Saw this was posted when I hit replay to trium last night but I was too in the bag to type a reply, so
It's funny, I had the same problem with the Sahaguin Prince - the one in the sewers gave me a run for my money, the one in the VR got beaten like a drum. But yeah, I spent the whole time dreading the Absu rematch and.. "oh, huh, he's basically the exact same strength as the first fight. This shouldn't be very difficul--and we're done here."
I LOVED the plateclimb. Taking the brief little puzzle maze the original was (and giving the primitive look at what Shinra wrought) into an area where you really get to see it (and the map showing your altitude was clever), was awesome. Also me in that sequence: "Huh, there's Shinra troopers here, and it's an open area exposed to the sky and literally up in the air, if *I* was remaking FF7 in real time this is where *I* would reintroduce the Heli Gunner since you can't reasonably fight him in an elevator now." 30s later I round a corner and "Oh goddamnit."
I didn't get to see the big laser -I staggered him into a Cloud limit walloping that forced that last phase shift cutscene when he was pretty low health, a Max Fury and couple of Tifa combos were enough to bring him down before he got it off. Yours is funnier.
I too had to do both versions. I was planning on saving the elevator for the 2nd playthru because the stairs have always been hilariously funny (and Tifa just.. lapping everyone is terrific), and it didn't disappoint. Except for one bad design oversight - on the original you're rewarded for missing the battle XP with a couple satchels of decent items (and I think maaaaybe a materia? Can't remember, been awhile), on the remake you get jack shit. So I reset it to get the XP from going in the front door. Wasn't until I talked to the mayor that I got the hint from his convo there is at least a dialogue difference if not a reward there. That said, I missed out on Barret's gun from Hart because on the original paying him helps you solve Domino's puzzle (MUCH less obnoxiously handled here), and I misinterpreted his offer of help being the same, and I wasn't paying 10 grand for a hint. I'm currently doing a replay to XP/AP/Completionist before taking on hard mode, so I'll grab them all on this go round though. I did like they made Domino something more than just a dopey joke though - he's still a clown, but at least he's actually an ally of Avalanche as opposed to "I'm just helping you to screw with Shinra". I did love that the building's still minigame central though. Figured when Tifa fell there had to be treasure somewhere, so I nabbed that one no problem. And yeah, Cloud meeting some former "coworkers" was interesting. I liked how nervous he was, afraid his SOLDIER ruse was up. The CO that guy goes to get is Kunsel, a SOLDIER 2C who helps Zack in Crisis Core, a nice little reference.
Yeah, the museum was a fun touch. Loved the playing out of the personalities, as you said. Also REALLY dug that it's official now, FFX and FFVII are, indeed, in the same universe. The old photograph on the wall has the gas mask Shinra from X in it, implying he was indeed the founder (or forefather) of the original Shinra Electric Power Company before the current president took them into arms manufacturing, etc. Likewise, I did what I did in the original game, and went "lol, never using that*" and relegated the slotless equipment into the horders pile.
Hojo doesn't just kinda imply that in the original, the creepy motherfucker specifically puts Red in her glass cell thing for that exact reason. And yeah, the party swapping thing got me mildy annoyed because I didn't have enough materia to go around either, and this would come back to make things more difficult than need be later in the game (Barret had basically no materia equipped for the final Fates section). But I loved that they took Hojo's lab and expanded it so much, and really turned it into a full on division it's implied to be in the original. BUT the best part, was the realization halfway through it after I looked at the name of the area for the 4th time. The Drum. It's that big, odd shaped, weird bulge the Shinra Building has ALWAYS had, from it's first appearance on the original game's cover art. It's shaped like a drum. Huh. THAT made me grin like an idiot.
Fun fact - pretty much any boss fight that involves a party change shortly before it gives you this option. I was afraid to use it for risk of skipping the cinematic, and then I actually had to restart one, so I tried it on the 2nd go. Swordipede is another regular enemy promoted to a boss - always loved their design and I thought this fight was very fun. This poor bastard stood no chance - Party 1 had an Elemental Lightning Cloud and a Max Fury'd ranged attack when he tried to be cute and fly up to the ceiling, party 2 had ward lightning Aerith and a whole lotta punches to the face.
The President scene is the biggest change to the story - in the original, this is your first intro to Sephiroth, and they build him up as a slow burn, he kind of comes out of nowhere. Obviously the remake is letting him be front and center from the go - BARRET being the one to get skewered was a real mind screw, and seeing the whispers "fix" that suddenly made them make sense to me, I got what they were going for with them.
