- Give people a really good game, they'll complain because they liked the OG more. Give people a really bad game, they'll complain because they liked the OG more. - Give people lots of content, they'll complain it's too much and slows down the game. Give people short content, they'll complain it felt too short and they expected more. - Give people nostalgia, they'll say you're taking the easy way. Give people something new, they'll say you changed it too much. - Give people good graphics, they'll say the game it's not always 60 FPS or it's "blurry". Give people bad graphics, they'll say you're not up to the "nExT gEn". - Give people a great GOTY candidate, they'll say it's "sad" if the game wins. Give people a bad GOTY, they'll say it's "sad" if the game wins. Today's lesson: People will whine about anything you give them. Let them complain and jump to the next trend over Internet.
If you're looking for some positivity, feel free to check out my video on Panzer Dragoon. Or Disco Elysium. Or Dead Space. There are games that I love. I wouldn't make these videos otherwise. It's true that some people will complain to hear the sound of their own voice, but I truly wanted to like this game more than I did.
@@intermediumgamesI understand your point bro and your opinion is yours and you are entitled to it , I am at coral about to head up to gold saucer I am really enjoying this game man I still own the OG PS1 version the OG had a huge impact on my life and childhood I get what ya mean about the game slowing things down was thinking same thing bout chadley ringing after every little thing ya do for him , I have had moments in this game where Ive felt this isn't what I thought it would be in a negative way but overall I'm loving it and I think so far this in my top ten games ever no game is perfect thank you for sharing your honest opinions bro ,,sending.love from Dublin Ireland 😊
- Give people a sub-par experience with glaring flaws and dare to notice those flaws and get shouted down by the "don't think; just consume" squad. Today's lesson: opinions aren't invalid just because they don't match you own
Most of the mini games were fine. A few of them though…. Never got the best score and I’ve conceded that it will never happen as I chose not to have a heart attack or a stroke due to rage. lol
That's one problem with turning a game that was never meant to be a trilogy, into a trilogy and expanding the areas; storywise nothing really interesting happens.
I thought the same when it was announced... then Rebirth happened. The characters have a sort of charm to them. The way they interact and develope throughout the 40+ hours. I wouldn't want them to make Final Fantasy VII any other way.
@@TheMusikalChristian I think people really underestimate what """padding"'" does for character development. You get to explore the characters and the world in a much deeper way than before. This is also just kinda how FF7 OG was, "nothing" happened for awhile, and then once disc 1 is over, things get nuts. Spending the time to develop characters so that we have an attachment to them before things get crazy is important, imo. I've also heard criticism for there being too many "meaningless" combats, like when you're hiking up Corel or in the Mines with Yuffie and Barret. It's keeping the pace of the game in terms of combat and allowing you to explore it in a different way, and allowing you to have decompression time inbetween story events. If you simply went from story event to story event, it would be too much.
It's always nice when developers understand they've put in a lot of content that some will like, and others will prefer to do focus on main story...so they make it optional. Then people forget it's optional.
I mean, you could just skip a lot of the open world stuff. Much of it is optional. Personally I found the open world stuff quick and easy to complete, yes there is a lot of points of interest but I wouldn't call them tedious, a few terrain puzzles and a few buttons to click then you move on. You can complete no time once you have the formula down. I prefer it when compared to the open world games like Assassin's creed, those sorts of open worlds are truly tedious.
also you can teleport to basically any point on the map which tremendously cuts down any unnecessary travel. I felt like the game was actually very FAST and let you choose to skip the stuff you didn't want to do. So everything about this review felt like the exact opposite of what the game was. The only point he made that's objectively true is that very little happens in the main plot cause most of it is pushed into part 3.
It’s absolutely not optional. Most materia needed for hard mode, i.e., the actual meat of the game, is locked behind the bloat. Why do people even bother repeating these lines?
Exactly! People need to stop with the "it's optional" it's like, you need it for the weapons and upgrading everything and even getting platinum trophy!@bengalgoblin
Why would someone go for a hard mode or a Platinum Trophy on a game which is clearly saying: "I'm open world"? Why do people like to suffer this much? XD You can easily beat the main story by following the story on normal mode, and jump to something else. But there they are, complaining about one of the main aspects of the game, and wanting a platinum for a Open World game to be completed in few hours XD.
This game yea it was aimless cause in the original you were hunting sephiroth for a while before the ending of this game happenned….and then you hunted sephiroth some more, but it’s more focused now. This is act 2 and only the middle of act 2. The end of act two is still upcoming. I wanted SE to end it at the end of act two but they decided to end it at the middle of act two instead. Oh well.
As an adult 100+ hours of game is a lot, but if I was a kid again, the amount of stuff in this game would have me ecstatic. I don't knock the game for having a bunch of extra stuff, the original games had that too just it was much more basic and less fleshed out. Often much more confusing or obscure. Like I expected to skip the card game like I did in every FF from 8, but this game I wanted to engage with it. I dunno if it's a change in quality or a change in me.
You took the words right out of my mouth! Your opinion of it is my EXACT opinion as well. I got 45ish hours into the game and I've been really struggling to continue playing. The first open world region was cool and exciting, I thought it had a lot going for it, but after doing all the side stuff in that region I was over it. I moved on in the story, just to find out they used the same formula for the next region with really nothing new... I dreaded going for any of the side stuff because of how LONG it takes to do any of it. The animation you get locked into when you activate the towers, the stupid pointless phone calls, repetitive crystal mini game, etc... It all became a chore that took way too long to get through. Then the story also just didn't feel significant after a while. I kept asking myself "so... what exactly has happened so far since I started?" because I genuinely was confused how I could be 45 hours into this game and couldn't remember if anything significant had happened yet. Doesn't help that I took a break from it to play Stellar Blade, and man, the pacing in that game is so much more superior. Options to skip scenes, faster ways to get up ladders, climbing ropes is not tedious af, grabbing notes/chests doesn't take an eternity to get through pop-ups or animations... Makes it hard for me to want to finish Rebrith ngl.
