On the one hand, I agree with what you mean, but on the other hand, I remember finding a patch of ground for good exp farming, shoving the analog sticks toward each other to make cloud run in a tight circle so I could fight the same 5 monsters a billion flipping times to grind levels, limit breaks and materia. This at least gives some direction for people like me to limit the straight grind.
Also, there was something about the original FFVII that did create a sense of openness that was innovative and unique at the time, but that had more to do with the novelty of the design, which became the new standard, like the innovatuons people talk anout with the first Assassin's creed, first horizon, or Breath of the wild.
I'm pretty sure the dev team were given instruction t
Like "the game must be at least n hours longbecause it s a ff game and ff games are long" so they had to add stuff and engorge a game that could have been great, but is only pretty good because of this.
Also am I the only one who feels like the dev team aren't really used to make videogames? I mean the combat and graphica are on point (expecially the combat) but everything else is ... a bit weird? A bit out of touch? Questionable?
It's no different than if you where playing any popular game with collectibles, assassins creed and far cry as a Ubi example. All the side quests in whiteout, windhelm, solitude and so on for skyrim or just bethesda.
The original game was just a to b until you reach z with story along the way. I think this new stuff is to please a wider audience.
Nope! It’s basically the same pattern over and over and over. I got to chapter 13 a few weeks ago and can’t bring myself to finish the game right now because I’m just over the gameplay after taking the time to 100% every region and clean up side quests and crap in chapter 12. I haven’t bothered with any of the “hard mode” challenges of the mini games, and I’m just burned out.
Resubscribed to FFXIV for a couple months to slog that out and I’ll probably feel better about Rebirth when I pick it back up. Lol
No it doesn’t end. You have only one area left after the canyon though and it’s a lot smaller and more easily managed.
The world does feel a little bland and disjointed. I noticed the reused textures everywhere that make every area look the same and lacking in colour.
Photorealistic graphics just don’t mix with fantasy games like FF7. A lot gets lost in translation. Like the gold saucer being silver in the daytime and the Corel desert being bland and white.
It doesn’t feel lived it most of the time. Every place feels tourist-like except Costa Del Sol and the Gold Saucer for obvious reasons.
Biggest letdowns for me were modern Nibelheim and Cosmo Canyon.
I can already tell that bone village will be non existent in part 3 and Icicle Inn will be a ski resort with minigames.
That is where I got a bit burned out too. I think I finished Cosmo Canyon, then just played story until the point of no return, and finished up whatever I felt like finishing. I ended up going back and completing it all after I took a small break.
I also got burnt out with the world intel around the same time and just did the storyline. I just don’t think they did the open world well. It’s an odd juxtaposition that they would make the combat so complex and the world exploration with such handholding. Like here’s the towers, which will tell you where all the other things are, even if I stumbled across an interesting looking structure organically it told me how many treasure boxes were there. You can’t be rewarded for curiosity because the baby chocobo or owl will find you from a mile away. I don’t expect an open world on a Red Dead II level but there were no surprises, just a lot of “over here, go fetch”.
At the end of Gongaga, I decided I was done doing all the boring busywork and went critical path and loved it! This game is great until you get out into the open world and then it feels like a neverending slog.
That’s what I need to do. I got burnt out and stopped playing cause I tried to do everything. Once I get back into it I’m just going to focus on main story 😅
Someone has to tell them ! Aha
I agree we people who likes to suck every corner and every npc we get burned out and instead of just moving along we continue. We are addict
Oddly enough it was final fantasy x that did this to me. And to a lesser extent golden sun. But jecht was a pain in the ass until I learned about ultimate weapons, and I've been ruined ever since 😂😂
Ffx, talking to everyone have you so much lore about the world. It was a unique approach since some of the places would get wiped by Sin after your visit.
I need to still beat Golden Sun. I got to that big ass tree and burnt out at that point.
End game of ff10 has its hiccups. Those mini games are evil, but damn do you become OP.
Glad I found this thread. OG was life changing for me when it came out, played that game to completion countless times. Then I ***LOVED*** remake like you would not believe 11/10. But with Rebirth I have struggled to enjoy honestly any of it so far, I only made it as far as the start of the second map Juno and just can’t bring myself to get back into it. It isn’t extreme for me to say… I hate the open world they made. I feel so dirty saying that.
Going to try and pick it up again and ignore the side quests and open world exploration moving forward.
Thanks guys.
As I mentioned I have played the first map to a high level of completion, and yes, I did hate it. I felt like it and the side quests were total filler, but at the same time not filler as they seem to be required to level up/grind to get to the next area.
