Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4/PS5)

Zilnad wrote:If I've just reached the Battle Intel boy in Chapter 16, roughly how many hours do you think it is until the end of the game? I don't want it to be over yet but I want to keep playing. Unfortunately though, when my wife is working from home, she types on her keyboard so loudly. And I can't be doing with listening to that when there might be emotional gooseberry fool going down on the TV! I think I need to start saving the game now for the couple of hours I get alone first thing in the morning so that I can fully focus on it without distraction.

Honestly, this is the worse thing about lockdown I've only even played Resident Evil 3 once so far because the tension and atmosphere is instantly killed when you aren't alone.

Wear a headset?

Was gonna say, the controller has a headphone jack, just plug any old headphones in.

I'd say you're probably about 3 hours from the end.

Wait that works with headphones?! I always assumed that was for mic use only?

Edit - Holy gooseberry fool, I've just Googled how to do it and this changes everything. I'm gutted that I didn't know this sooner

Will definitely finish this tomorrow then and then start my second play of Resi 3 finally

Zilnad wrote:Wait that works with headphones?! I always assumed that was for mic use only?

Go into settings and you can change it from "just output speech from other players" to "all game audio".

It's a very cool feature tbh.

Finally beat the Leviathan VR mission. Pull ups took me a decent amount of attempts to do too.

Annoyed that I'm basically not going to be able to level up all my magic materia to unlock the last VR mission. I'm just about to go to Shinta tower - will I get another chance to do VR missions before the end or is that it for me now?

aayl1 wrote:Finally beat the Leviathan VR mission. Pull ups took me a decent amount of attempts to do too.

Annoyed that I'm basically not going to be able to level up all my magic materia to unlock the last VR mission. I'm just about to go to Shinta tower - will I get another chance to do VR missions before the end or is that it for me now?

VR missions are accessible again in Chapter 16, that's where I'm at now.

Well done on killing the Leviathan though! I've tried a few times but I think it's beyond me unless I restrategise my entire materia setup. As much as I've been loving the game, I'm at the point that I don't want to delay the pacing of the story any longer so I think I'll be leaving the battle intel now and cracking on.

I'm honestly so excited to try using my headphones tomorrow, I have to get to sleep fast!

Zilnad wrote:

aayl1 wrote:Finally beat the Leviathan VR mission. Pull ups took me a decent amount of attempts to do too.

Annoyed that I'm basically not going to be able to level up all my magic materia to unlock the last VR mission. I'm just about to go to Shinta tower - will I get another chance to do VR missions before the end or is that it for me now?

VR missions are accessible again in Chapter 16, that's where I'm at now.

Well done on killing the Leviathan though! I've tried a few times but I think it's beyond me unless I restrategise my entire materia setup. As much as I've been loving the game, I'm at the point that I don't want to delay the pacing of the story any longer so I think I'll be leaving the battle intel now and cracking on.

I'm honestly so excited to try using my headphones tomorrow, I have to get to sleep fast!

Yep that's what I had to do to get him on my fourth attempt. Pump those magic defense numbers up too. I had rookie numbers on my "normal" setup.

And good to hear I get another go at them. Let's see if I can level up all the magic materia in the meantime....

Only thing that really irks me about the combat in this is just how easy to interrupt your actions are. Taking a bit of a pummeling in a battle and need to heal? Hold it together long enough to build your ATB so you can cast a spell or use an item ... but then as you're doing it you get hit with an attack that interrupts your action so you waste the ATB point, lose MP for casting the spell but don't actually get the benefit from it! yeah that's some shitty design.

Think I'm on about chapter 14 now, I'm still having fun but it's not really as good as I'd hoped it would be. Pacing is the main issue, someone really needs to explain to these writers and designers how to maintain dramatic tension and basic plausibility within a scenario. The sluggishness of some of the gameplay and general padding don't help either. The whole stretch from the reactor 5 job to the dropping of the plate is just terribly structured so as to remove all drive and tension from the plot. Characters constantly stopping to have pointless conversations during a time pressured crisis is basically this games motif at the moment!

The original also manages to achieve that special something of doing more with less in many situations where this remake tries to hard. Despite being so much cruder and more basic it is often actually much more filmic and clever in the way it builds scenes. Going back to the plate drop the way this plays out in the original FMV has much more impact and care in it - the sweep of the camera up as Tseng's helicopter escapes to show the start of the pillar exploding, the swing around as we go from the game field screen to follow behind Cloud, Barrett and Tifa as they escape, the way the music drops away to allow the devestation of the plate falling to tell the story just with the visuals and sound effects, the harrowing angle showing the plate dropping directly down on the helpless residents of sector 7 with one person simply looking up aware there is nothing they can do, the wide angle of Midgar which pulls back to reveal President Shinra watching with apparent disregard whilst listening to his classical music ... The remake is all bombast and no subtly or care by comparison.