I think my response to the criticism of the aimlessness of this game is that this game takes place in the middle of the OG game’s story where the party is wondering town-to-town. In that aspect, they nailed it by fleshing out character interaction and including a lot of side activities, regardless of how mixed those side content are. My hope is that Part 3 will stick the landing and conclude the story faithfully the OG FF7.
The problem is, as you point out, that Rebirth occurs during a portion of the OG that is singularly focused on Cloud chasing Sephiroth. And this portion of the original game took all of about 7-8 hours to finish (and that was only if your took your time sight-seeing; it could be rushed in like 2). Midgar, by contrast, is an area that actually felt like it could be fleshed out more - it was, after all, an enormous, dank, otherworldly mega-city. So stretching that 2-3 hours of the OG was logical, whereas turning the largely empty overworld of the original into this... Chadley mission thing... wasn't. Hopefully SE will listen to complaints and criticisms and take them to heart, since, by all accounts, they didn't start working on P3 until Rebirth released. Certainly, the tepid response in Japan may cause them to significantly rethink the quantity and type of sidequests present (which would be good), and might prompt them to shrink down the scope of the open world and focus on more highly detailed vignette-style area design as seen in Remake (also good).
@@princessofthecape2078 this part of the OG was kinda goofy though. Rebirth did a great job, in the OG it was lighthearted until we reached temple of the ancients. IMO they did a great job with pacing, the only thing that really bothered people was the whole new timeline they did that made it a bit confusing to others, though IMO it really isnt that bad. I also love the idea that they try to portray the story in cloud’s point of view, which is a bit confusing but i get it why it ruined other people’s experience.
It's not that I think the game is perfect but I do find the way people balance out the reviews of this game a little bizarre. It always reads like: "design, music, character, story, graphics, combat and mini games all fantastic! On the other hand, there are some slightly repetitive side tasks that you absolutely don't have to do that are easily skipped.... 6 out of 10".
And the side task actually has a lot of variety. This game got criticized for having too many side activities, when the og FF7 also had ridiculous amt of mini games.
Spider-Man 2 cut down the time on all these kinds of things and it got flak for being a “short/er” experience. I think that kind of feedback makes devs and publishers reluctant to speed up things and rely more on padding methods
@@Crimzin8 going by the vehement, like rly nasty responses to a shorter experience, if I was a dev/publisher i’d 100% rather face the regular complaint here and there that the game is bloated or that it has padding or that it has some pacing issues, than the absolute vitriol of “wah, it’s only __ hours long to beat, it’s a ripoff, not worth it, this is why I pirate games, etc”
Ok so u r more than entitled to ur opinion although i disagree. You are in control of the pace of the game as u dodnt have to do any of the protorelics which gave yhe open world some depth while it had some repetition it also had some great fights. (Side note idk how chadley is a fav of urs but ok) Everything is optional so u dont have to do everything and ofc the crazier fights r in VR sims and stuff to make it to where ppl who dont wanna do everything can just go thru the story with a little difficulty. Then to the point of goin where sephiroth is well thats the point as he is trying to destroy the multiverse. Then u said not mich happens and i feel u just missed the whole story bcuz alot happened i think u were expecting to have closure in PT2 which no its part 2 we kno there will be a part 3. Now i have some cons to the game like the AP farm is a bit ridiculous and i think u should get all the SP if u do everything in normal run also no materia loadout but other than that FF7 Rebirth was a great game with a rollercoaster story and phenomenal combat. The Pros definitely outweigh the cons of the game.
This is what happens if you don't understand that the pull of the reunion the reason for this sense of wandering. Cloud is looking for Sephiroth during this portion because the JENOVA cells inside of him are pulling him along. Part 3 is going to be a quite different once Cloud's identity reunites; then it becomes about saving the world.
I hope this video of yours gets more traction. This was great - it so accurately describes how I feel about the game. Some scenes here and there were genuinely heartwarming, but most of the time I felt like you - like nothing relevant was happening, and even when something is about to happen, like in chapter 8, they still manage to throw me off by adding a line “I feel like something big is about to happen”. Writing 10/10 /s I also dislike how everyone is praising this game like it is a return to form for FF. The combat is great and deep, but the open world ala Ubisoft represents literally everything almost most open worlds do poorly - exceptions here would be games like Elden Ring, which encourage organic exploration). In fact, speaking of organic exploration, that’s why Nibel worked for me as a region. Unlike the other regions, this one is full of caves and hidden corners, and you have a semi-flying chocobo, which really encouraged me to dig around for things without being as overly reliant on the map. Best parts of Rebirth for me are when it presents a more curated experience, like in chapters 3 or 13.
It's interesting for me is this due to a lot of criticism that says about "Ubisoft" or what. Cause in my understanding the problem in Ubisoft is not a checklist, but more that there are 5000+ points of interests now and it is tedious. On the other hand while it is "organic" I myself disliked exploration in Elden ring because when I finished it - I felt that it was not rewarding at all, all good things I got were from bosses, so it would be the same to just ran from boss to boss. And that where rebirth mailed in in my opinion. 30 checks per map, but quite rewarding.
@@Seferioth I think the “problem” will obviously depend from person to person. For me the problem personally *is* that there is a checklist. Obviously the list having 5 points rather than 5000 makes it more palatable for me, but I still consider that “cheap design”. The world should instead organically encourage you to check strange landmarks because they look interesting - and ideally there would be no dot on the map telling you of that place, to amplify the sense of discovery. Except for Nibel, I got none of that in Rebirth. Every region, I open my map, I go through the checklist of dots on the map until they are all grey, then I move on. And to make matters worse, we have the ludicrous side quests like “save the cat” or “drag the chicken”. I just can’t deal with that. Sadly I had to, because I am now going through hard mode, which is actually very nice and really makes you explore the depth of combat in this game (which is fantastic), but all the good materia required to play the actual main game was locked behind all the bloat.
yeah 1000%. Before watching this video I had the same exact thoughts. I enjoyed it in the Grasslands, but I got burnt out of the side stuff in that very same region. I go to the next just to find out there's even more... of the same tedious shit. Skipped most of it because I was tired of sitting through pointless bloat of watching the same animation/scene happen when I activate a tower, or listening to Chadley talk about nothing. I got 45 hours in and couldn't even remember if anything significant happened in the plot yet... I'm struggling to finish this game because everything feels like a chore or a mini game that detracts me from the actual meat of the game and combat. I took a break to play Stellar Blade and man, that game spoiled me so much so that I don't even want to finish Rebirth.
