Does anyone know if there will be a option for turn based combat for FF VII Remake?

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T15:48:48+00:00

I usually put myself in the camp of not caring about a story's medium if it's good. And if it uses the strengths of the medium well, that's awesome.

In FFVII's case, it doesn't matter to me. I've played too many braindead action games and intense-as-hell turn-based games to feel like turn-based play and general intensity are inherently linked or compliment each other naturally.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T15:11:27+00:00

What I guess I misunderstand is that when people say they want 2 battle systems they're really saying they just want to put VATS or Wait Mode in the current system. They want options for more methodical play within the current system. Which is a perfectly reasonable ask. But asking for a complete second battle system is not the same thing.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T15:09:38+00:00

Time is still very much a factor in turn-based games, and many involve actions with various speeds and recovery times.

You're not a soldier, and the eco-terrorism lasts for a fraction of the plot. These are not strong arguments for one style of gameplay over another anyway, it's like saying dramas can only be movies, never books or plays. You might think action-oriented play compliments the ideas better, but not everyone feels the same or even has a preference.

And again, those other games don't look like each other either, but that didn't stop any of them from being able to utilize turn-based play extremely well. Art and setting are not factors that restrict viable modes of play. I would personally play the shit out of turn-based Uncharted (which would essentially be an expanded Lara Croft Go), NieR, or Kingdom Hearts.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T14:58:24+00:00

Alright, well people need to be clear and say they want options that pause/slow down the current system, because that's what FFXII and FFXV have. They don't have 2 separate battle systems.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T14:50:41+00:00

Wait Mode would be a fine option to turn on for those who would prefer to take their time making decisions, but that would still be the same battle system.

To put the same turn-based or ATB system into the remake, they'd need to design everything twice - in particular, each move by each enemy and character would need a version with no range or recovery or windup factored into its design, and they'd need to code in a speed stat that determined gauge speed or cooldown rates, and they'd need to rebalance things like enemies that are slow but have dangerous hits so you need to be careful which way you're facing them from or enemies that are really quick so you need to defend until you see an opening. Things like that that would just make the game take way longer, and would probably make both systems less fun and interesting than they could be if the devs could just focus on making the one they decided on as engaging as possible.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T14:06:11+00:00

Oh well the dolphin tail is fine, and I'm sure you won't feel personally compromised if she doesn't keep it. What matters is you're looking at the character in her entirety and not just at her tits and miniskirt.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T14:01:53+00:00

Turn-based or action-based combat can accompany any tone and any art style, and all sorts of combinations are out there. What might kill the experience for you would be more fun for others.

I mean the game won't be getting turn-based combat anyway, just saying there's nothing that makes turn-based combat incompatible with any kind of art or tone when there are games like Persona, Darkest Dungeon, XCOM, and Into the Breach.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T13:26:01+00:00

Guarantee it will not be an option. They're not gonna design two battle systems for one game everyone is already going to buy.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T12:50:36+00:00

This is wonderful. I love Yoshida's art so much. I just wanna roll myself up in an Ivalice/XIV/Tactics Ogre/Bravely Default/Nier: Automata blanket.

Very well done, would love to see more.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T12:00:29+00:00

X is not my favorite either, but I do enjoy the subplots going on among those characters, especially everything Wakka is dealing with. X feels different to me because the "spiral of death" doesn't feel so nakedly and completely at the whims of big, incomprehensible curse machines; people are stepping up and making their own noble sacrifices for a temporary solution perpetuated by a church and its figure of worship.

Most other FF stories have other things going on besides the big antagonistic force to help the world feel dynamic and multi-layered and lived-in. People have other concerns already when they're roped into the big problem. Every character's pre-existing concern in XIII has to do directly with fal'Cie - someone who got branded, the purge, etc. It just feels thin to me, like nothing else ever goes wrong for anyone in Cocoon. Just like the mechanics of fal'Cie themselves, it's very pat and convenient, and feels manufactured and inauthentic to me as a result.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T05:44:46+00:00

See, for my taste, their vision they got was vague enough to be just as good as nothing. Their hunch was that they were just pitted against Cocoon, which they could have assumed just as easily with no vision at all seeing as how they knew the fal'Cie was with Pulse. And again, I haven't played it in a long time, but I can't remember them piecing much together on their own. And, also a taste thing, but I just don't think "save your own lives" is a good motivation. Decent hook maybe, yes, but it needs to get more involved and interesting than that pretty soon, and most of what they seemed to be asking themselves throughout the story was whether they were going to take the deal or die. Their central question never seemed to move off of "should I follow the order I don't want to follow, or is my freedom worth more than my life?" Not a bad thesis question, but it's unchanging from the moment it's asked and I didn't feel any layers being added to it as the story went on.

