Well damn, this just ruined it a little, I'll for sure try out MGS2 though
Actually I was being facetious, Raiden is almost universally reviled. MGS1 and 3 are everyone's favorites.
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- Thread starter Walter
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Actually I was being facetious, Raiden is almost universally reviled. MGS1 and 3 are everyone's favorites.
Don't listen to Aaz. Raiden is just soooooo cool in MGS2 that he had to be made even more RADICOOL in MGS4 and finally became CYBER_RAD.EXE in MGR:[RE]Vengeance.Actually I was being facetious, Raiden is almost universally reviled. MGS1 and 3 are everyone's favorites.
Kojima's source of inspiration for Raiden was actually Kid Vid from the Burger King Kids Club. He just kept adding gadgets until he reached peak cool dude.
Baldur's Gate 3 has me occupied. I actually never got far in Baldur's gate 1 due to the PC version being around 9 CDs. One of those CDs got chewed on by my dog at the time making playing the game difficult. Not to mention Not having full access to the PC as a kid.
I made a Guts looking fighter character and I have been having a blast.
I made a Guts looking fighter character and I have been having a blast.
There were only 5 CDs actually, but that was plenty! Anyway, sorry to hear about that, I would have been so pissed if that had happened to me. Enjoy Baldur's Gate 3, I had a great time with it.
As for myself, I don't have a lot of time for games at the moment but I'm doing Alan Wake 2's NG+ when I find a spare hour.
My brothers and I have been playing a lot of couch co op vampire survivors lately. We spent nearly all of Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve enjoying all the madness, especially figuring out the all the weapon combinations without looking them up.
nomad
"Bring the light of day"
Don't listen to Aaz. Raiden is just soooooo cool in MGS2 that he had to be made even more RADICOOL in MGS4 and finally became CYBER_RAD.EXE in MGR:[RE]Vengeance.
Kojima's source of inspiration for Raiden was actually Kid Vid from the Burger King Kids Club. He just kept adding gadgets until he reached peak cool dude.
Metal Gear Solid 4 in a Nutshell
**OBVIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD**If you ever wanted to know how the Metal Gear saga ends, but you're not rich enough to own a PS3 with one game, or if you don't hav...
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Metal Gear Solid 4 in a Nutshell
**OBVIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD**If you ever wanted to know how the Metal Gear saga ends, but you're not rich enough to own a PS3 with one game, or if you don't hav...
So I've been playing Into the Radius on Quest 3 pretty much nightly for the past two weeks, and it's become my favorite VR game. As evidenced by me shirking actual life responsibilities to play it, often down to the battery being empty, I can confirm that it's an incredible game.
Essentially, it's a VR knock-off of Stalker, beat for beat, but emphasizing the survival aspects. You're a nameless explorer in THE ZONE--er, I mean THE PECHORSK SECURITY ZONE. You are looting and researching the remnants of a Chernobyl-like region, encountering specters of the military and civilians who are trapped there as eternal spectral-nuclear shadows. Every 3 in-game days or so, the item chests, enemy placements and sub-quests all reset, and so there's incentive to repeatedly forage in older maps while also moving ahead into new maps.
The highlight for me how this game takes the notion of "having to load your gun" that Alyx and many other VR shooters have gestured at into another dimension. Yes, you have to load each bullet and holster each clip it to a position on your gear that you can easily reach when you need a fresh clip in a firefight. Yes, your gun will jam, so you have to slide it back and eject the stuck bullet. What starts as a pain soon become second-nature, and you find yourself doing complicated feats without even thinking about it, because the combat gets intense very quickly.
The more human-like enemies are armed and have pretty fucking good aim, so you have to make use of cover, or go very slowly to sneak up on them—then be ready to headshot 4-5 guys at point blank range or get fucked immediately. But spectral enemies require a variety of different tactics. For example the basic enemies, made of fragments of polygons, shamble to you so you have to shoot them. But it leaves their core behind. Grab your knife and shatter their core or they'll keep respawning.
You fight through the zone to your quest marker on your map, complete the objective, and as you head back, you'll have to eat snacks or canned meat to keep your stamina up (often using your knife as a spoon). Once you finally reach your safe house, you can turn in quests for money and buy a ton of realistic weapons, each of which have add-ons that are unique to each weapon type, like holographic displays, scopes, silencers, etc. Then replinish your ammo, resupply your food, sleep, and take new missions.
It's an incredibly addictive loop, sustaininng my interest longer than anything else ive played in VR (except for Walkabout of course!). Incredibly, it somehow has mediocre review scores. Probably because it was an early access game, and the first few years were rocky.
Essentially, it's a VR knock-off of Stalker, beat for beat, but emphasizing the survival aspects. You're a nameless explorer in THE ZONE--er, I mean THE PECHORSK SECURITY ZONE. You are looting and researching the remnants of a Chernobyl-like region, encountering specters of the military and civilians who are trapped there as eternal spectral-nuclear shadows. Every 3 in-game days or so, the item chests, enemy placements and sub-quests all reset, and so there's incentive to repeatedly forage in older maps while also moving ahead into new maps.
The highlight for me how this game takes the notion of "having to load your gun" that Alyx and many other VR shooters have gestured at into another dimension. Yes, you have to load each bullet and holster each clip it to a position on your gear that you can easily reach when you need a fresh clip in a firefight. Yes, your gun will jam, so you have to slide it back and eject the stuck bullet. What starts as a pain soon become second-nature, and you find yourself doing complicated feats without even thinking about it, because the combat gets intense very quickly.
The more human-like enemies are armed and have pretty fucking good aim, so you have to make use of cover, or go very slowly to sneak up on them—then be ready to headshot 4-5 guys at point blank range or get fucked immediately. But spectral enemies require a variety of different tactics. For example the basic enemies, made of fragments of polygons, shamble to you so you have to shoot them. But it leaves their core behind. Grab your knife and shatter their core or they'll keep respawning.
You fight through the zone to your quest marker on your map, complete the objective, and as you head back, you'll have to eat snacks or canned meat to keep your stamina up (often using your knife as a spoon). Once you finally reach your safe house, you can turn in quests for money and buy a ton of realistic weapons, each of which have add-ons that are unique to each weapon type, like holographic displays, scopes, silencers, etc. Then replinish your ammo, resupply your food, sleep, and take new missions.
It's an incredibly addictive loop, sustaininng my interest longer than anything else ive played in VR (except for Walkabout of course!). Incredibly, it somehow has mediocre review scores. Probably because it was an early access game, and the first few years were rocky.
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guuuuuuuuts
Excited for the next chapter!
Starfield
Couldn't get into it after playing for a few hours and ending up on the part where the game opens up and you join a faction. The open world felt claustrophobic and after ignoring an unimportant looking character I had to walk all the way back to speak to that same person to move things along... not cool. The ship was the best part, but no way am I investing more time in this. I'm sure others will love it, but it is not even close to Mass Effect Legendary. If anyone is reading this, play Mass Effect instead. Cheers. 3/10.
