Shadow1980 said:
I've gotten less and less excited for this the more and more I've seen of it, and that's because of the gameplay. Square clearly has come to feel that turn-based combat no longer has any place in Final Fantasy, even in a remake of a turn-based game. While I grudgingly accept that it has become the norm in the genre (which is why I hardly play newer RPGs, as turn-based is close to dead these days aside from some obvious throwbacks like Octopath Traveler and Dragon Quest), it still annoys me that a 22-year-old classic, the most successful game in the most successful JRPG series ever, had to be so drastically overhauled in how it plays. Sure, it has the characters and setting of FFVII, but it's not really FFVII to me. When this was first announced, I was just hoping for FFVII with a fresh new coat of high-fidelity paint, not an entirely new game with the same story. Did Square feel that nobody would buy FFVIIR if it wasn't an action-based button-mashing hack-and-slash game, and that all the millions of gamers who played the original version secretly hated its turn-based combat?
I really hope this game retains some aspect of turn-based combat, even if only as an option. I've never really cared for action RPGs. The fast pace and the fact that I can usually only control one character and that the rest of the party is controlled by AI always bugged me. I liked how in old-school JRPGs from the 90s I had a party of characters with their own unique class and corresponding set of abilities, and that I had to methodically select from a list of actions for each character as their turn came up and make the best of their unique abilities. Those older games were clearly influenced by turn-based tabletop RPGs like D&D, just translated to a single-player video game. Action-based RPGs just feel like a beat-'em-up with with some RPG mechanics tacked on. |
I understand your frustration.
I see FF as a kind of experimental franchise. They're always trying to bring something new even though sometimes the new is not better.
FF7 is a really old game and to experience it as it was it's better to just play the original, even though it'd be great if they could make a remaster.
To remake it and to bring new players in, there's no better path than to get rid of the old controls. Although many still enjoy games like Octopath, it's still too old school and too Japanese for current generation of gamers. That's why Square make games like Octopath for Nintendo owners, because it's niche. FF is made for the big crowds.