@@bengalgoblin i'd want a checklist in every game as not to miss stuff. I'm not 7y/o anymore i don't wanna roam endlessly in a map in hopes of finding cool stuff so that i can pretend a dev didn't put it there and the world is actually real because i certainly don't have the time for it. But if you want the mistery you can choose to visit the towers last and find the interest points organically while roaming around.
@@swalhal3701 It’s very misleading to say I can choose that. The game was not designed for that to be truly feasible. See, one of the key things of games that encourage organic exploration is that they have LESS stuff in numbers. Their stuff is more meaty, but they have less of it. As opposed to finding almost 50 lifestream areas in the game, the game would instead have 5. But each of those would offer something meaty as opposed to “quick call with Chadley, get some random items” 50 times.
People really complain all the good stuff is behind the side content, well yeah you can’t get the Genji gloves that break the 9,999 hit counter unless you do the extra shit. Sorry. Get good.
10/10, best game in the universe. Game made me cry 😭. Video game masterpiece… A GLORIFIED FAR CRY IS WHAT PEOPLE WANT! People don’t hate Ubisoft games, they hate the Ubisoft brand. Because FF7 Rebirth is everything wrong with Open World games! FF7 deserved a 1 game faithful Remake with only Story Mode. Instead we got Resequels. If original FF7 had “too many cooks in the kitchen” at some points. Then Resequels have “a hot pot in a homeless shelter” kind of multiple visions with the devs.
Conclusion. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s far from being the best thing ever though. Further proof that the gaming community is a place of outrage online. Cause arguments are flawed. Cause the popular voice isn’t logical.
I've only started FF VII rebirth last week and I'm only at the Gold Saucer, but I can already feel all that unnecessary padding and tedious overworld "exploration" slag. I'm seriously thinking to set the difficulty to easy and just breeze through the game... The sad thing is, the game will most likely be a nominee at several game awards and will probably win at least some of them.
@@thomasborgland9247 When you say challenge you mean the challenge of having the patience to wait through checkboxes filling themselves up and Chadley's mostly pointless interferences, right?
@@Emilaiho I'm kind of a completionist by nature. But yeah, after sleeping on it I've realised I've made an opinion when I was way too pissed off to do it reasonably, because I had a losing streak in Gold Saucer.
I'm not surprised that this game is pretty divisive, but I'm am shocked at the many different camps that create those divisions. Usually games have a "love it" camp or a "hate it" camp. This one just seems to have those same camps but they don't just form around the game in general. They form around presentation, side content, story chsnges, etc. I'm firmly in the "love it" camp. It's not just my GOTY, but my favorite game of the last 10 years at least. I see where you're coming from and I will admit that this game isn't perfect. I've played through this and Remake 3 times now, and there are things that take this game down to a 9.5: Chadley's constantly stopping you to repeat intel interactions and the many, many times this game slows you down. Either for pacing of a scene or to increase dramatic tension. Otherwise, though, I had a blast. I don't hunt trophies and I'm not a completist so I just passed on the side content that was either too frustrating or wasn't that interesting. No, there's not a lot of "Big" story moments in this game but that was also true of the OG. Things don't really get going until the Northern Crater. I do think they could have ended this game at the Northern Crater but I don't know if they could have fit Icicle Inn, the glacier, and the Wind Maze with what they already had. The could have reduced the open areas but I have no doubt many would have complained about the linearity. Bottom line, I understand the many reasons people maybe didn't love this game as much as I do. But I also don't think there is any way they could have made a game that would have made every fan happy.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Personally I thought the game was fantastic. It’s been an extremely long time since I actually desired to play through side content and not just blitz out the game to see the ending. I enjoyed the corny side of the game and I absolutely love the nostalgia moments even if I wished they had gone a different way with some decisions. The game itself was amazing. The content for the most part was amazing, but I could see some of this stuff not appealing to everyone. Personally some of the mini games just set me off for being absurdly stupid hard for no real reason other than to test your patience. I actually did all of the side quests besides that one for gold saucer. Overall GOTY so far but I can see why this game could turn some people away. The main character is not the stereotypical hero he is broken and quite annoying at times but that’s real. Not everyone always has their shit together so it makes him more relatable as a character. The voice acting in this game is on point. The graphics are on point. The story line though yes it had slow points, was on point. How would you like it if your life was all chaos all the time. It was a game I quickly realized would not be something that I would blitz out from start to finish. I spent a few weeks getting through this game and found myself wanting to keep coming back for more which lately isn’t very often with games.
Agreed on everything except Gongaga. I liked that zone and the soundtrack there. The devs for sure realized how annoying Chadly was but it was solely created for padding. They were also aware how much you’d need to adjust your party’s materia between fights in the sim and didn’t give an option to do it while still in VR so that you would have to exit back out to listen to Chadly’s unskippable dialogue. Just pure padding for padding’s sake.
So precise to how I felt playing Rebirth, when it focused on the plot and deeper character moments I adored the game but I was already getting tired of the open world checklist by Corel so Gongaga had me going mad and with how many I saw hitting burnout by then I truly think it should have been just the village and reactor as a nice story focused bridge to Cosmo Canyon. I know the first argument is 'You can just ignore the side content/open world' but I think the better question is how could they have made it more engaging so people didn't WANT to skip it. And for the love of god it did not need so many mini games, I'll play yakuza for that.
1) I didn't think the open world was all that great. There were a lot of places that were simply difficult to navigate... and the fact that we couldn't seamlessly move between certain regions also dramatically reduced the impact of it being an 'open world.' 2) The story was definitely less satisfying than in Remake. What was the point of 'breaking free from destiny' when we're simply going to go down a checklist of identical events, culminating in the one major catastrophe that *should* have been avoided? It feels like the writers had second thoughts about how far they were willing to go after the events of Remake; with the implications associated with "defeating" fate. Finally 3) I hated the new interface/weapon skills - it was an unnecessarily-convoluted reworking of a system that, in Remake, worked rather well.
