I grew up playing Final Fantasy VII. I probably played it around 10-12 years old and again on ios a few years ago.
WOW! What a classic.
I decided to play the remake on my Steam Deck just ot revisit the game and see areas of the game reimagined.
They did a great job in this aspect, but overall I feel that the game has not been fun.
So far, it is just walking from place to place while having the occasional battle. 99% of the time you can mindlessly mash a button to find the battle.
The few boss battles that come up can be interesting and this is where you start to learn the mechanics as they are not needed up until this point.
But, there are many sections that are long for the sake of being long. Like making you walk slowly in certain situations, like walking up to 7th Heaven, or making you hold a button to interact with something when 99% of things just require you to press the button once.
My biggest disappointment in the game is that the gear I unlocked and leveled up, do not carry over to the next game. Once I learned this, I stopped caring. They really should have let you bring over your characters.
Anyway, I am near the end game now and will probably finish it since there is not much left, but I will not be playing other iterations of this game. I might just watch a speed-run or a “let’s play” to see the different areas.
I had major problems with Remake myself, mostly stemming from punishing encounter design and them padding out a 6+ hour section into a full game. The catwalk lights, the lab, and other stuff obliterated the pacing, and it was painfully obvious how much better the dungeon design based on the original content was when compared to the new stuff.
The good news is, in Rebirth, that 1:1 remake feeling is front and center if you want it, instead supplemented this time by optional content. I felt like I had much more room to put together materia builds, and it has one of the best video game soundtracks I’ve ever heard. I’d be over the moon if they did a version of Final Fantasy VI that felt like most of Rebirth did.
Except for the limit breaks. Why they didn’t give those full target tracking and allowed them to whiff is an outright bizarre design decision (along with the constant splitting of the party).