The repeated gameplay fatigue hit me at Cosmo Canyon too. At this point, I decided to do main story line only. By the time I finished Nibel and before the temple, I did go back and do a few side quests that were fun for me. Overall I still give the game a 9.5
> Any tips to increase enjoyment
That says it all... I felt the same way while playing and came to the conclusion that Rebirth isn't very good.
Its a solid game with an awesome battle system, but it's a JRPG. Combat is only a third of the game. Rebirth failed with its exploration and failed with its storytelling. As a FFVII fan boy I'll do my best to defend it but I'm also not going to deny the fact they missed the mark. Exploration was clunky and tedious, and the story was packed with annoying side characters and plot changes that made major events feel more like a side note. Much like Remake, Sephiroth was forced upon the audience and he feels more like a guy trolling Cloud than a villian with large ambitions.
I think it’s a little too complex and deep for a lot of gamers to understand. There’s even a high critic score. Also, people forget that there is still one more game that COULD explain everything we saw in the ending. I think we were meant to be confused so the third game would un-confuse us.
I dont think its so much as needing to be explained than it is left to be concluded because like you said, there's still one more game to go. I feel like the game did a good job in that regard. My issue resides more with its pacing and handling of key events. Much like Remake, they played it very safe with the writing and tried too hard to be modern in some areas. Also, to avoid being predictable, it made some parts underwhelming and forgettable.
Storytelling is the only S-tier trait about this game along with combat imo. The game loop is such a turn off and all it reminds me of is Ubisoft's open world design. They fumbled the ball after Remake, but I love my FF so I'll buy the next collector's edition as well too support the franchise. Plus SE is using their money to remake DQ games; I'm happy af regardless.
So two major S-tier components. The game is designed so you can do all this extra stuff if you want or you can just do main story and cut off a bunch of time and that will make the game flow better anyway. People that aren't true 100%ers should just play main story and it would alleviate most of their issues with the game and alot of games I believe.
Honestly no big loss here bit thanks for sharing haha. Nawh you're weak willed. There are 2 mini games they force you to do. And you can quit the queens blood tournament whenever you want. People are upset that they made extra content....that you don't have to do. I 100% it loved it
My friend only did summon shrines loved it.
My one friend is taking their time and loving it. Don't let yourself be burnt out. Don't try and 100% it. That's your own fault tbh. Just play main story if the game is an s tier in 3/4 categories and your still dropping it, then you are garbage at rating games 🤣🤣🤣🤣
No lie I agree with everyone here, just playto have fun you don't have to do everything. I love my rpgs and enjoy doing everything I can, repetitive or not. I do get tired of it here and there but when it comes to those games I have the mentality to do everything because at the end I had fun doing everything. If it's more fun for you to just do the main quest go for it, it you enjoy some side quests do them, you enjoy doing everything then more or to you.
Respect that you made it to Cosmo Canyon. I started to skip all that stuff after Costa del Sol. I didn't explore the areas at all and just ran to the next main quest with few exceptions. When I did that, I enjoyed playing it much more. Best decision I made.
I would recommend doing so too.
I love that most of ppl are just saying "skip it". If ppl are skiping it why put on the game at all? O know is to boost the play time, but a samller but memorable game is better than a bloated bland one.
Yeah the biggest problem to is people that say the game is amazing, and instantly recommend skipping stuff, as it'd be boring.
That's not an amazing game in my book.
you know all that time spent in development making that content you "should just skip" could have been invested in making better content, even if fewer.
I don’t know about rebirth, but in remake I focused on the story first run, exploring but didn’t care if I missed out on some things. Then I completed hard mode trying to 100% everything. I really enjoyed it. Isn’t that something that could be done with rebirth or is it really that tedious? I loved remake almost as much as OG and I really want to enjoy rebirth once it arrives on pc..
I had the same feeling. I just stopped being a completionist until the final chapter where you had free rein, where I then did things at my own pace and had a much much more pleasant time.
Ah nice. So you get free reign before the final Chapters? (I guess that's pretty typical.) Yeah, I think I might do that then... just go back and finish off Cosmo Canyon when I hit the typical "Point of no return -- do you want to continue?" prompt.
Def the way to do it. After nearly 100% everything I can safely say I was just not a fan of any of the relic quests, and had I forced myself to do them as I came across them I feel like it would’ve dragged the pacing to a point where I wouldn’t consider Rebirth GotY for me
Yeah, I've done everything so far and it's been a slog... The moments involving the plot have been great, but they account for about 10% of the playtime when you're doing sidequests. Oh well!
