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.

  • MentalEdgeEnglish
    2·
    6 hours ago

    If you’re just watching, you won’t get the main appeal of the modern FF combat systems. That being the underlying turns and the strategy around what to do with them.

    And unfortunately, at lower difficulties, you can get by with button mashing. It’s really disappointing that the difficulty that actually requires thinking is locked behind ng+, but at that level, the system really shines.

    It’s all strategy, dressed up as a hack and slash, but if you just button mash, don’t min-max your builds, utilize the entire party, their abilities, spells and synergies, you are dead.

    And it’s all made more intense by the combat happening in real-time (though you can slow time to a crawl at any time). I really love the panic of the way you are forced to control any last surviving party member, waiting for your turn to be available so you can use a phoenix down.