SPOILERS FFVII:R Chapter 6 Spoiler Discussion

[Lex]

Discuss chapter 6 openly here! No spoilers for anything beyond chapter 6 please <3

 

[ExampleZ]

That damn underplate is going to give me nightmares for weeks.

 

[Tetsujin]

The matte painting-like texture of the slums is uh...kind of bad, not gonna lie.

The underplate ended up looking more intimidating than it really is. When it comes down to it, it's still a fairly linear situation with a few out of the way secrets for explorers.
How the hell did a summon materia end up in a giant fan though?

Anyway, nothing exciting happening here.

 

[cold_spirit]

I'm keeping a log of my thoughts after each chapter. Here's Chapter 6!

• Gotta admit, the method used to display the slums beneath the plate is noticeably bad. It's clearly a low resolution image wrapped around the skybox (or groundbox lol) and looks jarring compared to the high fidelity character models
• Even though it was a short chapter, they were able to add some good world building in the form of the sun lamps. I like that Avalanche questions the morality and consequences of removing what is essentially sunlight to the Sector 4 slum residents
• Since this is another story-lite chapter, I'll take this time to talk about the remake's level design: I love it. As if learning from their lessons with both FF13 and FF15, Square has struck a balance between wide-hallways and open-areas with the remake, depending on the chapter. It's never as claustrophobic as FF13 and never as empty as FF15. I like to think of this level design progression as a pendulum. Square pushed for linearity with FF13 to offer a precise experience to all players, then swung all the way over to open-world and freedom of exploration with FF15. Now the pendulum has swung back, but not all the way. Its landed dead center between both extremes and is expertly paced. Some chapters have side quests, some have secrets off the beaten path. There's even a hidden physics puzzle where you control a platform to knock some crates off a storage rack. The variety is great and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out

 

[Teioh]

The pink materia above the movable platform is taunting me... I'll figure it out eventually

Edit: I figured it out

 

[Claymore]

Lol, that Independant Materia took me a while to figure out as well. That came as a really nice surprise. The puzzle elements within this chapter worked really well, and the continuing emphasis on the scale of everything really brings the entire world alive. I loved the additional Lore elements of the sun lamps, forging more indepth reasons as to how people are able to survive, albeit badly, within the slums below the plate.

Got my ass handed to me by two Queen Grastrykes within one of those final areas, but it did give a nice excuse to get Cactuar out once again, lol. I keep forgetting that I have Barrier materia and need to utilize it more within my strategy.

Absolutely loving this game.

 

[Alex Strife]

Surely I'm not the only one who thought it was easy?

 

[Shademp]

- When the platform fell under Cloud's feet, as I was approaching what later turned out to be an Elemental materia, I got so frightened I had to take a few seconds to recover. Love it. So happy though that this isn't a VR game because man that would be way too intense. The visual height scare was palpable even though you know the game won't let you fall.

- Here's hoping they re-release this game on the PS5 and improve the "groundbox" graphics then.

- Kicking away boxes and other objects, watching them fall to the sector 4 slums, was fun. Hope it doesn't land on anybody's head.

- Happy to see that the game still punishes you if you try to brute-force battles. Battles are so few though that I don't always figure out the best strategy before the experience is over. I still don't know how to best approach the flying seahorses when they start spinning about. Yes, I know that long-range is the way to go, but if you don't have any ATB bars then you're standing there mostly helpless, apart from the slight damage that Barret can perform from a distance. I hope that there will be a hard mode to increase incentive for me to learn the best strategies, since currently it is easy enough to survive battles and heal yourself afterwards.

- Felt like the designers could have hidden more treasure chests in obscure places. Also kept waiting for the movable boxes to hide a treasure chest, but they never did. Knocking down the shinra boxes using the catwalk was a wonderful secret though.

- C'mon Biggs, just hug Barret!

 

[Odysseus]

I didn't even realize this was seperate from Chapter 5 until the chapter 7 title card popped up, lol. I love how they took a sequence that went across maybe 3 maps originally and made it this huge area! I always thought it was abrupt that the party got to the reactor so quickly after getting off the train, like it was faster than whatever their original plan was. This made everything make so much more sense. Hug Barret, Biggs!

 

[ForceStealer]

I still don't know how to best approach the flying seahorses when they start spinning about. Yes, I know that long-range is the way to go, but if you don't have any ATB bars then you're standing there mostly helpless, apart from the slight damage that Barret can perform from a distance.

I found Barret's triangle move was pretty effective, and it also usually gives him an ATB charge.

And yeah the maze-iness of the underplate along with optional treasures was greatly enjoyable.

 

[Rydeen]

This maze is driving me up the !@%&^ wall, but apparently it's also like 5am and holy shit I should go to bed.

 

[Mayo Master]

Chapter 6 impressions!