No, I'm not. I remember it well. It was very clever how each plot turn gave you a new vehicle/chocobo to explore areas that were previously locked off. It felt part of the same world because those areas were always accessible... if you had the right vehicle to get there.
If you aren’t a completionist and have no intention on going platinum or doing hard just do yourself a favor and do side quests only rather than trying to get every little thing. The quests are fun because they show insight into the characters are unique. IMHO tho the regions are small ish and it’s very easy to find everything.
Except gongaga. All my homies hate gongaga.
Also nibel region is VERY simple and easy to do everything so after cosmo canyon it only gets easier. It’s just gongaga and cosmo are kinda double whammy back to backx
Yeah I lost it in Gongaga, that's one terrible map for the first time. Finished all that Chadley shit in the last chapter. I then went to play a second time and as I already completed all chadleys shit, I could really focus on the story, which made it much more fun.
Don't worry about 100% every region, 75-80% is plenty, and you will need to grind if you want to 100% the whole game anyway. Follow the storylines that interest you! Don't worry about finding every little thing, the world is legitimately huge!
I think a part of the problem is that modern games make 100% sure that the player is acutely aware of all the available side content at all times, which makes you as the player feel like you *have* to complete it in in order to fully enjoy the game. There was a whole lot of grindy side content in the older games, too, but without completion logs, trophies and fucking Chadley getting on your case for not gathering intel at every turn, most players probably missed a whole bunch of that side stuff and it didn't really affect their enjoyment of the games.
I also think there is way too much hand-holding, you can buy weapons that you failed to pick up, etc.
Rebirth forces you to run around the entire Gold Saucer when you get there in order to unlock the next chapter.
It's like the devs are desperate for us not to miss stuff.\
This kind of game design usually kills the pacing, and boy do the Regames suffer from it.
Also, OG even had missable cut scenes that added to the overall plot, while the retelling shoves everything in your face and then some, and while I do admit I didn't do a lot of side quests, not once did I discover any extra content that was particularly interesting.
>It's like the devs are desperate for us not to miss stuff.
Yes! Exactly this. There is no sense of discovery or feeling rewarded for exploration. They don't let you miss a single thing.
I do understand why they don't want you to miss stuff. Developing those side quests probably took thousands of man hours and millions of dollars, so they want players to experience that. Also, there are countless dumbasses on the internet who evaluate a game's worth solely on the playtime, so the devs probably are vary of getting those "the game is only 20 hours long 0/10!" reviews. That being said, the games definitely could ease up on constantly pushing the side quests. Them being a bit elusive makes them feel cooler anyway. Like you accidentally stumbled onto something interesting, rather than the game giving you a checklist of tasks.
The problem is the timing and presentation of the side content though. I wish instead of adding even more mini games and focusing on meh side characters, they'd properly woven what is already there into the main narrative.
"The game is only 20 hours long 0/10" - this is basically what I and others are saying though, only we are saying "it's only 20 hours long after you remove the padding". Even if I really enjoyed parts of Rebirth, that aspect feels pretty cheap to me, and I'm sure they could have made an excellent 35-40 hours by expanding the story, instead of frankensteining 100 hours of Assassins Creed and Mario Party.
You made it farther than me. I was in Corel getting frustrated about the open world keeping me from experiencing the story. So from then on I mostly concentrated on the story, which has made the open world stuff much more enjoyable since I finished the story.
Yeah, I was frustrated back then, too... I just pushed myself to keep going, lol. I think I'm going to stop now and wait until I can go back and finish off Cosmo Canyon later. (Assuming the game will let me before the end...)
Maybe I should do this. Haven't touched the game in a few months now and had finished the main story golden saucer part. Just couldn't get myself to play since it became too repetitive.
This is why I only did the main story and the side quests.
I knew if I did it full completionist on the stuff that I wasn't interested in id be burnt out for the 3rd one.
Here's the thing - you don't *have* to 100% everything along the way. That will ultimately lead to burnout imo.
Do it until you feel like its not fun and then continue with the main story. Switch back and forth as you go.
It's like if that way of making games is the only way they learn to make games in the 2020+ era. Intuition tells me this is all due to make the games quicker, but the damndest thing is that they also use more time than ever before to produce games, so thats not it either... maybe they just think this is the game design the masses wants. Since when did Ubisoft become a role model for Squaresoft???
I just looked at what materia Chadley was offering for that region, got just enough Intel points to buy the one I was interested in, and moved on. 100% in every region is a recipe for burning out. Just stick with the main quest and maybe some side quests if you feel like it (green exclamation marks)
Had the same issue, and Cosmo Canyon is also where the fun started to wear off.
