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More Impressions: FF7 Rebirth
I am still plugging away at Rebirth. Don’t worry, no story spoilers here.
What I did want to talk about (again) is just how baffling the game systems are. There are some things that are just awkward and annoying, but true to the original, like having to meticulously move Materia around every time your party is forced to change. Mercifully, the devs do allow you to equip Materia into a slot from someone else, eliminating some of the tedium.
But then there is all the new stuff. Which exists for… some reason, to the detriment of the game.
Weapons have Weapon Skill slots, which act like Materia (e.g. slot them), but I honestly have no clue where they come from. Maybe I missed the tutorial for that part and they automatically unlock? Anyway, they are pretty minor and largely inconsequential fiddly bits you have to mess with on occasion. Then you have the Folios, which reminds me of the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. Or would if any choices there mattered either. Yes, the Folios are where you unlock Synergy Abilities and special magic attacks that don’t require MP. But along the way you have to spent points on things like “increase MP by 3” and “increase whatever by 5%.” Filler by itself is not always bad, but this is just one of a myriad of new systems introduced, again, for what reason?
And by the way, what Rebirth has done with spellcasting makes me wonder why they bothered with it at all. One of the issues of the first game (Remake) is wandering into a boss fight that hinges on you exploiting an elemental weakness that none of your team has equipped. With the Folios, all characters can unlock specific abilities that allow them to cast most elements without needing the Materia or even MP. That’s cool. However, the introduction of Synergy Abilities – which require two characters to perform ~3 ATB actions apiece – places a huge emphasis on executing actions that “count” towards them. What doesn’t count? Spells and those abilities that cast spells. Which… why not? Seriously. Combined with characters that have elemental-based ATB attacks like Cloud’s Firebrand, the whole spell system feels de-emphasized.
The other element (har har) that is becoming more annoying to me over time is the disparity between the characters themselves. Specifically, Tifa and Red XIII versus Yuffie. Both Tifa and Red XIII are melee-only characters that end up facing what feels like 80% flying enemies thus far. Not only can they not hit these flying mobs to gain ATB, many of their abilities won’t hit either. Enter Yuffie: primarily a melee character, that can also throw her Shuriken at distant/flying foes as a secondary attack. If it hits, a second tap of the button will teleport her to the Shuriken and allow her to start melee attacking the target, even in mid-air. Alternatively, if you start hitting the regular attack button, Yuffie will start attacking with her elemental ninjitsu, which is an instantaneous ranged attack. Did I mention she can change the element of the ninjitsu to target weaknesses?
I will concede that perhaps the devs feel a bit boxed in here. Tifa has the same attacks she did in the first game, as does Yuffie… who was released as a solo DLC character, and thus needed to have a broad spectrum of attacks to make up for it. At the same time, with all the craziness of Remake, I don’t think anyone would bat an eye at Tifa/Red having some way of engaging flying foes. Whatever the case, the end result is that while I want my party to be Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith, the classical trio is way outclassed by Cloud, Yuffie, and Barret. Sure, I could just do what I want and just take the OG crew, but that will make the enormously boring fights take even longer.
There are two final things I wanted to talk about, that are possibly only “me” problems. I’m very important, of course, so these are major issues. Those issues are Pacing and Tone.
From a Pacing perspective, Rebirth effectively has none. What typically happens is that you get to a new area, have a few Main Story Quests (MSQ), and then the next stage is far away into a blank map. Some of the time it is possible to make a direct approach and ignore the 20+ map icons and side quests and towers and collectibles and so on and so forth. There was even a time when the MSQ was almost directly in sight and you had to go out of your way to leave the area to hit up all the extraneous stuff. Other times you do have to unlock a certain amount of things and/or need to hit certain level milestones to not be stomped by the next boss. Regardless, I’m not a completionist or an achievement hunter, but I do actually care about extracting every drop of interaction I can from these characters that occupied so much of my youth, so I end up finishing everything I can stand.
Unfortunately, the end result is that I spend 2-3 play sessions doing busywork with this awful combat system and just can’t bring myself to push further into the story until I mentally recharge.
