Board 8 > Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review Zone 2 (mark spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

UshiromiyaEva posted...

...Really? I feel like plenty do. Even games I don't like much in this like Fort Condor meet that standard. Like, we're talking about "would I play this instead of Angry Birds" here.

There's no mini-game type game I would rather play than indulging in a different hobby. Maybe if its something with meat like the card games, but even then...not really.

Ah, well that I understand. I would rather be reading that playing a mini game I like. I guess I more meant in the context of a situation where I WERE to be engaging with one regardless of alternative options (I am uncomfortable reading in public, for example, so that wouldn't fly in that situation).

The chicken one is a bit stupid but it has to be intentional in order to set up that punchline.
Also it's decent enough to not make the chickens reset instantly after a failure.

I've played Hatsune Miku, Theatrythm Final Bar Line, and Melody of Memory and I still cannot for the life of me do well on this parade minigame.

I love the idea of the parade minigame and the like.

The problem is that the button presses are almost never in time with the music so it's not actually a rhythm section, which completely messes with my head because I've played thousands of hours of rhythm games.

Got the full score for all 3 max difficulty parade scenes the first time, biggest high of the whole game, fully expected to retry half a dozen times.

I'd do those for hours if it let me lol.

I don't know why I nailed this one so easy when I always messed up a ton at The Honeybee Inn in every playthrough.

There's this one prompt early on that I just can't hit. You have to tap triangle a bunch of times, but then when it gets to the end it always misses.

Just got past Mt. Corel, about 30 hours in

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I spent like 5 hours crafting in XIV and hated every second of it.

You tried to use this exact gotcha before a few months ago but I guess you forgot.

Oh huh I thought you leveled all the non combat classes

MacArrowny posted...

Oh huh I thought you leveled all the non combat classes

I did, that doesn't take as long as long as you would think when you're minmaxing the process!

Also I would NEVER do this if I thought about it nowadays, I'm never going to craft in that game again. I just wanted to see all the narrative stuff, but I could have just watched that on YouTube.

Okay, finally figured out what I was doing wrong. They never explained it! You have to tap the button enough times, not time it. Geez.

Ifrit posted...

Okay, finally figured out what I was doing wrong. They never explained it! You have to tap the button enough times, not time it. Geez.

I could have sworn it said tap as fast as you can in the directions but maybe not

All it said was Rapidly. And I never had a trouble with other similar prompts, so I was clearly pushing it fast enough for those.

Oh... that was way easier than I thought it'd be. I messed up horribly on the last part and still got the trophy.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Maybe that's too extreme, but the way I see it if it's not good enough on it's own to be fun then it's not worth my time.

That's probably too extreme, but my criteria is whether the game would be better if you just straight up removed it entirely from the game.

Some gameplay isn't great, but it adds something useful to the game, so it's kinda necessary evil. Many of these mini games do not qualify for that.

Variety is an absolute good in itself. Having more different gameplay is good, even if it's worse.

Variety should come from the main gameplay.

pjbasis posted...

Variety should come from the main gameplay.

Uh, no. That wasn't true for the original FF7 and it's not true here.

pjbasis posted...

Variety should come from the main gameplay.

I cant believe people want this. Boring combat to combat slog.

MacArrowny posted...

Having more different gameplay is good, even if it's worse.

Absolutely not wtf.

Yeah that's nonsense. Games should be tight and focused. Throwing paint at the wall and seeing what sticks gets you a sloppy, inconsistent mess.

But hey, that's the mantra of the current Playstation Prestige formula that I'm extremely over, so I guess it's working for them.

Stuff like Ragnarok and SM2 which I am just desperate to be done with by the end and am only finishing to get resolution on the story. Felt like that here sometimes, though I never knocked this one down to easy mode at least.

Just hit 50 hours at the tail end of Chapter 10 going back to the airstrip to get to Nibelheim

I decided back in Gongaga that quests, protorelics, and Queen's Blood are the only open world things I'm actively going for now.

Gongaga is certainly the filter region. Might be my least favorite part of the game both geographically and narratively.

Gongaga looks pretty at least. If it wasn't such a damn nightmare to navigate it wouldn't be so bad.

The limited chocobo controls don't help. Why can't they all have a soft glide function to easily get down from cliffs? Design choices like that are what baffle me.

It's even more glaring with the final area chocobo being so far above the rest in quality

You guys are why gaming is full of stagnant open worlds where absolutely nothing changes or matters.

I dont understand.

How about they just don't make them open worlds at all?

Can't be stagnant and boring if it's not there.

I have a lot of problem with FFX, but it being a linear experience certainly isn't one of them.

Leafeon13N posted...

You guys are why gaming is full of stagnant open worlds where absolutely nothing changes or matters.

I dont understand.

I'm fine with the open world though (especially Gongaga) and will get back to it once the game is over. I'm just really enjoying the story and character interactions and want to see that through.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I have a lot of problem with FFX, but it being a linear experience certainly isn't one of them

See, this is so horrible.