Not when there is important info behind them.this narrative is so weak.we know the sideqeust are skip able but why would we do that when we won't know wedge is dead unless we do that horrible quest line.you won't get a date with Tifa or aerith if u don't do the sidequest,so technically they are not skipable
Sure, they are skippable, but why add this stuff to the game if it isn't enjoyable to do? I get "enjoyable" is subjective, but cmon... he has very valid points as to why these side missions are terrible. This game really didn't need all this bulk/bloat, and instead we could have gotten more juice from the main story or even more character development from the main cast that wasn't in the original.
@holy9781 you're talking about the proto-relic quest. That's completely different from the shrines and things. The Proto Relic quest isn't repetitive. It's 100% unique to each region and has a tonne of story stuff attached.
@@holy9781 what the hell are you even on about? the sidequests are great and if you particularly don't like that one protorelic quest for wedge's back story you can just set the difficulty to easy and clear that minigame on auto in 2 minutes.
Great video and I echo your thoughts. I'm a huge Final Fantasy VII fan and I stopped playing 35 hours in, I'll go back, but I couldn't play it all in one go due to the tediousness of a lot of the game. The open world is a huge missed opportunity, it's so boring and safe, they completely missed a trick. The feel of the game completely missed what made the original so great, the original was full of mystery and impeding gloom, this has ridiculous side characters and moments that completely ruin the tone. I will go back and finish it, I just need a break. In the mean time I went back and played the original FF again, which says it all really. I'm really disappointed in Rebirth as I think Remake nailed it. But they dropped the ball here but being too safe and falling into a lot modern gaming traps, especially with regards to the open world (and Chadley), which is IMO one of the worst and poorly paced open worlds I've come across in a long time. As well as failing the capture the tone of the original, something which Remake did so well.
I just started the game and I’m fed up with the open world already, it’s kinda boring and the fights don’t feel good. Running around on the chocobo doesn’t feel good either. Graphics feel downgraded from remake? Cutscenes are dearly missed, as every interaction looks lame without them. I don’t know man. Still I’m having fun and I’ll probably finish the game, but the love I had for remake isn’t there
Wow people are really tough on this game lol. Its excellent with a ton of meaningful and fulfilling content, but because its not absolutely perfect, people act like its terrible. Checklists arent great but don’t most open world games have them? Maybe my expectations for modern day AAA are just really low, but this game feels like a miracle, even with some of the stupid ubisoft-isms that are in it. Plus, I’m not sure what you want out of the story. “Lets go find Sephiroth” is pretty much the entirety of FF7 on ps1 after midgar, so this game is just doing what its supposed to do. Did you want more time ghosts? Less time ghosts? Final fantasy fans are really funny.
Generally agree. I prefer the more closed story telling with purposeful characters like the newer GOW and Remake. The open world activities are boring and getting basic stuff like potions when finding caches really took the excitement out of it. I thought I would be finding material or accessories. Instead it was stuff I could get from breaking boxes.
you could skip most of the mini games and focus on story. but........ the thing is, you know how much stuff you left out since there is checklist in every region. therefore you will feel uneager to progress.
Idk, personally I just moved through the game pretty quickly, mostly just did the side content I enjoyed (QB and Piano) and didn't do much of the open world stuff, but beat the game and from that perspective it was the best game I have played since my childhood. But yeah the filler stuff didn't seem too interesting so I just... didn't do it?
Remake/Rebirth are not as good as the original. You really need to play the original to understand how far off the mark they were. It's like that poorly drawn lines joke about Jim getting shot in the war and telling the guy tending to his dying corpse to tell his wife he loves him, but that guy gets shot too, so then he tells the next guy and this happens a dozen more times... by the time it gets to Jim's wife, she's like 'what do you mean Jim rubbed birds?' Modern Squenix has no idea what made Final Fantasy 7 successful, they've just been slowly driving it into the ground over the years trying to shoehorn in extra bullshit and reframe each character to be something completely different from the original. The remake is basically about watching Cloud slap Shinra soldiers in the face with his bike and omnislashing Aizen... err, I mean, Sephiroth, with cataclysm-like visuals.
I think that's true of almost all open world games if we're honest. that's why many people wish we'd see less of these aimless repetitive open world games that extend their game time with incredibly slow actions and a lot of walking around in the grass
This game wants to do so much, but everything is just average. Also the corny dialogue ruins it for me, i finished the game just to say that i beat it, but it was a painful ride.
Unless you're a trophy hunter (my condolences if you are), you can skip almost 60% of the game. I just finished a 3rd playthrough and used the option to use the "Quests Cleared" status. The result is that I was able to clear the MSQ in about 30 hours.
I thought everything was perfect... but the mini games were a bit much
Some of the mini games were stupid on purpose and it took away from the game tbh. Like the boxing one. I almost quite the game.
- Give people a really good game, they'll complain because they liked the OG more. Give people a really bad game, they'll complain because they liked the OG more.
- Give people lots of content, they'll complain it's too much and slows down the game. Give people short content, they'll complain it felt too short and they expected more.
- Give people nostalgia, they'll say you're taking the easy way. Give people something new, they'll say you changed it too much.
- Give people good graphics, they'll say the game it's not always 60 FPS or it's "blurry". Give people bad graphics, they'll say you're not up to the "nExT gEn".
- Give people a great GOTY candidate, they'll say it's "sad" if the game wins. Give people a bad GOTY, they'll say it's "sad" if the game wins.
Today's lesson: People will whine about anything you give them. Let them complain and jump to the next trend over Internet.
If you're looking for some positivity, feel free to check out my video on Panzer Dragoon. Or Disco Elysium. Or Dead Space.
There are games that I love. I wouldn't make these videos otherwise.
It's true that some people will complain to hear the sound of their own voice, but I truly wanted to like this game more than I did.
FACTS!
