The Platinum that Broke Me

[surtech5]

(Quick disclaimer: The platinum is not hard, you CAN get this with relative ease. It's just incredibly gridy and very luck-based, but the 5/10 is pretty fair, though the 60 hours is reliant on proper planning through those 60 hours; including advanced knowledge. If you play blind like I did, that just means you need another playthrough or two plus grinding. Point is, your mom can get the plat, so if you really want it, don't worry about what about the title)

 

So I've been a platinum hunter since before platinums existed. Taking on games toughest challenges and exploring all it has to offer was my passion... But this platinum broke me. It's no the hardest or the longest or any kind of extreme. Not to say it isn't annoying as Hell, but it aint nothing special. What broke me was the Hard playthrough where so much hate was put into the game. So many systems put in place for the sole purpose of tormenting trophy hunters. Take the bosses for example:

• All of them have too much health (some to rediculous degrees; Chapter 17)
• All of them have access to at least one (though usually more) 1-hit or touch of death moves
• All of them interrupt combos via unskippable cutscenes for the sole purpose of prolonging the fight
• All of them can and do turn invincible
• All of them are immune to status effects (even if their bestiary entry says otherwise)
• Most call in minions (sometimes multiple times or otherwise have an infinite supply)
• And every other one has little or no story significance, only there to pad out the run time.

 

That way of punishing the player can be seen is almost every aspect of the road to the platinum. At a point, when I was struggling with the final level (which is a giant boss rush filled with one hits, unskippable cutscenes you will see over and over again as you are party wiped after losing the invisible slot machine) and realized I would just have to break down and materia farm... But then I stopped. Because why? The only difference between doing it and not is a number game. It's not like Sekiro where practice and skill combine to get you the victory; just numbers. And I just sort of shut down...

 

After that and thought about all the platinums I've got and what it all means. If you look at my profile I have quite the collection, I even make guides of my own, but what does that accomplish? Is a platinum a test of skill?

You have the story trophies which are given to you for free. You have the story trophies that require you to play hour-long sections, except this time get the Twix from the vending machine instead of the trail mix. You have collectibles that prove only that you know how to use a map. I mean... Grind possibly the most used trophy tag passed story. What does that say about trophies?

 

Okay so platinums aren't about testing your skill, then what are they for?

Well then I thought it was too explore the games to their fullest... Except then you have games like God of War (2018) or Celeste. Fantastic, beautiful games, straddled with platinums that rub your face in the typically unseen faults. Or what about games like Far Cry 4 where you can get the platinum before even finishing the game? What about games with platinums so basic you can't beat the game without achieving them?

 

Then I thought about Rarity but... Well I don't think there is a soul on this earth that will defend the integrity of trophy rarity... Point is. Having this game so maliciously mock me for my hobby finally broke through to me. I think about all the platinums where I slaved away for absolutely nothing, proving only to myself that I had nothing better to do. That I was turning gaming into a job, only without the pay. Why?

 

Never before in my life has a game so impacted the way I view myself and the world around me... Not to say I appreciate it. Like getting hit by your parents makes you think twice about how important being right is, but it doesn't mean you'll be visiting their grave for any reason beyond relieving your bladder.

 

After all that, because of this game, or more, what this game showed me... 50 hours of gameplay and maybe 8 of enjoyment... I'm done with platinums and I'm done with guides... But I'm not done playing. I'm not even done testing myself and exploring everything a game has to offer. I'm taking it back to the early days where I just did it cause I could; cause I wanted to. Crash gave you a dumb 15 second cutscene. Going Commando gave you a dumb swim suit. And everything after that gave you a hollow pat on the back. From now on? When I throw myself at a brick wall for hours on end, I'll be doing it for my own pat on the back... You know I wanted that to sound triumphant but actually that's sad too... Dammit FF7.

 

TL;DR

This game, though I enjoyed myself with the main campaign, has many challenges created for the sole purpose of stretching out the time spent in game rather than actually embracing the more advanced mechanics the game has to offer. On the Hard difficulty, the game removes and heavily taxes many aspects of the combat, funneling you into set patterns and borderline requiring you to play with as little creativity as possible.

Though this game is not the most grindy (not even close), not the most difficult, and certainly not the worst made platinum, the combination of the three problems, at this specific point of my life, finally made me rethink my approach to gaming. Sort of like the straw the broke the camels back.

From now on I will be focusing entirely on the personal enjoyment, and not treating gaming like it's my job... That is the takeaway.

 

Also, your favorite part of FF7? I hated that part! And that part you hated? That's my favorite part!

