Pros: 1) The graphics. 2) weapon variety. 3) Hero mode (without this, the game would have been a slog for all but the most anally retentive of players). Now for the cons: 1) The camera, it is all over the place which means you cannot focus on the battle, plus it cannot always be freely controlled, which means you are fighting against it throughout the game. How in a Remake this was not fixed is baffling, as it makes fights harder than they need to be. 2) Damage sponge enemies, they take so many hit to die, it just drags on battles, and inflates game difficulty, especially as the game throws multiple enemies at you at once along with enemies that are firing explosives at you from a distance. 3) Repetitive, this is one of the most mundane games I have ever played, you do the same thing again and again, and if that's what its audience wanted, then why not just make Bloody Palace mode the game, because the game offers nothing else in the way of story, level design, exploration, or replayability. 4) Story, it was given almost no thought, which again makes me wonder why not just release a game akin to Bloody Palace mode, and charge £10 for it, rather than charge quadruple that, as the audience that like this game don't care for the story, all they seem to want to do is kill enemies in long-winded ways (I mean 'skillful' ways) and newer players won't like the story, so why even bother? 5) Movement, I don't mean the combat but more the movement of the character, there's no finesse to his movement so he will go in directions not intended, he gets stuck in corners, instead of climbing a ladder he will begin jumping around it, etc. When Mario N64 was released the fluidity of his movement was emphasised by the developers, and now we can feel how fluid movement in games has become, so why the developers for this did not bother to better this aspect despite having a plethora of games to drawn inspiration from, is beyond me. 6) No lock-on, this was excruciating as this meant the character would miss at least half of his attacks, coupled with the camera, this made fights a battle against the game's mechanics, not just the ai enemies, which brings me to: 7) No enemy tracking, meaning the character will be attacking in one direction but should the enemies move, the character will not register it, which again means many moves will miss. If there's no lock-on, enemy tracking was a must but such a obvious inclusion isn't there. 8) Level design, levels are bland, you do not interact with them, they look the same, and they are ultimately meaningless because whether you are fighting in a castle, or a ship, or a courtyard, nothing changes in the sense that all the levels are played the same, you don't actually use the environment to your advantage apart from jumping off walls or running along them. It's simply four walls you fight within, that's it. 9) Swimming, this is the worst swimming I have ever experienced in any game, you have to fight against the controls to move in the direction you want. 10) Bosses, the majority of which are utterly pointless and there just for the sake of things. 11) No manual save, and a bad checkpoint system. 12) Gameplay, with the bad camera, no lock-on, no enemy tracking, damage sponge enemies, enemies that fire projectiles at you from a distance where you cannot always see them, the gameplay is about pulling off combos, how fun does that sound for anyone but the most dreary of gamers. 13) Unfair difficulty, meaning that the difficulty is not about enemies blocking and dodging, it's more about health and attack damage, so, enemies are damage sponges, they can take off a chunk of your health with a single basic attack, sometimes your attacks do not break enemy combos or attack chagreups, their grab attacks are not easy to see, combined with no lock-on, the awful camera, and no enemy tracking, the difficulty is due to the game's dumb design decisions rather than skill. 14) Platforming, the wall running and jumping from one place to another is not smooth at all, especially in chapters 3, and 10. Instead of jumping towards what you want (as you can do in nearly every game), the character jumps up spinning (like Sonic) making it difficult to judge the distance for platforming, plus the camera again is a hindrance. Overall, this game is outdated, and is nothing compared to the hack-and-slash games that have come since the original NG2 was released, despite the insistence from its fan-base, and gaming journalists who desperately want to feel validated as 'real gamers'. I guess the reason next to nothing was updated is because either the developers are so arrogant that they think they made something close to perfection or they know its fans have such low standards, that as long as they can kill the same seven or eight enemies again and again in 'stylish' ways, then that's enough for them, so why bother improving the game.
