to the mess of Fandom wikis in 20 years as the main point of user-maintained written guidance for video games is quite the decline. And now we're being absorbed into the Borg. **** me.

And yes there's Reddit and Youtube now, but for a lot of games written stocks of easily referencable info are very useful.

I was going to compliment City on how well they've managed getting rid of players who just aren't good enough, past their prime or cause dressing room issues, but of course its much easier to do that when the bosses have essentially infinite money to sign anyone they like. Sends the right signal to the likes of De Bruyne and Bernardo - no one's above being moved on. Barca hung on to several players too long, and Man United's late 00s team likewise.

I'm also pretty curious what they'll do with Vincent's gameplay. I'd guess they'll put his transformations behind limit breaks and when he casts them he goes outside player control for 20-30 seconds while doing OP stuff (the choice for the player being what limit level to reach), while his base gameplay focused on being a squishy high damage gunslinger (compared to Barret) with some support magic. They've done a good job with the first 7 characters so I'm hopeful they'll do something fun with him too.

I do think they should have been a bit clearer why he was tagging along and not helping. It would only have taken two or three lines!

I was extremely good at a competitive puzzler about 15 years ago (basically a competitive form of Puzzle Bobble), winning several events with in game prizes that I sold for chunks of cash. I also got to high diamond in League of Legends in 2014, and I reckon I was the best player in Europe on my not very popular main champion (I was certainly in the top 10).

In terms of single player games, probably getting the platinum for Crash 4. Very long with a lot of tough time trials and all boxes/no death gems.

Yeah it's pretty poor, even compared to something like God of War (or FromSoft's games), never mind the likes of Bayonetta or Devil May Cry. There isn't much encouragement to engage with what (limited) depth it offers either: in the vast majority of fights you can just spam the same routine of cooldowns over and over again to win efficiently (ok, someone's going to say "you can do this in God of War too!" - and I mean, you could, but most players won't because there's clear inefficiencies to doing so; choosing between range/melee or quick-but-weak/slow-but-strong techniques etc. is natural in different scenarios). I think the only set of moves I found had any real dynamism were Garuda's.

I didn't hate FFXVI. But it produced no reaction in me at all (other than maybe a bit of astonishment at how they wrote Jill), I just went through the motions, beat it, and moved on. I can't really imagine many thinking about it constantly like I did with the classic FFs and Rebirth.

XVI is a better comparison than Remake (Covid + different install bases distort comparisons between 2020 PS4 with 2024 PS5 releases), not that that's good either. I really don't think splitting a single game up into multiple releases is a great idea in general - who wants to spend $80 to play the middle of a story? I mean, I'm happy they've done it as a big FFVII fan, but I would never have thought it was great business sense.

Worth noting the Japanese market for these games has fallen off a cliff even since XV (Rebirth and XVI are the highest/fastest selling PS5 games but in the low 100ks, whereas XV was over 1M, and obviously X, XIII etc. were in that ballpark). I have to imagine they will try releasing it on the Switch 2 and PC to try to rebuild the home audience. The game's the best (non-MMO) thing they've done for the franchise in the west in well over 20 years, but they need it on PC ASAP.

That said, Spider-Man 2 has blown past 10M as a PS5 exclusive, so the right single player game can still go very big as a console exclusive. God of War Ragnarok did similar/greater numbers (albeit across PS4/PS5). FF just ain't in that league any longer.

Gongaga
Grasslands
Cosmo
Corel
Nibel
Junon

All of them were good but Nibel was on the small slide and Junon's chocobo mechanic was quite poor. Corel's first area (west of Costa del Sol) is beautiful with probably the best set of quests in the game, but the desert does feel a bit rote, and I didn't enjoy using the buggy. If I split it into two regions the coastal bit would be up there with Gongaga and the desert would be below Nibel. The other three are all excellent, some of the best areas in any FF, but Gongaga having more complex design and beautiful background music push it over the top (also it's just a nicer place and town than Cosmo). Also has a good set of quests, certainly stronger than Cosmo's.

Gilgamesh is a great inclusion is only because it gets us some Battle on the Big Bridge arrangements.

And I liked Chocoglide once I spent 10 mins getting used to the uninverted controls. Good sense of momentum when diving. Think I got a bit lucky nailing the last bit of the 3rd set in about 5 goes at it.