I don’t know when you guys have been attempting Leviathan, and what characters were available, but I only unlocked the fight in chapter 14 and it was a piece of piss with Cloud, Barret and Tifa. Didn’t have to gear up for it or anything. Staggered him once and it was all over.

Unlocked him in Chapter 14 too and he was a real struggle with those three characters. I think my "normal" setup was just terrible for him and I had very bad magic defense.

Plus I'm probably more "surviving" combat than thriving, which really shows when I get to a hard boss.

The main thing I guess for anyone struggling is to just control Barret for the most part, keeping a mile away, but that’s basically the case for any aerial fight. Pop stagger-building abilities for Cloud and Tifa as much as you can, summon fat Chocobo and save the limits until he’s staggered. And Barret should be your healer anyway, so he can safely pop Magnified Curaga and Raise from a distance when the others are in trouble.

Jenuall wrote:Only thing that really irks me about the combat in this is just how easy to interrupt your actions are. Taking a bit of a pummeling in a battle and need to heal? Hold it together long enough to build your ATB so you can cast a spell or use an item ... but then as you're doing it you get hit with an attack that interrupts your action so you waste the ATB point, lose MP for casting the spell but don't actually get the benefit from it! yeah that's some shitty design.

This is SOOOO annoying. I'd be fine with being interrupted and having to re-cast if it didn't waste the ATB and mana.

And finished. A bit confused by the ending but I can't wait for the next one which will hopefully explain what happened. I just hope it doesn't go all Kingdom Hearts story-wise because strawberry float that!

Definitely going to buy the original as I've never played it and I really want to now. I'll probably get it on Switch for portability.

jiggles wrote:The main thing I guess for anyone struggling is to just control Barret for the most part, keeping a mile away, but that’s basically the case for any aerial fight. Pop stagger-building abilities for Cloud and Tifa as much as you can, summon fat Chocobo and save the limits until he’s staggered. And Barret should be your healer anyway, so he can safely pop Magnified Curaga and Raise from a distance when the others are in trouble.

Why do people use magnify on spells which already have an alternative? Like why not use pray and then have magnify on barrier so you talk less damage in the first place?

Jenuall wrote:Only thing that really irks me about the combat in this is just how easy to interrupt your actions are. Taking a bit of a pummeling in a battle and need to heal? Hold it together long enough to build your ATB so you can cast a spell or use an item ... but then as you're doing it you get hit with an attack that interrupts your action so you waste the ATB point, lose MP for casting the spell but don't actually get the benefit from it! yeah that's some shitty design.

I get what you're saying, it is annoying, but it makes the combat more tactical, it's not really that hard to get a spell off, you just need to draw agro with someone else before casting it, or wait until directly after an enemy attack.

It also gives you a reason to use less powerful spells because their casting time is much faster. In the original less powerful spells basically becsme pointless, where as here they remain useful throughout the game thanks to that risk/reward

Fade wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Only thing that really irks me about the combat in this is just how easy to interrupt your actions are. Taking a bit of a pummeling in a battle and need to heal? Hold it together long enough to build your ATB so you can cast a spell or use an item ... but then as you're doing it you get hit with an attack that interrupts your action so you waste the ATB point, lose MP for casting the spell but don't actually get the benefit from it! yeah that's some shitty design.

I get what you're saying, it is annoying, but it makes the combat more tactical, it's not really that hard to get a spell off, you just need to draw agro with someone else before casting it, or wait until directly after an enemy attack.

It also gives you a reason to use less powerful spells because their casting time is much faster. In the original less powerful spells basically becsme pointless, where as here they remain useful throughout the game thanks to that risk/reward

It can make things more tactical to an extent, but being able to time things in that way is only really possible when up against one or maybe two enemies - otherwise it's impossible to track when you are about to be attacked and so it's just pot luck basically. It could also have been balanced better - you should only lose MP or consume the item if the action actually succeeds, losing ATB and the action failing should be enough of a punishment.