Please do not buy this game at full price, it will only encourage such lazy, dated and unrefined game design. Imagine the worst elements of Gears of War, and World War Z mixed with lazy modern game design practises. Gears was far more sharp in design, movement, and combat than this. At no point did I feel like I was controlling an elite super-soldier, instead I felt as if I were controlling some meathead. Pros: 1) Story. 2) Voice Acting. 3) Sense of scale of the conflict and various environments are wonderfully captured, making for some striking scenery that did leave me awestruck. Cons: 1) Repetitive gameplay, there is little enemy variety, level variety, mission objective variety, weapon variety, move set variety, no abilities to learn, it's totally barebones. Once you have played the first 15 minutes, you have more or less experienced what the gameplay is about. 2) Repetitive level design, it's so linear that the game feels more akin to a railshooter, thus making the levels very dull. You don't explore, simply go through a few hallways, enter a large room where you fight a horde, rinse and repeat. Plus, each level looks the same, no matter how far you progress in to a level, the scenery and colour palette reamins the same. 3) Repetitive mission objectives such as turn something on four times, protect something four times, fight a horde, then again, and again (same enemies in the hordes too). This makes the game awfully boring, and a slog to get through. 4) Dated gameplay, hold a button to pick something up (imagine trying to pick up a health stem or ammo whilst being swarmed by enemies, and having to hold a button before you can pick up what you desperately need), carry only two healing stems, clunky movement (imagine playing as a fat Knight in Dark Souls), clunky controls, dodging is painfully slow, fighting hordes is a problem because of how close the camera is to your character. 5) Only six weapons to chose from, and these weapons are very weak against all but the most basic of enemies. 6) Bloated missions, which adds to the tedium, and bad mission design. The game is short, (6-8 hours) and even then the game struggles to get to this length because the only way it achieves its current length is to excessively pad out the missions. 7) Graphics are a huge downgrade on the PS5 from what was shown in previews. They look washed out. 8) Difficulty spikes make me believe that this game was not tested enough. The spikes come mainly in the form of objectives that have you protect one thing or another. At this point you must defend said thing from one or more horde attacks. What makes this difficult is firstly, how overwhelming it becomes due to the number of enemies you are fighting at once, coupled with the clunky controls, and weak weapons, but moreover it is at these times that ammunition, and healing stems are at there most limited in the game. Of all the times to do this, facing multiple hordes whilst defending something is the worst time to have scarcity of supplies. This made the game far more tedious than it already was. I do not understand why the developers designed these parts in such a way, or why have them at all really. They add nothing new in terms of strategy, they simply drag out the level. For example, defend a connecting chain on an elevator from flying enemies, then battle a number of non-flying enemies, now defend the second connecting chain from flying enemies, then battle a large number of non-flying enemies, now do this again, and then once again. Rewarding, no. Important to the story, nope. Power fantasy fulfilling, absolutely not. Waste of time that pads out the level, absolutely. 9) Unbalanced enemies meaning they are both bullet sponges, and can deal far too much damage with just one hit. You have three armour bars, and one health bar. Some common enemies can deplete you of your armour bars in two hits. Now imagine fighting them, whilst other enemies are shooting at you, others are firing projectiles from the air, and others are melee attacking you, alongside having limited ammo and healing supplies. Sounds downright enjoyable does it not. In conclusion, this game is awful due to its controls, linear and simplistic leve design, and mission objectives. It is a chore to get through, gets boring very fast (because you do the same thing again and again), the gameplay is clunky, and at times unresponsive (at no point did I feel the power of being an Ultramarine, the character moved and fought more like an oaf), and it fails to capture the uniqueness of the 40K universe. Games are docked points for such issues, but here apparently gamers are totally fine with the very same issues they apparently can't stand in other games. A complete waste of time, and thoroughly unpleasant to play.
Despite my apprehension, due to disliking the padding, plot holes, and certain aspects of the gameplay in Remake, as well as the demo of Rebirth not selling it for me, I gave it a chance because my favourite FF hero, Zack, was back. Also, despite all of the understandable controversy regarding Remake's ending, I was still intrigued by where the story would go; along with the stellar reviews this recieved, I decided to give it a chance. That was a daft decision. First the pros:
1) Soundtrack.
