The Platinum that Broke Me

[Herbalistiikka]

7 hours ago, surtech5 said:

 

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.

Yeah, sleep is pretty much whatever to begin with. Never touched it. Poison was the only real useful status element here (pretty much just like in original).

 

Honestly, during my hard playthrough I didn't need arise against anything but some of the arena bosses. I never really had trouble with anything and the only time I wiped was during chapter 9 sidequest where enemies put cloud in such a lock I couldn't do anything and against the helitroopers as cloud only in chapter 12 (seriously, that was just terrible to deal with as cloud). magnify regen was pretty much most of the healing I needed to overcome most fights and chapters ended up with me having close to full mp each and every time. So the health / mp boosts are kind of mandatory but only at least one for the most part along with steadfast block on all used party members. Manawall was almost never useful either because it was both overkill and cost waaay too much mp for its duration. So survivability does change with materia but damage really doesn't. It's kind of funny. Had they just removed that no MP regen thing Hard Mode would be so much more bearable for doing it faster though.

 

Over time KT (Or Omega Force more like) has learned to make them ridiculously grindy though. Well, except for DQH2. Sure there's still some parts of 100% but at least it's not (for example) collect all weapons raise all bonds to 100% in Warriors Orochi 4 but rather just completing all objectives on any difficulty (most done on your first playthrough) and then clearing all stages on Chaos which can be done on your own leisure if you like it. That grinding of compatability or whatever in 3 where you had to clear a map 3 times on a character and just mind numbingly clear out the first map for a day... ugh... I also quit doing DW8 because that would just take forever and the rock paper scissors in it? Terrible.

 

And Kiwami isn't even the worst of it. Not even close, hah. In 5 it takes you like 10 hours just eating food off the menu and you had to eat a worm to drop your hp because you couldn't eat at full hp in that game and in general 5 is filled with so much filler content that's just grindy and not fun one bit. Yeah, some nutcases say the side content is amazing but I will never figure out why because most of it is just thrown out as grindy stuff with no thought behind it.

[Nitemares-----]

I just beat Chapter 18 on Hard Mode for the Trophy. I totally agree with people on here, you have to conserve magic and blocking is your friend, equipped with Steadfast Block, it makes it way easier. The hardest Chapter for me was 17, because of 4 bosses and you really have to conserve MP, at least you can get some MP back from breaking boxes.

 

I actually thought the Hell House wasn't that bad, to get all Manuscripts like I did, you have to beat it twice on Hard. I didn't realize the Tonberrys were weak at first, they kept killing me, just take them out instantly to make this fight a breeze.

[TSouL_22]

I feel the opposite of OP.  The Hard Mode in this game is what sold me with full enjoyment.  Fighting each boss dozens of times with self-inflicted limitations (to up the challenge and find minimal MP methods) was really fun for me.  I even made some boss videos/guides that uses no healing or MP at all. 

[JoaLoft]

*This* platinum trophy broke you? I don't get that. I feel you're nagging just for the sake of complaining: pretty sure they didn't put those trophies in there just to "torment trophy hunters", and by an extent, to torment you specifically. Anyone who believes that - and yes, I'm looking at anyone, even on PSN Profiles - should probably seek a therapist, because you have your priorities all wrong.

 

You should go into a game first and foremost to enjoy it for what it is: to experience the game itself. Trophies should always come second, that's what I think. That all being said: Final Fantasy VII Remake is a damn good game, and if you're into RPG's, you will get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

 

And in terms of trophies, it's not that bad even. Come back and talk to me once you got the Fallout 76 platinum trophy or the Risen 2 platinum trophy. Those are a lot worse than this one, partially because those games are subpar and a chore to play.

 

Might come off as rude, but I just can not take you seriously if you truly believe devs are out to destroy trophy hunters. That is utterly ridiculous.

[TerminusCross]

2 hours ago, JoaLoft said:

*This* platinum trophy broke you? I don't get that. I feel you're nagging just for the sake of complaining: pretty sure they didn't put those trophies in there just to "torment trophy hunters", and by an extent, to torment you specifically. Anyone who believes that - and yes, I'm looking at anyone, even on PSN Profiles - should probably seek a therapist, because you have your priorities all wrong.

 

You should go into a game first and foremost to enjoy it for what it is: to experience the game itself. Trophies should always come second, that's what I think. That all being said: Final Fantasy VII Remake is a damn good game, and if you're into RPG's, you will get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

 

And in terms of trophies, it's not that bad even. Come back and talk to me once you got the Fallout 76 platinum trophy or the Risen 2 platinum trophy. Those are a lot worse than this one, partially because those games are subpar and a chore to play.

