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’ve played three time through Remake. First when it launched on Normal and Hard difficulty, and then again, last December in anticipation for Rebirth.
While I didn’t mind too much my first time, the game definitely has a lot of very slow sections. Like you mentioned, you are constantly forced to walk very slowly, wait for animations, etc. It really feels like Square tried to pad the game a lot.
I really liked the combat at first, but my on Hard difficulty it got terrible. I was always annoyed, that your other party members just stood around and never attacked. Rebirth fixed it a little bit, since they actually are doing stuff, just deal basically no damage and don’t get ATB charge. A few fights are also just terribly designed in my opinion, and Rebirth just doubled down here.
About things not carrying over, I was also a bit disappointed at first, that you basically have to start from scratch in Rebirth, but it wasn’t a big deal. The sequel has other, bigger problems, in my opinion, that drag it down.
The main reason I still like the game, are the characters. If not for them, the very first playthrough would have been enough.