Why did they have to make it such a slog?

[zeero7uk]

I can't understand people that try to slog their way through a game they are not enjoying, just drop it and move on to something else.

[Nick240894]

Overall I did not find it to be a slog. I agree with what some of the other commenters have said in terms of Chapters 9 to 11. That was the low point for me in terms of pacing because of how quickly new regions were added. Also each of those chapters featured very long dungeons, and the only one I really liked was the Chapter 10 one.

 

I think the pacing from Chapters 2 to 8 was pretty masterful. Alternating open world chapters with linear chapters worked really well.

 

That said, overall I loved the game. The combat and music are fantastic, the towns are great, the atmosphere is awesome, the characters and their relationships are wonderful, the party interactions and mechanics like affection and synergy are great, most of the open world content is fun enough, Queen's Blood and most of the mini-games are very good, and the side quests range from decent to genuinely quite good (miles better than Remake or XVI's quests).

 

Overall I'd say it's a very strong package, easily a 9 out of 10 experience for me.

 

On the negative side I did also have some issues with some of the annoying mini-games (Fort Condor, Gears and Gambits, Glide de Chocobo, Sit-Ups, and Cactuar Crush can go fuck themselves with a broomstick), and some ridiculous combat challenges like the one where you have to kill the Mindflayer first while two other enemies stun you and attempt to commit suicide. But when you have like 30 different minigames and dozens of combat challenges, it's not the end of the world if they don't all work.

 

The story was imperfect as I expected, and the ending was not to my liking.

 

But if I add up all the stuff I didn't enjoy, it's probably less than 15 hours out of what has been a 130-hour playthrough for me. So it's really not a huge deal to me. When 90% of my experience has been amazing, I can forgive the 10% that wasn't.

[den-69]

3 hours ago, ZombiJoel_Tlou3 said:

If it's a slog for you then it's a skill issue

Lol nice bait. How could it be a skill issue when the game is literally designed to waste your time? Nothing I said was about difficulty.

 

  

2 hours ago, zeero7uk said:

I can't understand people that try to slog their way through a game they are not enjoying, just drop it and move on to something else.

Because we paid for it and loved the original so want to give it the benefit of the doubt? I can't give a full opinion on something until I've completed it so if it's a game like this one I will push through if I can.

Edited March 14 by den-69

[Sarsky]

On 3/14/2024 at 8:11 AM, zeero7uk said:

I can't understand people that try to slog their way through a game they are not enjoying, just drop it and move on to something else.

nobody when they buys a game especially with a high reputation will automatically assume its going to be a slog or a grind.

 

I think what happens is.... you buy a game/series you enjoy or looks good, so naturally you will want to do everything/platinum/explore. As you progress more and more the game becomes tedious, harder and obnoxious and less fun for some people.

 

However! since you grinded and put in so much effort and time, you feel like its a waste to quit or take a break, especially if all its going to do is leave a bigger burden later on or you will end up forgetting the story or everything, meaning you will probably have to restart to figure things out or get back into shape.

 

in other words, if you are this far in, why stop? mentality kicks in

 

I honestly hated the abundance of world intels, mini games and slopped in content that contribute nothing to the gameplay/story other then adding more work for a tedious platinum, the game added unecersary filler into each chapter compared to original, where some sections would just be a short 10 mins max and gets to the point in OG are now 2 - 4 hours long like the mythril mines and those grappling hook sections, and the fact that these mini games and world intels arent optional for platinum and for SP points for character leveling, which btw requires near to perfect scores, really takes away from the fun and exploration of character abilities.

 

The game really didn't need all this additional filler/content that adds nothing, that doesn't mean I or others who hate the grind, hates the game. It just means we didn't like the unecersary or additional aspects that add nothing to the game other then "content".

 

yes people can quit which some have or take breaks (i have taken a few breaks when stressed out or fed up with some sections/things), but honestly if you spend a lot of money towards a game you wont get a refund back on and you amde a ton of progress its not worth throwing in the towel.

 

hopefully this explains a little to some people who think this is stupid lol 😅

[DragoonBilly]

I am at the point where I am going to spend maybe an hour or so per day working on the mini-games, so I can complete Johnny's treasure trove, after that I will start Hard Mode. I already beat the game and have all but 9 of the treasures. I just don't get any real joy out of the mini-games.

[ArtMontef]

On 3/14/2024 at 9:11 AM, zeero7uk said:

I can't understand people that try to slog their way through a game they are not enjoying, just drop it and move on to something else.