You get another chance. And there's a Chapter Select once you're done

Me: "I'm going to play the original next so I can read people's opinions on the games without spoiling anything"

Wife: "You can get really into the lore and play them all"

Me: "And then I'm going to get a Tifa waifu pillow"

Wife: "Well sorry I'm not her then "

Me: "I'm only joking, her legs are far too skinny anyway "

Wife: "Oh so you don't think her boobs are too big! "

Busted

Jenuall wrote:

Fade wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Only thing that really irks me about the combat in this is just how easy to interrupt your actions are. Taking a bit of a pummeling in a battle and need to heal? Hold it together long enough to build your ATB so you can cast a spell or use an item ... but then as you're doing it you get hit with an attack that interrupts your action so you waste the ATB point, lose MP for casting the spell but don't actually get the benefit from it! yeah that's some shitty design.

I get what you're saying, it is annoying, but it makes the combat more tactical, it's not really that hard to get a spell off, you just need to draw agro with someone else before casting it, or wait until directly after an enemy attack.

It also gives you a reason to use less powerful spells because their casting time is much faster. In the original less powerful spells basically becsme pointless, where as here they remain useful throughout the game thanks to that risk/reward

It can make things more tactical to an extent, but being able to time things in that way is only really possible when up against one or maybe two enemies - otherwise it's impossible to track when you are about to be attacked and so it's just pot luck basically. It could also have been balanced better - you should only lose MP or consume the item if the action actually succeeds, losing ATB and the action failing should be enough of a punishment.

I'd have to disagree. 90% of enemies will go for the character you are controlling, you can usually just kite them with that character then switch to the character you want to cast a spell with or tell that character to cast it without controlling them and protect them with the other characters.

Or hide behind some cover.

Or use steelskin/lifesaver with Barret.

If you don't want to do any of that just use the faster casting spells.

I've only encountered one room in the game where none of that works, in Shinra tower there is a small room full of dogs that will just stagger you to death of you don't put them down quickly.

Fade wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Fade wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Only thing that really irks me about the combat in this is just how easy to interrupt your actions are. Taking a bit of a pummeling in a battle and need to heal? Hold it together long enough to build your ATB so you can cast a spell or use an item ... but then as you're doing it you get hit with an attack that interrupts your action so you waste the ATB point, lose MP for casting the spell but don't actually get the benefit from it! yeah that's some shitty design.

I get what you're saying, it is annoying, but it makes the combat more tactical, it's not really that hard to get a spell off, you just need to draw agro with someone else before casting it, or wait until directly after an enemy attack.

It also gives you a reason to use less powerful spells because their casting time is much faster. In the original less powerful spells basically becsme pointless, where as here they remain useful throughout the game thanks to that risk/reward

It can make things more tactical to an extent, but being able to time things in that way is only really possible when up against one or maybe two enemies - otherwise it's impossible to track when you are about to be attacked and so it's just pot luck basically. It could also have been balanced better - you should only lose MP or consume the item if the action actually succeeds, losing ATB and the action failing should be enough of a punishment.

I'd have to disagree. 90% of enemies will go for the character you are controlling, you can usually just kite them with that character then switch to the character you want to cast a spell with or tell that character to cast it without controlling them and protect them with the other characters.

Or hide behind some cover.

Or use steelskin/lifesaver with Barret.

If you don't want to do any of that just use the faster casting spells.

I've only encountered one room in the game where none of that works, in Shinra tower there is a small room full of dogs that will just stagger you to death of you don't put them down quickly.

But then you get into the territory of actively making the game less fun or more annoying to play in order to achieve these things, having to change my actively controlled from Character A to Character B because I want A to cast a spell without being attacked is just bizarre design.

Also enemy attacks are "staged" for want of a better term - switching to another character will not immediately redirect the enemies attention away from who you were previously using, so you have to switch away, wait until all staged attacks against the first character have ended and then you can start getting them to cast.

It's not the end of the world or anything I just think it is probably the thing I like least about the combat.

Fade wrote:

jiggles wrote:The main thing I guess for anyone struggling is to just control Barret for the most part, keeping a mile away, but that’s basically the case for any aerial fight. Pop stagger-building abilities for Cloud and Tifa as much as you can, summon fat Chocobo and save the limits until he’s staggered. And Barret should be your healer anyway, so he can safely pop Magnified Curaga and Raise from a distance when the others are in trouble.

Why do people use magnify on spells which already have an alternative? Like why not use pray and then have magnify on barrier so you talk less damage in the first place?

Because Pray uses 2 ATB? You can’t exactly quickly react to a devastating attack with Pray unless you’re banking charges (and therefore not really using the character to the full). You also don’t have the flexibility of healing 1 or 3, and how much to heal or casting regen. Maybe some or all of your characters are using the %HP perks on your weapons and therefore only want to top one or all of them up a little. It’s basically 4 extra healing spells vs 1.

Plus, you then can have 2 characters that can cure the whole party, which again, gives much more flexibility.