It feels like a different game on the second play through. For those of you that got enough at the first pass, this game handles New Game + kinda differently: you can super-fluidly warp back and forth to your favorite chapters, keeping all levels, items and materia and replay anything you want. The events and dialogue change slightly as you would expect, so it's worth multiple runs if you liked the game. Additionally, you get double XP and triple AP, as the developers both respect your time and recognize that the high-end graphics and on-location battles mean that creature numbers are limited. This cuts level grinding down significantly and is now my favorite way to do NG+. Spoilers incoming, you've been warned!
Hard difficulty means that even if you max our your level to 50, you might still get your ass kicked if you run into some of the boss fights swinging. In the first playthrough, I quickly got tired of Cloud's slow and deliberate gameplay in favor of Barrett's needling enemies to death or Tifa's combo style. This time around, Cloud's counterattack stance, liberal use of elemental materia (I missed the second one) and a heavy reliance on purple stat materia means that you actually have to stop and configure your party for battles. Also, you don't regenerate MP from benches, so Chakra and Pray are crucial, since they don't use MP. Also, you cannot use items, which means regular yellow chests are worthless, and might save a whole 5 minutes of bending over animation by the end of your game. 50% of the bosses I beat the first try, while some of the others gave me a really hard time. I'm looking at you, chariot boss in the Train Graveyard.
Also present was the frustrating camera that occasionally doesn't work together with the even more awkward targeting system. This is a really big problem with Aerith, who doesn't have horizontal sweeping motions like Cloud or rapid attacks like Tifa and Barret. She'll start sending her projectiles at nothing when actions and ATB are most-needed. The camera works against the player, and you'd think this would be a non-issue in a game that got so many things right.
Audio time! I want to call attention to the music that I still have issues about being liberally doled out in the first half of the game. Track after track of remixed music that originally belonged to certain key scenes is handed out and I think that cheapens some of Uematsu's best work. Ohh well, cause there are some new tracks have some goodness for you. The boss theme that plays during the Swordipede fight (Ch 17) makes the whole scene so eerie but super energetic. The team that made this game also knows what makes Final Fantasy VII awesome, and what could be improved. I really like rewriting Cloud to gradually open up to the team, which might have been harder to do now that we have to hear his voice. And holy mole, his voice! I've missed out on new, recently-made JRPGs since between this game and FFXV, but these two titles are the best translated, localized voice acting I've ever heard. My hard playthrough is in Japanese this time around and sure enough, the lip syncing is different for the versions--at least for the main characters. Re-animating this makes this a next-level performance and does wonders for the presentation.
Story mechanics. One weird decision was leaving in the stuffed cat who is upset about the Midgar plate falling. I know the game team was planting seeds, but I also didn't see any connection whatsoever between the cat, the other stuffed animal and Reeve Tuesti. Maybe that will be less convoluted too when they connect the dots in the next game. Another seeming non-sequitur was the motorcycle dude who shows up, challenges Cloud, and dashes off cackling after the conflict. I guess he's another ex-SOLDIER, but what else ya got for me?
Another thing I never figured out was what the president of ShinRa had to gain by destroying Midgar. The company plays an interesting role of how it deals with Avalanche. Instead of sending the military in to root out the group or having a spy or some other kind of war tactic you'd expect, they blow up an entire reactor, causing civilian deaths when the Avalanche's plan was to disable it. The situation is further escalated when ShinRa drops an entire 1/8th of the city onto the unfortunates below. In ~5 playthroughs of the original and 2 of the remake, I never understood the motivation beyond simple callousness of the rich and powerful: evil for the sake of being evil. The pollution and destruction of the environment is of course the consequence of literally leeching the planet, which Barrett talks about endlessly. I absolutely love when Cloud checks one of B's rants by pointing out that the technology made all their lives better.
I said before that I like this version of Cloud, as he seems much less like a vessel that you control and more like his own person. I feel like spoken dialogue has affected this in two ways. I already mentioned that proper lip syncing and great delivery makes a better experience. I also feel like removing the freedom to name your character means that they can write out way more realistic dialogue instead of having all the spoken dialogue revolve around not mentioning your character's name. Having just gone through 140 hours of Skyrim with the very bland ways that characters talk to you, I think I prefer giving up naming conventions for more impactful dialogue. That said, half of Cloud and Tida's exchanges are him saying her name in a worried and concerned way in response to her actually saying words. I get that he's awkward because he spent so much of his life in the military, but it also sounds like the writers felt that women were only to be worried about and coddled instead of intelligently interacted with. That's likely a cultural thing, despite the amazing localization done in this game.
I will wait however long I need to wait for the next installment of FFVII. Yokudekita!
Comentários