Couldn't get into it after playing for a few hours and ending up on the part where the game opens up and you join a faction. The open world felt claustrophobic and after ignoring an unimportant looking character I had to walk all the way back to speak to that same person to move things along... not cool. The ship was the best part, but no way am I investing more time in this. I'm sure others will love it, but it is not even close to Mass Effect Legendary. If anyone is reading this, play Mass Effect instead. Cheers. 3/10.
I play a good number of games each year, but every now and then I run into an absolute gem. This time, the gem is Alan Wake II. I initially slept on this game, mainly due to my previous experience with Remedy - Control, a great game but I didn't enjoy its narrative style - and mainly to personal taste: Stories about the bizarre and the paranormal don't usually appeal to me, and stories than begin confusing only to clear up later are hard for me to get into.
That said, I loved AW2. Wow, what a game! A survival horror that is also a great work of storytelling? Who would have thought? It really did check all the boxes, delivering on all fronts. Each chapter felt like its own horror performance, like pieces in a song album. It was genuinely terrifying at times. Both scenarios were compelling (that's how you do 2 scenarios, Capcom!). And that soundtrack - Old Gods of Asgard were on fire!
Don't sleep on this game, folks!
Special thanks to @Aazealh. I wouldn't have played the game if not for his post on the 2023 GotY thread and his further comments in the chat.
While I have solid understanding of the overall tale, I have some questions:
1. I'm still not clear on who the original author of "Return" is. Did Wake write the novel and Scratch edit it into a horror story? Or did Scratch write the horror story and Alan was the one editing out the bad parts?
2. Why did Alan write Saga's family into the story? To give her motivation to solve the case? But she was already involved, already motivated to solve it, since it's her job as an FBI agent. Why did he involve her daughter? If Scratch is the original author of Return, it would make sense, as he would want to hurt Saga. But then again, it would be a mistake on his part, since it would give her more motivation to fight against him. In other words, involving Saga's family would be unnecessary callousness on Alan's part, and foolishness on Scratch's.
[Now that I write this, I may have come to an understanding actually: Wake said the story must "stick", must be earned in order for it to change reality. A story with an emotionally involved hero is naturally stronger than a story with a hero who is simply doing her job. He had to get Saga's family involved to make the story more powerful, and hence more able to change the effects of Scratch's horror tale.]
3. Saga can communicate with her relatives in the Mind Place. Why didn't it occur to her to try to communicate with her daughter that way?
That said, I loved AW2. Wow, what a game! A survival horror that is also a great work of storytelling? Who would have thought? It really did check all the boxes, delivering on all fronts. Each chapter felt like its own horror performance, like pieces in a song album. It was genuinely terrifying at times. Both scenarios were compelling (that's how you do 2 scenarios, Capcom!). And that soundtrack - Old Gods of Asgard were on fire!
Don't sleep on this game, folks!
Special thanks to @Aazealh. I wouldn't have played the game if not for his post on the 2023 GotY thread and his further comments in the chat.
While I have solid understanding of the overall tale, I have some questions:
1. I'm still not clear on who the original author of "Return" is. Did Wake write the novel and Scratch edit it into a horror story? Or did Scratch write the horror story and Alan was the one editing out the bad parts?
2. Why did Alan write Saga's family into the story? To give her motivation to solve the case? But she was already involved, already motivated to solve it, since it's her job as an FBI agent. Why did he involve her daughter? If Scratch is the original author of Return, it would make sense, as he would want to hurt Saga. But then again, it would be a mistake on his part, since it would give her more motivation to fight against him. In other words, involving Saga's family would be unnecessary callousness on Alan's part, and foolishness on Scratch's.
[Now that I write this, I may have come to an understanding actually: Wake said the story must "stick", must be earned in order for it to change reality. A story with an emotionally involved hero is naturally stronger than a story with a hero who is simply doing her job. He had to get Saga's family involved to make the story more powerful, and hence more able to change the effects of Scratch's horror tale.]
3. Saga can communicate with her relatives in the Mind Place. Why didn't it occur to her to try to communicate with her daughter that way?
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Wake wrote it while being possessed by the Dark Presence, together with Thomas Zane's help. Which means Scratch wrote it. Then Alan got his hands on it and started editing it to change its outcome, only to be stopped by himself (he shoots himself in the head, and only afterwards realizes he's stopped himself from fixing it). Then the Dark Presence possesses him again, and that's how it escapes.
Thor and Odin are nearby and know how this power works, while her daughter is hundreds of miles away and unaware of this power. Plus, more simply: the story prevents her from doing so. By the time she realizes what her real power is, the Dark Presence has rewritten reality so that her daughter is dead. Its zone of influence is still limited geographically, but in the area Saga is at that moment, her daughter died years ago.
Of course. I understood why she couldn't do it, but not why she didn't think of it at least. But yes, as you said, by the time she knew what her power was, it was too late anyway. I just think they should have put in a small scene where she brings up the idea of speaking to her daughter through the Mind Place, even if it weren't possible.
Anyway it's a small detail and ultimately doesn't affect the story anyway so it doesn't matter. Thanks for the answers, Aaz!
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Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Final Fantasy VII-2 Retread Part II: Rebrand - After the dumb, sure-to-screw-everything-up alternative parallel reality shenanigans to open the game I finally finished the much more palatable Kalm flashback and I give it a mixed review. It felt pretty perfunctory in the end, but since this shit is like Shakespeare to my inner teenager I don't really like the changes to make it more grandiose either. Sephiroth is more of a person to start, and Cloud is more of an idiot throughout ("Jenova... wasn't that the name of Sephiroth's mother... what does it all MEAN!?" And this is after Sephiroth has basically spelled it out multiple times already 
), but it just makes the former's turn into cartoon villainy all the less sensible. Like, he allegedly reads through dozens of research books only to say the same dumb shit about Jenova, himself and the planet he was spouting before, which is apparently about as deep as he's going to get from here on out.
Given how long and drawn out the setup was, the ending feels like a scarcely interactive montage, though mostly faithful despite some of the ginned-up dramatics like Cloud and Sephiroth in town (it also felt like they kind of skipped or replaced some stuff here that was probably only important to me). How about add some real action or a fight if you want to make it more interesting (I mean, they already did on the freeway)? Anyway, Tifa immediately bringing up the inconsistencies in their recollection of events after had potential if they'd actually talked it out, but it went nowhere and seemed like the writing staff just felt like they needed to clean that up and give a better reason for burying it for another third of the story. If they really wanted to juice things up they should have had Cloud question if her abdomen scar wasn't just from breast implants!
Also, the graphics are already looking a little dated, even compared to the last one, so they better hurry up and finish this remake project before it's already outlived its purpose of cutting edge FF7. Maybe the third game can serve as a bridge between this FF7 remake project and the next one, "Here we go again... Again." None of my complaints will probably matter though, I was so excited to try to futilely access Vincent's room that the incoming nostalgia waves will surely overwhelm my brain until I'm just sitting in front of my TV lobotomized, contentedly drooling all over my controller, "Best... Game... Ever..."