Edited April 24, 2020 by surtech5
Clearing up confusion

[Quink666]

If find most games far more enjoyable when i just play for fun and not worrying about missable or trophies at all.  Have recently replayed the God of War franchise a RDR 2 with no focus on trophies since i have most of the already. Never enjoyed gaming as much as did when playing without trophies in mind. Will still trophy hunt but only games that i feel like platting.

 

So i feel you. Some games just are booooooring to plat while other are a joy. "Hey collect all these 400 collectibles that does nothing for no reason whatsoever, beat the game blindfolded with the controller upside while drunk". Some games just aren't meant to be played for trophies.

[surtech5]

22 minutes ago, Quink666 said:

If find most games far more enjoyable when i just play for fun and not worrying about missable or trophies at all.  Have recently replayed the God of War franchise a RDR 2 with no focus on trophies since i have most of the already. Never enjoyed gaming as much as did when playing without trophies in mind. Will still trophy hunt but only games that i feel like platting.

 

So i feel you. Some games just are booooooring to plat while other are a joy. "Hey collect all these 400 collectibles that does nothing for no reason whatsoever, beat the game blindfolded with the controller upside while drunk". Some games just aren't meant to be played for trophies.

There's this game I really really like called "everybody's gone to the Rapture" And I can't tell if whoever made the trophy list was being malicious, or fundamentally misunderstood what a trophy was. I think there's over an hour of combined trophies that all require you to walk to a specific destination and then just stand there doing absolutely nothing... also all the collectibles are based on looking at things, with zero indication that you've even collected it.

[willythom88]

13 minutes ago, surtech5 said:

There's this game I really really like called "everybody's gone to the Rapture" And I can't tell if whoever made the trophy list was being malicious, or fundamentally misunderstood what a trophy was. I think there's over an hour of combined trophies that all require you to walk to a specific destination and then just stand there doing absolutely nothing... also all the collectibles are based on looking at things, with zero indication that you've even collected it.

Don't forget don't touch anything but specific radios.....gah that platinum was obnoxious.

[Astray404]

The only thing that I do not like about this game is its battle, so I could feel ya. I would not like to call FF7 remake as an ARPG, since it's still different from KH series and FF15. However, as an RPG game, FF7 remake fails in several way:

1. You cannot understand what's happening in the current battle field: It's not like some old, and even some new RPG game that you could check how many enemies in the battlefield currently, and what they are preparing without opening the command menu. In FF7 remake, enemies could be behind you, and you'll have to use the touch screen menu or the ability/spell command menu, or you will probably not realize that there are still some enemies;
2. Unbalanced hit reaction: It's like a chain reaction to the first problem. Since its basic idea is managing ATB, and ATB comes from spamming button or using  attack, filling the ATB gauge should not be the main problem in the game. Instead, the usage should. However, your characters only have 2 ATB gauges (3 for the special LB) and they are too easy to get their combos or ability/spell interrupted, even for Barret. For example, In chapter 10 or 14 when you are fighting with the Abzu boss, there are also lots of adds besides the boss in the battlefield. When the boss get into phase 2 after the cutscene, every one of those small bastards could break your combos, abilities and spells. I still remember that when I used Aerith to charging spells on those adds, some of them just came from nowhere and hit Aerith from the back, and her spell got interruped. What a joke. You'll never expect this in some old FF games. Besides, some bosses just not have hit reaction, like the final boss (y know what I'm referring to) in the last chapter. I used Cloud's counterattack on him twice consecutively during his phase 2 but he's still acting like nothing happened; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3. Unskippable cutscenes during battle: Those are just... horrible.

Other than the battle system, I think FF7 remake is fine in other aspects. Minigames are not that hard, collectables are always on your way to next chapter (pretty linear, isn't it?). But after plat the remake one, it only makes me want to try the original one since it's more tactical based and it's much less linear. If Square does not fix the battle system in the sequel, I'm going to watch the stream pretty likely.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Astray404

[Dry_Plumbus]

Hard mode truly shows the weaknesses of the battle system and the somewhat unfinished UI system IMO. Swapping materia is a pain in the ASS. Especially when you are bouncing between characters. There is no easy way to for instance, swap all the materia on Tifa, to Barret when she leaves the party. You have to go in and one at a time swap them out.

 

Then there is the fact that unlike alot of RPG's, you can usually grind out enough levels, HP, MP, whatever to finally be able to easily defeat the bosses. They decide instead that the game is going to be like dark souls (a series of games I cannot wait for the popularity to fade for). When insta death and stupid RNG make things either super easy or dumb hard.

 

I mean I feel what you are saying here. The quarantine has made me question alot of my beliefs and hobbies. Specfically how much time i've devoted to them with nothing to show for them. But it's again, a hobby, it's something you should be doing for fun or relaxing or enjoyment. If it's not doing those things for you it's time to make a change. Maybe stop forever, maybe just limit your time on these things, maybe just try playing games for fun and screw getting the plats.