 

Might come off as rude, but I just can not take you seriously if you truly believe devs are out to destroy trophy hunters. That is utterly ridiculous.

I liked Risen 2 (and 3) but yeah when you're cleaning up trophies it gets a little monotonous. Both games have the same type of trophies, pretty much. A bunch of separate files are needed, those damn zombies and panhers in 2 that you can barely avoid when they jump you...ugh.

 

I'm not done FF7R on normal yet, but I've been reading a lot on hard mode lately and I'm dreading it lol, that and the pull-up trophy. But so far I'm having fun with it and the boss fights are great. Eligor confused me a bit though...at one point you need to cast wind on him when he's in the air, but then he casts reflect and Cloud says you have to take care of the barrier first. Unless I missed something, there is no dispel materia in this game? Got him anyway.

 

My bigger problem with the game so far is, I'm on chapter 14 and there really isn't a lot of materia...I haven't found any real cool combinations to use since there's not much, doesn't help that your weapons and armor never really have that many slots. So I invest in as many "needs more materia" skills as possible. The Reno and Rude fight is where things are just starting to get interesting with materia play. That fight only dragged on for me because I really wanted to steal both their bracers.

 

To be fair, it was like that in the original game though. Materia/equipment didn't really get interesting until a little after leaving Midgar.

[undefinedmike]

21 hours ago, surtech5 said:

(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.

Hey man, totally get you, this sort of things happen. I felt that way after platinuming red dead redemption 2. Burned me out for months, but I eventually came back and I believe you'll bounce back too. I don't necessary chase the platinum to test my skills, but simply because I just want this for myself. Similarly to having life goals I've got game goals and I just want to play and platinum what I love. I had a few moments in FF7 remake where I contemplated the meaning of life, but I've looked forward to this game for too long not to finish it and I enjoyed it entirely. It's all about perspective and i'm probably super biased though because the series is my top game of all time, but everybody is different. I've had worse experiences with other games, but maybe I just love this game so much that I've become oblivious. In the end we are gamers and we play what we like so keep on doing what you do.

55 minutes ago, TerminusCross said:

I liked Risen 2 (and 3) but yeah when you're cleaning up trophies it gets a little monotonous. Both games have the same type of trophies, pretty much. A bunch of separate files are needed, those damn zombies and panhers in 2 that you can barely avoid when they jump you...ugh.

 

I'm not done FF7R on normal yet, but I've been reading a lot on hard mode lately and I'm dreading it lol, that and the pull-up trophy. But so far I'm having fun with it and the boss fights are great. Eligor confused me a bit though...at one point you need to cast wind on him when he's in the air, but then he casts reflect and Cloud says you have to take care of the barrier first. Unless I missed something, there is no dispel materia in this game? Got him anyway.

 

My bigger problem with the game so far is, I'm on chapter 14 and there really isn't a lot of materia...I haven't found any real cool combinations to use since there's not much, doesn't help that your weapons and armor never really have that many slots. So I invest in as many "needs more materia" skills as possible. The Reno and Rude fight is where things are just starting to get interesting with materia play. That fight only dragged on for me because I really wanted to steal both their bracers.

 

To be fair, it was like that in the original game though. Materia/equipment didn't really get interesting until a little after leaving Midgar.

Materia set ups are going to be relatively uniform for everybody considering the limited space and materia at your disposal. Just the HP plus, mp plus, cure and elemental are already half of what you can hold. ? it's all good though. People are using everything differently than how I would so there just enough where people can branch out. Also the materia you're looking for that dispels barrier uses the term "breach," I rarely used it back in the original and I barely use it now. Haha

Edited April 24, 2020 by undefinedmike

[GoDBoss173]

10 hours ago, Herbalistiikka said:

Yeah, sleep is pretty much whatever to begin with. Never touched it. Poison was the only real useful status element here (pretty much just like in original).

 

Honestly, during my hard playthrough I didn't need arise against anything but some of the arena bosses. I never really had trouble with anything and the only time I wiped was during chapter 9 sidequest where enemies put cloud in such a lock I couldn't do anything and against the helitroopers as cloud only in chapter 12 (seriously, that was just terrible to deal with as cloud). magnify regen was pretty much most of the healing I needed to overcome most fights and chapters ended up with me having close to full mp each and every time. So the health / mp boosts are kind of mandatory but only at least one for the most part along with steadfast block on all used party members. Manawall was almost never useful either because it was both overkill and cost waaay too much mp for its duration. So survivability does change with materia but damage really doesn't. It's kind of funny. Had they just removed that no MP regen thing Hard Mode would be so much more bearable for doing it faster though.