Diablow IV - Hit level 100 (I was 5 away =), revamped and maximized my HotA Barb build and used it to beat Uber Durial (many times for the BIS unique drops) and a level 100 Nightmare Dungeon, and all that's left is Uber Lilith and grinding for The Grandfather and other Uber Uniques, but that hardly seems worthwhile. Lilith hardly does for that matter, with her design that, with multiple instant auto-death attacks that completely bypass your build/stats, basically invalidates the game! It doesn't seem particularly hard, but a weird choice I don't agree with; I'd be fine with it if it basically killed you unless you put everything into defense, but to completely ignore those stats in a game based solely on that and make it a bad point-and-click action game for one fight is weird. I'm just trying to tweak my build to the point I basically only have to hit her a few times with some decent RNG and be done with it.
Mortil Kombit I - Haven't done Kombat League this season, mainly just grinding for Reptile skins currently. I'm kind of stuck between wanting to main Reptile, genuinely enjoying him most and everything, and Smoke just being objectively more effective and having so much more in his tool box. Like I honestly feel like I've barely more than scratched the surface and he's still a problem for people. I'm basically trying to figure out how I can approximate playing Reptile as effectively as a mid-tier Smoke. Problem is I have to use a kameo for that and Smoke has it all innately (save for a projectile, but Rep's aren't even good for zoning anyway), plus whatever kameo bonus I want to put on top, so it's hard to really match even a lazy combination like Smoke/Sareena because I need Scorpion for the (relatively crappy) mix-up combo potential, but Stryker might be the most effective for the safety, but that requires playing so defensive. I guess Khameleon is an answer for everything, but too inconsistent and on some level I feel like her changes dictate/telegraph what I'm doing instead of the other way around.
), but it just makes the former's turn into cartoon villainy all the less sensible. Like, he allegedly reads through dozens of research books only to say the same dumb shit about Jenova, himself and the planet he was spouting before, which is apparently about as deep as he's going to get from here on out.Given how long and drawn out the setup was, the ending feels like a scarcely interactive montage, though mostly faithful despite some of the ginned-up dramatics like Cloud and Sephiroth in town (it also felt like they kind of skipped or replaced some stuff here that was probably only important to me). How about add some real action or a fight if you want to make it more interesting (I mean, they already did on the freeway)? Anyway, Tifa immediately bringing up the inconsistencies in their recollection of events after had potential if they'd actually talked it out, but it went nowhere and seemed like the writing staff just felt like they needed to clean that up and give a better reason for burying it for another third of the story. If they really wanted to juice things up they should have had Cloud question if her abdomen scar wasn't just from breast implants!
Also, the graphics are already looking a little dated, even compared to the last one, so they better hurry up and finish this remake project before it's already outlived its purpose of cutting edge FF7. Maybe the third game can serve as a bridge between this FF7 remake project and the next one, "Here we go again... Again." None of my complaints will probably matter though, I was so excited to try to futilely access Vincent's room that the incoming nostalgia waves will surely overwhelm my brain until I'm just sitting in front of my TV lobotomized, contentedly drooling all over my controller, "Best... Game... Ever..."
Diablow IV - Hit level 100 (I was 5 away =), revamped and maximized my HotA Barb build and used it to beat Uber Durial (many times for the BIS unique drops) and a level 100 Nightmare Dungeon, and all that's left is Uber Lilith and grinding for The Grandfather and other Uber Uniques, but that hardly seems worthwhile. Lilith hardly does for that matter, with her design that, with multiple instant auto-death attacks that completely bypass your build/stats, basically invalidates the game! It doesn't seem particularly hard, but a weird choice I don't agree with; I'd be fine with it if it basically killed you unless you put everything into defense, but to completely ignore those stats in a game based solely on that and make it a bad point-and-click action game for one fight is weird. I'm just trying to tweak my build to the point I basically only have to hit her a few times with some decent RNG and be done with it.
Mortil Kombit I - Haven't done Kombat League this season, mainly just grinding for Reptile skins currently. I'm kind of stuck between wanting to main Reptile, genuinely enjoying him most and everything, and Smoke just being objectively more effective and having so much more in his tool box. Like I honestly feel like I've barely more than scratched the surface and he's still a problem for people. I'm basically trying to figure out how I can approximate playing Reptile as effectively as a mid-tier Smoke. Problem is I have to use a kameo for that and Smoke has it all innately (save for a projectile, but Rep's aren't even good for zoning anyway), plus whatever kameo bonus I want to put on top, so it's hard to really match even a lazy combination like Smoke/Sareena because I need Scorpion for the (relatively crappy) mix-up combo potential, but Stryker might be the most effective for the safety, but that requires playing so defensive. I guess Khameleon is an answer for everything, but too inconsistent and on some level I feel like her changes dictate/telegraph what I'm doing instead of the other way around.
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guuuuuuuuts
Excited for the next chapter!
Decided to give Mass Effect Andromeda another go from my save.... here are my thoughts at estimated half way through the game.
- The combat is excellent.
- The open world aspect here doesn't make sense when exploring. It would be better to simply start missions, because I often have no idea of where I'm going. You can only select one mission at a time and only way to find things is zoom out on the map and click around or browse the journal of mission quests. Very confusing. Biggest related issue is the number of loading screens. Worst recent example is having to go to my ship to check my email, then return to where I just was to talk to a person, then travel to another planet to meet that person for a mission and then return for the third time to the original location and debrief on that mission.... couldn't the mission have just f'ing started and ended from a face to face conversation or vidcall. Ah well.
Most unintentionally hilarious scene so far was being on a quest with two companions and stopping for the "romantic scene" on a hilltop. Queue the very cinematic, close up romantic scene of kissing and holding, which ends and pans back out to reveal our other companion standing one step behind us the whole time. Almost fell off my seat from laughing so hard.
- I looked it up and this game only has a single ending. So, that is a total buzz kill.
- The Remnant are boring.
- The Kett are awesome.
- Ryder, the main character, is boring. I don't like myself, which is bad. I would so much rather play as a Turian or Krogan. :)
I was expecting more tie-ins to the trilogy, but it seems not so much after a number of hours. Oh well.
- The combat is excellent.
- The open world aspect here doesn't make sense when exploring. It would be better to simply start missions, because I often have no idea of where I'm going. You can only select one mission at a time and only way to find things is zoom out on the map and click around or browse the journal of mission quests. Very confusing. Biggest related issue is the number of loading screens. Worst recent example is having to go to my ship to check my email, then return to where I just was to talk to a person, then travel to another planet to meet that person for a mission and then return for the third time to the original location and debrief on that mission.... couldn't the mission have just f'ing started and ended from a face to face conversation or vidcall. Ah well.
Most unintentionally hilarious scene so far was being on a quest with two companions and stopping for the "romantic scene" on a hilltop. Queue the very cinematic, close up romantic scene of kissing and holding, which ends and pans back out to reveal our other companion standing one step behind us the whole time. Almost fell off my seat from laughing so hard.
- I looked it up and this game only has a single ending. So, that is a total buzz kill.
- The Remnant are boring.
- The Kett are awesome.