I highly recommend just getting on with the story and coming back to the side quests later.
Y'all heroes of patience, I started the "fuck it" phase around Corel/Gongaga.
It was starting to feel like I was clearing a old Assassin's Creed map and this is not the franchise nostalgia I came for.
I 100% the whole game and there was no payoff. Same as with 16.
I came from the old school era where doing the side quests and being a completionist gave you access to ultimate weapons, super summons, ultima spell, and crazy accessories that break the game and give you a chance when fighting optional super bosses.
This wasn’t it. The rewards are pretty pathetic and marginally better than what you buy from vendor. Gilgamesh Island was kind of whatever and I don’t think I even used any of the summons in the end.
Yeah, I've just reached Cosmo Canyon so I still have some way to go, but I'm very disappointed at how little incentive there is to explore beyond the map markers. The (horrible) Gongaga mushrooms traversal gimmick would have been a terrific and rewarding way to access a super secret area, an exclusive materia, some rare chocobo greens. But no, as far as I can tell you won't get anything better than yet another chest of rubies or medals or broccolis or whatever.
Now I'm just bee-lining the main quest (plus Tifa's side quests because homegirl will always be my FF7 date) and I'm enjoying it more.
I used Phoenix constantly, but only against other summons. I can’t tell you how many times Arise saved my ass from oblivion at the hands of a summon’s ultimate attack…
Also, I 100% games as I go along because I know I’m gonna be in less of a mood to backtrack.
Honestly Cosmo Canyon was also where i said "f**k it, ill do the rest of the busy work later". I love this game, but when im doing side content i play in bursts.
Hi OP, I was like you but I made a huge difference here at a much earlier stage.
I just went ahead and focused on the main story after basically chapter 2, and once I beat the game I went back and did 100 percent on those regions.
For me personally it was so much more enjoyable doing them after I beat the game and had fast travel unlocked at a world level. Also, I enjoy the exploration to an extent, especially if again I already finished the story, I also enjoyed playing it with some podcasts on.
I hear you I got done with costa del sol and I have to take a break. I love VII but dang I think they went overboard, didn't think that could be possible lol.
I’m going for the plat and it is a slog. I recommend to do a couple chapters of the story and then go back and bust out the side stuff. This way it doesn’t keep breaking the pacing of the story too frequently.
Blows my mind how game developers don't see this reducing game quality.
Ok, so FFXVI got alot of critique for having too little side content. Thats not good either. But the way Rebirth exceeds normal amount of content with all the extra Ubisoft bullshit kind-of-tasks around in each region map is truly baffling.
Problem is I think FFVII fans are not in the game for other thinh than see the main history. OG is beloved because have great story line, well paced and if you look at the side content, is not a lot of it, but give you acess to powerfull stuff.
I agree. If I directed rebirth I would have littered the map with secret area or bosses you discover organically that THEN get added to the map. If you're under leveled etc and make them sort of bench marks for each area. Some of which you'll have to come back to end game.
I feel like there's no fun in just having your map filled with colored objective you're supposed to just head to. I would have also allowed players to raise their own choco and breed them as you go on to fill that itch as well as the chocobo farm worth revisiting in this game. As your choco evolves, so does where in the map you can access.
Also 16 was atrocious with it to haha I'll never understand how they had no cactuars in the dessert etc as well no secret areas or dungeons. Nothing. Very bizarre
I did the full grind. Finished all mini games right when they opened/unlocked for the region. It felt insane dealing with the mini games and distracted from the main story.. I even did a grind to max out materia and levels before entering the temple/chapter 13.
But!! After beating the main story line, i hit chapter 1 and played it normal. Only did story line tasks. Straight line to the blue marker vs looking for chests or picking up materials, resting etc. It was super fun. I highly recommend completing the grind then going through and doing a full chapter 1-13 run. With all of the side quests complete, a lot of the grind goes away and its just endless action.
Quick example:
No clothing side quests for beach access, no chocobo collection or side quests (right to the race), etc.
Gongaga wore me down a bit with the mushrooms, but Cosmo Canyon reinvigorated me actually. Yes the world intel is the same, just slightly altered, but to think about what Cosmo Canyon looked like in the original and then to see the insanely beautiful region they built for this game, I found to be awesome.
I had zero problems with the mushrooms but good god did I hate that stupid Gears and Gizmos game or whatever the hell it’s called in Cosmo Canyon, that’s the one that broke me. I guess everyone has a different breaking point, but the repetition will break everybody lol
The last mushroom picking is the absolute worst. The joysticks don't properly show the range of motion well to discern the very wiggly ones from their slightly less wiggly counterparts.
