SPOILERS FFVII:R Chapter 3 Spoiler Discussion

Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i like to think i am pretty lenient with graphics but the doors do look terrible. i keep thinking the textures haven’t loaded or something

i have not finished this chapter yet because i was just running around doing quests and collecting stuff and levelling up materia (i am a little sad they don’t drop new ones when you master them?). i quite like the open world aspect of the slums

also have you seen all the cats, i can’t wait for more cat content. i am the guy talking about tearing up with joy just looking at the cats

i like seeing familiar nameless npcs again like the couple at the station and the two shinra guards

and i liked that scene with ‘sephiroth’ in cloud’s neighbour’s room, that was kind of creepy and i like how cloud shows fear and panic rather than being a stoic badass

if i have a complaint so far it’s that easy mode is a bit too easy, and idk if i have overleveled (iirc i am around 13-14?) but normal is pretty easy too. i am struggling to complete to battle report for breaking enemies/filling the atb gauge because the enemies in the slum so far just die too soon.

also are the stat boosts and stuff when you upgrade weapons only for when you are using that particular weapon. i could check by switching over cloud’s weapon but i can’t play right now and i fear i will forget by tomorrow
 
jeronimus

jeronimus

Lv. 25 Adventurer
AKA
Mostly Simple
Quick note to say I absolutely hate the jukebox as a gameplay concept. The jazzy version of Tifa's Theme is appropriate for the bar, but I hate running around the Slums and hearing the music weave in and out of these noisy little low quality clips. It's nice to have diegetic music, but when the actual music for a scene suddenly gets overwhelmed by a techno prelude, I want to scream.
 
oty

oty

Pro Adventurer
AKA
ex-soldier boy
As a gameplay concept 'd say they are awesome. More music is always better. Their execution kind of...sucks. Like, at the middle of dialogue and the theme just switches to the jukebox music everytime a character thats in that direction talks. Like...bruh
 
Theozilla

Theozilla

Kaiju Member
Just finished getting introduced to Marle, I really like her. One thing I thought was interesting after getting a better look during the daytime, was that Sector 7's support pillar was off-center compared to the other plates' pillars (it being closer to the Sector 8 side than the Sector 6 side).
 
Mayo Master

Mayo Master

Pro Adventurer
Impressions on Chapter 3!

Oh man, so much fanboying going on... going through this chapter, I felt that things were just getting better and better.

- I liked that Cloud got an apartment thanks to Tifa, it was a nice addition to the game. I liked the fact that almost right away, it took only a few lines to capture Cloud and Tifa's friendship very well. Just very slightly disappointed that you can't do much in your own apartment (not even opening the door to the bathroom. I wanted to take a shower! I guess this is not Death Stranding :mon:). Too bad about those door textures, too.
- Holy cow, that sequence with Cloud's neighbor being a Sephiroth's clone!!! And the snippet on the Whilwind maze was very intriguing... I'm wondering: are we going to end up realizing that all we're playing was "inside Cloud's head", leading up to the moment where he's fished out from the Lifestream in Mideel?
- Seeing the slums of sector 7 brought to life, in plain broad daylight... I feel like I had been wishing to see that since playing the OG! Literally seeing things in a new light. Absolutely loved it.
- Extreme fangasm about the Item Shop and the Weapon shop!!! OMGOMGOMG!!!!! I know people had been very thrilled with the 7th Heaven (and for good reason), but on a personal level, those locations struck me even more. The level of details that is faithful to the original game is just mind-blowing. I don't even know in what state I'll be when I'll be visiting the locations of the Sector 5 slums (for those who don't know, I worked on re-rendering sector 5 slums environments by 3d modelling between 2012-2015 as part of an overly-ambitious modding project http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=15975.0 ).
- I really enjoyed that the game 'took a breather' between the 1st and 2nd bombing mission and opened a bunch of sidequests. The idea of joining the neighborhood watch was great. 'We have no money, so how about you do it for the exposure?' :mon:
- I enjoyed so much the little story going on where Tifa asks Cloud to 'be nice with the neighbors', especially since he's perceived as a cold man by Marle. And then, when the weapon dealer treats Tifa and Cloud like shit regarding the water filter payment, Tifa presents Cloud as this threatening 'the settler of disputes' and Cloud menacingly says... "pretty please" :lol:
- My spouse, my friend and I were so thrilled to see so many cats.
- Our ears were bleeding upon hearing the 'hip-hop chocobo tune'. Reading this thread, it looks like this is not an isolated case :awesome:
- My friend nailed the dart game. A very solid mini-game in its own right!
- The whole "Johnny" scene was brilliant. Johnny was so 'true to his original character' while being given a different reason for leaving the city, it was great. Loved the interaction where Tifa realizes that Cloud is scary. Absolutely amazed that Johnny's parents look so much like their OG counterparts!!!
- When Barret tells Cloud that he's out for the next Bombing mission, and Cloud is like "that's ok", I liked that it felt 'in character'... and I was also thinking there will have to be some kind of plot twist to change the roster. I really appreciate Shademp's reaction at 'feeling rejected' while the other Avalanche members are having a good time, it truly did feel like "you're not one of us, so, let's go on our separate ways".
- These hoodlums... it's funny, my spouse and I have realized that hoodlums attitudes and manners of speech look the same in whatever place or time you might be. You don't even need to understand the language, it's such a universal feature... I've been to many countries and they're so easily recognizable wherever you are... the Midgar slums are no exception. The way they walked with their legs apart as if to demonstrate that their trousers needed extra space to accommodate for the size of their balls... priceless.