Double-unfortunately for me, the Tone for this game is all over the place. The original FF7 had extremely weird sections and comic relief at regular intervals, of course – the entire Wall Market sequence, for example. But I feel like the devs decided that every air pocket created from stretching the game into a trilogy needed to filled with nonsense. And not just a little nonsense, but ridiculous nonsense. Which again, fine, comic relief is a thing. However, the game isn’t that heavy to justify this amount of relief. Indeed, it’s hard to take much of anything seriously based on the in-game presentation. For example, there is a section in which Shrina soldiers are gunned down and everyone is somber and clutching pearls. Fast-forward past a bunch of filler quests (god, I wish I could have), you face off against a bunch of Shrina soldiers… that you gun down. What.
If it sounds like I’m not having a good time, you would be correct. I am currently sitting at 46 hours and sort of wish things had ended 30 hours ago. In the interest of plowing ahead, I have started to actually ignore the more Ubisoft-styled busywork, but it’s still tough.
This game is not the follow-up to Remake I was hoping for.
Impressions: FF7 Rebirth
I started Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, middle-child of the “break glass in emergency” remake gambit trilogy.
The first game started extremely strong, with an overdose of weapons-grade nostalgia straight to the jugular. Midgar exceeded my expectations (and formative memories) in a way I thought would have been impossible. I mean, when they say “you can’t go home again,” the implication is usually not that the today home is so outstandingly better that it blows the old home out of the water. The personalities, the dialog, the little mannerisms… chef’s kiss. Has it really been three years?
However, you’ll note we’re now in paragraph three without saying anything about the current game.
Visually, Rebirth an outstanding feast for the eyes. The level of detail in random corners of the city of Kalm is mind-blowing considering how (presumably) little of the game will be based there. The setting of FF7 has always been one of my favorite parts of the game – the juxtaposition between technology and magic and a world in decline – so seeing Cloud walk past vending machines and people taking pictures while he has a huge Buster Sword strapped to his back somehow hits all the right notes for me.
However, there is some significant trepidation on my part. One of the first big post-tutorial reveals is… the Grasslands! You know, the like… generic overworld between points of actual interest in the original game. While I appreciate that the devs were perhaps trying to recapture the 1997 experience when you realized that Midgar was only the opening sequence in the game, my own reaction was a heavy sigh once a big gray map popped up. I further massaged my temples when I later saw 37 different icons appear all over the map. You cannot have nostalgia for doing the same open-world checklists that exist for every modern open-world game. While it is presumably possible to ignore everything else and just hit the next Main Scenario icon, that leads me to the next source of concern: the battle system.
It’s still extremely early on, but as far as I can tell the battle system has only gotten more complex and even less fun as a result. The ATB system is still there, which means actual combat revolves around you spamming light attacks until you fill a meter and can use exciting features like Item or Spell or Ability. Low on health? You better… attack the enemy some more and hope you live long enough to undo a small amount of the damage you took trying to fill up the meter to allow you to heal. But, be careful: just like last game your precious ATB action can be interrupted, or miss entirely if it’s an attack. Which I could understand if this were a Souls-like or whatever, but it is not.
The new combat system additions are Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities. Once unlocked in the “Folio,” Skills can be used while pressing the Block button and allow two party members to do a special action without needing the ATB gauge. Which is good, giving you at least some extra buttons to push aside from X spam. Synergy Abilities are super-Abilities between two party members that are only active once each character has used enough ATB actions. Some of these are cool, as they result in unique buffs that last quite a while, like giving characters infinite MP. Which, now that I think about it, isn’t as cool considering you still have to have a free ATB bar built up to utilize.
It’s like, what even is this combat system? Spam tiny attacks to fill a meter and then slow down time to select Abilities/Magic, then switch between multiple characters to do the same, then you eventually get to cast Summons (ATB-based), or Limit Breaks, or now Synergy Abilities.
I’m only 7 hours in, so maybe combat gets better this time? Please tell me it gets better. Sigh.
In other words, it’s a rough start to FF7 Rebirth. I’m going to stick with it because Junon, Golden Saucer, and Costa del Sol – along with the overall direction – but Square Enix ain’t making it easy to get there.
In An Age 