I know Square Enix has been getting a lot of flack for releasing a bunch of AA games the past few years (and they recently announced that that would stop at their earnings call last week) but I link the quality of FFVII Rebirth is directly linked to how much they've experimented and tried new things the past 5 years. People forget! Nier was a lower budget AA game that was funded by Square. A lot of the reason they begun pumping these games out was in hopes of another hit like that AND to give a proving grounds to a new generation of devs. I think they succeeded in flying colors. While the production values presentation wise weren't captivating as their main titles; Harvestella, Neo TWEWY, Valkyrie Elysium, Trials of Mana, Star Ocean Divine Force, Diofield Chronicles and the upcoming Reynatis are/were all solid mechanically and genuinely fun to play. I think we just lived through the Square renaissance and haven't realized it. This output of fun and odd little JRPGs we haven't seen since the PS1/PS2 era from them. I think a lot of the poor sales in reception is a function of how many games are being released these days and sales being drive by tastes for grand sweeping epics with big graphics. They've really mastered ARPG production pipeline and I hope the weird lack of consensus about the things they're doing (which has always existed for them) doesn't dissuade them from doubling down and continuing to experiment, refine, and grow. I'm stoked for the future. I think Kingdom Hearts IV will be a huge surprise with how content dense and mechanically deep it is if their current stride is anything to go by.
Boom done! Great game, and overall I loved it. Just wasn’t a fan of the late game difficulty spikes like we discussed. The soundtrack was a 10/10
I’m assuming we’ll play as VV in the third installment? Dude is badass and I’m assuming he listens to Thou.
As someone who games maybe 10 hours a week, the filler and mind-numbing minigames taking up so much of Rebirth's runtime and the game still reviewing very well makes me really skeptical of what the next game might look like. I'm not against long, content-rich games, but so much of this just seems like time wasting/padding and not the fun kind (again, to me). I know there's always the argument of "just don't play it" "just skip the side content" "just play on Easy" etc - but the issue is when the game delivers, it really delivers, and when it sucks, it really sucks - and how can I know which is which unless I try to at least check everything out? I adored the FF series growing up, but like someone above said, I'll probably never play this game again once I finish it, and it just bums me out because when it is good, it's SO good. And then Glide de Chocobo makes me never want to play it again. I realize your post is not necessarily centered around Rebirth and I'm all for them experimenting and creating games they want to make and that their audience wants - this one is just exhausting for me and I really wanted to love it.
Oh yeah, I meant more about them having to deal with people saying "they're abandoning their roots" or "this isn't final fantasy" because most of the games are ARPGs. I can see how a lot of people don't like the minigames and feel it as bloat (especially with limited time). I took time away from work to be able to immerse myself and play this game which isn't possible for a lot of people. For me it reminded me of the endgame stuff from FFX where there are a lot of abilities locked behind extra content that make the main game combat trivial but are necessary for even standing a chance in the post-game stuff. I think this critcism is something they could respond to in Part III by making stuff optional... truly optional and not mess up with the pacing of the main story. I think it would be better formatted if it was more like FFX and FFXII where the player is introduced to extra content towards the end of the story with the majority of it being relevant only in the post-game.
One of my fav podcasts mentioned they think part 3 should be more linear and it would make sense story wise too. I agree. This could be the sprawling huge RPG due to it being the part two of Remake and all the places you go. Though have the next one be more focused. Just my opinion
Rebirth was the Notes on a Conditional Form (exhausting with career best gems) of the trilogy so hopefully Part 3 is the Being Funny in a Foreign Language (At Their Very Best Live!) of the trilogy (hyper focused and refined, scaled down more intimate production with wild antics
I think they've (as in leakers, not Square since they haven't actually said anything yet I suppose) said it's gonna be a very "faithful" remake in the sense that they basically just redo graphics and maybe update the gameplay a little (make Trance better, make battles not slow as heck), etc, but of course they also said 7R was gonna be "faithful" and well.................. also how can they hire someone who keeps called 9, 11,,,,,,, CV straight in the bin,,,,,
single player, offline XI would be a dream yeah, but I just kind of expect it to never happen at this point, which is a shame since the characters that appear in crossovers always seem really cool
Yeah it was in the works and frozen from what I understand so I'd say it's as good as a dead dream Plus they still make money from XI subs