Finishes Grasslands. Going to do simulator stuff before moving one.

I have to say Red XIII is the most fun character to play with. My favorite thing about him is that he forces you to lvl up your block reflex. I feel like after having him as the leader for awhile, I gotten pretty good at perfect blocking a good chunk of moves. He is great paired with the Precision Block Materia. I also like that they make Aerith easier at the start.

I didn't know that the quest have completion ranks untill the Kyrie quest so unfortunately on the flower quest I didn't get full completion. What was the bonus award?

Today or tomorrow. Some you guys are moving to fast. 

I swear man, I still think the cinematics during boss fight are so pace breaking. I understand that they cue the next phase but I hate the feeling of wasting Limit Breaks/ ATB skills because I used them right as the next phase started. I wish they would signify this somehow, like a segmented lifebar, or better integrate them without the cinematics. Happen so many times during Midgard Zolom boss. Who remembers when Mythril Caves was a 10 minute dungeon?

Currently partway through Junon Open world stuff..... and I'm kinda getting bored, just a little. The pirate vibe is a little strange.

You're not supposed to spam that stuff, you know. You can and will lose them during phase shifts and interrupts.

What implied that I was spamming them? 

I mean, the Midgardsomr changes phases exactly two times over the course of a five minute-ish fight and skills have a windup of 2-4 seconds. What are the odds you were not? Gotta keep on eye when you approach those quarter or half health bars.

I've been playing the game for about 7 hours and have reached chapter 4. The game thus far is great. I like the music in particular; it's quite nostalgic. The dialogue, characters and cutscenes are fantastic. The environment is beautiful. Tones of content. Clearly a lot of love, care and effort went into recreating a lot of aspects from the original FFVII and it's nice to see it come to life in 2024.

Some issue I have thus far during my first impressions:
- Sometimes I can't tell whether or not my stupid chicken is able to jump up a ledge or down a ledge, I run into a ledge...and nothing, it's annoying.
- There have been times when I have got lost, like in the mithril mines for example, the "tell" instructing me that a wall was climbable was hidden under rubble that Barret created, and I ended up wondering around for 5 mins trying to find a way forward. Not the first time this has happened either.
- The camera in combat is causing enemies to go off screen a tad too much which is a pain.
- The main menu UI can get a bit confusing, possibly due to the amount of content and options available in the game. An example that keeps tripping me up is that "party" isn't how you change your party lineup for some reason, you change your party via "Combat settings" and then by pressing "Square". The text font telling you that square lets you change your party line up is tiny and in the middle left of the screen. I guess I'll get used to this over time, but it's a bit meh during those first few hours.
- I feel as though the combat is quite overwhelming for the start of a game, probably because the devs expect you to have played the first game. Right away when you set foot in the grasslands, you have 5 party members with unique mechanics, a bunch of materia to learn and manage, a bunch of abilities, some synergy and team attack abilities, a few summons, items and probably more that I'm forgetting about. Here I am just trying to remember what key a few core abilities are assigned to. I feel as though the game has done a pretty poor job properly pacing the introduction of these combat mechanics.

Very much looking forward to playing more with my two days I have off work this week coming up.

High mischief mooglets (level 5+) are the stuff of nightmares. And you can't make it easier through difficulty settings like some minigames either.

Here is the situation that I am explaining: I'm fighting a boss, I'm building the stagger gauge, right as I stagger the boss he begins the next phase rendering that stagger process useless because of the soft reset though phase change which will not carry over the stagger, or I stagger the boss and during the stagger I use a Limit Break, Synergy skill or even expend the a ATB charge with a skill only for it do partial damage or no damage depending on how close I was the next phase when using said skills?

You can't spam limit breaks; they take to long to build. You cant spam Synergies because that also has resource bar. You really can't spam anything except basic attack. Even if you could, what does that that have to do with resources being wasted through a cinematic phases shift? The concept itself in any game is suppose to prevent the player for skipping phases because you may have dealt to much damage in one blow which is understandable but I hate the way the remake series handles it.

Gotta keep on eye when you approach those quarter or half health bars. - This should not be on the player, I understand wasting your resource because you used a ground based skill on an aerial enemy, but having the player having to consider a phase before using resources is bad design. They could just do 3 life bars, one for each phase, it doesn't really solve the problem but visually its more excepting.

Moving around terrain can be a pain in the ass on or off Chocobo, because its a auto process that sometimes doesn't work, but you manually do it with circle as well. There are times in which I'm running off ledges repeatedly when I don't want to, then the character won't grab or jump up to things when I what to and have to do it the manual way. Its wonky.

I find myself repeatably going into party to change party members as well. It sounds like it should be the place to do that.

Initially, the game throws a lot of options at you. I have yet to truly use a summon "for real" because of how many other options are available. I have only ever summoned Shiva so far. 

I feel like the targeting system is a wonky as well. Hard lock on is not a true hard lock on as it will shift targets if the enemy gets off camera. Until you manually change it, the camera should focus on whatever you locked on too. On soft targeting, why does it feel like characters always want target the furthest enemy away?