Post by Greatshot on Apr 12, 2020 12:16:02 GMT -5
Got through 7, did a huge chunk of 8 got up to Wall Market (which I'm presuming is the start of Ch. 9 but I haven't actually gotten the prompt yet and decided to stop then because I knew I'd be up all goddamned night if I didn't because of what happens there.
Having so much experience with the source material I had the opposite reaction to that -- in the original you don't actually get to fight Reno there, you just flee from him (and then participate in a terribly camera'd minigame dropping barrels on his troopers they throw a nod at with the chandelier), which I always thought was odd (just kick his ass Cloud), so I was hyped for that fight.
Still can't quite figure the ghosts out, but the bit of prescience (? Can Cloud get glimpses of the future with his weirdness?) there with the talk of Aerith's materia was jarring.
But yeah Aerith is adorable. I'm extra happy with her characterization, going back to what we talked about pre-launch. She's not just sweetness and light like the compilation tries to make her out to be, she's the sassy little spitfire that knows more than she lets on the original game implies her to be. The fact she even still does her little "lean forward and peer at you" pose is hilarious.
Again building out from the original in great ways (the roof hopping scene), fleshing out some stuff the original game left vaguely hints at (at least in the English translation)- the unfinished upper highway is because the damn thing collapsed once already, and the weird messed up road and tons of piles of scrap and support beams in the road between sectors is the remnants of that. I got a huge kick out of that bit of ruined road being turned into a full on collapsed highway maze, with that mysterious giant mech hand that does nothing being turned into a puzzle minigame. Sector 6's tiny little village near Aerith's house has been again turned into a full town (with the weapon shop still out of an old RV), and I enjoyed the "oh shit" factor of sneaking past Rude, who's eventually just chilling. Despite his name, he is the most professional of the Turks. Again this new fight was pretty awesome (Ground Spark!), and they copy his unlimited glasses joke from Advent Children. I feel like I know the music playing here and on the highway but I can't place them from the original game, so I'm wondering if they might be from Crisis Core (which in retrospect I should have replayed before this came out). And then Rude gets a call from Reno, they're needed to backup on an assignment in Sector 7, and I get a little bit of a chill at that. Well played.
Sneaking out of Aerith's house is still a pain in the ass.
Other random thoughts:
There is WAY too much Materia (in a good way). You have to make some serious decisions due to your limited slot space, and it feels at times like that can make a HUGE difference, so I'm hoping the later weapons do get more slots. Seems like the higher tiers of subcore I'm starting to unlock imply this is likely. I made the change that drove me nuts in the demo ASAP (giving Cloud a damned lightning materia), because virtually all of Shinra's robots are vulnerable to the element. So far every monster has kept its original elemental specs, so this coupled with the fact you get Elemental so much earlier means Cloud's done wicked damage. But to my point, my first encounter with Rude, I wasn't doing much to him and upon scanning him, I noticed they not only kept him earth attuned, he's now vulnerable with wind (which basically wasn't in the original game). I figured I'd just restart the fight and swap my weapon element, and proceeded to absolutely thrash him. But I'm really curious to see how it all works at endgame play.
Aerith's playstyle is neat. She's a pure caster now, even her basic attack is magic and she gets free spells for her ATB attacks. Also holy shit, she comes with a fucking W-Magic as an ability (obliterating Shiva with that was fun)!
Got a chuckle out of those bandits talking smack and then getting annihilated in my opening round. Got a bigger chuckle out of the fact that the unnamed second wave look like the generic "Vice" bandits you see in the S6 road in the original game.
The boss version of the Smogger. Holy hell. Can't remember the last time I had a fight go from "oh man this guy is easy" to "holy shit everything is on fire!" in an FF game like that. Yeah, he's easy. Unless he silences you and then hits you with his mace arm for 1500 damage. The fact that the original version of 7 is the easiest FF game, combined with years of replays has led me to underestimate a couple of things in this.
Potentially going back to war with Wutai/blaming them for backing Avalanche's attack on Reactor 5. Interesting, this is a pretty big shift from the original game, where it seems Midgar and Shinra have put the war in the past, though I've got a pretty solid guess as to how it resolves.
The moms: Elmyra's a mama bear now. She's much less polite about asking Cloud to leave. Guess that's where Aerith gets it from. Liked this a lot.
