**FFXV SPOILERS** What We Can Expect In FFVII:R From FFXV

[Claymore]

One prospect I'm super excited by - the banter. Oh man, it made me like characters I had almost zero interest in coming into XV. Meanwhile I love VII's cast merely by knowing how they act in cutscenes. How great will it be to actually get a sense of how Yuffie interacts with Cid? Or Barret and Red? I'm pretty sure that's one part I'm going to adore.

OMG this. XV did a fantastic job on this account (aside from the annoying interruptions and then not picking back up on those conversation threads). It made the characters feel more real and relatable whilst providing a great insight into how they interacted with one another. I can't wait to hear the banter whilst traversing with different characters. It would also encourage playthroughs with all the characters and different combinations, lol.

Like Twilight just mentioned, there are a lot of natural segmented zone area, so I'm not too worried about how the world will be presented.

For me, the real fear right now is just what this battle system will be, and exactly how they are going to handle Materia.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

For me, the real fear right now is just what this battle system will be, and exactly how they are going to handle Materia.

For Materia (like I mentioned earlier) I'd expect to see something much more like Crisis Core than XV, because magic systems between the two games are nothing even remotely alike.




X

 

[Claymore]

For me, the real fear right now is just what this battle system will be, and exactly how they are going to handle Materia.

For Materia (like I mentioned earlier) I'd expect to see something much more like Crisis Core than XV, because magic systems between the two games are nothing even remotely alike.

Hence the fear.

I hope they don't just do something like XV's equipment mapping to the D pad = mapping a Materia to the D pad ... and that's your active technique / spell, with perhaps one slot for a passive effect. I want a full menu and feature somehow. They said it's not straight up active, but we know it's going to be quite action orientated from the teaser footage. I really am concerned how they are going to find that balance and keep the more strategic elements of the game intact within the battle system.

 

[Lex]

The gameplay trailer does show us a traditional menu style though, with a magic and summon menu. They could always change that, but I'll be glad if it's more "traditional" in the sense that we can equip and link materia in the same way we did in VII. I'd love to see the materia system back in a more modern way.

 

[Claymore]

We saw the options highlighted, but didn't they say that it was a placeholder for now? And who knows exactly how deep those menus could actually be in an action-orientated battle system. We just don't know enough of what they are proposing - so I'm fearful.

I want all the options that I could do in VII.

 

[ForceStealer]

I like the way Crisis Core did materia, the biggest problem was that it didn't have linking, or having things on your weapon or armor making a difference, which is a big part of the enjoyment. And the Materia Fusion aspect didn't really make up for it.

You know, in general, I think it's kind of weird that no FF has ever revisited a materia-like system. Materia itself was sort of a combination of Relics and Magicite from VI. Then you had Draw and Junction, and then IX's learning-from-equipment, and four freakin consecutive single-player entries that use a sphere grid in X, XII, XIII, and XV (Even if XIII's was mostly cosmetic). Now, I legitimately liked the sphere grid, but the materia system was hugely popular, it's weird that they've never tried it again.

I agree with X though that I doubt VII's magic will be at all similar to XV's.

 

[Tetsujin]

I just wonder how usable all that will be in practice. Kingdom Hearts has a menu similar to what we saw in the VIIR trailer but I find it pretty impractical and cumbersome to use during battle because you cannot pause and use it.
So essentially I still feel restricted to just using the magic I have put on the quick select menu because to use anything else I have to go through the magic menu while shit happens all around me and manually select the desired spell everytime which doesn't allow for more rapid magic attacks either.

I was really grateful for FFXV allowing you to pause and access the main menu even during battle and letting you swap out everything as needed.

 

[Theozilla]

Back in the days I was working on a home-brewed FF7:Remake (before the crash with reality that it would actually take me 60 years to make it ), I had drawn a concept of transportation lines between the zone of a segmented world map of FF7, following the various "areas" (like Kalm area, Grassland area, Corel area) of the original game. I also thought of handling the Highwind transportation by having the Highwind fly over a global world map, different from the one you travel on foot, and when you decide to take-off or land you have a 1:1 mapping between coordinates on the "ground level map" (depending on the zone you are located) and the global Highwind map ([insert fancy cutscene of take-off/landing to hide loading times]). We'll just have to see what they come up with.

You're description reminds me of clowd's post from last year.

OK, I figured out a way I'd like to see the world map done.

Split it into 'regions'. Each region is highly detailed with seamless towns and battles. Crossing from one region to another requires a loading screen.

Some areas cannot be directly accessed in a region. These places can be considered 'sub' regions. For example, after passing the Midgar Zolom, you'll see a cave entrance. Once entered there is a loading screen and you are transported to the Mythril Mines. At the other end of the Mythril mines is a cave exit that leads you to the region that has Fort Condor and Junon. So while you have these large 'regions' there can be entrances in them to more areas which are not restricted by geographical location or size.

Another example would be the Nibelheim Mountains. They won't have their own region, but that wont stop them from being expansive. Just like the original game, you enter in the Nibelheim region and come out in the Rocket Town region.

Highwind travel can be done by having it fly high in the sky over a map in the same style as the original game. But since you're so high you dont really notice the inferior graphics. If you settle over the chocobo farm and request to land, there will be a loading screen and you'll be dropped off at the exact location in the Chocobo Farm / Midgar region. Of course you can call the highwind to pick you up at anytime, as long as your not in a 'sub' region. This way you can experience the freedom, speed, and control the Highwind from the original game offered.