I bought the game because I liked the first one, I liked the demo and I got it after I saw it had great reviews all around. But 70$ game is alot for me. It's worth so much to me in my currency that I cannot just abandon it, it would feel like I just threw money into the trash. 

 

As for the game itself, I don't mind the open world ubisoft style cleanup, it's kinda mindless cleaning that I like doing. But am I huffing something or did they turned up the dial to over the top acting and anime-isms for characters? (I'm talking as someone who likes anime) How am I supposed to take seriously some characters that strike poses every few words, squeal, make weird noises and in 5 minutes have some "serious" sequence? Idk, maybe with age my tolerance just lowered, but it genuinely destroys the enjoyment from the story for me

[breakXedge]

Just got to Cosmo Canyon and I'm enjoying it so much. Needed a couple tries for the third flying minigame but they seem pretty doable at this point. Really want to finish the story and jump to hard mode.

[madbuk]

On 3/15/2024 at 6:37 PM, ArtMontef said:

I bought the game because I liked the first one, I liked the demo and I got it after I saw it had great reviews all around. But 70$ game is alot for me. It's worth so much to me in my currency that I cannot just abandon it, it would feel like I just threw money into the trash. 

 

As for the game itself, I don't mind the open world ubisoft style cleanup, it's kinda mindless cleaning that I like doing. But am I huffing something or did they turned up the dial to over the top acting and anime-isms for characters? (I'm talking as someone who likes anime) How am I supposed to take seriously some characters that strike poses every few words, squeal, make weird noises and in 5 minutes have some "serious" sequence? Idk, maybe with age my tolerance just lowered, but it genuinely destroys the enjoyment from the story for me

Remake was full of this as well, Rebirth didn't dial it up at all, it just kept the dial in the same spot

[Nick240894]

On 3/15/2024 at 12:31 PM, Sarsky said:

 

However! since you grinded and put in so much effort and time, you feel like its a waste to quit or take a break

 

in other words, if you are this far in, why stop? mentality kicks in

 

This is something known as the sunk cost fallacy. It is a very common but completely irrational response.

 

Just because you have put in effort and time does not mean it is a waste to stop. On the contrary, if you aren't having fun, then it is a waste to keep investing time into something you aren't enjoying. You should stop at that point.

 

It makes no sense to keep completing optional side content if you don't enjoy it. Of course a massive open world RPG will have a lot to do. If it didn't then other people would complain that the game is empty.

 

Most of us here enjoy going for 100% completion in games but that's a choice we make, it's something we choose to do. We can't blame the game developers if we get burned out by spending 200 hours in 2 weeks trying to grind out a platinum.

 

Again, if you don't enjoy it you can simply not do it, or do it more slowly. There is no rush. We have to remember that completionism is a choice and it's rarely going to be intended by the devs that you grind everything out so fast.

Edited March 17 by Nick240894

[RedDevil757]

Because people demand long games. People will turn their nose up if a game isn't 100hour plus. How do you get there? With bloat. With boring checklist stuff to fill the time out.

 

Give me a linear -10 hour game that challenges me anyday.

 

 

On 3/14/2024 at 8:11 AM, zeero7uk said:

I can't understand people that try to slog their way through a game they are not enjoying, just drop it and move on to something else.

Because some people treat gaming as a job. They're here for the platinum, not for fun. You'll also get people that will have spent £$70 and be determined to get their money's worth even if they aren't having fun.

 

 

On 3/15/2024 at 11:31 AM, Sarsky said:

nobody when they buys a game especially with a high reputation will automatically assume its going to be a slog or a grind.

I do. It's one of the reasons I play less and less AAA games and more Indies and AA games. They're just better in every respect apart from graphics

Edited March 17 by RedDevil757
Formatting

[JohnCenaSong-]

21 minutes ago, RedDevil757 said:

Because people demand long games

Whoever came up with the whole $/hr idea for considering whether or not a game is 'worth buying' should be shot.

 

I feel like it cursed the industry and AAA publishers are desperate to prove that their game ticks that box for people by massively bloating their games with filler and forcing games that shouldn't be open worlds to be massive open worlds...

 

When I see articles and negative reception to games (that haven't even come out!) because the length is revealed it always pains me. Some fantastic games out there that sure, aren't long, but I'd be much more willing to pay full AAA price for that than this so-called AAA guff that comes out nowadays.

 

And to think, they're trying to claim AAAA as a thing now...

Edited March 17 by JohnCenaSong-

[RedDevil757]

6 minutes ago, JohnCenaSong- said:

Whoever came up with the whole $/hr idea for considering whether or not a game is 'worth buying' should be shot.