 

Over time KT (Or Omega Force more like) has learned to make them ridiculously grindy though. Well, except for DQH2. Sure there's still some parts of 100% but at least it's not (for example) collect all weapons raise all bonds to 100% in Warriors Orochi 4 but rather just completing all objectives on any difficulty (most done on your first playthrough) and then clearing all stages on Chaos which can be done on your own leisure if you like it. That grinding of compatability or whatever in 3 where you had to clear a map 3 times on a character and just mind numbingly clear out the first map for a day... ugh... I also quit doing DW8 because that would just take forever and the rock paper scissors in it? Terrible.

 

And Kiwami isn't even the worst of it. Not even close, hah. In 5 it takes you like 10 hours just eating food off the menu and you had to eat a worm to drop your hp because you couldn't eat at full hp in that game and in general 5 is filled with so much filler content that's just grindy and not fun one bit. Yeah, some nutcases say the side content is amazing but I will never figure out why because most of it is just thrown out as grindy stuff with no thought behind it.

 

 Well most of it is good if you arent playing for trophies that is. The platinum basically forces you to get 100% in everything which can be more tedious and frustrating than fun. Beating the pool ki on highest difficulty is definitely not enjoyable. Hunting, dancing, battle arena etc is enjoyable for a while but not for 10 hours+. Completing the battle arena four times isnt fun,it is just an unnecessary and long grind.It is a good example how trophies can ruin a game, at least to some extent.

 

I had a similar experience with red dead 2,  I love the SP but some platinum requirements are ridiculously tedious and just a waste of time. Then we have the 50 hours MP which was a boring slog from start to finish. I truly regret those  80-90 hours doing tedious shit even though I loved the first 100 hours. I wouldnt go for the platinum again.

Edited April 24, 2020 by GoDBoss173

[jacks]

This list doesn’t seem so bad, but I did share a status update a couple of weeks ago which kind of has a similar tone on my developing stance towards monotonous busy work that pads out trophy lists, and just the amount of overall just needless effort to accomplish simple tasks that just raises the question that I stop to occasionally ask myself in brief moment of self awareness — “why am I doing this?” It was actually Detroit: Become Human that had me thinking about it, especially after having so much fun completing the base game list in Control, and I thought the game itself was fine, but the trophy list was 60% filler and kind of annoying even though it’s, also, not really in anyway challenging, and way less difficult with a fraction of the effort of this list which seems to have gotten you.

 

I think this game is kind of designed to be played through multiple times, so the list doesn’t seem all too bad for what they are going for. I think the initial playthrough, from a gameplay perspective seems like the worst part of the game. I’m doing a normal playthrough completely blind right now, and while I can say I’m on my way to completing chapter 13 and haven’t even come close to a party wipe, but some of the bigger battles, even bigger boss encounters, I’ve been caught with my with my pants down by not expecting it and not having the proper set up to be able to stagger them efficiently, so I spend the better part of a half an hour chipping away at their health. It’s kind of annoying when you get a materia or skill that would have made an earlier encounter way easier, and it in a way reaffirms my belief they designed the game to be played through multiple times, even at the expense of the enjoyment of the initial plathrough in favor of NG+ where you know whats coming and how to effectively prepare.

 

But anyway, back to the topic trophies - I wouldn’t let one list get to you. Truthfully, there’s metric ass ton of trophy lists filled with padding and just annoyances that you really know you are only doing for the digital clip art that shows up on your profile after completing it. That’s not to take away from those that do enjoy the challenge of completing those checklists, but speaking personally, it’s not really what I look for when I come home from work and turn on my PS4 and Xbox, and it’s why the only Yakuza I have platinumed since getting burned out after grinding out 3 is Yakuza 6, because it wasn’t as irritating. Play for fun, you don’t have  a 100% profile to worry about, so just do what I’m probably going to do, and finish what you can in the game and maybe keep this on the back burner as a rainy day platinum for you to come back to.... or never touch it again.

[surtech5]

14 hours ago, enaysoft said:

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.