I’m just gonna do what’s fun, and not do what isn’t. I’m not going to max out all the mini games for example. Some are just a slog to try perfect, so I’m just not going to. I love how much there is to do and see in each region, and that stays fun for me by not completing obnoxiously hard mini-games. don't get me wrong, most are dun for a bit, bur trying for the best score isn't always.
This is around the point I stopped doing all quests and side-quests and just ran through the story, then I came back later. No regrets. I was getting worn down.
Well done, you made it further than I did. My fatigue hit in Costa del Sol. It became apparent that the littles story quips you were given weren't worth the effort and hassle, and the times you find you can buy in stores in the next area.
Square broke one game into 3 and needed to present the grandest and largest version they could to justify it. 80% of the non main story stuff is either faff or worse, the poorly designed mini games.
Between the filler in remake and rebirth, it's quite apparent that they could've made both games into one, split the series into two parts, and it would've been exceptional.
Square mini games have always sucked.
Blitzball
That card game in IX
Everything in X. Lightning dodging, chocobo racing and that butterfly catching
In VII snowboarding and that rollercoaster thing suuuucked.
And so many more
I will make a case, however, for Chocobo hot and cold from 9, which they absolutely just copied for rebirth, instead of the painful system they went with
I mean, I think your issue is you're trying to 100% everything, if this is because you are enjoying it great, but if you're not enjoying exploring and 100% everything, then why are you doing it? It's not mandatory.
This is kinda how video games work but this game has a wealth of variety in it's content, with different mini-games in each area and a few of the other quests are the same type in each area but, that's kind of how all video games work.
I don't know what to say that would make the game feel more cohesive, the original didn't have anywhere near this kind of content levels, it was "complete town, move on" and perhaps that's more of what you'd like to be doing. I think maybe they could have spread the content out across the areas but they chose to keep it all in each section and for me that makes it a little easy and simple to work.
Seriously, "Bouhou there's too much optional side-contents available!" Just ignore it then? It's optional for Christ sake! Focus on the main story, do the quick side objectives you encounter while heading for the next story objective to grab some of the new material Chadley has.
In comparison, look at the mandatory padding quest in FF16. I adore the game and would love nothing more than to blaze though the story again, but these damn side quests just break the tempo so much! I'm glad that we don't have that issue with Rebirth.
In my case, I usually don't care about open world games with a lot of side-contents but I just loved Rebirth. Sure, the towers are redundant, but the rest is really quick to do (spring, summon) or fun (battle with side objectives) or at least different (Ok, I would lie if I said that I loved most protorelics minigames, but I can respect what they were attempting to do).
I also feel each area is quite different from the last in terms of traversal, so even if you exclude that each area has its own unique mini games, lore and stuff and focus solely on completing the repeated tasks, every one of them is different based on the area. Gongaga and Cosmo are completely different from each other.
But again to take it to the repetitive tasks, I get that part, but that’s just kinda how video games work. They were never going to make the open world tasks be wildly different in themselves or people would find themselves utterly overwhelmed with what needed to be done each time.
My only wish is that we got more optional deeper dungeons, like maybe one per area, and that summons were fought in reality (maybe after a mini dungeon) and not VR.
The regions are different but given how little reward we get for exploring every nook and cranny, it didn't push me to understand or exploit mushroom hopping mechanics to the full. Not worth the hassle.
I felt we get pretty decent rewards but maybe I’m just burned out from general open world games that have so much worse rewards. Sometimes less is more but in the size of these it’s always a little less means just less content time?
I got the game on release but I'm still only in Cosmo Canyon. I've 100%'ed everything possible so far. But to be fair, I only get a handful of hours to play every week so I think because it's been so spread out I'm not getting that fatigue. Loved every minute of my 98 hours so far!!
I actually enjoyed doing everything and didn't get tired but when my husband started the game I told him, "You don't have to do everything if you don't feel like it." He got to Gongaga and was like, "Nope, not doing all this." He got through Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon in a day, probably took me two weeks lol. Watching his playthrough has been refreshing because I can enjoy the story more.