 

I used to be so obsessed with platting every game, but I was also in a toxic relationship for years, and collecting platinum's from games was the ultimate escape. But it felt like a job after awhile. Then I got out of that relationship and cut my game time WAAAAAAY down. Started just playing games for fun and not caring about trophies.

 

Now, I only plat a game if I love love love it, or if I decide that it's a game that is so important to me (FFVII) that even though it's 70% fun to plat and 30% really frustrating that i'm committed because the 70% was so good and i'm going to feel super good about 100% a game that I really enjoyed (story wise, less so trophy wise).

 

Anyway, that's what this old timer has to say about it. Do what makes your life better, stop doing things that don't.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Jables_The_Hutt

[Herbalistiikka]

I am kind of confused here, because you claim that ALL bosses are immune to status effects (they're not). Heck, one of the best ways to deal with Hell House on hard mode is casting Bioga on it and most (all?) humanoid enemies but Sephiroth are subjectible to it as well. On the subject of health, I don't think any boss, even on hard mode, besides Arsenal was tedious to take down. Part of the reason why bosses have a good amount of health (but not really excessive) is because of stagger system. If you don't (and many don't) build stagger and use the damage increase during stagger then you're kind of doing it wrong, or just not using all the tools in your kit to deal with enemies. I've also seen complaints about instant death and all that but... I never experienced it, save for Tonberry of course. Even for strategy 99% of the hard playthrough is doable with fiddling around with elemental + element materias, slapping on at least one +hp materia, +mp materia (unless character doesn't really use magic) and then having your designated healer. So while skill isn't exactly the main factor, if you don't use the tools you're given, you're just going to fall short. Honestly, FFVII Remake isn't as much a numbers game as it is about exploiting weakness and building up that stagger damage with very little actual luck involved.

That said, phase transitions are annoying, I agree. You just kind of need to remember their existence so you don't blow your load just before. The real hate was having to wade through all the slow moving sections numerous times for the dresses and even slowing down the hard playthrough.

 

Honestly, looking at your profile it's kind of weird that this was the one that broke you with Platinums. You have Dynasty Warriors 7 plat for example and man that was just mind numbing grind. Not to mention FFXII! That game was just a damn slog all around and the road to judges was long and... tedious. Yiazmat? Having to cheese his ass several times out of range because I didn't want to bother with him regularly took forever of cat and mouse gameplay. (Also, XII was full of these literal instant death hit mechanics that could just fuck right off, but it was their way of making things more difficult)

 

Do note that I'm not trying to convince you otherwise with plats because I've experienced the same with many tedious and crappy plats like Yakuza games or Dragon Quest Heroes 2. They're just worthless pixel junks that you can go for if you really like the game. I also dropped my interest in them with Kingdom Hearts 3 being my 100th plat and now only go for them if they don't require too much grinding or generally messing around (~20h tops for most games) or if I like them enough (Nioh 2 and Remake were fun for me and even though they took a lot of time, it wasn't a waste because I enjoyed them).

[DemonicDraco]

Incredibly grindy??? Is this the first rpg you ever played? There really isnt much grind, and for a rpg you have to go through twice.. it is a relatively quick plat.

[You]

I forget how many times I post this comment but people who are RPG fans and not much skill in rhythm games and Dark Souls are gonna have a tough time with this Platinum.

Doesn't matter if you beat Emerald or Ruby using pure RPG gameplay in the original (or perhaps you used the cheats on the original FF7 for PS4) but a lot of people are gonna be having a hard time with this.

[surtech5]

3 hours ago, Astray404 said:

The only thing that I do not like about this game is its battle, so I could feel ya. I would not like to call FF7 remake as an ARPG, since it's still different from KH series and FF15. However, as an RPG game, FF7 remake fails in several way:

1. You cannot understand what's happening in the current battle field: It's not like some old, and even some new RPG game that you could check how many enemies in the battlefield currently, and what they are preparing without opening the command menu. In FF7 remake, enemies could be behind you, and you'll have to use the touch screen menu or the ability/spill command menu, or you will probably not realize that there are still some enemies;
2. Unbalanced hit reaction: It's like a chain reaction to the first problem. Since its basic idea is managing ATB, and ATB comes from spamming button or using  attack, filling the ATB gauge should not be the main problem in the game. Instead, the usage should. However, your characters only have 2 ATB gauges (3 for the special LB) and they are too easy to get their combos or ability/spell interrupted, even for Barret. For example, In chapter 10 or 14 when you are fighting with the Abzu boss, there are also lots of adds besides the boss in the battlefield. When the boss get into phase 2 after the cutscene, every one of those small bastards could break your combos, abilities and spells. I still remember that when I used Aerith to charging spells on those adds, some of them just came from nowhere and hit Aerith from the back, and her spell got interruped. What a joke. You'll never expect this in some old FF games. Besides, some bosses just not have hit reaction, like the final boss (y know what I'm referring to) in the last chapter. I used Cloud's counterattack on him twice consecutively during his phase 2 but he's still acting like nothing happened; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3. Unskippable cutscenes during battle: Those are just... horrible.