 

I feel like it cursed the industry and AAA publishers are desperate to prove that their game ticks that box for people by massively bloating their games with filler and forcing games that shouldn't be open worlds to be massive open worlds...

 

When I see articles and negative reception to games (that haven't even come out!) because the length is revealed it always pains me. Some fantastic games out there that sure, aren't long, but I'd be much more willing to pay full AAA price for that than this so-called AAA guff that comes out nowadays.

 

And to think, they're trying to claim AAAA as a thing now...

We have a whole generation of gamers with that mind set now unfortunately. Show them something like metal slug and they'll hate it because it's only an hour or so long

[sephiroth4424]

So i did chapter 8 today from start to finish and i didnt find it slog or anything like that. Just like Midgar, the game is massive for today's standards. I'm glad they havent remove much content from the original yet. If you find it longer than it should be and still want to complete its trophies, take breaks and play other games

[Sarsky]

54 minutes ago, Nick240894 said:

This is something known as the sunk cost fallacy. It is a very common but completely irrational response.

 

Just because you have put in effort and time does not mean it is a waste to stop. On the contrary, if you aren't having fun, then it is a waste to keep investing time into something you aren't enjoying. You should stop at that point.

 

It makes no sense to keep completing optional side content if you don't enjoy it. Of course a massive open world RPG will have a lot to do. If it didn't then other people would complain that the game is empty.

 

Most of us here enjoy going for 100% completion in games but that's a choice we make, it's something we choose to do. We can't blame the game developers if we get burned out by spending 200 hours in 2 weeks trying to grind out a platinum.

 

Again, if you don't enjoy it you can simply not do it, or do it more slowly. There is no rush. We have to remember that completionism is a choice and it's rarely going to be intended by the devs that you grind everything out so fast.

i think you missunderstood, its not that people hate the game... its more, people love the game but hate certain aspects of it... i hated a lot of the minigames and found it tedious and a chore that took away from the gameplay or the pacing fo the story and progression, just to complete it. just so i don't miss something or add a massive burden on my plate.

 

i don't like how some sections were bloated to extend gameplay, i dont like the copy paste intel missions that get harder as you progress, i hate the fact it took me 3 to 4 days to beat ruler of the outer world, trying to find a build that works and help me beat it.... all that wasted time on a dumb challenge that shouldn't be that hard or difficult... and whats worse theres 2 other missions that take a literal fucking hour to beat without dying, 0 checkpoints nothing, 2 to 3 hit kills and insta kill spam bullshit of 10 waves cause content, those aspects i don't like!

 

i love this game, i love the detail, effort and soundtrack but i dont like the grind/bloat, maybe you do, but most people don't its like collectibles, bounty/wanted missions where its just go point a to b and randomly forced requirements for completion.

 

and yes it is the devs fault when they force you to do stupid shit for progression or completion, bloat games or add pointless shit, people who want to enjoy the game get put off or bogged down with unecersary content, hence why people quit, slowdown or grind through. when people say they want content they don't want grinds they want actualy interesting content like side quests love those, they were great.

 

but alas i agree its a stupid way of thinking my end but if i put countless hours into shit i don't like in a game i love, it will bug me that i enjoyed the game but never finished it.

[den-69]

3 hours ago, Sarsky said:

i think you missunderstood, its not that people hate the game... its more, people love the game but hate certain aspects of it... 

 

 

There's a surprising amount of people who think if you criticize something then you must hate it and should stop playing it or stop watching or whatever. I said the game had become a 6/10, didn't say it was bad, it just has a LOT of flaws for me. Just because people don't think something's perfect doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to play it. It's essentially trying to silence things you don't want to hear to even suggest people stop playing just because they have criticism for it. FF7 original for me is probably my second favourite game of all time. Remake and Rebirth wouldn't even make it into my top 40/50 games to be honest. I feel sorry for people who are experiencing these remakes and not having played the original. Just too many things to list as to why but I have been writing my thoughts down throughout the entire playthrough whenever things I didn't like happened or things that were done better in the original and let me just say it's a lot of things at this point lol.