- Ryder, the main character, is boring. I don't like myself, which is bad. I would so much rather play as a Turian or Krogan. :)
I was expecting more tie-ins to the trilogy, but it seems not so much after a number of hours. Oh well.
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From what I remember of press coverage at the time, they were trying to make this game as a post-Shepherd thing, so that they could continue making ME games without being tethered to the earlier games. Obviously, that did not pan out.
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Absolutely, and I have given it a try on couple of occasions but it has so many issues on my PC, including the "new" one I used to play Half-Life: Alyx, I returned it with cause every time. I was only ever able to complete a few of the opening missions but it was rough, so it I didn't get nearly as far in as you, guuuuuuuuts.
I don't know why they moved on from Shepherd if they were going to continue it, really. They should have just got the band back together until the wheels fell off, but I guess that already happened.
Mortal Kombat Won? - Finally got back on the raptor and entered Kombat League with Reptile again the other night, where my first matchup was a Smoke/Sereena that was basically like fighting my former self. Of course I had a come from ahead defeat in the third round of the third and deciding match when the guy went completely HAM with Smoke and I just didn't have very good endgame answers of my own yet. I even switched Kameos to Sareena because I had no online timing anymore with Reptile/Scorpion anyway. Got the next guy and had some sweaty fun, but I need to get back on the grind. Before I finally got one I think I was like 0-6 in my last half dozen KL sets with Reptile dating back to the beginning of season 2, thus why i dropped him and started letting Smoke/Sareena carry me.
I did also reach over 100 online wins with Reptile though, more than i have with Ken or Guile in online SF6 (0-0 =).
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guuuuuuuuts
Excited for the next chapter!
The intention is a complete side quest, which I actually didn't understand this directly, because it turns out Andromeda initiative was launched between ME1 and 2 in order for some humans to have a chance to survive the looming reaper invasion.I don't know why they moved on from Shepherd if they were going to continue it, really. They should have just got the band back together until the wheels fell off, but I guess that already happened.
Fun thing is I went back to the main quest and the game ended, so turns out I had been at the end mission for some days. Actually kept my basic armor set the whole time, because I found out that instead of hitting a specific maximum stat, you unlock even stronger stat trees for that specific weapon or armor piece. Gear you have researched and built yourself (!) can be augmented even further, allowing for insanely powerful gear to be crafted... unfortunately there is no way to test any of this aside of during missions.
I suppose I could done a manual save, because building even mid-range gear is extremely resource intensive. Acquiring the parts necessitates trips across a number of worlds. You also have to be a specific level to achieve certain unlocks, so I ended up beating the game before actually completing my vanguard build... only did a single gear upgrade in order to horde more resources, lol. I'm genuinely surprised the gear offered so much flexibility in R&D when the campaign ended up being very short...
Romance was a bummer. It ended with my partner saying "Oh sexy, we'll meet up later" but then the friggin' game ended and simply drops you back into the ship as before. And the characters all drop back to their usual "Let's talk later, I'll be here" non-responses. So, no further development in relationships to be had... :( I looked it up and apparently my partner is the most developed relationship possible, but it didn't feel that way. We basically shared a one night stand after a single kiss and hand hold, so who cares about that. It didn't feel romantic or deep.
No one on the team is able to die. The end is treated like a film, so it is all guided... and you cannot skip through it. It felt anti-climactic to not be making the important decisions... if I could have, I would have kicked two characters off my crew. The game has you basically say their insane actions are irresponsible or cool (no consequences possible), but as a paragon they would have been fired from my crew asap, or been give a court-martial. My only recourse was to ignore the characters I didn't like as much as possible. I would have loved to have killed them off, but the paragon and renegade options are not present in Andromeda. You can't even insult people.
Perhaps because of my difficulty, but some of the enemies were outrageously hard to kill. I didn't want to change away from Vanguard, but a sniper type build would have been a better option considering how difficult some enemies were to take down (if they touch you, you die).
Overall, I would say it is a passable game, which does not warrant a sequel. The only character that would make sense to port over is SAM, the AI. If you go back to it, the main campaign can be finished quickly. There is only one ending, so don't feel it will take too long.
Rhombaad
Video Game Time Traveler
I just realized how long it's been since I last posted about what I've been playing. Here goes!
I played Dragon Quest III and IV for the NES and a fan-translated DQV for the Super Famicom. I also re-played Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles because I used save states the first time around to make sure I got all of the Chaos Emeralds and the best endings.
I also played Divine Divinity. Despite being a little glitchy at times, I really enjoyed it. I skipped it the first time I got to it on my list because I'd just played Diablo II, and it's a little similar to that title in some regards. For those who haven't played it, it's a really good mixture between Diablo II and Baldur's Gate with its own unique lore and storyline. Highly recommended for fans of those games.
I gave Sonic Advance 2 a try, despite reading about how diffiult it was from various reviews. I didn't find it to be that difficult at all, until I got to stage 4 or 5. At that point, it didn't become difficult; it became almost impossible. At times, the level would shoot you into space with nowhere to go but down for a lost life. It reminded me a lot of Sonic Adventure, and not in a good way. After trying the same level over and over for several hours, I called it quits. I may return to it someday, but I highly doubt it.
I wrapped up the Dark Forces games with Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. It was probably the best in the series when it came to lightsaber combat, but it basically gave up on having you use any other weapons, unless you were trying to take out snipers who were far away or completely out of reach. I also thought the storyline of the previous game in the series, Jedi Outcast, was better. I didn't like that you were playing some no-name guy instead of Katarn, but I appreciated LucasArts attempting to take the game in a slightly different direction. At the end of the day, it was still a lot of fun to play and I'm glad I gave it a shot.
Jak II started out frustrating, evolved into fun and devolved into frustrating again. I'm not sure why they took the formula of the first title and got rid of the whimsy and added a GTA-style open world where you steal hover cars and sometimes enrage the local authorities. Again, I always appreciate it when artists, be they game designers, writers, directors, etc., attempt something new, but I felt this was a swing and a miss. I've heard Jak 3 fixes a lot of the issues players had with Jak II, so I'm looking forward to playing that at some point. As for Jak II, I did my best but started not having a lot of fun around the 300th time I experienced a cheap death and had to start a level over at the beginning. I'm more likely to return to it than I am Sonic Advance 2, though.
Up next is Hitman 2: Silent Assassin!
Edit: There's a sale on GOG, so I picked up Hitman 2 for less than $2.00. Woohoo!
I played Dragon Quest III and IV for the NES and a fan-translated DQV for the Super Famicom. I also re-played Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles because I used save states the first time around to make sure I got all of the Chaos Emeralds and the best endings.
I also played Divine Divinity. Despite being a little glitchy at times, I really enjoyed it. I skipped it the first time I got to it on my list because I'd just played Diablo II, and it's a little similar to that title in some regards. For those who haven't played it, it's a really good mixture between Diablo II and Baldur's Gate with its own unique lore and storyline. Highly recommended for fans of those games.