Other than the battle system, I think FF7 remake is fine in other aspects. Minigames are not that hard, collectables are always on your way to next chapter (pretty linear, isn't it?). But after plat the remake one, it only makes me want to try the original one since it's more tactical based and it's much less linear. If Square does not fix the battle system in the sequel, I'm going to watch the stream pretty likely.

A lot of it seemed tailor-made to look good in screenshots and video clips than actually, you know, play well. Like you say, you can never tell how many people you are fighting until you open the menu. Half the time you have to force the game to put the map back up. The game, despite making a battle system dependant on numerous stats, loves to hide it to ensure it looks 'pretty' at all times. I didn't even know you could use the touch pad to see stats until my second playthrough when I pressed it by accident.

And that stunning was just amazing! But you forgot the best part! When you actually pull off the ability, but the enemy took two steps to the side so now you miss... Fun times

1 hour ago, DemonicDraco said:

Incredibly grindy??? Is this the first rpg you ever played? There really isnt much grind, and for a rpg you have to go through twice.. it is a relatively quick plat.

I guess it feels more grindy because of how little content there is. Most creatures are fought the same way (Square until you can triple slash) and even in the main campaign there is a ton of backtracking and reuse of previous areas.

[Astray404]

2 minutes ago, surtech5 said:

A lot of it seemed tailor-made to look good in screenshots and video clips than actually, you know, play well. Like you say, you can never tell how many people you are fighting until you open the menu. Half the time you have to force the game to put the map back up. The game, despite making a battle system dependant on numerous stats, loves to hide it to ensure it looks 'pretty' at all times. I didn't even know you could use the touch pad to see stats until my second playthrough when I pressed it by accident.

And that stunning was just amazing! But you forgot the best part! When you actually pull off the ability, but the enemy took two steps to the side so now you miss... Fun times

Yeah, I think I might need to add this point lol. Those airborne enemies, dogs, and the always-dodging soldiers are hard to hit.

[surtech5]

3 hours ago, Herbalistiikka said:

I am kind of confused here, because you claim that ALL bosses are immune to status effects (they're not). Heck, one of the best ways to deal with Hell House on hard mode is casting Bioga on it and most (all?) humanoid enemies but Sephiroth are subjectible to it as well. On the subject of health, I don't think any boss, even on hard mode, besides Arsenal was tedious to take down. Part of the reason why bosses have a good amount of health (but not really excessive) is because of stagger system. If you don't (and many don't) build stagger and use the damage increase during stagger then you're kind of doing it wrong, or just not using all the tools in your kit to deal with enemies. I've also seen complaints about instant death and all that but... I never experienced it, save for Tonberry of course. Even for strategy 99% of the hard playthrough is doable with fiddling around with elemental + element materias, slapping on at least one +hp materia, +mp materia (unless character doesn't really use magic) and then having your designated healer. So while skill isn't exactly the main factor, if you don't use the tools you're given, you're just going to fall short. Honestly, FFVII Remake isn't as much a numbers game as it is about exploiting weakness and building up that stagger damage with very little actual luck involved.

That said, phase transitions are annoying, I agree. You just kind of need to remember their existence so you don't blow your load just before. The real hate was having to wade through all the slow moving sections numerous times for the dresses and even slowing down the hard playthrough.

 

Honestly, looking at your profile it's kind of weird that this was the one that broke you with Platinums. You have Dynasty Warriors 7 plat for example and man that was just mind numbing grind. Not to mention FFXII! That game was just a damn slog all around and the road to judges was long and... tedious. Yiazmat? Having to cheese his ass several times out of range because I didn't want to bother with him regularly took forever of cat and mouse gameplay. (Also, XII was full of these literal instant death hit mechanics that could just fuck right off, but it was their way of making things more difficult)

 

Do note that I'm not trying to convince you otherwise with plats because I've experienced the same with many tedious and crappy plats like Yakuza games or Dragon Quest Heroes 2. They're just worthless pixel junks that you can go for if you really like the game. I also dropped my interest in them with Kingdom Hearts 3 being my 100th plat and now only go for them if they don't require too much grinding or generally messing around (~20h tops for most games) or if I like them enough (Nioh 2 and Remake were fun for me and even though they took a lot of time, it wasn't a waste because I enjoyed them).