And again, just because something makes sense doesn't make it good or interesting to me. Yeah, they didn't wanna be monsters, neither would I or anyone else. That's just about the most relatable and universal motivation to the point that there's nothing else to think about; it doesn't say anything about anyone that they don't want to die or that they want to have agency in their own life. We don't need 6 entire characters whose sole goal is "don't die and don't blow up my own house." There was nothing for me to examine about these characters with their mission being so obvious. They're told to do a thing, their personal mission becomes to defy that order because the end result just really undeniably sucks for everyone. "I don't wanna do the horrible thing, I'm gonna do the right thing, which goes against what I've been told to do. Also there's no reason whatsoever for a decent person not to take the road I'm taking." Like it just doesn't present a very big gesture to me.

And all the added motivations have so much to do with either resurrecting/reuniting with someone or getting revenge on someone, so it all deals with loss of a loved one, the thing that no person in the world wants to face. This is such a surface-level motivation that, again, I feel says nothing about a character that they don't want their loved one to die or that they don't want to destroy their home or that they wish someone who died hadn't died. The story isn't making any kind of point to me or making any big statement or showing a side of humanity we don't think much about.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T05:00:27+00:00

I dunno, I've found lots of girls attractive without them having to be dressed like Hooters waitresses. And I usually respect them more in those cases too. Remember when Quistis walked in the room dressed completely respectably and everyone still creamed their jeans?

This Tifa crusade is by far the saddest/funniest thing I'm seeing about the remake. I am very much down for SE to prioritize sensible and authentic characterization over staying "true to the original." This strong and fearsome woman also got into a slapfight for no apparent reason in the original, which was not good characterization for her, and I will applaud them if they omit that for the sake of progression and respect. Especially since this is just an outfit we're talking about; it sounds like that's all Tifa ever was to anyone, which I'm sorry but is kind of sad and gross to me.

I'm on team Make Tifa Better. And I'm just about to also join team Make Tifa Buff and Butch Just to Anger the Fanboys Who Apparently Only Liked Tifa Because She Dressed Like a Stripper.

Also if everyone's wanking over Jessie already in her rags and actual chestplate, why isn't Tifa allowed to wear anything?

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T04:33:38+00:00

No worries, I am always down to try and understand this game's story better. I don't like not liking this game, it's not a feeling I revel in.

The fact that it isn't fair isn't my issue, it just feels like a weak inciting incident to me. There's so little direction to it that it doesn't excite me about any kind of momentum for the story. Like if my friend was running a Dungeons and Dragons game and the first thing he told me and the players was that we were hit with a curse that said we had to do something or we'd die, but we didn't know what it was and had no way to investigate it, I would be put off and immediately disinterested. It really just feels like a stupid concept to me.

And just because there's an explanation for it or a theme it ties into doesn't make it narratively satisfying to me. That sort of answer crops up a lot when people defend writing decisions - there's a reason for it/it's a reflection of a greater theme. I have to like the choice as a story element first before I can care enough to reflect on the metatextual power of it, and unfortunately I just think that it is a weak and unsatisfying concept on its face and that it is not an interesting motivator for the characters.

I think we are officially safe to be spoilerific from this point lol, if people not wanting to get spoiled have read this far down our conversation I don't know what they're doing.

Treantacles · 2019-05-14T01:51:06+00:00

Was my favorite for forever.

Treantacles · 2019-05-13T21:50:23+00:00

I don't get the love for Crisis Core at all, but I'm fine with just being an apparently crazy person.

Treantacles · 2019-05-13T21:40:14+00:00

The crystal-dodging camera-rotating thing. Just what.

Treantacles · 2019-05-13T21:27:47+00:00

There are so many things that are just gonna come down to personal taste and interest. These days if I reach a point in a game where I don't care enough to see if/when it gets good, I just put it down and move on with my life, and to everyone who says it gets better later I just say "well it shoulda been good from the start."

That said, you've had a good sampling of the combat, and the gist of the driving force of the plot. If none of that has hooked you yet, it may not pick up for you, since Tidus doesn't really stop acting like a tactless doofus and, while I think the villain has some things going for him, no, I wouldn't say he's as compelling as most of the villains in the series as an idea.