@@intermediumgamesI understand your point bro and your opinion is yours and you are entitled to it , I am at coral about to head up to gold saucer I am really enjoying this game man I still own the OG PS1 version the OG had a huge impact on my life and childhood I get what ya mean about the game slowing things down was thinking same thing bout chadley ringing after every little thing ya do for him , I have had moments in this game where Ive felt this isn't what I thought it would be in a negative way but overall I'm loving it and I think so far this in my top ten games ever no game is perfect thank you for sharing your honest opinions bro ,,sending.love from Dublin Ireland 😊
- Give people a sub-par experience with glaring flaws and dare to notice those flaws and get shouted down by the "don't think; just consume" squad.
Today's lesson: opinions aren't invalid just because they don't match you own
200 hours here and plat. GOT for me. I like everything about it even after the mini games :)
Most of the mini games were fine. A few of them though…. Never got the best score and I’ve conceded that it will never happen as I chose not to have a heart attack or a stroke due to rage. lol
That's one problem with turning a game that was never meant to be a trilogy, into a trilogy and expanding the areas; storywise nothing really interesting happens.
I thought the same when it was announced... then Rebirth happened. The characters have a sort of charm to them. The way they interact and develope throughout the 40+ hours. I wouldn't want them to make Final Fantasy VII any other way.
@@TheMusikalChristian I think people really underestimate what """padding"'" does for character development. You get to explore the characters and the world in a much deeper way than before. This is also just kinda how FF7 OG was, "nothing" happened for awhile, and then once disc 1 is over, things get nuts. Spending the time to develop characters so that we have an attachment to them before things get crazy is important, imo.
I've also heard criticism for there being too many "meaningless" combats, like when you're hiking up Corel or in the Mines with Yuffie and Barret. It's keeping the pace of the game in terms of combat and allowing you to explore it in a different way, and allowing you to have decompression time inbetween story events. If you simply went from story event to story event, it would be too much.
Nah game of the year for me, but still appreciate your video :)
It's always nice when developers understand they've put in a lot of content that some will like, and others will prefer to do focus on main story...so they make it optional. Then people forget it's optional.
I mean, you could just skip a lot of the open world stuff. Much of it is optional. Personally I found the open world stuff quick and easy to complete, yes there is a lot of points of interest but I wouldn't call them tedious, a few terrain puzzles and a few buttons to click then you move on. You can complete no time once you have the formula down. I prefer it when compared to the open world games like Assassin's creed, those sorts of open worlds are truly tedious.
Agreed. I was about to comment this too
also you can teleport to basically any point on the map which tremendously cuts down any unnecessary travel. I felt like the game was actually very FAST and let you choose to skip the stuff you didn't want to do. So everything about this review felt like the exact opposite of what the game was.
The only point he made that's objectively true is that very little happens in the main plot cause most of it is pushed into part 3.
It’s absolutely not optional.
Most materia needed for hard mode, i.e., the actual meat of the game, is locked behind the bloat.
Why do people even bother repeating these lines?
Exactly! People need to stop with the "it's optional" it's like, you need it for the weapons and upgrading everything and even getting platinum trophy!@bengalgoblin
Why would someone go for a hard mode or a Platinum Trophy on a game which is clearly saying: "I'm open world"? Why do people like to suffer this much? XD You can easily beat the main story by following the story on normal mode, and jump to something else. But there they are, complaining about one of the main aspects of the game, and wanting a platinum for a Open World game to be completed in few hours XD.
This game yea it was aimless cause in the original you were hunting sephiroth for a while before the ending of this game happenned….and then you hunted sephiroth some more, but it’s more focused now. This is act 2 and only the middle of act 2. The end of act two is still upcoming. I wanted SE to end it at the end of act two but they decided to end it at the middle of act two instead. Oh well.
As an adult 100+ hours of game is a lot, but if I was a kid again, the amount of stuff in this game would have me ecstatic. I don't knock the game for having a bunch of extra stuff, the original games had that too just it was much more basic and less fleshed out. Often much more confusing or obscure. Like I expected to skip the card game like I did in every FF from 8, but this game I wanted to engage with it. I dunno if it's a change in quality or a change in me.
You took the words right out of my mouth! Your opinion of it is my EXACT opinion as well. I got 45ish hours into the game and I've been really struggling to continue playing. The first open world region was cool and exciting, I thought it had a lot going for it, but after doing all the side stuff in that region I was over it. I moved on in the story, just to find out they used the same formula for the next region with really nothing new... I dreaded going for any of the side stuff because of how LONG it takes to do any of it. The animation you get locked into when you activate the towers, the stupid pointless phone calls, repetitive crystal mini game, etc... It all became a chore that took way too long to get through.
Then the story also just didn't feel significant after a while. I kept asking myself "so... what exactly has happened so far since I started?" because I genuinely was confused how I could be 45 hours into this game and couldn't remember if anything significant had happened yet.
Doesn't help that I took a break from it to play Stellar Blade, and man, the pacing in that game is so much more superior. Options to skip scenes, faster ways to get up ladders, climbing ropes is not tedious af, grabbing notes/chests doesn't take an eternity to get through pop-ups or animations... Makes it hard for me to want to finish Rebrith ngl.
I think my response to the criticism of the aimlessness of this game is that this game takes place in the middle of the OG game’s story where the party is wondering town-to-town. In that aspect, they nailed it by fleshing out character interaction and including a lot of side activities, regardless of how mixed those side content are. My hope is that Part 3 will stick the landing and conclude the story faithfully the OG FF7.
The problem is, as you point out, that Rebirth occurs during a portion of the OG that is singularly focused on Cloud chasing Sephiroth. And this portion of the original game took all of about 7-8 hours to finish (and that was only if your took your time sight-seeing; it could be rushed in like 2).
Midgar, by contrast, is an area that actually felt like it could be fleshed out more - it was, after all, an enormous, dank, otherworldly mega-city. So stretching that 2-3 hours of the OG was logical, whereas turning the largely empty overworld of the original into this... Chadley mission thing... wasn't.