 

Exactly. Hard should force you to use all the systems to their fullest extent... But this just forces you to scum and cheese everything yo ucan since they REMOVED half of the combat system. Look, I beat the game. I have tons of MP and materia, let me experiment... but no... What am I even supposed to do with my gil?

 

There was this RPG, and I forget what it was. But it reduced everything. Like your health and damage output was on par with your enemies BUT you started each and every fight withy full HP and MP and everything. Each fight was fair and about how you played and not how you played up until that point of the dungeon.

 

There is also this game called Immortal Redneck that has some pretty fun 'hard' mechanics. Like forcing you to use specific weapons, killing you (and everything else) in a single hit, or otherwise dramtically changing the rules of the game as you play. This forces you to learn weapons you might normally not use, discover new tacitcs you never realised were there, and really learn what the arenas and enemies reposnded for when the chips are down.

 

Hard she reward understanding of the game, not force you to play the developers puppet.

14 hours ago, JPageMartin36 said:

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. 

 

 

Chapter 9 is my favorite chapter of the game (though I think it should be split into 2 or 3 chapters OR have the more outlandish sections made optional (like side quests). Just throws away the melo drama and fully embraces the ridiculous nature of the setting. That house though is a nightmare on Hard. On Hard you have extremely limited MP, so enjoy going through the entire chapter (robot arm tunnel and all) without using magic so you can actually beat the thing.

12 hours ago, Crispy_Oglop said:

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.

 

 

Thats... Thats my point though.

Hard was made not about embracing the combat mechanics and allowing the players to master the system in their own ways. Instead, it was made to force the players to grind materia and play in very specific ways to avoid in-game mechanics. Like man, I never really bothered with half the systems avalible in games like Sekiro or Batman Arkham, but when push comes to shove you find new ways of tackling challenges. In this, I can't tell you what most items or materia do because they don't fit into the slots passed the ones I need and my MP is too valuable to waste experimenting.

Edited April 24, 2020 by surtech5
Thought of something else to respond to

[surtech5]

11 hours ago, AkodoRyu said:

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.

 

Yes... One hit and touch of deaths where you will die unless you use multiple HP ups... that was the whole argument. That it's not about exploring the advanced combat mechanics, but in limiting your options. Don't experiment with materia, use the hp up so you don't die.

 

And Yeah Arsenal was a pain for how tanky he was, but... I have no clue what Gotterdammerung is. Please don't tell me there was a dev weapon hidden in the game... Okay just looked it up and it's a reward for the final set of VR missions which I was saving until after beating the main game... Alrighty then.

 

Payday can't be platted without a team of people and is a game built on replayability. The multiplayer and LEft for Dead approach to replayability lends itself perfectly to the hours you spend. This is a game where you fight the same enemies in the same way in the same arena (or force yourself to sit through all the unskippable and semi-skippable dialogue to go through chapters). Even then, I'm not saying this is the worst grind. It's not; in the name of koei tecmo I swear it is not. It just happened to be the one that broke through my shield and focred me to look at my life through a new lens.

6 hours ago, JoaLoft said:

*This* platinum trophy broke you? I don't get that. I feel you're nagging just for the sake of complaining: pretty sure they didn't put those trophies in there just to "torment trophy hunters", and by an extent, to torment you specifically. Anyone who believes that - and yes, I'm looking at anyone, even on PSN Profiles - should probably seek a therapist, because you have your priorities all wrong.

 

You should go into a game first and foremost to enjoy it for what it is: to experience the game itself. Trophies should always come second, that's what I think. That all being said: Final Fantasy VII Remake is a damn good game, and if you're into RPG's, you will get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

 

And in terms of trophies, it's not that bad even. Come back and talk to me once you got the Fallout 76 platinum trophy or the Risen 2 platinum trophy. Those are a lot worse than this one, partially because those games are subpar and a chore to play.

 

Might come off as rude, but I just can not take you seriously if you truly believe devs are out to destroy trophy hunters. That is utterly ridiculous.

 

Me: "This game has some ridiculous trophies and development ideologies, and through, I realized the foolishness of my quest for platinums. From now on, I will play games for personal enjoyment alone, and arbitrary goals set my misguided or sadistic developers be damned."
You: "Um? what do you mean this is the worst and hardest game ever? Lol, just play games not for trophies, but to have fun and come back once you've specifically played these games NOT to have fun and only for trophies."

 

D-did you read the post?

Did you read what you wrote?

[surtech5]

I've added a little TL;DR at the bottom to help better clear up my purpose for making this post.