I gave Sonic Advance 2 a try, despite reading about how diffiult it was from various reviews. I didn't find it to be that difficult at all, until I got to stage 4 or 5. At that point, it didn't become difficult; it became almost impossible. At times, the level would shoot you into space with nowhere to go but down for a lost life. It reminded me a lot of Sonic Adventure, and not in a good way. After trying the same level over and over for several hours, I called it quits. I may return to it someday, but I highly doubt it.
I wrapped up the Dark Forces games with Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. It was probably the best in the series when it came to lightsaber combat, but it basically gave up on having you use any other weapons, unless you were trying to take out snipers who were far away or completely out of reach. I also thought the storyline of the previous game in the series, Jedi Outcast, was better. I didn't like that you were playing some no-name guy instead of Katarn, but I appreciated LucasArts attempting to take the game in a slightly different direction. At the end of the day, it was still a lot of fun to play and I'm glad I gave it a shot.
Jak II started out frustrating, evolved into fun and devolved into frustrating again. I'm not sure why they took the formula of the first title and got rid of the whimsy and added a GTA-style open world where you steal hover cars and sometimes enrage the local authorities. Again, I always appreciate it when artists, be they game designers, writers, directors, etc., attempt something new, but I felt this was a swing and a miss. I've heard Jak 3 fixes a lot of the issues players had with Jak II, so I'm looking forward to playing that at some point. As for Jak II, I did my best but started not having a lot of fun around the 300th time I experienced a cheap death and had to start a level over at the beginning. I'm more likely to return to it than I am Sonic Advance 2, though.
Up next is Hitman 2: Silent Assassin!
Edit: There's a sale on GOG, so I picked up Hitman 2 for less than $2.00. Woohoo!
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Dragon‘s Dogma II is, like its predecessor, what I’d call a beautiful mess. Boy, despite my limited hours on it, I’ve got a lot to say.
First, let’s get the technical stuff out of the way, since it has caused a lot of controversy. Yes, the game runs like crap. At least by today’s standards; a AAA PS5 game should not look and run like this. I’ve got NPCs spawning into existence right in front of me, choppy frames and animations, some awful looking effects (e.g. Dragons breathing fire looks like worse than PS3 Souls games), and so on. Is it a deal breaker though? Does it warrant the huge deal people made of it? For me at least, the answer is no. Sure, the game is rough as fuck, and far behind its peers when it comes this aspect (for God’s sake, I’m even using From Software as an example of better technical ability here!), but it is still very much worth playing. If you’d rather wait for it to be more polished or refined, assuming that is possible, then wait until then.
Gameplay should be familiar to anyone who played the first one. Fighting monsters, traveling, crafting, questing, and so on. You know the drill. Despite being clunky and awkward, I’m enjoying the gameplay loop. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but being on the back of a griffin as it suddenly takes flight and whisks me away from my companions, or arriving at a village in the middle of the night, expecting relief after wading through the dark, only to be ambushed by its zombie denizens - all of that makes for awesome video-game storytelling of the kind I’ve always championed here.
There are hiccups here and there, however. For example, some quests are stealth based - except the game has no stealth mechanics to support such quests. At all. They’re pretty dumb and mostly easy to get through, but there are annoying bits here and there. Some of the quests are your standard “fetch me a <insert item here>, Your Majesty. I’d go myself, but <insert bullshit reason here>”. When will developers learn that nobody likes these quests? The quest design in the game is mostly lacking, but these missions give you an excuse to explore the world and experience the true gold it has to offer, the dynamic storytelling I mentioned above. It makes up for the stupid stuff. At least for me. Speaking of stupid stuff…
The writing is hilariously bad, even by Capcom standards. Sometimes I think these quests were designed by utter morons. One quest has you looking for a boy who has been kidnapped by wolves. Kidnapped. By wolves. So the beasts carried the boy off to God-knows-where, and he’s been missing for some time. The quest giver expects you to find him and bring him home alive. Because yeah, the wolves would have been having tea parties with him the entire time. You question the townsfolk for information, and they each give you a tiny scrap of info. One will tell you he saw the wolves dragging the boy to a cave. You can’t probe for more info, such as the fucking location of said cave. You have to ask another NPC for that. When you finally arrive at the cave’s end, you only find the boy’s torn shirt, because the wolves ate him all up, leaving no flesh or bones behind, but were considerate enough to leave his shirt. Fuck me. This is just one of the many brain-dead side-quests in the game. The main quest, so far, is suffering from similar stupidity. So you are the Arisen, and as such you are the rightful king. An impostor has your throne, and you’re supposed to prove you’re the real Arisen through a long chain of complicated tasks, in order to earn the trust of the people. Why go through all that though? The Arisen can command Pawns and restore broken rift-stones. There, problem solved! A simple demonstration to the people would prove you’re the Arisen. The game ignores that massive plot hole completely, and sends you off on quest after quest to prove your identity instead. Oh, and there is a small village that is “tasked with defending the kingdom from the Dragon.” A village. Not a garrison, or a fortress, or a standing army. A fucking village. Don’t play this game for good writing, folks.
Traveling is a mixed bag. The world is gorgeous and expansive, and exploring it is a lot of fun. You’re not burdened by markers or points of interest. You go to places because you want to, because they look interesting, like you do in Zelda or Elden Ring. You decide what your points or interest are simply by seeing them from afar and thinking “let’s go there!”. On the other hand, traveling is almost exclusively on foot. In such a massive world, it’s a pain in the ass. There are no horses or mounts to carry you along. Imagine playing Elden Ring without your horse? (You kind of do, in coop sessions, and that was never fun). The only alternative is to hire an ox-cart and dozing off while it carries you to your destination, but even then the carts are usually interrupted by enemies that you need to fight off. Speaking of enemies, they are everywhere. You can’t run a few meters along the road or in the wilderness without being attacked by something. It interrupts the flow of exploration and makes you wonder how the hell are humans even able to live in such lands to begin with. I understand the developers not wanting players to go a long time without combat, but a little restraint goes a long way (a lesson I learned from Alan Wake 2).
I like the Pawns. Though the constant repetition of their dialogue can be obnoxious, I don’t mind their company. They even have personality. One of my companions is a sassy wizard whom I had to throw off of a cliff a few times because he annoyed me (he survived each time, unfortunately). Another is a tall and simple feline-knight called Doug, who likes to loot everything he sees. I liked Doug. My main Pawn, who I named Madelaine, is calm and analytical. She also shuts the other Pawns up whenever they question my decisions. Thanks Maddy!
Hmm, I think I’m forgetting a few things I wanted to add, but that’s okay. I can add them later. This is what I have to say, off the top of my head. The game is basically like that awkward and kind of dumb friend you know, who has a lot of issues, but you enjoy his company anyway because he’s a good guy at heart.
Anyway, back todying against hunting dragons!
PS: Here are Madelaine (left) and me after we took down an ogre,
First, let’s get the technical stuff out of the way, since it has caused a lot of controversy. Yes, the game runs like crap. At least by today’s standards; a AAA PS5 game should not look and run like this. I’ve got NPCs spawning into existence right in front of me, choppy frames and animations, some awful looking effects (e.g. Dragons breathing fire looks like worse than PS3 Souls games), and so on. Is it a deal breaker though? Does it warrant the huge deal people made of it? For me at least, the answer is no. Sure, the game is rough as fuck, and far behind its peers when it comes this aspect (for God’s sake, I’m even using From Software as an example of better technical ability here!), but it is still very much worth playing. If you’d rather wait for it to be more polished or refined, assuming that is possible, then wait until then.