 

I will say though, for me it's not the sidequests, the minigames (even tho some are kinda bs) or the world map etc that is the biggest problem, those, as generic as they are are a saving grace for the rest of the game tbh despite them basically just being copy pastes. I don't mind mindlessly doing them so much. My issues begin usually when I go to progress the story and the mandatory padding begins. At first I thought the world map stuff would be all of the padding so the story stuff could be bloat free and the padding would be optional but the further you go the more obvious it becomes that it is not the case. The game up until Chapter 6 was great though. It's just after that when bad game design aspects really start showing up for me. It almost seems to me that they decided that EVERYTHING should be playable for some reason. That's one of the biggest issues. Things that would normally be a 1-2 minute cutscene now are 10 minute-2 hour play sections. Barret's on rail shooting sections spring to mind or Cait Sith Chapter 11 or Chapter 9 the girls coming in to help at the reactor etc etc etc. Sometimes less really is more.

Edited March 18 by den-69

[Nick240894]

3 hours ago, den-69 said:

 

There's a surprising amount of people who think if you criticize something then you must hate it and should stop playing it or stop watching or whatever.

For me it's not that, it's more so that when I see people complaining about totally optional stuff, my first thought is always "well then don't do that stuff". It's one thing to criticize a minigame for being poorly designed, I totally get that, it's another thing to complain about the mere existence of the side content because you somehow feel compelled to complete it all even though you don't actually want to. That's the part that is strange / illogical to me.

 

In your case though I understand you are more so criticizing the padding in the main story. I get that. It's also one of my biggest complaints. Side content "bloat" is something I don't mind too much because it's like I'm choosing to put the story on pause to go do something else that I enjoy, and the minute I don't enjoy it anymore then I switch back to the main story. But if the main story itself feels bloated or poorly paced then that's a real issue because it hurts the flow and the experience of the storytelling.

 

I do think Rebirth suffers from this, particularly in Chapters 11 and 13. Those dungeons are unnecessarily long imo. I thought the peak of the game was chapters 4 through 8, although some of the chapter 7 and 8 stuff may have been a bit padded as well.

 

Nevertheless, I'm currently 150+ hours into my platinum journey, and I think the parts I haven't enjoyed probably account for less than 15 hours of play time, so I can't complain too much. Overall it's been a very positive experience for me.

[breakXedge]

19 hours ago, sephiroth4424 said:

So i did chapter 8 today from start to finish and i didnt find it slog or anything like that. Just like Midgar, the game is massive for today's standards. I'm glad they havent remove much content from the original yet. If you find it longer than it should be and still want to complete its trophies, take breaks and play other games

Can't agree more. Sometimes we forget that nowadays games, films, tv shows... are not made for us! They're made for a whole new generation, and some things like the combat can't be turn based nowadays (and I'm glad they didn't cut the game just to fit those standards). It's like the new The Crow movie or The Joker with Jared Leto. It's made for other kids, not us.

 

Anyway, Im having a blast with Rebirth.

[Rin_TohsakaUBW]

On 3/9/2024 at 10:21 AM, den-69 said:

 

No, I also was enjoying the game in Chapter 4. I'd say Chapter 7 things really started to go downhill for me. I would have rated the game an 8 probably when I was on Chapter 4 but now on Chapter 8 I'd probably give it a 6. Just play the game more lol.. You might agree with me. The first 15-20 hours were enjoyable I thought but now I'm struggling.

 Yeah I completely disagree with this.  A 6 is too low as this game is like a 9-9.5/10. I've never felt bored once at all with this game and the amount of side content is great. Also, the Gold Saucer is one of the highlights of Rebirth so you giving a 6 is an absolute joke. This game is much better than Remake in several ways.

Edited March 18 by Rin_TohsakaUBW

[ZenaxPure]

Before ever coming into this thread I just assumed people were talking about the open world stuff, not the linear sections.

 

I beat the story last night finally and I loved all the chapters myself, even chapter 11. It's when I was out doing the checklist style open world stuff where the game felt like a slog. I hate how this style of open world game is so popular. Create activity and then copy/paste it across the map(s) 20 or so times is just so boring. Only "activity" I really enjoyed were the combat challenges, though normal mode (or well dynamic for me) feels a lot easier in this game compared to the first game so most of those were basically just walk in destroy the enemy walk out. I think all the new synergy stuff made the player characters really strong but they didn't buff enemies enough to compensate.

 

Hoping hard mode (whenever I get to it, too many games coming out so it's going on the backburner) is good fun, it was the best part of the original remake.

[Multi_Tasking]

Finished up the main section of the game last night.

 

I do agree with a lot of the comments, both good and bad. I never felt any area was bad, just that there were too many damn collectibles scattered about. They could have removed the lifesprings and combat challenges from the maps and I don't think they would have lost anything. 

 

Too many coliseum fights + chadley + beast arena + shinra mansion arena. So many were repetitive.. If I have to face king zu + dragon/jabberwock/marlboro one more time I'm going to stab myself. 