The TL;DR version of explaining Sephiroth is think of Harbinger from Mass Effect 2 - assuming direct control. Sephiroth has this ability with those that carry his cells. Spoiler paragraph follows if you want more explanation, but will give away plot info on subsequent installments.
SPOILER PARAGRAPH!!!! To answer the question, no, Sephiroth (at the REAL Sephiroth) is not there, his real body is entombed in a giant materia crystal in North Cave (the game never explains how this is so, I've always assumed he's just force of will recreating it, or the mako/lifestream just straight up rejected him and sealed him up like a cyst). Sephiroth has the ability to possess any who carry his (Jenova enchanced) DNA, the Sephiroth clones. The original game is vague (at least in the English translation) as to whether they're pure clones, or just infused with S genomes like Cloud is, but they were all an attempt to bring Sephiroth back after the "Greatest SOLIDER" died in a Mako Reactor incident (heh) in Nibelheim. Many of these clones are total ruins of a human being, being barely functional. Marco (49), is one such Sephiclone. Dreamweaver, I wasn't sure if was also using Marco's body as host or if it was actually a piece of Jenova Prime (in the original game, the Jenovas you fight (save SYNTHESIS) are literally pieces of her body (one of which Sephiroth hilariously just fastballs at Cloud's head), the same corpse Sephiroth takes from the Shinra Building. The original game always kind of seemed to waver between whether these appearances were really Sephiroth or Jenova posing AS Sephiroth, but the cult of personality around the man in black has officially made it into the later.
But in either case, Dreamweaver is a new Jenova subtype (though it does break with the theme of the original encounters names, curious to see if that means anything), but it really nailed the feeling of the original fights. LOVED that they reused the (awesome) Jenova theme and it gets increasingly more frantic as the fight progressed. This battle went smoothly but took me awhile to bring down.
Darkstar (formerly Dark Nation) is King Bastard Dog. He's more dangerous than Rufus in the original game. Here.. yeah, not so much.
Like the original game they make a tough pair. Like the original game, I targeted Darkstar first, expecting once I cracked him Rufus would fall easily, like the original game. Remake Rufus had other ideas. JFC, did I have a hard time with this fight. The two of them just kept interrupting me and giving me a run for my money, and I finally managed to kill the damn dog. Rufus then beat me like I owed him money. I just could not find a way to consistently hit him. Magic? Interrupts and/or dodges. Physical attacks? Counters. Eventually I accepted I was gonna have to slog it and haste/regen bided my time til I had a limit, smashed him with that, and got on with my life. Was never really in danger (between regen and drinking a couple ethers for extra Curas), but it was slooow.
Rufus is the only character to really get a substantial redesign (all of the blue), and is also the game's biggest victim of Nomura Belt Syndrome. I do not love his redesign. I don't hate it, but he's the only character that looks "wrong" to me, after them just totally nailing everyone else. I get what they were going for (Cowboy inspired, which makes sense since there's a lot of that in the VII world, see also Tifa and her bar), and maybe it's a failing of interpretation from the original low poly models, but I always saw him as wearing a version of a business suit coat.
Got in the Elevator. No Rude. I see the cutscene start, "here comes the other elevator robot, Hundred Gunner. Guessing Ima fight him in the lobby. I HOPE ima fight him in the lobby. He's.. big now."
I enjoyed this fight. Glad I dropped that other Elemental onto Barret, this guy's weak Vs fire. Took me a minute to figure out where the third shield was (behind him), once I realized that, I took a que from Airbuster and kept my party on opposite sides of him, focusing on the wheels to cripple him when they presented themselves. Dividing up like that had a side effect of keeping me out of the beam's way as I was able to knock it down before it fired most of the time, and finally blew that gun off. Final scene was great... "what do we do?" "Kill him quick"I just walked straight towards him, pew-pew-pew-maxfury.
Was disappointed they took the party away from the Rufus solo battle because no one got to introduce themselves to Rufus. Then I saw they kept the scene and moved it to Heidigger. Still awesome. Lab Rat Dog is amazing.
Red and Barret's entire sniping relationship is new and I really like it.
I'd been lookign forward to this bike encounter since the mini version with Jesse. Given the original game is just Shinra Motorcycle troops, and the first one in the remake is that plus a boss, I was curious if they had wasted it. Nope, now you fight an army. Bikers, a truck, drones, M.O.T.H. robots... and Motor Ball is on the bike now, not a regular encounter. NEAT!
