
atheral |
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Just saw an article that was quoting Tetsuya Nomura about the Remake of FFVII.
Nomura was quoted as saying that we should expect great changes to the game in the remake. Now he dosen't go into any detail except to say the game will still be recognizable as FFVII.
Honestly I, am now a bit worried about this remake. I can understand some changes, the graphics obviously, fixing the myriad translation and typo errors. Even changing a few details in the scenario to improve story cohesion would be fine. But the things I fear most would be:
1. Altering the battle system overly much, yes this will be one of the things changed but hopefully they don't go full active combat, I honestly don't like the way FF's combat systems have been changing in the past few iterations. I may be a bit dated in this view but I actually prefer the old turn based combat system, it felt more strategic and allowed for more advanced planning.
2. Making heavy alterations to the story or tone to fit rating bias. FFVII had more than it's fair share of extreme topics. The most prominent one would be the Honeybee inn and the "rescue" of Tifa that follows. How that will fly rendered in HD visual's I'm not really sure. But on top of that you have the escape from Shinra tower which was fairly disturbing in low res. Jenova herself was also rather squicky. Honestly it would probably be better for Squareenix to admit to themselves that FFVII in modern terms is a M rated game and just go with it.
3. Removing Player Freedom
After FFXIII this is what I'm most afraid of. After you leave Midgar you have a pretty consistently expanding world map to explore as you will. Hell the first time I played through the game I didn't even realize that some of the places were explorable. In more recent installments you are railroaded on a tight strict path that you pretty much can't deviate from. Let me keep my world map and ability to go where I want on it.
I admit that I bought FFVII the day it came out for the Playstation. I may be looking though rose colored lenses when I think about the game so fondly, but still change too much and even if it's "recognizable" it won't be what the fan's actually want.

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Sigh,
VIIs battle system isn't strategic at all. You had some resource management and the rock paper siscors of elements and a bit of what Materia do I use. X's initiative and party swap was more strategic, XII's gambits were far more strategic, and XIII and XIII's paradigm system is probably the best and deepest system the series has. Strategic, rewards skill and forethought.
XIII had more real estate and things to do than VII. It's linear in the beginning and the end, like almost every rpg

What's in the box? |

Idk, I think we should expect XIII to have more real estate than VII... it benefits from a more powerful system and several years of customer and fan boy complaints and praises. In theory the NEXT ff game should be better than the previous one because the developers have more information and technology to put into the next game.
But XIII fell REALLY flat for me. The battle system especially was SO fast paced and required SO much input from the player and the SERIOUS time crunch meant that instead of playing a JRPG it became this VERY weird numbers based puzzle game with vague RP elements. It wasn't my thing.

atheral |
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Just a few things( these are of course my opinions and not law written in stone).
1. Battle System- Complexity and a Frantic pace don't equal better strategy. Two of the simplest games in the world, Checkers or Go, have some of the most involved strategy. I won't say FFVII has the best battle System of the series, I think X's is better. But it wasn't the worst in the world.
2. Linearity- It is true all RPGs are linear in the beginning and end. It's as true for FFVII and XIII as it is for Skyrim or any other story based game. It's what happens in the middle that determines if the game is truly linear. No one that I have ever met will say Skyrim is linear. Now FF as a whole are "linear" RPGs they tell a set story with only minor variations based on your actions. But in FFI-FFIX and even a bit of X and XII I felt I had greater freedom to explore after I got out of that "intro area" be it Corneria, The Alter Cave, Baron, Narshe, Midgar,Balamb Garden, or Alexandria than I did in FFXIII which "introduced" the game for over 10-15 hours of railroad straight paths with no variation. Heck even in their intro area's I had more freedom to explore than XIII did.
Now I will say I did like the story of XIII, it was a cool concept and the characters were kind of interesting (except for the little kid who annoyed the heck out of me). But then entire time I played it I couldn't get it out of my head that they should have cut out the combat and just used the story as a Final Fantasy Movie, would have been better than the one of those they actually made, but that's a different story.

Dragon78 |

It would be awesome if the battle system was like FF X were you can switch party members during battle. Though I didn't like how equipment was done in FF X at all. I like my equipment more static and with special abilities such as elemental damage, status alignments, usable as a unlimited use item for spell effects, resistances, immunities, constant spell effects, etc.. I wouldn't something similar to FF X gris system but without the sphere usage, maybe use materia and/or mana.

atheral |
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Well, as Materia are central to the plot of the story and setting. We can at least expect those to return. And the fact that we see materia slots on the Buster Sword in the new trailer I imagine would mean that at least that part of the equipment system will come back as well. Pure supposition of course but I'll take it.

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To this day, I consider the Resident Evil remake to be the gold standard in remaking a video game. Enough new content and layout changes to keep it interesting for veterans who have played the original to death, but still keeps true to the original's basic concepts and storyline.
Really, the only changes that I wish weren't made were the fact that Hunters only slash your throat with their insta-kill attack, rather than a full decapitation; and the fact that their insta-kill attack seems a LOT less likely to trigger. Pretty much every other change they made improved the game.
If you like survival horror, and you haven't ever played REmake, pick up the recently-released HD version.

atheral |

Interesting tidbit in an upcoming gameinformer, apparently each of the FF VII "episodes" will be as long as XIII. Meaning if , as expected, each episode covers 1 of the discs in the original that's more than 100+ hours of gameplay. I am probably getting overly hyped by this but still.....sounds awesome to me.