 

That's my bad. I did not test every status effect on every boss, I only took note that every ability I tried to use always registered as 'no effect'. Even for human bosses like reno or rude, where it says they aren't immune to sleep... but you try... and they are very much awake. That's not a FF7R problem though, that's pretty much every RPG. And yeah stagger was my best friend and worst enemy. I guess I never really got how it worked. I mean I know which abilities increase stagger, and I know how the magic weakness work, and I even know how certain animations can be interrupted to put on pressure... But how much stagger it took, how quickly the bar filled was random af. You would get one enemy like the big old stun crabs in chapter 15 (or maybe it was 16; whatever was climbing the ruins) that take ages to fill up, but then the next enemy will fill in a single combo.

 

Where I say the numbers and luck comes in is exactly what we both described. How much health you have and damage you deal is tied to how much materia you have injected into your poor characters. Don't want to risk the one hits? Just equip a few fully leveled HP materia and how it's a three hit. Want that thing dead before it can one hit you? Put on a few fully upgraded magic materia. Oh you got stunned/they sidestepped your ability one too many times and wasted your mana (that you can't refill) guess you get to retry now!

 

And yeah I have done way worse grinds like Dynasty Warrior 7 (I stopped myself from doping 8... honestly I think you could plat 7 three times over before you got the 8 extreme legends plat) or the Attack on Titan or... Actually just anything Koei Tekmo tbh. I guess it was the mean spirited nature of this grind. Like in Dynasty warriors you do 5 battles over the course of an hour but in FF7R you do 1 battle 5 times in the course of an hour. Either way you're doing the same thing and not learning anything. But one seems... Kinder? Like a hooker that says 'can't wait to see you again' as opposed to 'glad thats over'. Like I get it, you just want the money... but I have feelings!

 

And FFXII? Yeah well I'll have you know I played that game with rose-tinted goggles so thick I could hardly see the controller infront of me! Loved that game... That shitty RNG heavy game that could be a 9/10 easy with just a few tweaks I promise! Fun fact: In my freshman year, I was the president of my school's anime club and I had a printed out picture of Balthier stuck on my lunch box... Yes, I was quite popular.

 

And yeah the Yakuza. I played Kiwami and even worked with another dude to create a guide, but he sold his ps4 before he could finish the plat and I decided to quit before I ended up hating what I otherwise thought was a pretty neat experience.

[You]

The game is dumb by punishing you by disallowing recharge of mp, so the game forces you to equip everycharacter with Chakra and Pray, so far in my hard playthrough I have done the first 8 chapters by having everyone with Pray, Chakra, Hp Up and all the other support materia like First Attack, ATP charges and that one yellow Materia that allows you to have super fast ATB for about 2 minutes each battle you use it.

 

So I just keep everyone spamming Pray and changing each character every 5 seconds so the AI can't ever log on any one character, when everyone is on full health instead of Pray I use Cloud's Triple slash leaving the other characters on full 2ATB for Pray when needed, or I use their ATB to attack when I know the fight is about to end. And just use Dark Souls style rolling and dodging. On that Chapter after the bike stage Chapter 6 I think it is, I just run in circles dodging the two robots waiting for Wedge to stagger them and them jumped in. Took me like 10 minutes just to kill those 2 robots. But it's dumb the game makes you play a certain way. I have nearly died a lot, so I just run around in the corner getting the AI stuck around boxes and obstacles, then I slash into thin air to get my ATB bar to charge up faster and use Pray, then come back into battle when I am 9999hp again. Weirdly summon in this game uses no MP, so basically you just can't use green magic..

 

Lame...

Edited April 24, 2020 by enaysoft

[surtech5]

3 hours ago, Jables_The_Hutt said:

Hard mode truly shows the weaknesses of the battle system and the somewhat unfinished UI system IMO. Swapping materia is a pain in the ASS. Especially when you are bouncing between characters. There is no easy way to for instance, swap all the materia on Tifa, to Barret when she leaves the party. You have to go in and one at a time swap them out.

 

Then there is the fact that unlike alot of RPG's, you can usually grind out enough levels, HP, MP, whatever to finally be able to easily defeat the bosses. They decide instead that the game is going to be like dark souls (a series of games I cannot wait for the popularity to fade for). When insta death and stupid RNG make things either super easy or dumb hard.