[You]

Surtech5, how many chapters have you done so far on Hard, or have you totally given up?

[surtech5]

28 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

Surtech5, how many chapters have you done so far on Hard, or have you totally given up?

1-17. I got through 19 up to the dragon guy... after getting team wiped twice I looked up strategies and thats when I found out about how you're supposed to have Multiple HP and MP up materia and also this secret accessory called the goobermeuinstrikafloober (I have no Idea)... I had no idea you could stack materia so I had just had the one and I DID NOT feel like grinding out the materia to stop the one hits from happening.

 

Like I had one single Hp up that I traded between characters, same with the MP and Magic up. The only materia I had more than one of was cure (which I had 3 of), and revival (which I had  two of).

Edited April 25, 2020 by surtech5
Clarification

[You]

I just defeated that annoying ghost in the train stage, I struggled a bit with Hell house until I realised i needed to kill Tonberry asap. Still all I have on all my characters is HP Up, MP Up, Magic Up, First Strike, ATB up, and every character equipped with Pray and Chakra and so far I've managed to get all this way without using any magic. Oh, I had Bioga and Revive equipped on hell house. AT this point relying only on non MP attacks it honestly feels like I am playing One Piece Pirate Warriors.

 

I have no idea what " goobermeuinstrikafloober " is. lol

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by enaysoft

[S-A-U-S-I]

5 hours ago, surtech5 said:

1-17. I got through 19 up to the dragon guy... after getting team wiped twice I looked up strategies and thats when I found out about how you're supposed to have Multiple HP and MP up materia and also this secret accessory called the goobermeuinstrikafloober (I have no Idea)... I had no idea you could stack materia so I had just had the one and I DID NOT feel like grinding out the materia to stop the one hits from happening.

 

Like I had one single Hp up that I traded between characters, same with the MP and Magic up. The only materia I had more than one of was cure (which I had 3 of), and revival (which I had  two of).

Wow. If what you are saying is true, then you have been playing hard with a hand tied behind your back. I understand playing blind your first playthrough to enjoy the game, but you should probably have looked up some guides or strategies beforehand.

 

I was going to post some strategies to help you out and whatnot(mainly beat Joy and Pride and get the Gotterdamerung), but it seems thats not the intent of your post. I would say that a lot of us platinum hunters have felt that way some time or other, but eventually come back to it. In my case I end up falling in a logic argument like this: I will only play games I will enjoy > Since I enjoy the game I want to beat all the side content > Since I will play all sidequests I might as well earn the platinum > Since I will earn the platinum, let's first check if it is doable; and thus only buy games to get the platinum. When I fell burnout from playing something unfun or too grindy, I detox myself with a crappy easy game, like a Ratalaika game or some indie, but I have found that I am unable to completely get myself out of the hunting, I guess it's a personality trait to want to collect all achievements when playing a game.

[AndresLionheart]

Hmm... Hard mode seems like the opposite of what I like in a hard mode in RPGs. When I finish a game that let's me carry over my stuff to the next playthrough I like going through utilizing all my tools.

For example, I played all of the Tales of games. In these you always start with simple 3 basic attack combos into a skill. Later into the game you unlock more skills to chain together but your TP (the MP in Tales) is too low to do long combos frequently, so you have to conserve it. Later into the game, when you get a bigger TP pool and abilities to regenerate TP in combat more efficiently the posibilities of doing crazy shit increases exponentially. When starting a NG+ you get to keep all of that and can go crazy from the very beginning, setting the difficulty up so that enemies have way higher stats, but since you have all your tools unlocked, dealing with the crazy damage is the name of the game.

Starting over only to be forced to use FEWER tools seems like it defeats the whole purpose of going through again... It makes it more annoying (and boring) than difficult. I feel like they should only disable the use of items during combat...

[xh117]

20 hours ago, surtech5 said:

1-17. I got through 19 up to the dragon guy... after getting team wiped twice I looked up strategies and thats when I found out about how you're supposed to have Multiple HP and MP up materia and also this secret accessory called the goobermeuinstrikafloober (I have no Idea)... I had no idea you could stack materia so I had just had the one and I DID NOT feel like grinding out the materia to stop the one hits from happening.

 

Like I had one single Hp up that I traded between characters, same with the MP and Magic up. The only materia I had more than one of was cure (which I had 3 of), and revival (which I had  two of).

