It's Possible I'm Not Good At This Game.
More Final Fantasy VII Rebirth! I'm in chapter three; I've just crossed the swamp.
Barret, on hearing that Cloud and Aerith were on a date, announces, 'That was the last one, at least till things calm down.' In response, he gets nods from Cloud, Aerith, Tifa and Red XIII. Red XIII, who were you thinking of dating?
Bill thinks we're all fucking, and he's right. I think I've ended up shipping Cloud/Aerith/Tifa/Barret in the remakeverse. (Sorry to leave you out, Red XIII.)
Tifa and Aerith teaming up to ask if we can rent chocobos is so goddamn cute.
Let me stroke the dogs! Let me stroke the chocobos! This is outrageous.
We do get to stroke chocobo chicks later on, at least, but I want to fuss over the adult birds as well! (I think it's a shame that Final Fantasy VIII's 'chicobo', an objectively great word for a baby chocobo, didn't catch on in the rest of the series.)
It is also outrageous that we don't get to see Cloud and Aerith assembling flower crowns together.
I'm not a huge fan of the open-world structure. The first game was almost entirely linear, and that was no bad thing; linearity is good for pacing! The more open world of this game is impressively ambitious, and I like that the music varies as we're running around, but I keep getting caught up in optional objectives and then getting frustrated that I'm not progressing the plot. I'm going to have to get better about only focusing on significant sidequests.
To clarify, I'm enjoying myself so far! The game is gorgeous, the music is great, the battle system is interesting, Queen's Blood is growing on me, and it's good to spend time with these characters again.
While I'm complaining, though: there is too much Chadley in this game. You're not interesting, Chadley. Stop calling me.
Kyrie, these parts you've marked on my map and asked me to collect are literally a ten-second walk away. Get them yourself.
'This blond dude slayed the stage like I've never seen before,' an NPC says of his trip to the Honeybee Inn.
I can see why they decided to make the Zolom/Midgardsormr a boss battle, but Sephiroth's defeat of it loses some effectiveness when a) it takes place onscreen, and b) the Midgardsormr is now something we can hold our own against, rather than something that would instantly crush us.
If you're planning to play this game, here are a handful of tips:
- The audio mixing is a little weird, but the options menu allows you to adjust the volume of different audio elements individually. If, like me, you find that the music tends to overwhelm the dialogue, you can turn the music down a couple of notches.
- Double-tap and hold R2 to make your chocobo run. If you only single-tap, your chocobo will move at a slow jog. I was outraged by the slow pace of chocobo travel until I learnt you're meant to press the button twice!
- When you're sniffing the air with your chocobo, a subtle arrow will appear next to the symbol above your chocobo's head to show the direction you should be facing.
- If you tab over to the 'quests' page from the map, you can see recommended levels for the sidequests you've taken on. Before I noticed this, I ran straight into a fight with an enemy much stronger than me and got wiped out. Don't repeat my mistakes.
Barret, on hearing that Cloud and Aerith were on a date, announces, 'That was the last one, at least till things calm down.' In response, he gets nods from Cloud, Aerith, Tifa and Red XIII. Red XIII, who were you thinking of dating?
Bill thinks we're all fucking, and he's right. I think I've ended up shipping Cloud/Aerith/Tifa/Barret in the remakeverse. (Sorry to leave you out, Red XIII.)
Tifa and Aerith teaming up to ask if we can rent chocobos is so goddamn cute.
Let me stroke the dogs! Let me stroke the chocobos! This is outrageous.
We do get to stroke chocobo chicks later on, at least, but I want to fuss over the adult birds as well! (I think it's a shame that Final Fantasy VIII's 'chicobo', an objectively great word for a baby chocobo, didn't catch on in the rest of the series.)
It is also outrageous that we don't get to see Cloud and Aerith assembling flower crowns together.
I'm not a huge fan of the open-world structure. The first game was almost entirely linear, and that was no bad thing; linearity is good for pacing! The more open world of this game is impressively ambitious, and I like that the music varies as we're running around, but I keep getting caught up in optional objectives and then getting frustrated that I'm not progressing the plot. I'm going to have to get better about only focusing on significant sidequests.
To clarify, I'm enjoying myself so far! The game is gorgeous, the music is great, the battle system is interesting, Queen's Blood is growing on me, and it's good to spend time with these characters again.
While I'm complaining, though: there is too much Chadley in this game. You're not interesting, Chadley. Stop calling me.
Kyrie, these parts you've marked on my map and asked me to collect are literally a ten-second walk away. Get them yourself.
'This blond dude slayed the stage like I've never seen before,' an NPC says of his trip to the Honeybee Inn.
I can see why they decided to make the Zolom/Midgardsormr a boss battle, but Sephiroth's defeat of it loses some effectiveness when a) it takes place onscreen, and b) the Midgardsormr is now something we can hold our own against, rather than something that would instantly crush us.
If you're planning to play this game, here are a handful of tips:
- The audio mixing is a little weird, but the options menu allows you to adjust the volume of different audio elements individually. If, like me, you find that the music tends to overwhelm the dialogue, you can turn the music down a couple of notches.
- Double-tap and hold R2 to make your chocobo run. If you only single-tap, your chocobo will move at a slow jog. I was outraged by the slow pace of chocobo travel until I learnt you're meant to press the button twice!
- When you're sniffing the air with your chocobo, a subtle arrow will appear next to the symbol above your chocobo's head to show the direction you should be facing.
- If you tab over to the 'quests' page from the map, you can see recommended levels for the sidequests you've taken on. Before I noticed this, I ran straight into a fight with an enemy much stronger than me and got wiped out. Don't repeat my mistakes.