Hopefully SE will listen to complaints and criticisms and take them to heart, since, by all accounts, they didn't start working on P3 until Rebirth released. Certainly, the tepid response in Japan may cause them to significantly rethink the quantity and type of sidequests present (which would be good), and might prompt them to shrink down the scope of the open world and focus on more highly detailed vignette-style area design as seen in Remake (also good).
@@princessofthecape2078 this part of the OG was kinda goofy though. Rebirth did a great job, in the OG it was lighthearted until we reached temple of the ancients. IMO they did a great job with pacing, the only thing that really bothered people was the whole new timeline they did that made it a bit confusing to others, though IMO it really isnt that bad. I also love the idea that they try to portray the story in cloud’s point of view, which is a bit confusing but i get it why it ruined other people’s experience.
It's not that I think the game is perfect but I do find the way people balance out the reviews of this game a little bizarre.
It always reads like: "design, music, character, story, graphics, combat and mini games all fantastic! On the other hand, there are some slightly repetitive side tasks that you absolutely don't have to do that are easily skipped.... 6 out of 10".
And the side task actually has a lot of variety. This game got criticized for having too many side activities, when the og FF7 also had ridiculous amt of mini games.
Spider-Man 2 cut down the time on all these kinds of things and it got flak for being a “short/er” experience.
I think that kind of feedback makes devs and publishers reluctant to speed up things and rely more on padding methods
Yeah, you can’t please everyone. Make a game too short and it’s not worth full price, make it too long and it’s considered bloated. 😓
@@Crimzin8 going by the vehement, like rly nasty responses to a shorter experience, if I was a dev/publisher i’d 100% rather face the regular complaint here and there that the game is bloated or that it has padding or that it has some pacing issues, than the absolute vitriol of “wah, it’s only __ hours long to beat, it’s a ripoff, not worth it, this is why I pirate games, etc”
What? You didn't like the constant loud talking during your fights?
Ok so u r more than entitled to ur opinion although i disagree. You are in control of the pace of the game as u dodnt have to do any of the protorelics which gave yhe open world some depth while it had some repetition it also had some great fights. (Side note idk how chadley is a fav of urs but ok) Everything is optional so u dont have to do everything and ofc the crazier fights r in VR sims and stuff to make it to where ppl who dont wanna do everything can just go thru the story with a little difficulty. Then to the point of goin where sephiroth is well thats the point as he is trying to destroy the multiverse. Then u said not mich happens and i feel u just missed the whole story bcuz alot happened i think u were expecting to have closure in PT2 which no its part 2 we kno there will be a part 3. Now i have some cons to the game like the AP farm is a bit ridiculous and i think u should get all the SP if u do everything in normal run also no materia loadout but other than that FF7 Rebirth was a great game with a rollercoaster story and phenomenal combat. The Pros definitely outweigh the cons of the game.
hey i have a steelbook copy of FF12 also. amazing taste!
This is what happens if you don't understand that the pull of the reunion the reason for this sense of wandering. Cloud is looking for Sephiroth during this portion because the JENOVA cells inside of him are pulling him along. Part 3 is going to be a quite different once Cloud's identity reunites; then it becomes about saving the world.
Dude’s describing the original FF7 @7:46
I hope this video of yours gets more traction. This was great - it so accurately describes how I feel about the game. Some scenes here and there were genuinely heartwarming, but most of the time I felt like you - like nothing relevant was happening, and even when something is about to happen, like in chapter 8, they still manage to throw me off by adding a line “I feel like something big is about to happen”. Writing 10/10 /s
I also dislike how everyone is praising this game like it is a return to form for FF. The combat is great and deep, but the open world ala Ubisoft represents literally everything almost most open worlds do poorly - exceptions here would be games like Elden Ring, which encourage organic exploration).
In fact, speaking of organic exploration, that’s why Nibel worked for me as a region. Unlike the other regions, this one is full of caves and hidden corners, and you have a semi-flying chocobo, which really encouraged me to dig around for things without being as overly reliant on the map.
Best parts of Rebirth for me are when it presents a more curated experience, like in chapters 3 or 13.
It's interesting for me is this due to a lot of criticism that says about "Ubisoft" or what.
Cause in my understanding the problem in Ubisoft is not a checklist, but more that there are 5000+ points of interests now and it is tedious. On the other hand while it is "organic" I myself disliked exploration in Elden ring because when I finished it - I felt that it was not rewarding at all, all good things I got were from bosses, so it would be the same to just ran from boss to boss. And that where rebirth mailed in in my opinion. 30 checks per map, but quite rewarding.
@@Seferioth I think the “problem” will obviously depend from person to person. For me the problem personally *is* that there is a checklist. Obviously the list having 5 points rather than 5000 makes it more palatable for me, but I still consider that “cheap design”.
The world should instead organically encourage you to check strange landmarks because they look interesting - and ideally there would be no dot on the map telling you of that place, to amplify the sense of discovery.
Except for Nibel, I got none of that in Rebirth. Every region, I open my map, I go through the checklist of dots on the map until they are all grey, then I move on.
And to make matters worse, we have the ludicrous side quests like “save the cat” or “drag the chicken”.
I just can’t deal with that. Sadly I had to, because I am now going through hard mode, which is actually very nice and really makes you explore the depth of combat in this game (which is fantastic), but all the good materia required to play the actual main game was locked behind all the bloat.
yeah 1000%. Before watching this video I had the same exact thoughts. I enjoyed it in the Grasslands, but I got burnt out of the side stuff in that very same region. I go to the next just to find out there's even more... of the same tedious shit. Skipped most of it because I was tired of sitting through pointless bloat of watching the same animation/scene happen when I activate a tower, or listening to Chadley talk about nothing. I got 45 hours in and couldn't even remember if anything significant happened in the plot yet... I'm struggling to finish this game because everything feels like a chore or a mini game that detracts me from the actual meat of the game and combat. I took a break to play Stellar Blade and man, that game spoiled me so much so that I don't even want to finish Rebirth.