 

I mean I feel what you are saying here. The quarantine has made me question alot of my beliefs and hobbies. Specfically how much time i've devoted to them with nothing to show for them. But it's again, a hobby, it's something you should be doing for fun or relaxing or enjoyment. If it's not doing those things for you it's time to make a change. Maybe stop forever, maybe just limit your time on these things, maybe just try playing games for fun and screw getting the plats.

 

I used to be so obsessed with platting every game, but I was also in a toxic relationship for years, and collecting platinum's from games was the ultimate escape. But it felt like a job after awhile. Then I got out of that relationship and cut my game time WAAAAAAY down. Started just playing games for fun and not caring about trophies.

 

Now, I only plat a game if I love love love it, or if I decide that it's a game that is so important to me (FFVII) that even though it's 70% fun to plat and 30% really frustrating that i'm committed because the 70% was so good and i'm going to feel super good about 100% a game that I really enjoyed (story wise, less so trophy wise).

 

Anyway, that's what this old timer has to say about it. Do what makes your life better, stop doing things that don't.

 

God that materia. I love that one section they kick Barret out of your party so you spend a few minutes swapping everything around... JUST FOR HER TO LEAVE AND HIM TO COME BACK BEFORE THE VERY NEXT FIGHT... Why? Why would you do this?

 

And yeah. I got an xbox a few years ago, and really didn't care about achievements so I just played a few games. And man, I loved Human Revolution so much, but man I can easily see how I would have hated it going for all the trophies.

..

5 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

The game is dumb by punishing you by disallowing recharge of mp, so the game forces you to equip everycharacter with Chakra and Pray, so far in my hard playthrough I have done the first 8 chapters by having everyone with Pray, Chakra, Hp Up and all the other support materia like First Attack, ATP charges and that one yellow Materia that allows you to have super fast ATB for about 2 minutes each battle you use it.

 

So I just keep everyone spamming Pray and changing each character every 5 seconds so the AI can't ever log on any one character, when everyone is on full I use Cloud's Triple slash. And just use Dark Souls style rolling and dodging. On that Chapter after the bike stage Chapter 6 I think it is, I just run in circles dodging the two robots waiting for Wedge to stagger them and them jumped in. Took me like 10 minutes just to kill those 2 robots. But it's dumb the game makes you play a certain way. I have nearly died a lot, so I just run around in the corner getting the AI stuck around boxes and obstacles, then I slash into thin air to get my ATB bar to charge up faster and use Pray, then come back into battle when I am 9999hp again.

 

Lame...

 

I wish it either restricted items OR stopped you from getting back MP. Both at once seems like a meme difficulty. And yeah I hated that section right before with the turrets. From full health you just get melted until you get lucky enough to fira the dudes before something knocks you out of your animation.

Even worse I think that's the ONLY level you can get revival materia, which is one of, if not THE most invaluable materia; second maybe only to cure. and it's not even story significant... It's just lying on the ground randomly... You know, materia... This rare, highly coveted material... just... just lying on the ground... I mean story-wise if they just didnt care why not let me buy it?

Edited April 24, 2020 by surtech5

[Astray404]

29 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

The game is dumb by punishing you by disallowing recharge of mp, so the game forces you to equip everycharacter with Chakra and Pray, so far in my hard playthrough I have done the first 8 chapters by having everyone with Pray, Chakra, Hp Up and all the other support materia like First Attack, ATP charges and that one yellow Materia that allows you to have super fast ATB for about 2 minutes each battle you use it.

 

So I just keep everyone spamming Pray and changing each character every 5 seconds so the AI can't ever log on any one character, when everyone is on full I use Cloud's Triple slash. And just use Dark Souls style rolling and dodging. On that Chapter after the bike stage Chapter 6 I think it is, I just run in circles dodging the two robots waiting for Wedge to stagger them and them jumped in. Took me like 10 minutes just to kill those 2 robots. But it's dumb the game makes you play a certain way. I have nearly died a lot, so I just run around in the corner getting the AI stuck around boxes and obstacles, then I slash into thin air to get my ATB bar to charge up faster and use Pray, then come back into battle when I am 9999hp again.

 

Lame...

The problem is not that you cannot refill your MP by any means except smashing RNG boxes (during my hard mode run most of them just gave me Mog metals) and afk in battle, it's more like an aftereffect of a mixture of poor design or arrangement of the bench / side quests, and the OP magic damage on enemies. If Square's devs could delete most useless benches and rearrange quests so that each chapter has one or two of them and make the benches and quest refill your MP, it will be more acceptable for players to deal with the MP refill issue.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Astray404

[Dry_Plumbus]

You refill mp by destroying boxes, little need to afk in battle. If you really struggle save in front of stack of boxes, get mako shard, save and reload etc till you are full again.