Tacticslion |

Also my first video game RPG so a little biased.
MatPat (Matthew Patrick), of GameTheory has an interesting... well... theory. It's his opinion that (in the majority of cases, at least) if your first Final Fantasy of the basic numbered series was an enjoyable experience, then that becomes your favorite Final Fantasy (at least, of the numbered series).
I have seen surprisingly little evidence to refute this.
Last Guardian
This, right here, is the dream. If this happens, I will absolutely lose my mind. We're talking, crying in the shower, rocking back and forth, weeping with joy and confusion at humanity's revival kind of lose-my-daggum-mind*.
But until that day comes, I'm actually kind of with Kthulu on this, and sad about it.
* Okay, so, you know, that's really, really unlikely. But I'll be really daggum excited.
Final Fantasy fans should probably want to check out the two movies made in the franchise. Advent Children which is a sequel to the FF7 story, and The Spirits Within.
Why. Why would you ever want anyone to check those two things out, especially The Spirits Within. That was a terrible film (though it could have made for an amazing game, bad plot and all).
((I suppose I can't entirely give Advent Children a fair shake - the 'main' film was uninteresting and was part of the whole 'emo'-ization of Cloud, while the Zack side-story - which was really, really daggum awesome - did not line up with in-game canon at all, and my copy had bad subtitles that just kind of ran off the edges of the screen the whole time. So... it might well be a lot better than I remember. I'll admit to that.))

Lady Ladile |
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*peeks in*
I started with IV (SNES version) but my favorite would have to be VI which was the next one I played. IV still holds a special spot in my heart, though! VII is also a favorite of mine. Really, I like them all (even X-2 which was fun to PLAY even if the story wasn't the best) except XIII which I've not been able to stick with.
As far as other games in the Final Fantasy franchise go, Tactics - no contest. My most replayed video game EVER.

Adahn_Cielo |
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Started with X: I'm in Europe, so I've always played the complete version that was in the HD remaster. Let me tell you, 12 year old me was super sad to not be able to complete some of the sidequests because the Dark Eons blasted him into oblivion. :P
Gameplay wise, though, I have to say that the best (and the one I'm replaying now) is the Internation Zodiac Job System version of XII. Let's put it like this: it's so good, it amply overweights the game's flaws like horrible pacing, huge variance in quality of the voice acting (I'm still trying to figure out if Fran's VA is bad or just super weird), and half of the main cast being there just because*. I highly recommend to try it if you can (I'm betting the HD version will come out, but my earlier prediction is late 2017 or something).
*Trivia time! Did you know that, in earlier concept of the story, Basch was supposed to be the main character, and that he was supposed to be inspired by Ashley Riot from Vagrant Story?

Abraham spalding |
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FF4 was my favorite, and FF4 TAY despite meta-issues was good feels for me.
For myself 1 through 9 were excellence, with Tactic being my love (level 99 before the third mission with all classes mastered on the main character).
10 went new directions but I was down with a bit of experimenting and did appreciate the battle system.
I really liked Ivalice being developed in later games and wouldn't mind a series being spun off simply for that setting (or a table top port for it).
However I can't stand 13... Much much more stereotyping and offensively so to me. The dragging you around part of it didn't help either.
Type 0 is odd, not sure my stance there but it doesn't feel final fantasy for me.
Going to get 15 and give it a chance... Not sure what to expect but the preview was fun enough.

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The choice in the earlier games was largely an illusion anyway. You could roam around all you wanted, until you needed a MacGuffin or the right vehicle or crossed the wrong bridge.
XIII opened up a stupid amount once you got to the Veldt.
Similarly, XIII-2 wasn't really that much more open, sure, you could go to any point you had opened up, but there really wasn't a huge amount of reason to go anywhere than where your next quest was.

Abraham spalding |
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My problems with 12 where the combat system and graphic design choices. Having playboy bunny being a race... Not so smooth. Adding to this the fact ashe is runniing around in two napkins strung together and I'm like whaaa?
I mean a character or town or something with a risque nature is fine... But over all I felt the eye candy detracted from an attempt at a real serious game.

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2 people marked this as a favorite. |

My problems with 12 where the combat system and graphic design choices. Having playboy bunny being a race... Not so smooth. Adding to this the fact ashe is runniing around in two napkins strung together and I'm like whaaa?
I mean a character or town or something with a risque nature is fine... But over all I felt the eye candy detracted from an attempt at a real serious game.
To be fair she was wearing more than Chewbacca.