I probably could say more but I guess that's enough for now :mon:
 
Maidenofwar

Maidenofwar

They/Them
Ok I reached Chapter 3. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by all these npcs everywhere especially the similar ones it's like didn't I just see you five seconds ago or something? I don't want to miss out on anything but at the same time there's just so much random dialogue and information to try to retain. I think I might just try running very fast by everybody then circling back if I see anything interested I want to read again and also focus mostly on the ones I can interact with through triangle or the ones that especially stick out like the ??? girl on the train. Also maybe I need more sleep :pinkmonster:
 
jeronimus

jeronimus

Lv. 25 Adventurer
AKA
Mostly Simple
Yeah, the NPC dialogue problem was definitely at its worst (so far) in this chapter. I found the most egregious example when I was on top of the weapons shop and things were relatively quiet, but then as I climbed down the stairs, five different conversations with the watch all started at the same time.

It's not that the conversations are bad, but along with the collectable remixes fading in and out, it really makes those parts too overwhelmingly noisy. I recall a few accidentally silly moments - like hearing rumours from the watch NPCs on the way to the junkyard to deal with those rumours.

The voice acting for some of the children is also terrible, but I know that's to be expected. It just stands out so much because Marlene sounds like an actual kid rather than someone putting on a cute voice. Kinda the whole thing: the good stuff makes the mediocre stuff look worse.
 
Saven

Saven

Pro Adventurer
Finished this Chapter last night finally. Wow, now THIS is what I'm talking about right here. The Sector 7 theme feeling like it's showing a scene of a rundown part of NYC from a movie that came out in the early 20th century, the battle theme playing when nothing is going on in the main story in areas you can fight in, a town to explore and feels alive (and to piggyback off of what others have said, growing up in an area that is rougher compared to others around us, there were a lot of npcs like the Weapons Shop owner that act just like real life douchebags that I know to this day).

Currently near 12 hours into the game and I think I'm close to the end of that one. I'm taking my sweet ass time with this game and this chapter took up most of it so far.
 