Gameplay should be familiar to anyone who played the first one. Fighting monsters, traveling, crafting, questing, and so on. You know the drill. Despite being clunky and awkward, I’m enjoying the gameplay loop. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but being on the back of a griffin as it suddenly takes flight and whisks me away from my companions, or arriving at a village in the middle of the night, expecting relief after wading through the dark, only to be ambushed by its zombie denizens - all of that makes for awesome video-game storytelling of the kind I’ve always championed here.
There are hiccups here and there, however. For example, some quests are stealth based - except the game has no stealth mechanics to support such quests. At all. They’re pretty dumb and mostly easy to get through, but there are annoying bits here and there. Some of the quests are your standard “fetch me a <insert item here>, Your Majesty. I’d go myself, but <insert bullshit reason here>”. When will developers learn that nobody likes these quests? The quest design in the game is mostly lacking, but these missions give you an excuse to explore the world and experience the true gold it has to offer, the dynamic storytelling I mentioned above. It makes up for the stupid stuff. At least for me. Speaking of stupid stuff…
The writing is hilariously bad, even by Capcom standards. Sometimes I think these quests were designed by utter morons. One quest has you looking for a boy who has been kidnapped by wolves. Kidnapped. By wolves. So the beasts carried the boy off to God-knows-where, and he’s been missing for some time. The quest giver expects you to find him and bring him home alive. Because yeah, the wolves would have been having tea parties with him the entire time. You question the townsfolk for information, and they each give you a tiny scrap of info. One will tell you he saw the wolves dragging the boy to a cave. You can’t probe for more info, such as the fucking location of said cave. You have to ask another NPC for that. When you finally arrive at the cave’s end, you only find the boy’s torn shirt, because the wolves ate him all up, leaving no flesh or bones behind, but were considerate enough to leave his shirt. Fuck me. This is just one of the many brain-dead side-quests in the game. The main quest, so far, is suffering from similar stupidity. So you are the Arisen, and as such you are the rightful king. An impostor has your throne, and you’re supposed to prove you’re the real Arisen through a long chain of complicated tasks, in order to earn the trust of the people. Why go through all that though? The Arisen can command Pawns and restore broken rift-stones. There, problem solved! A simple demonstration to the people would prove you’re the Arisen. The game ignores that massive plot hole completely, and sends you off on quest after quest to prove your identity instead. Oh, and there is a small village that is “tasked with defending the kingdom from the Dragon.” A village. Not a garrison, or a fortress, or a standing army. A fucking village. Don’t play this game for good writing, folks.
Traveling is a mixed bag. The world is gorgeous and expansive, and exploring it is a lot of fun. You’re not burdened by markers or points of interest. You go to places because you want to, because they look interesting, like you do in Zelda or Elden Ring. You decide what your points or interest are simply by seeing them from afar and thinking “let’s go there!”. On the other hand, traveling is almost exclusively on foot. In such a massive world, it’s a pain in the ass. There are no horses or mounts to carry you along. Imagine playing Elden Ring without your horse? (You kind of do, in coop sessions, and that was never fun). The only alternative is to hire an ox-cart and dozing off while it carries you to your destination, but even then the carts are usually interrupted by enemies that you need to fight off. Speaking of enemies, they are everywhere. You can’t run a few meters along the road or in the wilderness without being attacked by something. It interrupts the flow of exploration and makes you wonder how the hell are humans even able to live in such lands to begin with. I understand the developers not wanting players to go a long time without combat, but a little restraint goes a long way (a lesson I learned from Alan Wake 2).
I like the Pawns. Though the constant repetition of their dialogue can be obnoxious, I don’t mind their company. They even have personality. One of my companions is a sassy wizard whom I had to throw off of a cliff a few times because he annoyed me (he survived each time, unfortunately). Another is a tall and simple feline-knight called Doug, who likes to loot everything he sees. I liked Doug. My main Pawn, who I named Madelaine, is calm and analytical. She also shuts the other Pawns up whenever they question my decisions. Thanks Maddy!
Hmm, I think I’m forgetting a few things I wanted to add, but that’s okay. I can add them later. This is what I have to say, off the top of my head. The game is basically like that awkward and kind of dumb friend you know, who has a lot of issues, but you enjoy his company anyway because he’s a good guy at heart.
Anyway, back to
PS: Here are Madelaine (left) and me after we took down an ogre,
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Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Final Fantasy VII: Stillbirth - This game literally puts me to sleep, and I really got into the last one. But it turns out starting a fifth of the way through FF7 isn't as engaging as starting from the beginning and deep-diving Midgar, and I'm now also remembering how much retread fetch quest shit was in the last one, and it's more of the same here, plus relearning the mechanics, and all the dumb new ones they added I don't care about, and I gotta go on little dates or make nice with the other party members to keep up my relationships with them... I'd rather just eat someone as a big, humanoid lizard, ya know?
The open world stuff is the same shit as every other: towers, maps and nodes, but mostly empty save for mandated plot shit and chocobo ranches for some reason. All the gameplay feels contrived to me to fill it out as a "real game" rather than an interactive tribute movie, but everything is fully scripted and on rails. You aren't guided by the rules of the world in how you traverse so much as the needs of the plot and how they want to blow out and over-present everything, like the giant snake sequence. The whole point of getting the chocobo is now completely moot and simply performed as ritual as that's what came before; it's the FF7 Incarnation Ceremony and now it's pure evil inside.
Honestly, I even considered just putting it on story difficulty and cruising until it grabbed me, I was already actively bypassing all the side content but my team was becoming anemic and frankly the combat isn't as intuitive or fun as I remember in the last game. It could be me as I'm not exactly diving in with MK1 still #1 on my agenda... but then, FF7 should have caused me to drop it! Ultimately, I couldn't go through with the FF7 easy mode idea. About a half hour after bypassing a boss that way it was gnawing at me until I just reloaded, re-equiped and played it straight. I haven't had an issue since; the game is already easy mode. I just needed to put forth the commitment to not just spam attack, actually use healing items, and not to die.
But I didn't want to waste/use any resources! Gotta save my missiles for Sephiroth, my homoerotic life-partner. That's my other complaint, every ominous sign of foreboding in his wake has been reworked so he and Cloud can somehow stare deeply into each other's eyes; even Barret and Red XIII are getting suspicious of this chase!
Also, for all the emo Cloud drama Tifa is now just as bad, reacting to every situation like she just realized she has Irritable Bowel Syndrome. They've kind of burdened her character with being the concerned adult in the room while everyone else just looks cool or acts whimsically stupid. And yeah, as for Sephiroth, I wish they were going to actually make something out of him this time as they keep gesturing, but I know I'll be unfulfilled when that something amounts to, "Muahahahahaha! I'm better than you, Cloud!"