It's not that hard to grind AP, it's suprisingly really easy if you just run through the garage in chapter 16 on easy. Feels like a walk in the park compared to other grindy games...I mean they even let you carry over your stats and equipment and give chapter select, that's pretty generous and seems like they didn't want to torment trophy hunters.

[You]

Yeah I agree grinding is not difficult, I am doing it right this second while not even touching my PS4. When you complete and play it hard you get more triple AP for all enemies right?

Well if you load up Chapter 14 you start being able to go most places in the game to buy materia from the shops and you also have access to both battle arenas,

I've loaded up my characters with materia and just leave Cloud, Tifa and Barret playing the 3 player area second from bottom.

The game just plays itself and you also have a double AP materia as well to help upgrade one materia at x6 AP growth?

Aside from using Raise to insta kill the ghost on stage 1 and sometimes pressing L1 and square on a character to use triple slash to speed things up a bit, I am just enjoying watching youtube while grinding. This is like, the easiest grind I ever had on a RPG game.

 

surtech5 you have no excuse for not persisting with this game! Let's battle hard and try to get this platinum together!

[Montyzu]

I have completed everything except chapter 18 on hard and I didnt experienced half of the things that you guys are saying. I completed normal mode at level 38 and went straight to hard mode and never got stuck anywhere, didnt grind at all not even to fight Pride and Joy. Got 3 gameovers so far, 1 to Airbuster, 1 to Rufus and 1 to Bahamut. Ran out of MP twice, 1 during Chapter 8 sidequests and 1 during Rufus boss fight. And I didnt plan anything, didnt look for guides or strategies and didnt farm the crates for MP crystals.

 

The thing is, you cant run hard mode like you would run normal mode, not even if you are level 50 with max materias and all the manuscripts. Enemies will punish you expecially if you just sit on your ass and let them do wathever. You need to know what to expected, what enemies you will be fighting and change materias accordingly. You only really need 3 HP Up (doesnt need to be max level), 3 max level Cure and 3 Revives (you can buy them after Ch9 I think), thats all , everything else is optional and depends on the enemies you are facing, I also only run 2 elemental magics at a time because you will never face enemies that are so varied in order to have all elements at once.

 

Also change your weapons!!!! Weapons are super important, they all have different uses, some reduces MP costs for heals or magic attacks or both, some gives thousands of HP and will make sure you survive. After getting wiped by Megaflare I just changed Barret's weapon and he survive with 200 hp and revived the others saving the battle.

 

I have never seen instadeath spells except for Tomberry, are you sure you are not being killed because of low HP? Enemies can very easily deal 3000-4000 damage combos, even trash enemies.

 

I agree about being interrupted during cast. Its really punishing and can doom you or put you into a death spiral. You lose ATB, MP and take damage all at once. Also enemies cant be interrupted as easily, at one point I had Cloud with Fire-Elemental on his weapon while in Punisher Mode going crazy at one of those Soldiers3C and the guy just walked out of my combo, literally walked.

 

Anyways, if you need help with some fights feel free to ask me. The game is hard only if you dont prepare for the battles and grind is not required whatsoever.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Montyzu

[ZenaxPure]

Honestly I think the battle system is really great in this game simply because threads like this prove how much room for skill there is with it. I played completely blind, only game over'd 1 time on hard mode. Nothing is cheap and there is 100% no "luck" required when it comes to the game like OP claims. Those bullet points are almost all completely wrong:

• No boss has too much HP if you're actually playing the game correctly. I mean simply looking for each bosses weakness (and I don't mean their elemental weakness) and taking advantage of it. Stagger is a big part of that but enemies in FF7R are designed in a way where it's more about learning when you should stagger them unlike FF13 where your sole focus was to stagger as much as possible. Also making sure you are micro-managing each party member. On boss fights you should never been in control of 1 single party member for more than a few seconds at a time unless you are trying to do something very specific such as bait enemies into Cloud's counter-stance or take on a long range enemy. There is a reason this game has tons of attacks with lengthy animations, they are there so you can swap to other NPCs during that time and build up their ATB. Also don't just blow ATB as soon as you can, ATB is multiplicative in the sense that having multiple characters use their ATB in tandem is significantly more effective than only having 1 character use ATB commands at a time. The pressure system really exemplifies this, if you pressure an enemy with 1 character but your other party members have no ATB ready to take advantage of that you've completely wasted your time, ATB, MP, and possibly the chance to stagger an enemy at all. It's punishing for sure, but in a good way as it rewards strategic play.
• Not a single boss has access to an actual 1 hit kill move (though the final boss has something close but it's heavily telegraphed.) You need to just properly use all your skills. The game gives you 2 elemental materias which means 2 party members can always be immune to certain magic elements (useful on tons of bosses.) Barrier/manaward are massive damage reductions (dunno the exact percent but I think it's like 50%.) Every character can easily have close to 9999 HP, and any chapter with Barret is a complete cake walk because of all of those things combined with steel skin + life saver. That last one can't be stressed enough, Barret in my opinion is legitimately overpowered, stacking normal buffs combined with steel skin and life saver is completely ridiculous. It's very easy for Barret to reach 9999 HP as well, use Big Bertha and a couple HP ups (or 1 completely maxed + Big Bertha will put him close to HP cap.) All you have to do is keep him topped up and you can almost mindlessly mash your way through encounters even on hard. Also, the game has a built in aggro system where enemies tend to favor whatever character you're controlling. No idea if it was meant to be a mechanic for you to manipulate but you can easily use it to your advantage in soooooo many ways, it feels like unintentional cheating some times. Oh and it's such a basic part of the game I almost forgot to mention it, but simple guarding massively lowers damage you take, combined with barrier some attacks do next to nothing even on hard mode. If you get one shot from something that isn't a Tonberry, you're doing something wrong.
• The only time bosses cancel your actions (outside of hitstun) is on phase transitions or with crowd control attacks. On hard mode you should know where all of these are and plan around them. I do think this aspect (phase transitions) of the game is annoying but it's really not a big deal. But specifically on hard mode it's not something you should complain about because the whole point of hard mode is that you've done the fights and know when everything happens and you can play around it.
• The only bosses that can turn invincible do it either because of phase transitions (already talked about this) or because it's a specific battle mechanic you're supposed to deal with such as Hell House. This is literally just a thing that you're supposed to learn and play around. Like on Hell House you use that time to build up ATB and then when the shield drops you nuke him and go for a stagger. Complaining about this one seems especially weird because it sounds like you want the combat dumbed down with less strategy.
• Someone already mentioned debuffs but this is just 100% wrong. Not every boss is immune to every status debuff regardless of what the bestiary says. Almost every non-mech boss can be poisoned, most can be slowed (though I never felt slow was that great.) Kinda like FF13 poison is pretty strong in this game, just completely free damage that requires 1 ATB bar and it lasts a ridiculously long time.
• Very few of the bosses call in adds to fight you and the ones that do are balanced in a way where they have lots of down time. The bosses with minions tend to be the most simplistic ones.
• Bosses as padding argument is just confusing honestly, RPGs have lots of boss fights and people would have complained if the game did not have very many. In fact that was one of the biggest complaints of FF15, one people still like to bring up today. You can tell they took it to heart in FF7R because they spent a lot of time making these bosses very mechanically dense, entirely focused on you learning each phase and figuring out the best way to approach it. Hell House is personally my favorite boss in the game and it's a great example of that, the first time I fought it (on normal) the fight was like 10 minutes and I was doing horribly, probably could have won but I was just embarrassed by how bad I was playing and quit to the title screen. Went back, changed around my equipment/materia setups and went back in and completely and utterly destroyed him. I didn't even need to use a heal other than regen. It was so freaking satisfying to do. If anything the boss fights are the absolute best part of FF7R, normal enemy fights on the other hand wildly vary in quality. Too many that die to a simple Braver or -a level spell and require no strategy. The best normal enemies are the more mini-boss styled ones where pressure/stagger is worth using or when you can break body parts (like sweepers.)

When I see people say the game is cheap it just sounds like they aren't bothering to learn how the battle system works on a completely basic level. I mean really, just go watch some youtube videos of people doing speed clears or something. You'll see that absolutely none of these complaints are really close to the truth. Honestly it makes me really happy as it's been quite a long while since I played a JRPG that actually had a combat system that was this reliant on skill and strategy. It's such a neglected aspect of so many games in this genre over the past decade.

 

Oh and lastly, Gotterdammerung exists. It's not game breaking but it gives you a massive handicap on every fight in the game, especially boss fights, and you can get it before even doing hard mode if you really want.

Edited April 26, 2020 by ZenaxPure

[Bawzton]

This guy having a hard time with the game makes me feel good. I'm terrible at games on a hard difficulty and only really had trouble with Hell House because I didn't bother with the mechanics on normal and had to learn it on hard.