Well, to be fair they're fairly redundant with what other folks have mentioned up to now.
- I really enjoyed the maze like structure of this level. My friend was playing through this and he really didn't want to leave any stray materia behind!
- Again, nice inclusion of a world building element into the gameplay (talking about the Sun lamps)
- For some reason, the "groundbox painting" of the slums didn't look that bad to me. I'm playing at 1080p on a 40" TV, maybe that's why it's not so jarring?
- I know why Biggs didn't want to get hugged by Barret: you imagine getting squished between these arms, with one of them being a huge hunk of metal?
- Overall, this is such an upgrade from how the OG was getting the player through this area. The whole "height scare" made the Sector 4 underplate so much more memorable than how it was in the OG and its black backdrops.

 

[Shademp]

Quality-level of ground graphics aside, I super-appreciate this rare perspective. It allows us to see the walls enclosing the undercities as well as the varying topographies of the land. Been pretty rare over the years for us to see these walls. Looks quite different from the OG version.



Anyone else spot this loading-zone where three huge objects will go in and out of existence?

 

[Rydeen]

Barret to Biggs: “You magnificent son of a bitch!”

The English script and VAs really deliver. It’s so warm and natural. There are so many quotable lines that I can’t iterate them all.

 

[Kratos]

Aside from the expansive new dungeon added with all that wonderful sun lamp worldbuilding, I really appreciated some of the character moments here. The standout for me was Barrett earnestly giving advice that he took wholesale from one of Marlene's favourite storybooks, Tifa knowing exactly which book it was, and him totally owning up to it with sincere pride when she asked. It not only characterizes Barret, it fleshes out his relationship to Tifa as well.

The nuances of the character interactions are just so incredibly endearing, and a lot of that is on the voice actors, who manage to make it all feel pretty natural and organic even when the dialog is a bit cheesy. I have no idea where the accusations of the game being "cringe-worthy" come from.

 

[ForceStealer]

"cringe" and "cringe worthy" have become vastly overused terms of late

 

[Theozilla]

Also there is a certain strain of weeboos that automatically hate any English voice acting (when the original script originates in Japanese).

 

[Fangu]

This was a great dungeon and maze, I absolutely loved it. Found 2/3 materia naturally, Barret warned me about the third, which I got on the second battle (3 more seconds would have won it on the first.) This is the kind of addition I want to see <3

 

[Keveh Kins]

Same boat as Fangu on this one. Great dungeon, great design, great world building with the sun lamps, smog pipes, gashtrike nests and the like.

Shinra being a big corporation and thus being prone to inefficiency is great. The plate maintenance platforms are a shit show, and there's only ever a token gesture at pest extermination.


Also this is the first chapter I really felt the combat coming into its own. Probably cause it's the first chapter with three characters in the party. But man I loved just wailing on monsters with Tifa, staggering them and then switching to Cloud for a big damaging combo finish.

Also super satisfying to stop the Terpsicolts spinning with Barret, then switch to Tifa for a Dive Kick party

 

[Saven]

That was a satisfying final battle to the end of this chapter. It was the first time I was taken off by surprise and nearly died in this game.

 

[Maidenofwar]

Stopping here for a while. I've tried to build Cloud as a tank with what I have so far and I'm glad I did because I was close to winning the fight against the boss at the end of Chapter 5 when Tifa and Barret suddenly double wiped and the game switched me to control of Cloud who had somehow survived. I'm maining Tifa who I'm just trying to be flexible with, Barret is my long range/mage/healer/support and Cloud's my tank currently. Now clocking at just over 14 hours and I am enjoying these dungeon chapters. It won't be long now Aerith.

 

[jeronimus]

Enough has been said about the texture of the skybox; but it's a shame that it's such a focal point of the environment. Other than that, it's actually a very inspired location for a dungeon. I liked the puzzle aspect of getting the optional materia; seeing more optional winding paths like that, which are more than just "run around the corner to see if there's a chest there", would be great to have in the rest of the game. Basically, no complaints about a linear chapter structure if each chapter has a well-designed dungeon with more branching paths and possibilities!

 

[Maidenofwar]

I think I'm about ready to move on again. Thanks to this thread I got the pink materia. I got the elemental and the summon ok but I never even noticed the pink one for some reason, already had an MP up from Katie though heh. I think that's everything? I didn't find any hidden physics puzzle though but unless there's consequences I can probably skip that?

 

[Sasseli]

Wait... there was a third materia? Damn me, deep down I knew Barret wouldn't ask me for nothing if I was sure I wanted to move on.

And this is real valuable battle advise there Keveh! Thanks! Battle strategies are always my weak point.

 

[Tennyo]

I wasn't a super huge fan of this chapter. The layout of the underplayed area drove me nuts. And I apparently missed a materia.

Cloud KO'd during a battle and Tifa straight up chewed me out for it. Said something like, "You need to do better. You just made the whole situation harder for all of us." Her voice was so stern. Like, dang Tifa don't attack me I'm trying my best. T_T

How the hell did a summon materia end up in a giant fan though?

Anyway, nothing exciting happening here.

I totally missed getting this. I couldn't figure out how to break off my path and try to see what Tifa was talking about.

Then when I tried to go back through that way the game wouldn't let me. Oh well.