I don't really like the changes to flesh out the plot either, they shoehornnin Yuffie early (I'm assuming her and Vincent are not optional but fully written in) and they make her screw up some potential deal with Rufus where he highlights how the plot no longer makes sense because if he needs to put all his attention to rebuilding Midgar, since Shinra tower was basically destroyed in this version, how is he possibly having a big popular inauguration celebration in Junon without it blowing up in his face? Even the internal logic makes no sense. Now I'm on the ship to Costa Del Sol and of course now it's a luxury cruise liner full of tertiary joke characters from the last game for no reason. Worst of all, they're going to make me play in a "Queen's Blood" tournament, the terrible, made-up in-world card game nobody would ever like or play in real life, an awful RPG trend, tournament as part of a mandatory story quest. I've not played it once since the tutorial, and it's really bad form to ram it down our throats. Go audition to be IRL board/card game makers on your own time, not mine!
Anyway, I miss it, better get back to it!
The open world stuff is the same shit as every other: towers, maps and nodes, but mostly empty save for mandated plot shit and chocobo ranches for some reason. All the gameplay feels contrived to me to fill it out as a "real game" rather than an interactive tribute movie, but everything is fully scripted and on rails. You aren't guided by the rules of the world in how you traverse so much as the needs of the plot and how they want to blow out and over-present everything, like the giant snake sequence. The whole point of getting the chocobo is now completely moot and simply performed as ritual as that's what came before; it's the FF7 Incarnation Ceremony and now it's pure evil inside.
Honestly, I even considered just putting it on story difficulty and cruising until it grabbed me, I was already actively bypassing all the side content but my team was becoming anemic and frankly the combat isn't as intuitive or fun as I remember in the last game. It could be me as I'm not exactly diving in with MK1 still #1 on my agenda... but then, FF7 should have caused me to drop it! Ultimately, I couldn't go through with the FF7 easy mode idea. About a half hour after bypassing a boss that way it was gnawing at me until I just reloaded, re-equiped and played it straight. I haven't had an issue since; the game is already easy mode. I just needed to put forth the commitment to not just spam attack, actually use healing items, and not to die.
But I didn't want to waste/use any resources! Gotta save my missiles for Sephiroth, my homoerotic life-partner. That's my other complaint, every ominous sign of foreboding in his wake has been reworked so he and Cloud can somehow stare deeply into each other's eyes; even Barret and Red XIII are getting suspicious of this chase!
Also, for all the emo Cloud drama Tifa is now just as bad, reacting to every situation like she just realized she has Irritable Bowel Syndrome. They've kind of burdened her character with being the concerned adult in the room while everyone else just looks cool or acts whimsically stupid. And yeah, as for Sephiroth, I wish they were going to actually make something out of him this time as they keep gesturing, but I know I'll be unfulfilled when that something amounts to, "Muahahahahaha! I'm better than you, Cloud!"
I don't really like the changes to flesh out the plot either, they shoehornnin Yuffie early (I'm assuming her and Vincent are not optional but fully written in) and they make her screw up some potential deal with Rufus where he highlights how the plot no longer makes sense because if he needs to put all his attention to rebuilding Midgar, since Shinra tower was basically destroyed in this version, how is he possibly having a big popular inauguration celebration in Junon without it blowing up in his face? Even the internal logic makes no sense. Now I'm on the ship to Costa Del Sol and of course now it's a luxury cruise liner full of tertiary joke characters from the last game for no reason. Worst of all, they're going to make me play in a "Queen's Blood" tournament, the terrible, made-up in-world card game nobody would ever like or play in real life, an awful RPG trend, tournament as part of a mandatory story quest. I've not played it once since the tutorial, and it's really bad form to ram it down our throats. Go audition to be IRL board/card game makers on your own time, not mine!
Anyway, I miss it, better get back to it!
Dar_Klink
Last Guardian when? - CyberKlink 20XX before dying
I'm nearing the end of Rebirth and I half agree with everything you're saying Griffith and by that I mean the other half of that agreement is left in a shadowy grey area until I finish it and look back on how I truly felt about it :).
Gameplaywise what made it click with me is actually using the synergy attacks that you get when holding down block. With Aerith her spell blast combo attacks actually make her build ATB way faster than anything else you can do with her, which makes her usable instead of a full-on liability. I have been doing all the open world crap since I enjoy the battle system, but it does get really tedious... I do think it gets better after you leave Corel although Cosmo Canyon area is a bit of a long drawn out pain in the ass to finish followed by the next area giving you what's basically a super chocobo that can hover up obstacles and use water to go extremely fast while flying, which makes getting through the area take 1/4th of the time it would take otherwise. I'd say that the best way to enjoy it is to just do the stuff that you run into naturally and when you feel like running around a bit and then just come back to it in ch12 when you can blast through it all, if you care about finishing it all. I'm pretty sure you can ignore that Queen's Blood tourny, but I'm not sure if it stops you from picking that option. You talk to the lady to the right of the main guy at the desk and say "I quit" basically.
As for the party relationship mechanics, those are the new form of the hidden relationship mechanics in the original game that decide who you go on a date with in Gold Saucer before heading out to the Temple of the Ancients. You could ignore it entirely unless you specifically want to see a scene with one of the characters included in the event (Barret, Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie, Red XIII, and from what I read, since I wanted to make sure I got Tifa for that event, there's another option that I think is only post-game replaying where you hang out in the hotel room with Vincent, Cid, and Cait Sith
Storywise, I do think it gets really bogged down in A. treating every moment from the original game as if it needs to be 10 times bigger and B. shoehorning Sephiroth into everywhere he could possibly show up in Cloud's mind. The giant snake part was so much cooler in original FF7 where you just see it impaled on a giant tree as a "oh shit Sephiroth could do that to something that oneshots us!!??" moment instead of a mandatory fight where you see him actually show up and save Cloud... The main things I do like are Barret and Red XIII getting more spotlight, which partially is Red XIII actually having an element of his character that wasn't translated in the ENG release of the first game actually be in the game, the fact that he pretends to be an old wise gruff warrior when in his species' age he's a teenager that babbles about missing his grandpa in his sleep(basically using boku instead of ore after the Cosmo Canyon part where you learn that about him) . Barret feels like he has a lot more of a mentor/father/leader role in the party, which makes sense when I think about being somebody in their 30s traveling with a 16 year old, a dogcat, and some early 20's depressed people in a love triangle. I also like the way Aerith comes off in both Remake and this game, kinda feeling more like her and Tifa had the opposite personalities thand you'd expect, where the tough martial artist is more of a shy quiet girl and the healer in a dress is an extroverted flirt. Maybe that was clear in the original game as well but I played that 20 years ago lol. Yuffie also feels exactly like a teenage girl where I keep thinking "oh god shut up, stop yelling, my knees hurt, I'm tired" Another complaint I have, which may be something that changes if specific stuff happens after the part I'm at(post Nibelheim area) How Cid is handled. It feels like they're retconing/getting rid of his failed astronaut backstory and parts of his personality. In original he was very rude and brash, even moreso than Barret. Basically talked like how some grumpy mechanic would treat a bunch of weirdos showing up at his door. In this one he's just sort of happy-go-lucky and ready to tag along and his plane breaks down... for no reason? Or because he tried to carry too many people in it? Not really sure what happened there, but it was much better originally to be escaping from Shinra on it and have them destroy the wings. I'm currently heading back to Gold Saucer after the Nibelheim stuff and Rocket Town was between those in the original game, so I assume they're cutting that out of his story or saving it for later with some of his meaner/gruffer elements sanded off? He was a giant dick to his not-GF/Wife Shera but it gave him character which he seems to be lacking here. Not much to say about it, but, Vincent also feels very shoehorned in, which comes with the awkward territory of wanting to end the game not long after he joins the party, but including Rocket Town as a story would give him more time with the party... I guess since Cid/Vincent aren't playable they're forced to awkwardly include them near the end of the game like Red XIII in Remake. Also, not much to say about the Zach side of things until I see the end of that story.
