Remake was cool, but plagued with pacing problems. The biggest issue was they had to make everything sort of from scratch, and so a ton of development time was put into the “fixed costs” of things. The result was a cool, but extremely padded game. It really is maybe 15% of the content of the original, but stretched out.
Rebirth covers SO much more. Like holy shit it is maybe 10x the game that Remake is, and there’s good quality content. There’s the usual side quests, but they are, in fact, side quests. If you don’t want to do the fetch quest things they talk about, you can skip over the vast majority. I didn’t like that critique… If a game has optional content you find boring, it’s hard to knock the game for it.
But the visuals in this game are dazzling. I thought the map was huge and vast, and had so many different environments… And then realized there were 5 or 6 completely unique areas like that. It’s a real marvel to go through the different landscapes.
Story wise, I think they did an excellent job, provided you did play the original. It’s hard to get around that part, but it’s sort of a price of admission for a sequel game. But they cleaned up SOOOO many issues with the original game. Things are explained so much more clearly, that I think people forget how incoherent the original story was. There was a lot of hand waving and completely unexplained sides. This game really brings them all into focus. They added a pretty hefty amount of story as well, and I thought it was for the better.
There are some knocks I agree with… The Cait Sith sections are a bit brutal, but luckily they’re infrequent. The combat is super fun - again I think I disagree with the author on this… There’s so many shortcuts you can set to not have to go through menus. I rarely found myself in the situations they talked about, but to each their own.
The game is not perfect, and not for everyone. But I thought the voice acting and story elements were great. They found a reasonable way to be really goofy and funny at times, while also maintaining a more serious tone when needed.
I massively enjoyed it, and thought it was a great 2nd addition. Like all middle parts of a trilogy, I could completely sour on a lot of them if they don’t bring it home. Part 2 sets up a lot, pays off a small amount, but they’re really setting up for a massive ending. If they execute, both games will be seen as massive achievements, in my eyes. Though I think most of the criticisms of Remake are well warranted.
I’ll start with a caveat that I’m a huge FF7 fan.
Remake was cool, but plagued with pacing problems. The biggest issue was they had to make everything sort of from scratch, and so a ton of development time was put into the “fixed costs” of things. The result was a cool, but extremely padded game. It really is maybe 15% of the content of the original, but stretched out.
Rebirth covers SO much more. Like holy shit it is maybe 10x the game that Remake is, and there’s good quality content. There’s the usual side quests, but they are, in fact, side quests. If you don’t want to do the fetch quest things they talk about, you can skip over the vast majority. I didn’t like that critique… If a game has optional content you find boring, it’s hard to knock the game for it.
But the visuals in this game are dazzling. I thought the map was huge and vast, and had so many different environments… And then realized there were 5 or 6 completely unique areas like that. It’s a real marvel to go through the different landscapes.
Story wise, I think they did an excellent job, provided you did play the original. It’s hard to get around that part, but it’s sort of a price of admission for a sequel game. But they cleaned up SOOOO many issues with the original game. Things are explained so much more clearly, that I think people forget how incoherent the original story was. There was a lot of hand waving and completely unexplained sides. This game really brings them all into focus. They added a pretty hefty amount of story as well, and I thought it was for the better.
There are some knocks I agree with… The Cait Sith sections are a bit brutal, but luckily they’re infrequent. The combat is super fun - again I think I disagree with the author on this… There’s so many shortcuts you can set to not have to go through menus. I rarely found myself in the situations they talked about, but to each their own.
The game is not perfect, and not for everyone. But I thought the voice acting and story elements were great. They found a reasonable way to be really goofy and funny at times, while also maintaining a more serious tone when needed.
I massively enjoyed it, and thought it was a great 2nd addition. Like all middle parts of a trilogy, I could completely sour on a lot of them if they don’t bring it home. Part 2 sets up a lot, pays off a small amount, but they’re really setting up for a massive ending. If they execute, both games will be seen as massive achievements, in my eyes. Though I think most of the criticisms of Remake are well warranted.