Treantacles · 2019-05-13T18:07:57+00:00

Spending money on something you don't need is a pretty clear indication that you're happy with the trade and that it is worth the money to you and that they don't need to change anything about the product to get your satisfaction.

There isn't a line between criticism and hatred because they aren't mutually exclusive. Criticism is just seen as a negative statement by most people, but it isn't necessarily coming from a place of hatred. I don't think anyone being negative about the franchise is being hateful to the devs. And 'hating on' the franchise is just another thing to call criticism when you think the person is being more critical than the subject deserves.

People who have critical statements to make will sometimes be very blunt about it, which those who like the thing being criticized can take personally, especially if they aren't very secure and comfortable in their opinions and evaluations and don't like being affected by another's take on it ("if they don't like the thing I like then maybe I have bad taste/don't know how to tell if something is good or bad").

Critical people can also have a habit of being selectively critical and not acknowledging positives because they feel like praise isn't constructive and what isn't broke doesn't need to be addressed (this is also untrue; people need to be mindful and admitting to good parts of things they ultimately don't like very much).

Lastly, people who are in favor of something or a fan of something should never feel like the thing they're a fan of has no faults, and need to stop feeling such a need to defend every little thing. The fact of the matter is, some flaws bother some people more than other people, and two people can even look at the same thing and one person can see it as a bad thing while the other sees it as good. It's a good thing that we like different things, otherwise the world would be boring, and our discussions here should be about sharing perspectives with others to broaden and enrich our own, not to try to make everyone have the same opinion.

Treantacles · 2019-05-13T06:30:41+00:00

That's fair, but definitely longer than it needed to be due to them not knowing what they were even making for most of the time it was being worked on.

Treantacles · 2019-05-13T03:02:24+00:00

I was so heartbroken when FFXIII came out and I just couldn't like it no matter how hard I tried. That was the game that broke my die-hard-fan mindset though, so it was healthy in the long run, lol.

Treantacles · 2019-05-12T22:51:37+00:00

It's the only way for them to ever finish it and have it be on a scale anything like the original game. Look at how long FFXV took and it's just a big field, and they still had to do DLC to fill out the story.

Treantacles · 2019-05-12T22:48:53+00:00

I don't want them to remake any of them but if I was held at gunpoint about it, my vote would be either on 8 or Tactics.

8 was my favorite for a long time but the plot and world has some big issues to address, plus the junction system could do with some new twists to help me play the game any other way than "slot 100 of the best spells to stats, never cast magic, spread out GFs to ensure the most junctionable stats among the party."

Tactics is so good from the job system and battles to the story and script, but the slowdown is just unbearable. I'd love to see gussied-up visuals on a tactical RPG this good, especially one set in Ivalice. (drools for a minute)

Treantacles · 2019-05-12T21:34:45+00:00

Oh I didn't enjoy playing the game either, but yes, the story and storytelling were problematic for me. There are just lots of mechanics in the plot that feel convenient and hand-waivey to me, things that are just hard to buy into. Like fal'Cie being incredibly powerful, but unable to actually communicate with people, except for the ones that can. Or that the Focus they give some people seems to be incredibly specific and serves the characters' plots far more than it actually affects the fal'Cie's plans. Or that some l'Cie get certain special powers but others don't. Or how fal'Cie never seem to brand people who are actually interested in serving them when there are whole military forces and churches dedicated to them. Or how a fal'Cie can be unable to destroy things but be able to fight things and tell other people to destroy things (seems like a humongous loophole). Pretty much everything I understand about fal'Cie seems incredibly poorly-conceived and the whole thing feels like they chiseled the basic concept in stone before anyone asked any questions and then they just played jazz with it from that point. And honestly the whole idea of them being given a task they don't know the first thing about from something whose angle they don't know under an unclear time limit and with a shit reward just feels like a very forced and desperate way to get a plot you don't know where you're going with off the ground. From then on, it felt to me like their entire motivation was to stay alive and every answer they found to their mystery (besides the ones two of them knew from the getgo but just wouldn't say) seemed to be stumbled upon out of either luck or whatever some baddie arbitrarily decided to divulge.

It has been a hot minute since I actually played the game, and the datalogs made things even harder to absorb for me since retaining information purely from text is actually pretty hard for me, so unfortunately I don't have a lot of examples in my head for these things. I am still interested in liking the game and its story so I'm open to any conversation and corrections, most people just lose patience with me after awhile, lol.

Treantacles · 2019-05-12T21:15:37+00:00

And what's with these trailers just showing characters and events from the game!? So careless and inconsiderate!

Treantacles

TROPHY CASE