 

So far my biggest gripe has been the Odin fight - Too inconsistent, and him hitting your party members shouldn't add to his One-shot meter. You can do the fight great, then he just runs on over to the other members, hits them twice and one shots the entire group.  I ended up doin the normal fight with solo Yuffie. Made it so much easier. 

 

The minigames did drone on a bit too much, g-bike drives terribly, like you're in mud and can't move left-right at all. 

Dolphin timer is damn tight. Messed up at the first 10 seconds - RETRY.

Frog jump is awful due to the camera being too tight. 

TOO MANY CHOCOBO RACES. I did them a few at a time and god.. it just kept going. 

 

All I've got left is 1 or 2 more survival card games + ALL the brutal/legendary chadley stuff, then hard mode and it's over...

Edited March 18 by Multi_Tasking

[Baker]

After 150 hours of playing what annoys me the most is the constant need to swap materia around. 
 

‘This is a nice build’ ‘Wait, it’s totally useless in the upcoming fight’ ‘I need to fight with different characters’

 

Just give us 7 of each materia. That would make it much more enjoyable.

[GibiusMaximus]

On 3/14/2024 at 1:11 AM, zeero7uk said:

I can't understand people that try to slog their way through a game they are not enjoying, just drop it and move on to something else.

I mean, when you factor in the cost of games these days a lot of people don’t wanna give up on a game they spent $70 on you know?

 

Thats not to say the complaints aren’t without merit, I’ve got a few complaints about Rebirth. I enjoyed the story, but some of the dungeons dragged on, I enjoyed most of the combat though the simulator being 10 rounds long is very much the definition of a slog, and a lot of the minigames were not particularly fun due to clunky control schemes, which when you’re repeating content specifically to get the right score for an item whether optional or not will definitely feel like a slog tbh. 
 

Overall, while I’ve committed myself to getting the Platinum on the back of sunk play time, I won’t lie and say I had buckets of fun playing this game. I enjoyed a lot of it, but a lot of it has been very tedious and frustrating all the same. 

7 hours ago, Baker said:

After 150 hours of playing what annoys me the most is the constant need to swap materia around. 
 

‘This is a nice build’ ‘Wait, it’s totally useless in the upcoming fight’ ‘I need to fight with different characters’

 

Just give us 7 of each materia. That would make it much more enjoyable.

Yes! Character loadouts would’ve been fantastic as well. We can already have specific party member configurations, so allowing us to have say 3 materia configs per character would’ve been dope. 
 

I said in another thread, I think I spent more time in the materia menu changing my materia for fighting Rufus than I did actually fighting Rufus lmao. 

[VER7UZ-]

10 hours ago, Baker said:

After 150 hours of playing what annoys me the most is the constant need to swap materia around. 
 

‘This is a nice build’ ‘Wait, it’s totally useless in the upcoming fight’ ‘I need to fight with different characters’

 

Just give us 7 of each materia. That would make it much more enjoyable.

THIS. Trying to get through brutal 5 and used optinoobs guides which are great, but cant deal with that stupi gigaworm and now watching differnt videos for using another bild or make a mix with optinoobs one. Getting tired of this watching all these videos. The problem ist most of them are 20 to 40 minutes long. Crazy. I will plat this game, but man these Challanges really destroed the positive vibe I had with this game. 

Edited March 22 by VER7UZ-

[NathanW18]

10 hours ago, Baker said:

After 150 hours of playing what annoys me the most is the constant need to swap materia around. 
 

‘This is a nice build’ ‘Wait, it’s totally useless in the upcoming fight’ ‘I need to fight with different characters’

 

Just give us 7 of each materia. That would make it much more enjoyable.

Can't agree more. I also really dislike that you can't make any changes to your builds within the VR battle menus. You have to back out of it. Change your builds around and re-enter.

 

It's annoying that you have to go to specific vendors to change (even look at) your folios as well.

[Someonew]

The battles in this game, despite the difficult spike in Brutal challenges, are the least troublesome part, the huge amount of minigames is the problem, while I'm not against having minigames, the problem here is a lot of them are RNG dependant, or are bugged in some way, the crunch minigame has issues with the trigger buttons, the Queen's blood card game is pure RNG, especially the survival modes, the piano minigame sometimes doesn't answer to the controller stick, it's like falling in an RNG hell.

 

For those wondering, the game is a drag midway, it gets so repetitive from chapter 8 onwards that it becomes boring, searching the same things, over and over again, the only variation here is the artifacts.