 

It's still super annoying but better than your alternative time wise!

Edited April 24, 2020 by Jables_The_Hutt

[surtech5]

59 minutes ago, Astray404 said:

The problem is not that you cannot refill your MP by any means except smashing RNG boxes (during my hard mode run most of them just gave me Mog metals) and afk in battle, it's more like an aftereffect of a mixture of poor design or arrangement of the bench / side quests, and the OP magic damage on enemies. If Square's devs could delete most useless benches and rearrange quests so that each chapter has one or two of them and make the benches and quest refill your MP, it will be more acceptable for players to deal with the MP refill issue.

 

It always killed me how many benches were at the very beginning of a chapter (where their only potential use is taking out the first few sets of enemies then running all the way back to heal and then running back which... please don't tell me that's dev intended) or at the end post boss and right before you get sent to the next chapter will full stats.

 

Of course you do get mp thoughout the level from fighting, some abilities let you take a sip or two, and of course the boxes like you mentioned. But none of those were reliable or ever let you feel confident about a spell. Can't tell you how often I was going into a fight with 2/3 party members at 1 health because I didn't want to risk the 9 mp it would take to cura the party.

 

Isn't hard mode supposed to make you feel powerful? To present you a challenge that you have to overcome trhgouh strength of will and hardened, gamer skill? Cause 90% of my playthough was abusing geometry, running back to benches, tip toeing around enemies, fleeing when possible, and staring at loading screens because I was being stingy with heals.

[OverHypedG]

What would brake me is if they lower the difficulty now that I got it on hard  

 

 

[You]

Hard mode would have been better if they made the enemies and bosses two or three times HARDER than they are now (I am serious)

But made it so you can use Items inside and outside of battle and MP restore at benches. I wan't to go into every single battle even random ones and then immediately have to cast regen and haste just to survive. Need to use my Ether in battle, go all out actually using all the maxed out Materia I have.

Not run around in the corner of the map waiting for 2 ATB to use pray because I need to save my MP for a boss later. 80% of my materia I can't because it uses MP or I need those precious slots in order to equip essential ones like HP Up, 2 HP Up per character, often 2 MP Materia, you also have to equip every character with the armor that has high defence in magic and attack but only has 3 slots. Not many slots to go around to be honest.

 

Crippling your ability to fight and forcing you to not use half of your materia or ANY of your items is a dumb move.

You can tell this mode wasn't properly thought out because EVEN in hard mode you can open chests to pick items and still be able to steal items using the steal materia. Yet you can't use them. Duh!

 

I still think summons suck that they do not require MP to use?! but that 95% of battles in the entire game and a few chapters don't even let you use summons at all.

So far in my 8 chapter Hard playthrough I have been able to use a summon ONCE, and that was in the chapter where Wedge helps you fight two big robots. The requirements to be able summon, especially on hard are absolutely stupid and not even explained properly. Way to go locking out an entire part of the game's features. You'd feel screwed preordering to get a summon and buying the deluxe version to get a further 2, 3 summons in total, to not be able to even use them and then throw them away as soon as you get Ifrit right at the beginning of the game.

Edited April 24, 2020 by enaysoft

[JPageMartin36]

I'm on Ch 9 of my 'normal' playthrough. Enjoying the game but I'm shocked at how hard and draining the boss fights are, or any fight against any big enemy. I beat Hell House last night and that fight must have raged on for 20-25 minutes. Too long.

 

Not sure I'll be trying the hard mode tbh. I'll see how it goes. 

 

[Cryogenicide_X]

You never know, they could end up patching the game to make hard mode a bit easier. 

[Nitemares-----]

I play blind on all new games, no fun in using a guide for your first playthrough to rush it, ruins it in my opinion, don't care if everything takes twice as long. I figure everything out for myself when it comes to strategies, first I did my blind run, second I did another playthrough to grind Materia, Levels, Gil, etc, Id rather play through the story again than repetitive boring grind in the same area. Right now I have all maxed Materia, several of each, almost everything shown in the Play Log, every Colosseum and Simulator done, except for the final Simulator for the Gold Trophy, save that after my Hard run. Playing Hard right now skipping all cutscenes, I got every Manuscript up to Chapter 16, on Chapter 17 right now, it's not hard at all with everything maxed, the right Materia and all upgrades that matter. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Nitemares-----

[Crispy_Oglop]

I honestly think that to get through hard, you have to completely reset and re-learn how to manage the combat mechanics, equipment and materia in the game.

 

If you lean more towards casting magic frequently in combat then Hard Mode will punish you because of the fact that MP doesn't regenerate and you can't use items to help (the only exemption to this is Aertith, who can 'regen' mana by using her Soul Drain ability). I spent the first few chapters on hard being super frustrated because of it, I was also about level 35 and hadn't really been paying attention to my materia.