No idea how they're gonna handle the BIG (not) spoiler moment. I'm sure it will please everybody :)
All that being said, I'm enjoying the game overall and just sort of letting my brain numbly bathe in the story for the most part, not letting anything completely irk me until it's over, but there's stuff that has gotten to me as seen above haha.
The biggest thing of course is the fact they made this a trilogy but ended game 1 a quarter of the way through Disc 1 and game 2 end at the end of Disc 1... it's an exercise in futility to think on how it COULD have been if it had to be split into a trilogy but was done "better" but I guess Remake could have been Midgar with the fetch quests and big extra stuff (namely the loooong Hojo's lab segment) taken out and then include the Rebirth stuff up til Forgotten Capital with a lot of the open world fat and some of the minigames trimmed out? OH WAIT that's just disc 1 and then the other two games could be discs 2 and 3 where they add any extra goofy stuff into the short disc 3 story stuff? Iunno, it's just weird they're stuffing half or so of the story into the final game after stretching the first half out into two giant games. Wonder if they're going to decide that it's gonna be 4 games instead of 3 in the upcoming years.
Gameplaywise what made it click with me is actually using the synergy attacks that you get when holding down block. With Aerith her spell blast combo attacks actually make her build ATB way faster than anything else you can do with her, which makes her usable instead of a full-on liability. I have been doing all the open world crap since I enjoy the battle system, but it does get really tedious... I do think it gets better after you leave Corel although Cosmo Canyon area is a bit of a long drawn out pain in the ass to finish followed by the next area giving you what's basically a super chocobo that can hover up obstacles and use water to go extremely fast while flying, which makes getting through the area take 1/4th of the time it would take otherwise. I'd say that the best way to enjoy it is to just do the stuff that you run into naturally and when you feel like running around a bit and then just come back to it in ch12 when you can blast through it all, if you care about finishing it all. I'm pretty sure you can ignore that Queen's Blood tourny, but I'm not sure if it stops you from picking that option. You talk to the lady to the right of the main guy at the desk and say "I quit" basically.
As for the party relationship mechanics, those are the new form of the hidden relationship mechanics in the original game that decide who you go on a date with in Gold Saucer before heading out to the Temple of the Ancients. You could ignore it entirely unless you specifically want to see a scene with one of the characters included in the event (Barret, Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie, Red XIII, and from what I read, since I wanted to make sure I got Tifa for that event, there's another option that I think is only post-game replaying where you hang out in the hotel room with Vincent, Cid, and Cait Sith
Storywise, I do think it gets really bogged down in A. treating every moment from the original game as if it needs to be 10 times bigger and B. shoehorning Sephiroth into everywhere he could possibly show up in Cloud's mind. The giant snake part was so much cooler in original FF7 where you just see it impaled on a giant tree as a "oh shit Sephiroth could do that to something that oneshots us!!??" moment instead of a mandatory fight where you see him actually show up and save Cloud... The main things I do like are Barret and Red XIII getting more spotlight, which partially is Red XIII actually having an element of his character that wasn't translated in the ENG release of the first game actually be in the game, the fact that he pretends to be an old wise gruff warrior when in his species' age he's a teenager that babbles about missing his grandpa in his sleep(basically using boku instead of ore after the Cosmo Canyon part where you learn that about him) . Barret feels like he has a lot more of a mentor/father/leader role in the party, which makes sense when I think about being somebody in their 30s traveling with a 16 year old, a dogcat, and some early 20's depressed people in a love triangle. I also like the way Aerith comes off in both Remake and this game, kinda feeling more like her and Tifa had the opposite personalities thand you'd expect, where the tough martial artist is more of a shy quiet girl and the healer in a dress is an extroverted flirt. Maybe that was clear in the original game as well but I played that 20 years ago lol. Yuffie also feels exactly like a teenage girl where I keep thinking "oh god shut up, stop yelling, my knees hurt, I'm tired" Another complaint I have, which may be something that changes if specific stuff happens after the part I'm at(post Nibelheim area) How Cid is handled. It feels like they're retconing/getting rid of his failed astronaut backstory and parts of his personality. In original he was very rude and brash, even moreso than Barret. Basically talked like how some grumpy mechanic would treat a bunch of weirdos showing up at his door. In this one he's just sort of happy-go-lucky and ready to tag along and his plane breaks down... for no reason? Or because he tried to carry too many people in it? Not really sure what happened there, but it was much better originally to be escaping from Shinra on it and have them destroy the wings. I'm currently heading back to Gold Saucer after the Nibelheim stuff and Rocket Town was between those in the original game, so I assume they're cutting that out of his story or saving it for later with some of his meaner/gruffer elements sanded off? He was a giant dick to his not-GF/Wife Shera but it gave him character which he seems to be lacking here. Not much to say about it, but, Vincent also feels very shoehorned in, which comes with the awkward territory of wanting to end the game not long after he joins the party, but including Rocket Town as a story would give him more time with the party... I guess since Cid/Vincent aren't playable they're forced to awkwardly include them near the end of the game like Red XIII in Remake. Also, not much to say about the Zach side of things until I see the end of that story.
No idea how they're gonna handle the BIG (not) spoiler moment. I'm sure it will please everybody :)
All that being said, I'm enjoying the game overall and just sort of letting my brain numbly bathe in the story for the most part, not letting anything completely irk me until it's over, but there's stuff that has gotten to me as seen above haha.
The biggest thing of course is the fact they made this a trilogy but ended game 1 a quarter of the way through Disc 1 and game 2 end at the end of Disc 1... it's an exercise in futility to think on how it COULD have been if it had to be split into a trilogy but was done "better" but I guess Remake could have been Midgar with the fetch quests and big extra stuff (namely the loooong Hojo's lab segment) taken out and then include the Rebirth stuff up til Forgotten Capital with a lot of the open world fat and some of the minigames trimmed out? OH WAIT that's just disc 1 and then the other two games could be discs 2 and 3 where they add any extra goofy stuff into the short disc 3 story stuff? Iunno, it's just weird they're stuffing half or so of the story into the final game after stretching the first half out into two giant games. Wonder if they're going to decide that it's gonna be 4 games instead of 3 in the upcoming years.