The flashback with Claudia is almost word for word identical to the original. Really made me smile, especially the subtle hint hidden in the scene.
The new version of the Moogle slide conversation is better than the original. Was really looking forward to seeing how they handled that.
Having so much experience with the source material I had the opposite reaction to that -- in the original you don't actually get to fight Reno there, you just flee from him (and then participate in a terribly camera'd minigame dropping barrels on his troopers they throw a nod at with the chandelier), which I always thought was odd (just kick his ass Cloud), so I was hyped for that fight.
Still can't quite figure the ghosts out, but the bit of prescience (? Can Cloud get glimpses of the future with his weirdness?) there with the talk of Aerith's materia was jarring.
But yeah Aerith is adorable. I'm extra happy with her characterization, going back to what we talked about pre-launch. She's not just sweetness and light like the compilation tries to make her out to be, she's the sassy little spitfire that knows more than she lets on the original game implies her to be. The fact she even still does her little "lean forward and peer at you" pose is hilarious.
Again building out from the original in great ways (the roof hopping scene), fleshing out some stuff the original game left vaguely hints at (at least in the English translation)- the unfinished upper highway is because the damn thing collapsed once already, and the weird messed up road and tons of piles of scrap and support beams in the road between sectors is the remnants of that. I got a huge kick out of that bit of ruined road being turned into a full on collapsed highway maze, with that mysterious giant mech hand that does nothing being turned into a puzzle minigame. Sector 6's tiny little village near Aerith's house has been again turned into a full town (with the weapon shop still out of an old RV), and I enjoyed the "oh shit" factor of sneaking past Rude, who's eventually just chilling. Despite his name, he is the most professional of the Turks. Again this new fight was pretty awesome (Ground Spark!), and they copy his unlimited glasses joke from Advent Children. I feel like I know the music playing here and on the highway but I can't place them from the original game, so I'm wondering if they might be from Crisis Core (which in retrospect I should have replayed before this came out). And then Rude gets a call from Reno, they're needed to backup on an assignment in Sector 7, and I get a little bit of a chill at that. Well played.
Sneaking out of Aerith's house is still a pain in the ass.
Other random thoughts:
There is WAY too much Materia (in a good way). You have to make some serious decisions due to your limited slot space, and it feels at times like that can make a HUGE difference, so I'm hoping the later weapons do get more slots. Seems like the higher tiers of subcore I'm starting to unlock imply this is likely. I made the change that drove me nuts in the demo ASAP (giving Cloud a damned lightning materia), because virtually all of Shinra's robots are vulnerable to the element. So far every monster has kept its original elemental specs, so this coupled with the fact you get Elemental so much earlier means Cloud's done wicked damage. But to my point, my first encounter with Rude, I wasn't doing much to him and upon scanning him, I noticed they not only kept him earth attuned, he's now vulnerable with wind (which basically wasn't in the original game). I figured I'd just restart the fight and swap my weapon element, and proceeded to absolutely thrash him. But I'm really curious to see how it all works at endgame play.
Aerith's playstyle is neat. She's a pure caster now, even her basic attack is magic and she gets free spells for her ATB attacks. Also holy shit, she comes with a fucking W-Magic as an ability (obliterating Shiva with that was fun)!
Got a chuckle out of those bandits talking smack and then getting annihilated in my opening round. Got a bigger chuckle out of the fact that the unnamed second wave look like the generic "Vice" bandits you see in the S6 road in the original game.
The boss version of the Smogger. Holy hell. Can't remember the last time I had a fight go from "oh man this guy is easy" to "holy shit everything is on fire!" in an FF game like that. Yeah, he's easy. Unless he silences you and then hits you with his mace arm for 1500 damage. The fact that the original version of 7 is the easiest FF game, combined with years of replays has led me to underestimate a couple of things in this.
Potentially going back to war with Wutai/blaming them for backing Avalanche's attack on Reactor 5. Interesting, this is a pretty big shift from the original game, where it seems Midgar and Shinra have put the war in the past, though I've got a pretty solid guess as to how it resolves.
The moms: Elmyra's a mama bear now. She's much less polite about asking Cloud to leave. Guess that's where Aerith gets it from. Liked this a lot.
The flashback with Claudia is almost word for word identical to the original. Really made me smile, especially the subtle hint hidden in the scene.
The new version of the Moogle slide conversation is better than the original. Was really looking forward to seeing how they handled that.