 

The game does a really poor job in non-hard mode difficulties of letting you get by with pretty much one or two abilities. Most stuff you can just cheese on Normal/Classic/Easy. So when you get to hard and the game suddenly asks alot more of you in terms of combat, materia usage, spells, character set-up's, weapon types etc it's really jarring and can be frustrating.

 

A good example of this for me was the Reno fight in the church. I just couldn't get past him. Until I moved my maxed out elemental materia into an equipment slot and linked it to a maxed out Lightning materia. This flips the fight over to the point where 98% of his attacks are absorbed and can even heal you. Then using the counterstance ability and you bring him down with using no magic whatsoever.

 

In my opinion - Hard Mode is only satisfying or arguably even possible at all with the following conditions:

• All characters at level 50
• As many, if not all weapon skills learned - I found Maximum Fury, Counterstance, Triple Strike, Starshower, True Strike, Ray of Light - to be super useful
• 3x Headband, 3x Star Pendant, 1x Healing Carcanet, 2x Champions Belt, 
• Fully maxed out materia with particular emphasis on - 6x HP Up, 6x MP Up, 6x Magic Up, 2x Elemental, 2x Prayer, 1x Magnify, 3x Poison, 3x Lighting/Wind/Fire/Ice, 2x First Strike, 3x Barrier, 3x Steadfast Block, 3x Revival, 3x Healing
• AP & XP grind is almost a non-issue and it takes nowhere near as long as most FF games out there.
• Being prepared to switch out and move around materia regularly for different situations, even non-boss fights in an area you are moving around in
• Learn which abilities to use when - some abilities are better to fill the stagger bar, while others are better to use when the enemy is staggered
• Learn where benches are, if you finish a battle and heal up, then turn the corner to find a bench, you've needlessly wasted MP.
• Don't underestimate Aerith as a damage dealer. Her attacks often bypass resistances and a few well placed Tempest attacks can deal good damage.
• Learn when to roll, when to block and when to take the hit
• Switch between characters often during battle, don't let a character's ATB bar just sit there full and unused
• Know which summon Materia work best for each character - e.g A Fat Chocobo materia on a character with Champions Belt equipped should remove the need for one HP UP materia on that character, freeing up a slot for something else.

There are probably loads more, but my point is, if you don't embrace at least some of the depth and strategy above then you'll hate it or not be able to do it. It will also mean the difference between you seeing hard mode as badly made and hard mode as a really great in-depth difficulty that rewards you the more you embrace it.

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Crispy_Oglop

[Valkirye22]

11 hours ago, Quink666 said:

If find most games far more enjoyable when i just play for fun and not worrying about missable or trophies at all.  Have recently replayed the God of War franchise a RDR 2 with no focus on trophies since i have most of the already. Never enjoyed gaming as much as did when playing without trophies in mind. Will still trophy hunt but only games that i feel like platting.

 

So i feel you. Some games just are booooooring to plat while other are a joy. "Hey collect all these 400 collectibles that does nothing for no reason whatsoever, beat the game blindfolded with the controller upside while drunk". Some games just aren't meant to be played for trophies.

Let me know if I'm wrong but your two examples sound exactly like suffering that was:

 

400 feathers and other collectibles in AC II

Watch Dogs drinking minigame

 

[AkodoRyu]

I found it fairly easy and unobtrusive, as long as you have decent setup and leveled materia. Probably the toughest boss in the game is Hell House because of annoying immunity phases and hard to figure out and hit stagger mechanics (turning on God shield when my fire spell is already on the way for the 10th time...) or Arsenal for final attack (although at this point you have Gotterdammerung, so that helps) although this one is way more mechanical than it initially seems.

 

No idea where you've seen all those 1-hit attacks. Other than things like Pride and Joy's slam (interruptable), Arsenal laser (interruptable and you can hide) or Mega Flare (telegraphed for literary 5 minutes), I don't recall heavy attacks taking more than 4-6k HP, which shouldn't kill any of your characters that use 2x HP Ups.

 

Of course, it's a numbers game. It's a jRPG, not an action game. You farm for levels to get up to the challenge - it's the staple of the genre. In FFX you spent tens of hours just farming items and using them on the sphere grid to get to high enough stats to beat hard bosses. Here farming from "just finished the game on Nomal" to level 50 and all materias maxed takes like 4-5 hours. It can hardly be called a grind.

 

I honestly can't relate. You finished Payday and Payday 2 where grind is in tens of hours/game and 5 hours of grind where you don't even have to pay attention, so you watch a TV show in the background broke you.