[xDevilizer]

Suck it up and take the game the way it was designed. No free passes, oh well, to bad, it ain’t Talltale title. Cry me a fkg river...

[aZombieDictator]

The worst part of the game is definitely the linear slow paced dungeons with the dumb "puzzles". Having to do the most tedious chapter THREE times for a trophy is just ridiculous. Wall Market should have been the beginning of a new chapter. 

 

Also the amount of times my limit breaks were wasted because the phase transitions was too damn high.

 

I would have went for Platinum myself if it weren't for the boring, linear, long dungeons and slow walk segments. Really wish they had a skip option for those after you beat the game.

 

You can skip the motorcycle segments, why not bits of the dungeons and small segments like that Tifa climbing? 

 

Jirard adresses it a bit at the end here.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by aZombieDictator

[xxdmcgee2288xx]

Edit: deleted my original post entirely..

 

I feel your pain TC.. take a break from it and come back to it if you feel like it.. otherwise, don’t bother with it.. and this is coming from someone who idolizes the original. The original is my game of all time. 

After 8 grueling hours, after taking a sick day and annoying my wife and son.. after all the bs.. I got it.. and I did it easy, too.. I took like, about an hour break.. and when I went back to it, only had one death against round 4 fight with Bahamut.. 

 

my team consisted of Aerith, Barret and cloud.. Barret is an absolute essential member of the team because if you imbue his weapon with lightning he is a tremendous help vs Leviathan in the air and against the final pride and joy mech.. 

 

you can do it bro.. it just takes a lot of patience. And to be honest, I had my moments of doubt and extreme heart ache with this one, too..

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by xxdmcgee2288xx
I was raging, not thinking clearly

[TripleKing333]

1 hour ago, xxdmcgee2288xx said:

When I first looked at this, I thought: “what a cry baby.” I read almost every response in this thread and I hate to say this about my game of all time (the ORIGINAL) but I have to somewhat agree with TC. The game forces you to beat the pride and joy mech.. now, he’s not that bad but when you put 4 rounds before him with summon after summon, throw it in an obligatory hard mode.. and you get where I’m at for the last, oh say, around 6-7 hours.. I literally cannot do this.. it’s taken everything outta me.. literally made me sick.., like literally sick.. I called outta work last night because I just feel depleted.. that and everything else going on in my life is enough to make me stop playing games altogether.. seriously.. they just had to ruin the fun.. they had to throw in some bs gimmick that acts as a wall from you to the platinum.. I made it all the way to the end, too.. barely beat Bahamut by the skin of my teeth with Barrett the last man standing and me popping off his LB in the nick of time.. yeah that was a good feeling.. but then here comes round 5 against an “easy,” as every guide puts it, Shinra mech- the pride and joy.. I had half MP and HP with every char.. add to this the fact that you have to use MP (thundaga) every time he grabs one of your characters (or they die and you’re left trying to raise them and struggle healing them and getting back up to pace).. gotta admit.. this game is trash for doing this.. and it’s such complete and utter bs that you have to do this for plat.. it’s garbage.. yeah, this is coming from a guy who’s spent 75 hours on the remake and hundreds of hours on the original.. a guy who bragged to his friends and was the first to beat ruby weapon and emerald weapon.. a guy who loves challenges that are skill based and fair and not based off of luck and faulty timing.. seriously.. this game makes me sick.. or I should say, this encounter makes me sick.. got pride and joy to around 40% HP and then all members of my party died.. and now I’ve been at it another two hours since then and for what? Is this fun? Is this ANYONE’S idea of a good time? I truly feel sorry for you if this is the case.. I dunno man.. I think I might be giving up, too.. I just can’t do it anymore.. I can’t keep pretending and fooling myself that I’m having a good time.. fuck this game and I mean this.. I will not recommend this POS to anyone and I won’t be purchasing any subsequent parts of this is how they wanna ruin the best game of all time, with some stupid ass petty challenge that requires you to try and try and try and try until there’s nothing left.. I wish I didn’t feel this way.. I wish this game were different.. but until they patch this bs, I stand by every word I’m writing into this post.. I’m not gonna continue to drive myself into madness over a petty pos videogame that I honestly shouldn’t have bought in the first place if I knew it was gonna bring me this much misery and insanity 

 

Wow,  Ok.  I get that you didn't like the game but don't punish us all with that paragraph.

 

P.S.

 

I'm sorry, but the platinum isn't owed to you because you really liked the original game, and this one isn't that difficult.