FF7 remake for PS4 announced - Page 38

On June 11 2019 20:47 FFGenerations wrote:
ok the japanese trailer without distracting subs actually sounds really good
barret comes across more as a mafia pirate type than a wacky goon
everyone sounds more mature
i guess it's the jap->eng dubbing effect again (like with ff13)

This afternoon at E3 in Los Angeles, I watched an extended demo of the Final Fantasy VII remake and got my hands on a build for about 15 minutes. Here’s the good news: It could be really special. The bad news: We have no idea when the whole project will be completed.

“We can’t reveal that many details about this,” producer Yoshinori Kitase said when I asked him today how many games will be in the series. We know that the first one is set entirely in Midgar, and that, according to Square Enix, it’s the size of an entire numbered Final Fantasy game—a radical reimagining, given that Midgar was maybe 5 or 10 percent of the original game on PlayStation 1.

“Before we actually started working on this, we knew it was going to be a large amount of content,” Kitase told a group of press. “When we started out planning the plot for the first game, it hit us again... at that point we decided we were going to focus first game on Midgar and what happens in Midgar. Unfortunately we can’t say anything more about the future games, because we don’t know ourselves.”

Kitase added that the development team is simultaneously finishing Final Fantasy VII Remake’s first game, which is out in March 2020, while planning game number two.

Following a brief presentation during which Kitase and his team demonstrated a build of the first few moments of the game (which looked great), I got to play a demo that takes place within the first Mako Reactor. I hacked and slashed through some enemies, climbed down some ladders, and fought a reimagined version of the scorpion robot, Final Fantasy VII’s first boss.

The best way to describe the Final Fantasy VII remake is “fleshed out.” It’s like the PS1 version of Final Fantasy VII was an outline and this is the final paper. Whereas in the original game you’d see a few dialogue exchanges that were meant to broadly convey feelings—Jessie being flirty, Barret trying to convince Cloud that the environment is worth saving—here there are fleshed-out conversations, genuine personality, and dialogue with a surprising amount of warmth. There are some clunky lines in there, but it’s fun to watch.

Here’s one exchange I particularly enjoyed:

Barret: You gonna stand there and pretend you can’t hear the planet crying out in pain?

Cloud: You really hear that?

Barret: Damn straight I do.

Cloud: [after a pause] Get help.

Jessie, a member of Barret’s Avalanche eco-terrorist group, has more dialogue in the 30 minutes of footage I saw today than she does in all of Final Fantasy VII on PS1. Wedge and Biggs have more personality. There are cut-scenes around every corner. It feels like a completely new game.

The combat system is also brand new. Here are the basics: As Cloud, you can slash, evade, and block with button presses. With every attack you’ll build up your ATB gauge, and every time you fill up an ATB bar (to a maximum of two in the demo), you can use it for a spell, ability, or item.

This version of Cloud was equipped with some skills like Braver (formerly a Limit Break, now a regular ability) and a triple-slashing ability that sends him spinning from enemy to enemy. There’s also a stagger system reminiscent of Final Fantasy XIII in which you can build up an enemy’s “staggered” gauge. When it fills up, you’ll do bonus damage—160 percent, in the demo.

As a result of this system, it doesn’t feel like a hack-n-slash action game. It’s got a very, very different vibe than, say, Kingdom Hearts III. Just mashing the square button doesn’t seem like an effective strategy in Final Fantasy VII’s new combat system. You don’t do a ton of damage with standard attacks. From what I watched and played, getting through fights requires frequent use of abilities and swapping between your characters—in this case, using Cloud to take out short-range enemies and Barret to gun down sentries from a distance.

As you play, the music swells in and out, transitioning between enhanced versions of classic Final Fantasy VII tracks based on your current state. The combat music weaves in and out naturally rather than following a hard transition the way it once did. The framerate isn’t great, at least in this build. Square says that Remake is coming to PlayStation 4 “first,” and I must confess I really want to play this one on PC.

The demo I played centered on Guard Scorpion, the boss of Mako Reactor 1. No longer is this boss fight over in 30 seconds of button-mashing and waiting; now, it’s an elaborate spectacle, complete with different phases and barriers. It’s very, very cool. During one phase you have to circle around back and attack the core underneath its body; during another, Cloud and Barret have to duck for cover under some nearby debris while it uses its powerful tail electricity attack. (“Attack while its tail is up!”)

So yes, this is all promising. Especially the expansion of personalities. The lingering question is: what is this game going to be, exactly? How are they going to expand Final Fantasy VII’s introduction into an entire game that Square says has to be on two Blu-ray discs? Is all of Midgar going to be explorable? Are we going to get a 10-hour version of the Honeybee Inn? Guess we’ll find out in March.

Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 Remake presentation during its E3 2019 conference was an impressive spectacle, but it’s only when you get your hands on this much-anticipated return to Midgar and Mako that everything slots into place. The development team have seemingly captured the very essence of nostalgia that is powering fans’ hopes and dreams, and injected it into a 21st century action game. It’s a game that plays nothing like the 1997 original, but simultaneously feels just like it.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is not a remake. Not really. For one, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is so big that the first episode requires two blu-ray discs to fully capture. But it’s a complete reimagining of Square’s most famous JRPG, albeit one that remains slavishly faithful to the tone and world of its source material. The E3 demo - split between an introduction hands-off presentation and a hands-on section - covers the majority of the first Mako Reactor bombing run. Fans will find it instantly recognizable, from the elevated gantry ways over ghostly green vapors to the way the camera pans up to show the Mako Reactor cooling tower as Cloud enters the building, but also discover plenty of new things to see, from redesigned areas to brand new conversations.

As you descend ladders and climb deeper into the planet-destroying machine’s guts, familiar enemies stand in your path. Remember Mono Drive, the weird floating plant-like creature? Yup, they’re back. As are the bizarre, scrap-like ray turrets. How you fight them, though, is entirely different, and this is where both old fans and newcomers begin on a level playing field.

I’ve already explained why I think Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s combat system is a great idea, and getting hands-on with game only cements that. The hybrid of Active Time Battle, where you wait to take ‘turns’, and action combat works fluidly; you can unleash attacks with Cloud’s Buster Sword just as you would in a game like Devil May Cry (even to the extent that Cloud will launch himself into the air to strike at flying enemies), but abilities like skill attacks and magic can only be unleashed when an ATB ‘charge’ is ready. These charges build incredibly quickly, so while having roots in Final Fantasy’s turn based history, this is definitely a faster, more frantic experience.

The hands-on is mostly made up of the Guard Scorpion boss battle, or the Scorpion Sentinel as it’s now known. The arena it takes place in is almost identical to the bridge the original fight took place upon, although the platform is much wider to allow for the more kinetic action to unfold. (Oh, and there’s no save point at the bottom of the ladder. Have save points been cut, or are they just missing from the demo? I suspect the former, it’s 2019 after all).

The fight itself is a three-stage affair that combines classic attacks and a variety of new elements that make the most of the new combat system. The Scorpion still has a focus scope that targets your characters and locks on for a devastating attack. It can still use the tail laser, although the Scorpion now causes that much devastation that you can hide behind collapsed sections of the reactor to avoid the attack. But in addition, the boss now has a huge battery of missiles it can bombard you with. Luckily, Cloud can guard with his sword to reduce incoming damage.

You’ll want to take some damage though because that’s what builds your Limit gauge. Yes, Limit Breaks are back, but not quite how you remember them. Cloud’s classic Braver attack is now a skill you can use at any time provided you’ve got an ATB gauge filled, and so Cross Slash is now his first Limit Break. Barret has similarly had a small change, although it appears that Big Shot has simply been renamed Fire in the Hole.

Chaining together these attacks is a joy, and part of that is down to the tag-team like way you swap between characters. A tap of up or down on the D-Pad swaps between Cloud and Barret, allowing you to adopt their unique fighting styles when you decide you need them. While characters not currently under you control will still fight on their own, you can use the tactical menu by tapping X to issue attack commands to them without re-taking direct control.

The whole system takes a little getting used to; you’re constantly switching between characters and attack modes, issuing commands and cycling through potential attacks. While veteran Final Fantasy 7 fans will have a slight advantage as they will know what several of the skills do, it’s still a complex beast that every player will have to master from the ground up. Assigning favorite skills to shortcuts makes moment-to-moment gameplay a little snappier, but the core of the system seems rooted in a very classic, command-based approach, even if it unfolds among a much flashier set of actions.

By the end of the Scorpion Sentinel battle, in which individual limbs become targetable and must be ground down in order to see it destroyed for good, you’ll have a relatively good grasp on how combat works. There’s almost certainly more to it - who knows how summons will work, and a third party member will unlock further possibilities - but what we have here feels great and I’m excited to explore it further, especially against other bosses if they’ve been retooled akin to the Scorpion.

The demo is very combat oriented, and so it’s hard to talk about the wider elements of the game in any detail. But so far, Square Enix’s treatment of it’s beloved characters seems strong. What were once static conversation boxes are now mini cinematics, and it allows the personality of the characters to shine. Barret is incredibly exaggerated in his mannerisms, and the game knows this; a cutting remark from the far more understated Cloud makes a confrontation between the two nice and humorous, indicating that Square hasn’t forgotten that Final Fantasy 7 has a ridiculous and goofy side.

Like many people who are excited for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the 1997 original is a vital component of my gaming past. As such, it’s hard to truly say how this hands-on demo would go down with someone unfamiliar with Mako Reactors, Materia, and Shinra. I do know, though, that it has adopted the sort of approach that a lot of people are looking for. This is a remake that, at least from this tiny slice, feels on the same level as this year’s Resident Evil 2. It’s very clearly a reinvention; something that takes a classic world and builds upon it with modern ideas, rather than just re-building the same game with modern graphics technology. If that philosophy extends for the whole experience, then the years-long wait for Final Fantasy 7 Remake will have been worth it.