Though maybe making the Wutai continent into two segmented regions might be better if to make it seem less empty and/or small geographically.

Also perhaps separating the Kalm and the Midgar areas into two, same with Cosmo Canyon and Nibelheim (and Fort Condor and Junon), could increase the sense of intimacy for them.

Another thing I am wondering is how the Remake will handle the in-game inconsistency of how Corel's geography was portrayed in the OG. (the FFwiki summarizes what I mean)

In the scene where Barret and Dyne look down from the mountain trail and see the village in flames, the village is located in a valley, with mountains looming close on all sides. Later in the game, Corel is actually located below Gold Saucer in a vast open desert area, and the mountains have moved to the far horizon. Also, Barret and Dyne are shown to be looking from North Corel to Old Corel, which is roughly one quarter the length of the continent.

 

[Mayo Master]

You're description reminds me of clowd's post from last year.

Now that you mention it, I do remember that post too, and I must have reacted to it. I would think that when a concept is a good, it makes sense that several people could independently think of the same idea.
Personally, way back, I had made

Spoiler: this diagram

where the lines indicate the type of means of transportation one could use to reach a given zone from another (trying to remember because it's old: grey lines are roads, red lines are railways, dark blue lines are ferry lines, green lines are walking paths, light blue must be Tiny Bronco or blue chocobo, yellow must be the Gold Saucer elevator, black lines must be black chocobo).

As for Corel, I did come to a similar observation - personally I wondered if it was due to revisions in the plot that created these kind of inconsistencies, especially noting that the Desert Prison actually looks exactly like a ruined version of how Corel looks like before Scarlet burns it to the ground.

 

[Mayo Master]

Sorry for double-posting, but this time I wanted to rebound on the topic of combat and button mapping. To be honest I think that the D-pad mapping is the best way to go. Thing is, most folks might fear it would limit the player to 4 possible actions, but the Fallout 4 button mapping system has shown a simple and clever way to considerably expand the diversity of your actions (up to 12), including the ability to map the use of items (say, you'd be able to map the use of a Potion/Phoenix Down/etc.). I think 12 actions is plenty to work with, and if you're like to go back to your Equip menu in the midst of combat like in FF XV, then you have very little restriction. Not sure how that recipe can be improved further, really.

 

[Claymore]

I have never played Fallout 4, but I assume it's like using the shoulder buttons in order to extend the D-pad's range?

Well, assuming you can swap characters on the fly - and the trailer did seem to hint at this - then I'd rather that be mapped to the D pad directly. So you could actually take up to 3 other characters into combat aside from Cloud, switching to another as and when to direct their attacks, unleash their Limit Breaks and Materia.

You couldn't have both the Materia options and switching mapped to that in an intuitive way.

Of course, it all goes back to just how much 'action' this new system will be in order to then marry Materia, menu selection, and character switching.

I'm really eager to hear news of what exactly they have come up for the battle system. They really can't limit too much all the various options that active / passive Materia, and all the combinations, can bring to the game.

 

[Mayo Master]

I have never played Fallout 4, but I assume it's like using the shoulder buttons in order to extend the D-pad's range?

No, in Fallout 4 you have D-pad mapping across several levels,

Spoiler: this image explains it better

. I think the Last of Us did something similar. What you described is more in line with what's done in the Dragon Age franchise. The difference doesn't seem much at first glance, but I think the Fallout 4 D-pad mapping is more ergonomic, and it frees the shoulder buttons for other actions (in FFVII: R, could be used for switching between party members, for instance).

 

[Claymore]

Oh ... yeah that screenshot explained it. TLOU did indeed have a similar system. I actually could live with the multiple layers combined with XV's menu / gear switching at any point during battle.

 

[Cthulhu]

Spoiler: shit like this

 

[ForceStealer]

hahahahaha, I lol'd

 

[Blade]

My thoughts:

---Cape Caem had a good example of what to expect the "inside of a house" to look like, though it's less exploring and more of a rest stop (interaction with the room being a post-rest cutscene or two with Noct and the crew playing darts).

---I have my doubts an Airship will ever work in modern FFs again, and not just because of road-only landing points (whose bright idea was it to make it so that you'd have to land the thing manually!?!? I mean even FFVIII's Ragnarok made safe landings automatic). There's other problems too, like distance rendering while flying... I've seen Nifleheim Bases with scrambled innards and copy-pasta grass across inaccessible mountains... even Nintendo's Zelda devs know better than that! The Type F even auto-corrects when you try to explore an open lake above the waterfall.

It's one thing to make the road travel pretty, but it's another to transition to airship flight back down to roadside. Unless they figure out this problem, I don't see it getting fixed or just bypassed/ignored. And then you've got Chocobos... there's parts of the map even THEY can't traverse... and that just doesn't feel right.

 

[Blade]

More grumblings:

---Even the bonus Sealed Dungeons are Copypasta. Cast a Blizzaga spell in the cave and you'll see the worst excuse of a cavern wall you have ever seen. Nintendo quit doing this crap after N64.
---Every Sealed boss room has the exact same Rock on the right side of the room, and the exact same set of bars, sealing YOU inside so you can't backtrack for items and have to Teleport using the Map menu. Very boring, jarring, and annoying.

---Did I mention all the strongest weapons in this game look EXACTLY ALIKE to lesser generic weapons? Only the Armiger and certain specific weapons are unique otherwise.