Abraham spalding |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

So what I liked about each game:
1. It is.
2. The usage based skill level up system
3. The only one I haven't actually played
4. The story, and specific characters. Granted the growth wasn't deep but it was there and it was expanded on in a good way in TAY. Summons are the bomb (and the chocobo, and the goblin, and the mind flayer, and the cockatrice, and Titan, Ifrit, Shiva...)
5. Class change system.
6. Magicite and the range of characters involved. The length was nice too (also, it was almost too long and good god jumping from character to character to character just as I was really getting comfortable with who I had)
7. The size of the world, and the Materia system. The fact weapons in the characters' hands changed as you changed weapons, and had an impact on what you could use ability wise.
8. The draw system and usage of GF and spells to augment stats. I really liked the Ragnarok spaceship and enjoyed the ideas presented in the plot even if the plot itself always deflected to goofy.
9. The art style was new classic. The characters were enjoyable, and while earning skills could be a pain I thought the item upgrading was a nice change of pace for the FF series.
10. The battle system and artwork. I appreciated the amount of work that went into the world building and story even if parts of it were annoying (EVERYONE IS UNDEAD EXCEPT YOU YUNA! AND NO ONE EVER NOTICED!)
11. Didn't play
12. Ivalice and the storyline. The battle system was innovative but not in a good way this time. Character development (i.e. leveling) was a neutral for me.
13. I got nothing.
T0. The characters and the philosophical discussions involved and range of the story. However there are definitely depth issues here, and the learning curve (as well as what to expect) was steep.
15. The brand new source of slashfic. I kid, but you know there's going to be plenty

Tacticslion |

my Favorite is tactics,
Yeeeeeeeesssssss...
Started on the NES, VI will always be the best, rivaled only by Tactics.
Indeed. VI was really solid - I was rather take in by the settings, characters, and scope. The art and music was amazing as well.
But Tactics, yeah... :D
So what I liked about each game:
1. It is.
2. The usage based skill level up system
3. The only one I haven't actually played
4. The story, and specific characters. Granted the growth wasn't deep but it was there and it was expanded on in a good way in TAY. Summons are the bomb (and the chocobo, and the goblin, and the mind flayer, and the cockatrice, and Titan, Ifrit, Shiva...)
5. Class change system.
6. Magicite and the range of characters involved. The length was nice too (also, it was almost too long and good god jumping from character to character to character just as I was really getting comfortable with who I had)
7. The size of the world, and the Materia system. The fact weapons in the characters' hands changed as you changed weapons, and had an impact on what you could use ability wise.
8. The draw system and usage of GF and spells to augment stats. I really liked the Ragnarok spaceship and enjoyed the ideas presented in the plot even if the plot itself always deflected to goofy.
9. The art style was new classic. The characters were enjoyable, and while earning skills could be a pain I thought the item upgrading was a nice change of pace for the FF series.
10. The battle system and artwork. I appreciated the amount of work that went into the world building and story even if parts of it were annoying (EVERYONE IS UNDEAD EXCEPT YOU YUNA! AND NO ONE EVER NOTICED!)
11. Didn't play
12. Ivalice and the storyline. The battle system was innovative but not in a good way this time. Character development (i.e. leveling) was a neutral for me.
13. I got nothing.
T0. The characters and the philosophical discussions involved and range of the story. However there are definitely depth issues here, and the learning curve (as well as what to expect) was steep.15. The brand new source of slashfic. I kid, but you know there's going to be plenty
I can pretty much agree for most everything here, that I've played, and can even agree on 11 and 15!
(Basically, I'm missing 9, and 11+).I'd probably expound more on your list, but one of the things I only sort of agree with is your assessment of 2. While that was pretty innovative, I also found it implemented in a very frustrating way - similarly to the Key Word (or whatever it was) system used in it: brilliant, but flawed.
I have played enough of three to enjoy the start, but not enough to tell you any more about it.
And, though there were flaws, Inreally, really enjoyed the stories and settings for FF 2, 4-8, and 10 - to various degrees to be sure (6 is da beeeeeesssssst of the numbered games), but I found compelling or fascinating things in all of them (even if I didn't give 7 a fair shake, originally, as it wasn't as 6 as 6 was).
Also, since you're including Type Zero]/i], I have to add [i]X-2: that game play and class system was really, really solid. It was interesting exploring some of the fallout from the previous game, and I liked some of the side characters. The story was a mess, but there was something almost compelling, there. :/

DekoTheBarbarian |

Reviving a dead thread! I cast Raise Thread!
I haven't played a lot of the numbered FF titles. My first introduction to them was VIII, and I loved it. I bought VII during one of the Steam Sales, and I've gotten about half-way (maybe?), and just haven't really gotten into it. Not sure why so many consider it to be one of the best. VI was awesome, though I haven't finished it. Tactics and Tactics 2 are some of my favorite FF titles of all time. X and X-2 were alright, though I did love the sphere/class system in them. XII I did love, and I even appreciated how they were attempting a real-time battle system. Love the characters and the storyline was great in my opinion.

Berselius |

Welp, I'm glad their remaking it but supremely let down their changing the entire combat system to be fast-paced like FFXV's combat system. I'm unable to keep track of a system like that due to poor eyesight so I guess I can't play it. Also apparently their going to release it in separate chapters (each one costing as much as a single video game) so, yeah, that's very off-putting. I wish they would make a sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions instead but then again, they'd probably screw that up too.