X completely removed any sense of exploration from the franchise. It made navigation boring.

But you liked it.

That part of it, yeah.

It's why XIII is pretty good on that front too, until that awful chapter near the end (and I mean the game isn't exactly great either, but again, that aspect wasn't the reason!).

But then you've got XV, which is just bad top to bottom, but the map is a major factor of why I consider it to be my most hated video game.

Playthrough update: I'm at like 105 hours and am doing the new side quest cleanup in Chapter 12. I let the game sit idle quite a bit, but I know I've got at least 95 hours of legit time invested so far.

The PSN Trophies site estimates 200 hours for the Plat, and I feel like their estimated are often speedy. 250 hours is probably a more accurate estimate. They really outdid themselves with content.

Finally made it to Chapter 5.

GOTY so far. Everywhere something makes me smile. I mean c'mon. Barrett in a sailor suit in glorious modern graphics? Pretty much every single moment with Tifa and Aerith together. The Shinra 7th Infantry.

Every time I reach a new area, I have to get all those Chadley exploration points. I do wish the lifesprings were more interesting, but they're so short that I can't really complain.

I do wish the npc's were a little more reactive. But I'm glad there's a lot of them so the world doesn't feel so small.

This has been a far better game than SM2 for me because - despite cringing in the cutscenes more than in SM2 - it has a sense of forward propulsion to it. I like that it's "open world" but it feels like an ongoing journey forward into something new and exciting. And when I want a break from that and to just sit in what I've found so far, I fast travel back to Junon etc and hit the stuff I've missed. And yeah, the minigames are charming and I mostly like them.

Gongaga was actually my favorite region to explore precisely cus it wasn't big empty space. Going on foot makes for better exploration imo. Being more vertical, having to look for landmarks, the palette, the ambience, the music, I loved it.

Loved the Gongaga music too.

Honestly, the reports about disappointing sales make me feel sad. This game is beautiful and really deserves success.

I don't think it's actually selling worse than Remake, but still probably not up to the level Square wants.

I was pretty surprised at first that it's selling notably less than XVI, but I guess XVI has a Sony marketing push and this didn't. Obviously within the industry it's a landmark event, but I don't think there's been nearly as many ads and promotions for Rebirth than there were for XVI.

KamikazePotato posted...

I don't think it's actually selling worse than Remake, but still probably not up to the level Square wants.

I saw somewhere that week 1 UK sales are down 30% from Remake, but A) That's one region and B) Could just be bullshit.

I've seen physical sales numbers but not anything accounts for digital, which doesn't help considering how much more popular digital gets each year.

It's probably selling a bit worse than Remake, but less than I figured considering that Remake was on PS4 and Rebirth is on PS5 - and a direct sequel, which doesn't help either.

MacArrowny posted...

Variety is an absolute good in itself. Having more different gameplay is good, even if it's worse.

You've been promoted to lead designer of Danganronpa 5

SE has some of the most ridiculous expectations of any company, so definitely don't listen to them lol. But if the sales numbers being reported aren't great then yeah that's unfortunate. I also feel like I didn't see a ton of marketing.

pjbasis posted...

Variety should come from the main gameplay.

If a game is built on excellent fine-turned core gameplay, I don't want to hear complaints that it's "repetitive". But that's a discussion entirely unrelated to this game.

PS5 is just struggling to sell on jp so it has that when compared to Remake.

This game was definitely made with a "more is better" philosophy and some of the components are, well, garbage, but It's also not the worst. XVI's overworld sections are worse, and those stick like glue to one concept throughout.

Sales are usually worse for direct sequels where you have to play the first game. 7R1's sales weren't amazing either.
Waluigi1 posted...

Absolutely not wtf.

If variety doesn't matter why not just replay the same game over and over? Why not just play games from your number one genre? Why have comedic scenes in a serious story? It's all spice to improve the overall product.

Are you intentionally speaking about this with 0 nuance, or only accidentally?

It seems like we're struggling to find a middle ground between "variety doesn't matter" and "variety is the only thing that matters" at the moment.

The thing is there's really no discussion needed. There's a giant elephant in the room, which is the fact that 7R1 was near flawless in every way in terms of gameplay variety, depth, pacing, quality, and amount. All we can do is criticize the very few weak sequences (lights, robot arms, ghost train), which only admits how flawless the other 95% of the game was.

So yes, we're gonna compare 7R2 to that game. It's not speculation, or theoretical, or subjective. It's a real game we all actually played years ago. They nailed it then, and didn't quite repeat the success this time. That's fine. Maybe 3 will be better than both combined.

Strange. Rebirth is leagues better than Remake. Shame you can't see that though.

Having not finished it yet, I also think Rebirth is better than Remake. Though, it's like a 9.5/10 to a 9/10.