I am playing FF7 for the first time

[Pink Gregory]

inevitably comparing it to 6 and 8, though I have played 4, 5 and 10 also.

It's certainly breezy, wasn't expecting Tifa to suddenly be undercover in a sex dungeon about a minute after an exhilarating escape sequence - incidentally I don't know where I got the impression that it was going to be a bit po-faced?  Don't know, the reverence this game gets kind of erases the silliness of a lot of the dialogue.

Combat is pleasingly quick and doesn't pile on the difficulty too early, haven't felt the need to grind yet, but I'm only at Junon harbour.  Materia system seems intutive and easy to understand (it's basically Espers from 6 without the related summons), intimidating amount of status effects (sadness?  fury?) that it doesn't seem to identify in battle.  Love that it still has frog though.

Still, that cinematic sweep that slows so much of FF8 down is here, camera swishing all over the place during battle (although at least you can turn it off) and the 3x speed function is certainly going to be helpful, as well as pausing and resuming on the Switch.

Was surprised by how minigame heavy it's been so far, none of them are clunky or anything but I guess it's a concession to the western audience they were trying to cross over into.

Maybe a little light on characterisation?  I know FF is broad strokes and claiming that, say, Zell or Selphie are better characterised than Barrett or Tifa seems silly, I'm just one of those rare people who think Squall is interesting.

[Mister Six]

Cloud is Squall but without the annoying teenage angst, which means he's down one dimension but less of an annoying cock.

The moment when you leave Midgar, having had hours and hours of entertainment and character development already, and suddenly realise there's a whole world map to explore beyond absolutely blew my mind as a kid.

And yes, it's a very lighthearted and goofy game, especially at the start, although the comedy keeps up throughout most of the game.

Quite jealous of you getting to experience this for the first time. I kind of want to replay it, but I worry that the combat and sheer bloody size of the thing would leave me feeling restless, like I'm pissing my life away (as if I'd do anything else anyway).

[Rodan]

Quite jealous of you getting to experience this for the first time. I kind of want to replay it, but I worry that the combat and sheer bloody size of the thing would leave me feeling restless, like I'm pissing my life away (as if I'd do anything else anyway).

QoL improvements/cheats on the newer ports negate a lot of this. It's still enormous fun even if you speed up the dullest traversal and trivial combat encounters. It's also not very big at all - that's something which surprised me when I replayed it a year or so ago. I finished it in 25 hours, I think. Big enough but pretty lean with it.

[Mister Six]

Is FF8 a lot bigger then? I'm sure I put 100+ hours into that, despite not enjoying it half as much.

[Pink Gregory]

Is FF8 a lot bigger then? I'm sure I put 100+ hours into that, despite not enjoying it half as much.

it seems as if with Chocobo breeding and such there's stuff to sink your time into similarly to Triple Triad but the thing with FF8 is the battles take fucking forever without a fast forward option.

Dramatic sweep across the battlefield - party swings their weapons - animations play out - GF summoning animation takes 1-2 minutes - victory pose - stats screen.  It adds up.

That being said getting GF abilities is more or less similar to levelling up materia and everyone who says you *have* to min max draw magic to get a decent chance of finishing is basically wrong.  You can break the game that way but you're not *forced* to.

[Pink Gregory]

I thought the point of Squall *was* the teenage angst.  Problem with FF8 is you're playing as a bunch of 17 year olds and it never draws attention to that.  Quistis is 18 but she reads like she's 30.

Only recently heard that he's based on River Phoenix, which makes *so* much sense.

[Johnny Textface]

I loved the soundtrack of this game. However it's a shame they didn't vary the battle music a little more.. Maybe add a music selector there? Devs?

[Pink Gregory]

I loved the soundtrack of this game. However it's a shame they didn't vary the battle music a little more.. Maybe add a music selector there? Devs?

Best boss theme I'm aware of in FF, certainly.  They always sounded a little fruity and unserious otherwise.

[Mister Six]

I just stumbled through FF8, so yeah, no need to min-max. By the end every character was level 99 except Selphie, who was level 17 or something. Stupid fucking Selphie.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

You can go through the whole game without ever summoning a GF as well to be fair

[dontpaintyourteeth]

There's no fucking way you could possibly know any of this the first time you play, of course.

[oggyraiding]

With VII I reached a point where I was just lost. As far as I'm aware there's no map that actually says where stuff is (only a minimap that shows where points of interest are but not the name of them). I recruited Cid and went to a new area that actually turned out to be optional and a bit tough, when I was meant to return to an area I'd already been to but this wasn't clearly indicated.