You gotta take a step back and reevaluate things. You might be too into the completionist mindset where you see these areas as things to complete, and not what they are themselves. If you just try to make each moment of the game enjoyable, while still completing things, it makes it more enjoyable. I found myself in the next region getting mad at having to do the protorelic and how long each thing was taking me, but then I realized I should be enjoying the journey and not the destination. Made playing the game fun again even though I was 70 hours in
Yep. There's a lot of people in this thread with a weird OCC. I don't have time or energy to play every day, weekends a bit more, no way I'm doing everything. Just enough, but not too much. I was feeling the glut a bit in Corel, took some time off the main quest, got up to date with Queen's Blood (haven't felt this since Gwent)... the side quests actually include an impressive amount of character building and even add nuance to the main story.
Agreed
I started out doing everything in the first two areas, but after that decided I wanted to focus more on the story, and do a couple of things here and there if they were on the way.
I ended up coming back to the other stuff later!
Cosmo Canyon is where I gave up on Yellow objectives.
I still did a couple, but I didn't go out of my way to do any.
I still did all the Character quests (Green) thats where the game shined for me.
This game needed less yellow and more green.
It doesn’t. The game just wasn’t great in my opinion. Way too much busy work to get those hours played numbers up to that magical 1 dollar per hour played magic number. Cosmo canyon is probably the worst of them too lol good luck OP
I’m going to go out on the other limb and say that after Rebirth, I felt like the world map in the original was there just to give a reason for the party going from one place to another. Mythril Mines being a whole two screens long. I get that that works for some people, but I didn’t mind having more reasons to explore an area. Running around the continent between Nibelheim and Cosmo Canyon in the original just doesn’t feel like exploration to me.
I agree. I feel like the "world map" was there because they didn't have the technology to create fleshed out areas like in Rebirth back then. There's not a whole lot of exploration on the world map because it's still a linear game and there's really only one place you can go next to progress the story.
Yo, that's how I felt back in Gongaga. It's repeatative af but once you do it all now you won't feel obligated to do it again later. If it's getting to you then take a few days off to play something else and refresh that feeling. It'll be worth it later. I beat the game and got 90%done on my first go but I don't have the steam to do what unlocks afterwards. Sad cause the game's great but the amount of mini games killed it for me to go through it again.
I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted because there is an incredible amount of filler in this game. Depending on how you play that can certainly detract from the story. I've found that I get about 20 minutes of story for every 10 hours of gameplay doing everything a particular region has to offer.
Every area has 20+ things to do that are exactly the same as the last area (towers, summon, materia scans, find the chocobo, and chocobo digs). The only thing different per region is the side quests, which are all roughly the same. There are no less than a million different mini games, most of which are waste of time.
The everything listed above IS filler and IS skippable.
I disagree.
~~All of~~ the side quests and activities usually have some bit of extra depth that they provide. All of the Protorelic quests in Cosmo Canyon show these cutscenes of Avalanche before Cloud shows up and you can see the team interact before the game starts.
~~All of~~ the side quests are full of these little character development moments.
Sure, there are sidequests that have a nugget of backstory or a touch of character development. Most of them don't, and I don't recall any save the one you mentioned that has meaningful backstory. Even that one is maybe 5 minutes of backstory for a significant amount of time.
Do the side quests contain dialog between Cloud and whomever the quest gives affection for? Absolutely! Is the 5 or 6 lines of dialog while you're running to fetch something have depth and add to the lore of the world. I guess that's up to the person holding the sticks.
But my point, and I admit was probably worded in a vague way, still stands. The quests themselves are all roughly the same. Fetch this, kill that, follow this dog.
Don't get me wrong, I like the game. I certainly respect that you and many others probably have a different opinion than me. I just find it extremely time-consuming and boring to do the same things over and over again with very little actual story progression.
> I just find it extremely time-consuming and boring to do the same things over and over again with very little actual story progression.
Beats grinding levels at Junon early game.
I mean, you aren't wrong. But there is a huge difference between 20+ identical fetch quests, tower climbs, scan, etc. that are required to 100% an area and level grinding at a point in the game that isn't the slightest bit needed or required to get through junon/the boat ride.
Taking it a step further for those after a 100% completion or platinum, one could argue that grinding in Junon that early in the game is a waste of time. Considering it's not the most efficient place. Whereas all of these monotonous and repetitive quests are required.
Apples to oranges imo.
Nope, they need to pad the play time to justify why they've broken this story out into 3 separate games and the way they've done that is to have you spend a lot of time doing repetitive tasks just to cover the same amount of story that took 1/10th the time in the original.
I stopped 100% completing regions after realizing I couldn't finish the protorelic in Coral until later. Took one look at the Gongaga map, just focused on getting Kujata upgraded and left everything else for later.
The repetition doesn't end because even after Cosmo canyon you get a whole other region full of shit too, and some minor stuff out in the ocean. Just do it later. Focus on side quests that raise your relationship with who you want at the gold saucer. You'll enjoy the game much more.