Wordle 1,029 4/6*






I was quite lost after the 1st guess and took a while to find any word that could fit on the 2nd.

Damn the praise for the DLC in this thread is enough to make me go back and try it. I got the plat in Bloodborne last year then put it down and moved on. Great game but felt like I'd had my fill after all the chalice dungeon runs.

My enjoyment of the exploration jumped up massively when I turned off as much world map HUD as I could and just started running around looking for things. I did this when I got to the southern part of Corel with the buggy and I was engrossed when I got to Gongaga. Which is a way of saying that while I liked the Renmawave towers I think the exploration could have be tilted a bit more towards letting the player find their own way (with fallback/reveal the answers options for players who want that).

Leapfrog was quite fun to master, but then I like platformers in general.

Vader
Scar
Hans Gruber
Hannibal Lector

The version I'm talking about is this one:

Brave Leader Yuffie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcn95uz777E

Compared to Intermission's Descendent of Shinobi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9IA1bXlm3U&t=1995s

And it'd be great if Stamp's themes are on there - I'd just seen several reports from people with the OST that they are not (although they are on the bonus physical CD...). E.g. This post at Resetera from a guy who seems to know his stuff:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-ost-discussion-soundtrack-available-now-39-99-on-itunes-amazon-music.807642/post-121512318

I'll just quote it for ease of reference too:

"- The popular Stamp theme, among other's such as Kyrie's theme and the remix of Beck's Badasses, are not on the digital OST. They are on the bonus disc of the special edit version, which going by Remake, will never be released to digital platforms at all. The tracklist for that can be found here under disc 8.

- Aside from those, you're not going crazy if you still feel there's a ton of other missing tracks. These have a chance to appear on the Original Soundtrack Plus, which going by the timing of Remake's, should release around the end of this year. Remake's included a bunch of cutscene themes and variations on existing themes, but honestly Rebirth's has way bigger shoes to fill as there's a ton of essential tracks just straight up not here, imo. Nevertheless, here's Remake's just for comparison. This should also come to digital platforms, going by Remake's.

I'm really hoping that *maybe* that bonus disc makes it onto the OST plus, as Stamp's theme has become incredibly popular as well as the fact that Remake's bonus disc was just the jukebox arrangements whereas Rebirth's feels much more essential to the overall OST, but I don't wanna get my hopes up."

Quite awesome seeing a 17-year old centre-back casually starting in a CL QF for Barcelona. Feels like something you'd read about from 50 years ago.

Used to be legs for years but now it's probably biceps/back as I've been doing long pull-up sets for about six months.

My MVP materia for Hard mode were Magnify, Elemental, Magic Focus, MP Absorption and Swiftcast (plus multiple copies of all the elemental materia). I think I just did a lot of more magic-based builds and play than most people did.

And yeah the OST selection is pretty disappointing in many respects. Where's Salmon's theme? The piano/strings version of the Cosmo Canyon theme? The version of Yuffie's theme when climbing Corel? Gah.

There's a guy putting a playlist up on Youtube of the great majority of songs here that's worth a listen too:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqoNvBHIgpJF3bPBOVLGTeXaHtvLGe7-w

And a version with only unreleased tracks below. The range and quality of this soundtrack is a marvel for the ages. I doubt I will listen to many better in my life.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqoNvBHIgpJHQGIQwOF6t4ZQfnUWOnqcI

I enjoy Corneo as a villain: a nasty piece of work who lives to exploit people for his gain and satisfaction. His appearance in the Corel protorelic quest was a bit weird though.

Wedge was great in Remake but I more or less blanked over his brief showing in this. I think he was taken out by a Whisper? Ugh.

I think the problem is that both Atletico and Real Madrid were drawn at home in the 1st leg, so they have to play on different days. Once you pencil that in, you have to either have Madrid and Barca playing at the same time or Arsenal and Man City... and I guess they decided that Madrid and Barca were more important commercially to keep apart.

I tried to jump between both games and to be honest it kind of damaged my enjoyment a bit. Still a great night of football but there was just too much going on!

Totally with you on Aerith's mechanics being way too slow - just let me run near the spirit energy or w/e and be done with it! But at least it's nothing more than a time waste...

Ah that's a good trick. Missed that.