The Pixel Remasters have a really good map where you can clearly say where everything is, the VII port on modern consoles could have done with that.

[Thursday]

There's such a huge disconnect between what FF7 is and how it's remembered.

[Pink Gregory]

With VII I reached a point where I was just lost. As far as I'm aware there's no map that actually says where stuff is (only a minimap that shows where points of interest are but not the name of them). I recruited Cid and went to a new area that actually turned out to be optional and a bit tough, when I was meant to return to an area I'd already been to but this wasn't clearly indicated.

I'm getting this a bit even in this early stage.  The map's not that useful because it's only ever an overlay on the world map; in FF8 you switch to a map screen that names all the locations.

Granted, there aren't that many places to go, but it's fairly light on reminding you what you're doing as well.  So far it's usually one person in a town going 'ah, yes, Sephiroth, I suppose, he went thataway'

[Mister Six]

I dunno, it's quite linear, isn't it? At least, until you get the airship late on. You're pretty much funneled to the next major location, which acts as a gateway blocking you from the next bit of the map.

Maybe it's just that I played it during my weird obsessive teenage years, but I looked at the map just now and I could still remember roughly where everything was located.

[Thursday]

There's one confusing sequence where you got to find the temple of the ancients and the key to it. And part of it involves some guys workshop who just tells you he sold it to the Gold Saucer guy, and then finding the temple takes a bit of exploration. But there's limited options really so I feel like you'd soon stumble upon all these things anyway.

[Urinal Cake]

I dunno, it's quite linear, isn't it? At least, until you get the airship late on. You're pretty much funneled to the next major location, which acts as a gateway blocking you from the next bit of the map.

Maybe it's just that I played it during my weird obsessive teenage years, but I looked at the map just now and I could still remember roughly where everything was located.

Kids these days, don't even know how to play videogames.

You could always look at a FAQ\walkthrough.

[Cloud]

That famous bit though, you know

Spoiler alert

when Sephiroth is all "no, Cloud, *I* am your father

[close]

Played it more times than I can count. First time was amazing, you never get that back - don't try to be prefect , leave that for replays, just enjoy it!

[Glebe]

The remake is still not available for Xbox, but I played the original version again awhile ago and got near the end in the caves but ended up sacking it off.

[madhair60]

good game, best music. changed my life a bit mainly because it was the first RPG i ever played/saw, really. not a genre that was part of my childhood until Final Fantasy VII, which i had no idea was part of a long-running series and thought was just a game with a weird name

[Pink Gregory]

Maybe I need to go back to the intermediate hall in Junon again but I'm kind of struggling to understand stats.

Even trying to specialise between physical and magic - Cloud is good at everything because he never leaves the party, Tifa and Barrett have high strength, I guess, and Aeris/Red XIII/Cait Sith are better at magic.  Is it that simple or am I missing something?

[Mister Six]

Honestly, I think I just rotated everyone at random and bumbled through the game. Aeris is useful because she's your main healer, but mostly it's much of a muchness from what I recall. JPRGs are, in my limited experience, a lot more railroaded and less fiddly than Western ones, and worrying about stats isn't generally something you need to do. I might be wrong though.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

There's not much difference between them all really, it's not like the other FF games with the classes and whatnot. Some have better/more useful limit breaks than others though.

[Pink Gregory]

Yeah limit breaks felt so rare to be novelties in other games but they come up quite a lot here.

[Mister Six]

Does the PS4 version of this have the QoL stuff like speeding up the animations?

[Rodan]

Does the PS4 version of this have the QoL stuff like speeding up the animations?

Yep.

[Mister Six]

Ooh! I'll get it when it's on sale, then. Thanks!

[Pink Gregory]

any idea when it's a good idea to do Fort Condor?  Went all the way back over and ground out the gil but it looks more minigamey than I was expecting and it looks annoying.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I think technically you're supposed to go back in between every story beat for like, quite a long way through. If you want to win all the prizes or whatever. The actual mini game is easy just place people right at the bottom so the enemies get killed right away (alternatively wait until the commander comes out then kill him. Either way just hang a load of people out at the bottom. You can usually win it within a few minutes)

[dontpaintyourteeth]

any idea when it's a good idea to do Fort Condor?  Went all the way back over and ground out the gil but it looks more minigamey than I was expecting and it looks annoying.

Also I can't remember if any of the rewards are actually worth all the backtracking you have to do. I think not but would have to check.