I lost to the boss the first time, just took too much damage fighting him, had a hard time figuring out how to dodge a couple of his attacks (damn lightning and machine guns), and by the time I did I just couldn't recover. I also wasn't expecting to have to kill him complete on the road, expecting it to transition to the regular battle. Second go round I had an idea of how to fight him and easy peasy.
THE ONLY trouble I had with the Whispers was my severely underpowered Barret and the fact the red one is fire resistant hindered him further. I gelled onto this pretty quickly, only losing the first time because I was too busy grinning like an idiot at the realization that the Arbiter of Fate is a motherfucking WEAPON, and the Whispers are the spirits of Ruby, Emerald and Diamond (and take their weapons from Sephiroth's Remnants).
Whisper Bahamut had the unfortunate luck to be the easiest boss in the entire game for me, as he showed up at the WORST possible time (for him). I got Tifa AND Cloud Limits right as the Whispers fell. Bahamut took both of them on the chin as soon as the cinematic ended. I... should have saved them. I should have known they'd find a way to make me fight Sephiroth in the first game. Gotta also check out the meanng of the slightly changed lyrics in this version of One Winged Angel. He's.. much harder here than in the original game, and much closer to the KH version. Greatly enjoyed the callback attack of Heartless Angel (though not it bringing me to 1 HP!) and Hell's Gate (that the way he kills Aerith has become part of his move/skillset has never ceased to amuse me). This fight lived up to his reputation, and was tough. "Haw, cool that he fire elemental. Funny". "Wait, it's less cool that he's got an Ice phase. And Earth. Okay, seriously, stop this" "all of them? Yikes."
Finally managed to get Cloud a Limit, I suicide bombed him with it, raised him, and worked to build one up with Tifa, and finished him off with that. Like all things in VIIR, Lockheart's fists solved the problem!
Apparently Zack is an alternate universe, or we've entered one (Stamp's a different type of dog on the bag Zack walks by). I KNEW the 7 seconds meant that but I'm glad that was confirmed. As much as I love Aerith, her death is a huge part of the storyline and I feel averting it would cheapen it. Though, if done right, I won't hate it. Slippery slope. Though Kitase says the storyline will continue as it always has, so take that for what it's worth. As I said elsewhere, i suspect we'll get a mix of both. I'm open to change, but not at the expense of destroying the storyline, and Aerith's death is the catalyst for much of the second half of the game and much of Cloud's character development, so that concerns me. But keeping an open mind. We'll see. But I've long stated I've always felt she knew her fate and accepted it knowing her sacrifice is important.
That said, I got the feeling like Wedge DID die, like the Whispers killed him because he was "supposed to die" (the Whispers almost feel a bit like a gentle poke at the hardcore "has to be exactly like the original game !!!!111one! fans). Not sure if Biggs and Jesse were in that alternate universe or not. Jesse ABSOLUTELY died, and Biggs certainly seemed to as well, so they didn't just survive, their deaths were literally undone if it's not a look at an alternate timeline. I'm not at all fluent in Japanese, but a quick google to understand the pronouns, and it being that way in the original game seems to call back to what I said a few paragraphs ago your encounters with him *maybe* being Jenova and not him. My guess is they probably just decided to homage that speech pattern. But no idea, just guessing. I still think (and hope) it'll be the original storyline more or less, and we'll just get what if scenarios, which honestly, i'm fine with being DLC.
Yeah, I figured it would lead to war with Wutai, meaking Wutai's probably slightly more than a beaten down country in this version. Amusingly, this is where Corneo flees to in the original game after your visit to his mansion, so I'm curious to see how that pans out too.
Red's always been a magical creature, so while it wasn't well explained, I had no trouble going along with it. i mean, he's a giant talking liondog with a tail that's perpetually on fire. He's magic.
Also he seems to be a bit more willing to help you in the remake, he signs up to help hunt down Sephiroth as you leave Midgar - in the original he flat out says he'll go with you as far as Cosmo Canyon and that's it.
If it keeps Nomura on a fucking schedule, I too am fine with shorter installments. I just want it to be done justice, but multiple short installments seems to rule out carrying over character progression and an overworld map, which makes me sad. I'll get over that though if it gets me the game sooner (as long as it's done justice!), because there's scenes I cannot wait to see. I suspect more of the game is closer to done than they're letting on though -- those flashbacks to Nibelheim are an environment. That is not a cinematic.
*there's one very brief scene they're helpful in in the original game, but I genuinely can't remember if you actually find them before that scene or not. Holding onto them in the remake in case stuff transfers over for that scene.
.