@@bengalgoblin i'd want a checklist in every game as not to miss stuff. I'm not 7y/o anymore i don't wanna roam endlessly in a map in hopes of finding cool stuff so that i can pretend a dev didn't put it there and the world is actually real because i certainly don't have the time for it.
But if you want the mistery you can choose to visit the towers last and find the interest points organically while roaming around.
@@swalhal3701 It’s very misleading to say I can choose that. The game was not designed for that to be truly feasible. See, one of the key things of games that encourage organic exploration is that they have LESS stuff in numbers.
Their stuff is more meaty, but they have less of it. As opposed to finding almost 50 lifestream areas in the game, the game would instead have 5. But each of those would offer something meaty as opposed to “quick call with Chadley, get some random items” 50 times.
People really complain all the good stuff is behind the side content, well yeah you can’t get the Genji gloves that break the 9,999 hit counter unless you do the extra shit. Sorry. Get good.
10/10, best game in the universe. Game made me cry 😭. Video game masterpiece…
A GLORIFIED FAR CRY IS WHAT PEOPLE WANT! People don’t hate Ubisoft games, they hate the Ubisoft brand. Because FF7 Rebirth is everything wrong with Open World games!
FF7 deserved a 1 game faithful Remake with only Story Mode.
Instead we got Resequels. If original FF7 had “too many cooks in the kitchen” at some points. Then Resequels have “a hot pot in a homeless shelter” kind of multiple visions with the devs.
Conclusion. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s far from being the best thing ever though.
Further proof that the gaming community is a place of outrage online. Cause arguments are flawed. Cause the popular voice isn’t logical.
I am still enjoying the game after 170hrs of playing. Just take your time to play. Most mini games are optional
The problem is that it is not on Xbox…
I've only started FF VII rebirth last week and I'm only at the Gold Saucer, but I can already feel all that unnecessary padding and tedious overworld "exploration" slag. I'm seriously thinking to set the difficulty to easy and just breeze through the game...
The sad thing is, the game will most likely be a nominee at several game awards and will probably win at least some of them.
The sad thing? Its game of the year for so many ppl dude. Easy mode? Comon! U want the challenge. You and the guy who made this vid have no clue.
@@thomasborgland9247 When you say challenge you mean the challenge of having the patience to wait through checkboxes filling themselves up and Chadley's mostly pointless interferences, right?
Sad? Nah, you're just trolling XD...Who's forcing you to complete the Open World missions?
@@Emilaiho I'm kind of a completionist by nature.
But yeah, after sleeping on it I've realised I've made an opinion when I was way too pissed off to do it reasonably, because I had a losing streak in Gold Saucer.
Its weird you liked remake as a top 10 game but didnt love rebirth. Rebirth is just a better game on every level so its weird.
I'm not surprised that this game is pretty divisive, but I'm am shocked at the many different camps that create those divisions. Usually games have a "love it" camp or a "hate it" camp. This one just seems to have those same camps but they don't just form around the game in general. They form around presentation, side content, story chsnges, etc.
I'm firmly in the "love it" camp. It's not just my GOTY, but my favorite game of the last 10 years at least.
I see where you're coming from and I will admit that this game isn't perfect. I've played through this and Remake 3 times now, and there are things that take this game down to a 9.5: Chadley's constantly stopping you to repeat intel interactions and the many, many times this game slows you down. Either for pacing of a scene or to increase dramatic tension.
Otherwise, though, I had a blast. I don't hunt trophies and I'm not a completist so I just passed on the side content that was either too frustrating or wasn't that interesting.
No, there's not a lot of "Big" story moments in this game but that was also true of the OG. Things don't really get going until the Northern Crater.
I do think they could have ended this game at the Northern Crater but I don't know if they could have fit Icicle Inn, the glacier, and the Wind Maze with what they already had. The could have reduced the open areas but I have no doubt many would have complained about the linearity.
Bottom line, I understand the many reasons people maybe didn't love this game as much as I do. But I also don't think there is any way they could have made a game that would have made every fan happy.
EVERYTHING after Gongaga was a slog for me. I was legitmately annoyed how much time I was spending doing certain tasks.
That's crazy cuz I just got to Gongaga and I've been struggling to play through it for the past 5 hours...
@@nicksmith516 you're going to hate the rest of the game, sorry man
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Personally I thought the game was fantastic. It’s been an extremely long time since I actually desired to play through side content and not just blitz out the game to see the ending. I enjoyed the corny side of the game and I absolutely love the nostalgia moments even if I wished they had gone a different way with some decisions. The game itself was amazing. The content for the most part was amazing, but I could see some of this stuff not appealing to everyone. Personally some of the mini games just set me off for being absurdly stupid hard for no real reason other than to test your patience. I actually did all of the side quests besides that one for gold saucer. Overall GOTY so far but I can see why this game could turn some people away. The main character is not the stereotypical hero he is broken and quite annoying at times but that’s real. Not everyone always has their shit together so it makes him more relatable as a character. The voice acting in this game is on point. The graphics are on point. The story line though yes it had slow points, was on point. How would you like it if your life was all chaos all the time. It was a game I quickly realized would not be something that I would blitz out from start to finish. I spent a few weeks getting through this game and found myself wanting to keep coming back for more which lately isn’t very often with games.
Agreed on everything except Gongaga. I liked that zone and the soundtrack there.
The devs for sure realized how annoying Chadly was but it was solely created for padding. They were also aware how much you’d need to adjust your party’s materia between fights in the sim and didn’t give an option to do it while still in VR so that you would have to exit back out to listen to Chadly’s unskippable dialogue. Just pure padding for padding’s sake.
So precise to how I felt playing Rebirth, when it focused on the plot and deeper character moments I adored the game but I was already getting tired of the open world checklist by Corel so Gongaga had me going mad and with how many I saw hitting burnout by then I truly think it should have been just the village and reactor as a nice story focused bridge to Cosmo Canyon.
I know the first argument is 'You can just ignore the side content/open world' but I think the better question is how could they have made it more engaging so people didn't WANT to skip it.
And for the love of god it did not need so many mini games, I'll play yakuza for that.