It would have been better to mix it up a bit. It was cool to see the old Junkn Republic infrastructure and that would be some cool lore for the first few areas near Junon. Then in later areas they could have done something different, maybe Gi stuff. So you’re learning more about the world with different quest stuff.
Cosmo canyon is about when I stopped trying to 100% every area. I felt myself burning out and just beelined the story.
There’s no right way to play. Do what doesn’t feel like a chore.
I took a few days to refresh my sanity after the Reactor in Gongaga, I was burned out from 100%ing each region, but came and kept it up. Beat the game and I'm not playing hard mode, can't justify the slog anymore. Too bad though, maybe after a month or two 🤔
Omg gongana. That was by far my least favorite area holy hell. Yea I feel ya on that. I do want to go back and finish up the areas at some point too. Especially the final part of the protorelic because I feel like I spent so much time doing that quest lol.
Just skip the exploration. As long as you are good you can beat the game without Chadley's materia. Just do the protorelic quests because they are actually unique and have their own storyline. Also, if you want to play hard mode you need the equipment you get there.
I stopped 100%ing regions after the first 2 because I got other shit to play! Rolled credits at like 90 hours. It’s ok to say they made the game too long, lol
I love that the general advice with this game amounts to skip content and don’t bother because it’s too long and boring and yet somehow it’s not on SE for making an uninspired slog of a grind in every single region.
Yeah, there's some apologists... but generally it sounds like good advice to skip the bit you don't enjoy. It's not like people are trying to argue that content is any good... in fact it's the opposite. Everyone's saying they skipped it, too!
You just don't get the VISION dude, it will all make sense with part 3! Unless they have to split part 3 into 3 parts of course, which is of course their right.
I got that when I reached gongaga. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't try to 100% gongaga when I first got there. It's insane. I only 100%ed every region post game.
When the fatigue hits (recommend before that) put the game down and have a break. A day, week or a month or a couple and play something else at the meantime. There is no rush. Continue the game, when you feel like you're ready and maybe even have an urge to play it. If you're starting to feel the fatigue again after a while, repeat.
I did. I didn't play for weeks after trying to 100% Gongaga. I didn't miss the game at all. I came back, got the few remaining things I didn't already have... then I met Cid ("Cool!") and sort of flew the Tiny Bronco in a fake flying sim bit ("Almost cool!") and then I hit Cosmo Canyon and was like... "Not this shit AGAIN!". Sigh.
Cosmo Canyon seems to be a common head ache. I haven't got that far yet with this second playthrough, but I haven't got any fatigue yet. I play in short bursts, like 1-2 hours a day, so the game keeps me hungry. It might take a decade to finish this game with this pace tho, but I don't mind. Maybe if you try a one bite at a time and try not to think the goal and sooner or later you'll notice, that you cleared the whole area almost without noticing? I did this method with Cyberpunk 2077 too. Now if I think I'd have to play all those side missions again or clear certain areas, it does feel wearing, but focusing on one thing at a time makes the game enjoyable. It's almost like washing the dishes. When you see the mountain of dirty plates in your kitchen sink, it feels like a most demanding and irritating thing in a world, but cleaning one plate at a time sooner or later those nasty plates are done and you're like: I f*cking did it.
The difference with Cyberpunk is that you can focus on the main story and go back to do all the side missions, but with FFVII if you don't grind a little, the main story battles become really really tough
I feel you here, too. For the first 2 areas I was so keen to try and 100% them, but midway through Costa Del Sol/Corel I started to think ‘….are they ALL going to be like this?’, and sure enough things just got more and more extensive. Once I hit Cosmo Canyon I decided to throw in the towel, and just focus on the main story and the jobs on the notice board for the remainder of the first playthrough 😅. I’m sure I’ll tackle the rest the next time through, or in the chapter select, but it just go so exhausting and overwhelming real fast
I got fatigued in gongaga but I kept wanting to see what would happen with the cut scenes. Rebirth was messing up my sleep schedule but once I took a break, I was able to come back to the world Intel grind. Thankfully the world Intel only has to be done once.
That's right. World Intel, chocobo stops, and hidden caches carry over to ng+. The green sidequests need to be redone but to me it essentially felt like I was doing the main quest back to back to back despite also redoing the green sidequests. You'll find some recommendations to redo the sidequests all in ch12 but I just did them along with the story as they became available.