Cannon_Fodder

Cannon_Fodder

Pro Adventurer
So, when they said the Remake would be split into parts, and especially when they said part one was just Midgar, chapters like this are exactly what I wanted to see. I like the story beats of the OG, but I love the world and characters so getting more time to spend in them doing silly shit is perfect to me. Others have already spoken about this chapter more eloquently, but here are some of my thoughts:
  • Tifa is perfect. I like that you don't get a flashback to the promise right away, so that it feels way more natural when she says, "I'm trapped" and Cloud's just like, "So leave?" She's fishing there, but if you haven't played the OG I don't think it comes across that way.
  • I also like that she's already showing more character traits than "person worried about Cloud." She's confident in her bar skills, worried about Avalanche, and you get to see her interact with the people of the slums without the lines all being something like, "Tifa's so hot I want to talk to her!" She knows these people and they know her.
  • The scene where she makes drinks is my favourite so far. It's nice to see her and Cloud flirt a bit like functioning adults rather than being silent around each other like in AC.
  • I think it makes a lot more sense now that Tifa never challenges Cloud about his memory discrepancies. In this chapter he really comes across as a soldier who's seen some shit, so of course you wouldn't want to pry--just like we don't pepper veterans with questions about their combat experiences.
  • It seems weird to keep having arguments about "best girl" when Marle exists because I love her.
  • The cat quest was redeemed by Cloud hating it. I'm really enjoying nodding along every time Cloud's a dickhead.
  • Getting kicked out of Avalanche was surprisingly sad.
  • Seeing the slums from an angle was a revelation for me. The old top-down view just made it feel like another town. Seeing the hills of brown shanties stretched out under the plate made this place feel like a slum for the first time.
 
Kratos

Kratos

Pro Adventurer
The more I think back on this chapter, the more I remember how totally packed it was! I do really want to talk about the quests, though.

I dug the quests. They weren't anything mind-blowing gameplay wise, but I appreciated a few things about them:
  1. The context was great. The idea that Cloud is actually kind of an abrasive asshole and should maybe, as a mercenary, consider endearing himself to his potential clients was a nice touch, and it was even better that it came organically from Tifa after seeing him interact with people.

  2. The rewards were more than just immediate and material. Completing all the quests to get a special character-building scene giving a choice that pays off later in the game is brilliant.

  3. They were all varied in what you had to do and fed into each others' objectives in neat ways. Well, almost all. When you go to the place to kill the rats, you need to leave for a bit until the real target will appear (and for me, it was quite a while). In the meantime, you could go explore and chase cats around. You could also hunt down drakes, which seems similar to the rats, except it leads to a rudimentary mini-dungeon that ends up being a balance between the exploratory cat quest and pure combat rat quest. Meanwhile, you can complete Chadley's missions as you go about these as well.

    The big exception to this is the Cerulean Drake quest. You can't get it until you complete the initial Drake quest, so it's very noticeably a backtrack, and the use of crates for the key make it frustratingly reliant on RNG. It took me ages of trawling back and forth through the factory, waiting for boxes to respawn, to find that damn key. This quest sucks.
Anyways, the ending (probably appropriately) felt very awkward. I did actually try to engage everyone in conversation after the celebration started, and it actually felt like I was interrupting something; they'd stop their preset conversation to give me a few platitudes, then actually SAY "now where were we?" to their friends before returning to their scripts. Only a few words, and such a difference than if they had just gone right back, or even ignored me outright. Neat stuff.

(also Chadley is indeed completely out of place. I'm not sure he had to be some weirdo anime android just to give us materia, and it's just so convenient that he's also opposed to his employers)
 
LicoriceAllsorts

LicoriceAllsorts

Donator
My headcanon was always that Tifa, Barret and Marlene lived at 7th Heaven. I'm sad that's no longer the case.

I like Stargazer Heights well enough. Is Marle the Marle from the Turks' sidenovel?

Are we meant to believe that Tifa found Cloud at the railway station, took him back to 7th Heaven, and he went on the reactor 1 bombing mission that same night? If not, then where has he been living in the meantime? I find the thought incredibly jarring because when she found him, he was still sick from mako poisoning.

Chadley is autistic. I think he's also a kind of savant or child genius, the kind who graduates from high school when he's eight and finishes his masters by 11. I hate him, but not because he is autistic. I hate his character design and the way he just appears wherever I happen to be. That's not natural. He clearly wasn't born in the slums and doesn't live there, and basically has no business being there. He's lazy game designing.

I hope he doesn't follow us through all three installments or however many we get, popping up in Junon and Nibelheim and Wutai and in the Northern Crater with Hojo and Rufus. I hope Reno finds out he's a spy and a mole and fries his ass with his baton. I hope Tseng shoots him.
 
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