For me, Final Fantasy VII is still unmatched. No other game that I've played since has been able to top the mix of story, gameplay and music that it has. The only way it really doesn't hold up is graphically. It's a shame that they fucked up the remake so badly, it would have been something special to have FF7 quality with modern production values. Instead we got bad FF7 fanfic, with terrible pacing due to them trying to split one game into three.
I'm not going to try and change your mind on Remake. I held similar opinions at one point in time and it took me reframing the game not as an attempt to reintroduce the original game, but rather as another spinoff in its franchise. I began to respect it when I considered it a tale of characters - some of whom are aware of the original story - trying to break from the fate ordained by their authors.
That's the thing, I think that sort of meta story is really stupid. That's one of the big problems I have with the game, which is that I think it's very poorly written even if you didn't have the original to compare it to.
I think it's fair to say that the game is very divisive. Some people (old FF7 fans or not) love it, but some (again, whether old fans or not) hate it. YMMV, and all that. Truthfully I hope you enjoy the game - it's not like I wanted to hate it. But unfortunately I did. :/
This can't explain it all. I never played the remake, but I am playing original FF7 with modern mods (chiefly New Threat 2.0 [0], on top of 7th Heaven [1] and FFNx [2]; but also graphical mods like SYW which enhances textures with AI, a GUI mod called ESUI, among other things) and it's an awesome experience. Note that those mods are entirely free and made by passionate fans.
I fully believe that a FF7 remake made by fans and for fans would be 10/10 even with a fraction of AAA production values.
(Now, what you can say is that 90s JRPGs are an acquired taste and modern audiences aren't accustomed with stuff like tons of random encounters. Indeed I feel that many classic JRPGs are nigh unplayable due to this issue alone, even though I grew with them. However this is addressed by mods like New Threat so I'm sure that a proper, fan-made remake could also address this and other QoL issues)
[0] https://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=14938 (in general FF7 modding is mostly discussed in this forum; there's a "Documentation" link that discusses all changes but it's a full rebalance that changes item placement, the script of bosses, etc. It also contains QoL improvements)
Yeah, very much so. I think that the great tragedy of FF7R is that it's not just a pretty poor remake (because it diverges so widely from the original, a cardinal sin for a remake!) but that it's a bad game on its own merits.
First, the story is a hot mess that I'm surprised a professional writing team put out. I don't know if I should really say spoilers, but the central premise of the plot is really, really stupid. I've seen it called worthy of KH, which is very much not a compliment lol. And the pacing is awful - the game is jam packed with filler because they are trying to stretch 4-5h of the original into a full length game. There are hour long chapters where only 5-10 minutes of interesting content happens, and you can tell the developers were just running out the clock (so to speak). Finally, the battle system is really poorly tuned - normal encounters are over in seconds, while bosses are bullet/sword/magic sponges even if you are hitting their weakness, staggering them, and trying to dump damage on them while staggered. It took me something like 10 minutes to kill Air Buster, for example, and by the end I was just bored of the fight.
It's frustrating to me because this was the easiest layup in the history of video game development. They had one of the most beloved video games of all time - all they needed to do was take that foundation, polish it up with some modern QoL (and graphics of course), and they would've had an all time classic on their hands. Look at P3R for how much people would've loved that approach. And I guess I get why they wanted to go in a brand new direction, but unfortunately the game just plain sucks even if you don't compare it to the original.
IMO 10 is up there too. After that, the series went to hell but I guess nothing lasts forever. We got some incredible games while Squaresoft was at their peak.
What's crazy is that arguably the greatest story is in their MMO game FFXIV, which has spanned over 10 years at this point to its build-up. I would argue its big story climax, Endwalker, rivals some of the greatest classics humanity has ever produced, even in literature. It exudes meaning and soul in using an epic story to answer one of the biggest mysteries of life: "why, given this life, are we meant to suffer, to die? Why should we exist and how do we find meaning?". It has some of the best cinematography direction, music, and an incredibly optimistic conclusion.
I urge anyone to please consider going through FF14. You can practically complete the story as an individual experience, for the most part, without needing to do much "MMO"-like things.
That sounds great, but upon reading it was an MMO I lost all interest. MMOs are measured in days and not hours of (pure) play time, all for the promise of something great, no I don't think so. I'd rather replay FF7 once more, that's a predictable time investment.
3-5 years if not more these days! I really think that the push to have better and better graphics has been a real blight on the industry, to be honest. It was better when games were coming out more frequently. More frequent releases lower the stakes both for the business and for the players.
On the business end they don't need to recoup as big of an investment, so games can be more creative and not just chase safe bets to make big returns. On the player end, it's a lot easier to tolerate flops from a favorite developer when the next game isn't too far off. For example, if you didn't like FF7 then FF8 was right around the corner so it wasn't as disappointing. Whereas if you don't like a given FF these days, you're going to have to wait half a decade for the next one so it's more of a letdown.
You do still have the indie developers out there making games that aren't chasing the cutting edge of graphics, but I think that the industry as a whole would be better off if they chilled out.