1) I didn't think the open world was all that great. There were a lot of places that were simply difficult to navigate... and the fact that we couldn't seamlessly move between certain regions also dramatically reduced the impact of it being an 'open world.' 2) The story was definitely less satisfying than in Remake. What was the point of 'breaking free from destiny' when we're simply going to go down a checklist of identical events, culminating in the one major catastrophe that *should* have been avoided? It feels like the writers had second thoughts about how far they were willing to go after the events of Remake; with the implications associated with "defeating" fate. Finally 3) I hated the new interface/weapon skills - it was an unnecessarily-convoluted reworking of a system that, in Remake, worked rather well.
Too many mini-games and release just on PS5 on the get-go - that's it. Game is well done.
You do realise that most of the open world stuff is completely skippable right? However, nice review and video
Not when there is important info behind them.this narrative is so weak.we know the sideqeust are skip able but why would we do that when we won't know wedge is dead unless we do that horrible quest line.you won't get a date with Tifa or aerith if u don't do the sidequest,so technically they are not skipable
Sure, they are skippable, but why add this stuff to the game if it isn't enjoyable to do? I get "enjoyable" is subjective, but cmon... he has very valid points as to why these side missions are terrible. This game really didn't need all this bulk/bloat, and instead we could have gotten more juice from the main story or even more character development from the main cast that wasn't in the original.
@holy9781 you're talking about the proto-relic quest. That's completely different from the shrines and things. The Proto Relic quest isn't repetitive. It's 100% unique to each region and has a tonne of story stuff attached.
@@bigmediafan Exactly it finally brings Greg to one of the last games he hasn't been in yet.
@@holy9781 what the hell are you even on about? the sidequests are great and if you particularly don't like that one protorelic quest for wedge's back story you can just set the difficulty to easy and clear that minigame on auto in 2 minutes.
The problem with this review : There was no problem with FF7 Rebirth.
subjective opinion
@@AlexTehGr8 An opinion is always subjective. Same as the opinion in this video.
Great video and I echo your thoughts. I'm a huge Final Fantasy VII fan and I stopped playing 35 hours in, I'll go back, but I couldn't play it all in one go due to the tediousness of a lot of the game. The open world is a huge missed opportunity, it's so boring and safe, they completely missed a trick. The feel of the game completely missed what made the original so great, the original was full of mystery and impeding gloom, this has ridiculous side characters and moments that completely ruin the tone. I will go back and finish it, I just need a break. In the mean time I went back and played the original FF again, which says it all really. I'm really disappointed in Rebirth as I think Remake nailed it. But they dropped the ball here but being too safe and falling into a lot modern gaming traps, especially with regards to the open world (and Chadley), which is IMO one of the worst and poorly paced open worlds I've come across in a long time. As well as failing the capture the tone of the original, something which Remake did so well.
I just started the game and I’m fed up with the open world already, it’s kinda boring and the fights don’t feel good. Running around on the chocobo doesn’t feel good either. Graphics feel downgraded from remake? Cutscenes are dearly missed, as every interaction looks lame without them. I don’t know man. Still I’m having fun and I’ll probably finish the game, but the love I had for remake isn’t there
Wow people are really tough on this game lol. Its excellent with a ton of meaningful and fulfilling content, but because its not absolutely perfect, people act like its terrible. Checklists arent great but don’t most open world games have them? Maybe my expectations for modern day AAA are just really low, but this game feels like a miracle, even with some of the stupid ubisoft-isms that are in it. Plus, I’m not sure what you want out of the story. “Lets go find Sephiroth” is pretty much the entirety of FF7 on ps1 after midgar, so this game is just doing what its supposed to do. Did you want more time ghosts? Less time ghosts? Final fantasy fans are really funny.
Finally, someone said it
Those stupid mini games was pi*^*ing me off!!!
Generally agree. I prefer the more closed story telling with purposeful characters like the newer GOW and Remake. The open world activities are boring and getting basic stuff like potions when finding caches really took the excitement out of it. I thought I would be finding material or accessories. Instead it was stuff I could get from breaking boxes.
you could skip most of the mini games and focus on story. but........ the thing is, you know how much stuff you left out since there is checklist in every region. therefore you will feel uneager to progress.
Idk, personally I just moved through the game pretty quickly, mostly just did the side content I enjoyed (QB and Piano) and didn't do much of the open world stuff, but beat the game and from that perspective it was the best game I have played since my childhood. But yeah the filler stuff didn't seem too interesting so I just... didn't do it?
Remake/Rebirth are not as good as the original. You really need to play the original to understand how far off the mark they were.
It's like that poorly drawn lines joke about Jim getting shot in the war and telling the guy tending to his dying corpse to tell his wife he loves him, but that guy gets shot too, so then he tells the next guy and this happens a dozen more times... by the time it gets to Jim's wife, she's like 'what do you mean Jim rubbed birds?' Modern Squenix has no idea what made Final Fantasy 7 successful, they've just been slowly driving it into the ground over the years trying to shoehorn in extra bullshit and reframe each character to be something completely different from the original.
The remake is basically about watching Cloud slap Shinra soldiers in the face with his bike and omnislashing Aizen... err, I mean, Sephiroth, with cataclysm-like visuals.
Bro it's called positive enforcement, did you research Death Stranding?
I think that's true of almost all open world games if we're honest. that's why many people wish we'd see less of these aimless repetitive open world games that extend their game time with incredibly slow actions and a lot of walking around in the grass
This trilogy is going to go down as the greatest missed opportunity in the history of gaming, totally fumbled at every opportunity.
this. after remake i was out. square failed HARD
Exactly how I felt about it! Everything to too slow and tedious
You must hate the new Zelda games then
This game wants to do so much, but everything is just average. Also the corny dialogue ruins it for me, i finished the game just to say that i beat it, but it was a painful ride.
I would buy this game if they had removed 70% of the game. It's a masterpiece when it's good, and awful with all the padding
Unless you're a trophy hunter (my condolences if you are), you can skip almost 60% of the game. I just finished a 3rd playthrough and used the option to use the "Quests Cleared" status. The result is that I was able to clear the MSQ in about 30 hours.