2) Certain character moments.
3) Parts of the world are fun to explore.
4) Plethora of minigames available to play when you decide to, not when the game forces you to play them.
5) Introduction of some fun characters, such as Dio.
Now the cons:
1) Paper thin plot. 2) Forced minigames. In many chapters you must complete minigames in order to progress the main story. These minigames are a nuisance, and add nothing to the plot. Of all of the things they changed from the original, this should have been at the top of the list. Just became obvious they wanted a long game but did not know how to achieve this. 3) They do nothing with Zack's story, you could remove most of it and the game would still be the same. Five minutes of his entire story matters in this game's plot, and going forwards. Cait, Dio, and Cid were more important than Zack in Rebirth. Why bring him back, and put him on the cover with Cloud, and Sephiroth if he is not vital in this game? It's in the same vein as calling these games a Remake of 7 when they're clearly not. 4) Far, far too much padding. This goes for story chapters, to side quests. This includes slow climbing sections, forced minigames, party being split up, penultimate chapter is 3 hours long, final boss fight has ten phases, the same dungeon is repeated in chapter 9 (first clear it with Cloud's group, then with Tifa's group), Cait's entire section in chapter 10, Yuffie's section in chapter 7, and so on.
5) Camera during combat.
6) First strike many times has made the character attack an enemy further from them rather than the enemy closest to them. 7) Open world clichés. Why does this get a pass but other games, such as Assassin's Creed, and Far Cry do not? No game should get a pass for open world clichés such as climbing a tower to unlock a portion of the map.
8) Open world does not feel lived in. Outside of towns, the open world has nothing to make it alive. They could've had characters talk to each other as they travel it, NPCs camping, NPCs hunting, fiends battling each other, weather changes, a day and night cycle, and more.
9) Many pointless boss fights.
10) A lack of a jump button, this was especially noticeable in combat against flying enemies. 11) Item use is still dependant on the ATB bars, despite there being only two bars.
12) ATB bars are slow to fill up.
13) Messy ending.
14) Tifa's treatment in the story.
15) Nonsensical story moments.
16) Whispers are further convoluted by a new story element.
17) Chadley.
18) The need to undertake a Chocobo minigame in almost every region just to get a chocobo!
19) Some regions of the open world are a pain to traverse due to how disconnected they can be. Particularly Gongaga.
20) Repetitive combat, and exploration (you do the same thing in every region to unlock more of the open world).
21) Side quests. Absolutely horrendous!
22) Cut areas that were available in the original by this point.
23) No Vincent or Cid in the party. They were in the original by this point. 24) Sephiroth's mystique, menace, and presence are totally gone. It was bad enough in Remake but this was worse. PlayStation hardly has iconic villains, but he was one of the few, now his reputation is heavily damaged. Uncharted, GoW, Ratchet and Clank, Horizon, Last of Us; how many of these games or other PS games have had a villain as iconic as Sephiroth, and that too for as long? Never played Mario or Zelda yet even I know of their villains. Like him or not, Sephiroth was like that, especially for the PS brand, and FF brand (as far as casual audiences go). Even before I'd ever played a FF game, I had seen the character in various gaming outlets. This game doesn't do his reputation justice, in fact it hurts it. That's it with the pros and cons. Basically this game felt more like DLC for Remake due to the shallow plot, little story progression, repetition,
and padding (forced minigames above all else). Now as far as I am concerned, the last great FF game was 12, and it's a shame none have come close since (Type-0 wasn't too bad). It looks like this will most likely sell less than Remake, and maybe even 16. If that happens then I hope it gives the powers that be at Square the push they need to address the problems present in both this, and Remake, such as the padding problems, combat problems, and story issues. Hopefully if they do this, then perhaps the final part will mean this 7 'remake' trilogy was not a totally wasted endeavour.