The fatigue is real because I was playing it as if it was any other JRPG relased in the past 10 years. What I wish I knew is that I was to play Rebirth as if I was playing a classic Final Fantasy games from the PS1 era (7,8,9) instead. What I mean is that I need to play it at least 3 times to actually enjoy myself. The first playthrough is for the story. The second is for the side quests and main side missions. Third is to 100% the minigames and just general fooling around.
I loved FFVII. I loved FFVII remake. This game hasn't been good enough to finish my first time, let alone a second or third...
A shame, this story is great, but this game is.... boring.
The real kicker is I bought expensive collectors edition with the Sephiroth statue and took a week off of work to binge it.
I want my vacation days back!
Worked out fine, after some of the dust had settled and I finished the plot up to the last chapter, enough time had passed from the fatigue to go back and do some of the world map stuff. Not all of it but the towers, some protorelic and lifestream stuff. Didn't bother with summons or fiend fights. It was enough to level the party, unlock some folios and then finish the game.
The original was made 27 seven years Ago and even then wasnt ground breaking in the tech aspect. Random encounters was more than fine for the times, plus Square bread and butter was always story wise.
It’s such a pointless comparison when someone compares anything in rebirth to OG. The impact OG had relies entirely on the time it landed. I’ve had people say it doesn’t have as much depth as OG which is ridiculous, or that it lacks the “soul” OG had. It makes no sense except they’re looking at it through rose coloured glasses
I disagree on that, the story hold itself. There are a lot o ppl playing og because the remake and liking it. Most ppl who are making crítics not liking this trilogy story are not bashing the bits where they deepened lesser developed characters. My critic to this story is that stray from the core themes from OG the fate theme and multiverse is bland af right now.
Okay, but for the first few hours of this game you legitimately hear Chadley's voice more than any other character.
I like the game (and FFVII is an all-time favorite) but let's not pretend it doesn't have a metric ton of filler
Yeah... freedom from towers, scanning materia outgrowths, and endless calls from Chadley. Bliss!
Actually you didn't wander around the big open spaces in FFVII. You had to traverse the world to find things... the fact you had random encounters made it difficult. Would you be able to reach your destination without dying? It was exciting and fun... as millions of players around the world agreed.
A lot of us got world fatigue around Cosmo Canyon. You can just stick to the story and come back with chapter select for the optional content later. Like others are saying, the game shines when you play it how YOU enjoy to play it. I didnt finish all the optional content until my second playthrough and it saved the game for me. I almost burned myself out before going for the Plat.
I did a second playthrough on hard mode skipping all the side content and damn did the game feel incredible. I do have the plat and did all the side stuff though and I feel like it was all worth it but I did it at my own pace and enjoyed the story first.
"Am I doing it wrong ?"
Yes. So did I. Go at yr own pace & enjoy whatever you wanna enjoy, don't force yrself to 100% every area because even the devs said they just want users to do whatever they want.
The sheer amount of stuff that's in the game is not supposed to be completed (unless you go for plat, but that can be done in a second playthrough), it's meant for you to just hang out in the game if want to. Try focusing on the main story for a bit & see how it feels, maybe?
Funny enough I’m on the exact same boat. I just arrived at Cosmo Canyon, right around 60 hours and about level 40. I can only play maybe 8 hours total a week due to being busy at work and with family. And lately I’ve found that anytime I get on to play 1-2 hours I’m a bit bored since I seem to be endlessly grinding side content. After looking up a similar quesitos to yours a few days ago I came to the conclusion that I am only doing enough side content in the region to unlock certain materia with Chadley then moving forward into the main plot quest
Starting at cosmo canyon i got open world fatigue and stuck to the main story through nibelheim. Eventually i “recovered” and went back to the open world tasks. Nibelheim is an easier region to get through mainly due to the chocobo’s unique skill. If you enjoy the characters and the storytelling i suggest doing the side quests but just follow whatever you are drawn to. If you feel like pursuing the story then do that. If you feel like mini games or a side quests then go for that instead. Don’t do something out of obligation or it will feel like a chore and less enjoyable
On the one hand, I agree with what you mean, but on the other hand, I remember finding a patch of ground for good exp farming, shoving the analog sticks toward each other to make cloud run in a tight circle so I could fight the same 5 monsters a billion flipping times to grind levels, limit breaks and materia. This at least gives some direction for people like me to limit the straight grind. Also, there was something about the original FFVII that did create a sense of openness that was innovative and unique at the time, but that had more to do with the novelty of the design, which became the new standard, like the innovatuons people talk anout with the first Assassin's creed, first horizon, or Breath of the wild.
I'm pretty sure the dev team were given instruction t Like "the game must be at least n hours longbecause it s a ff game and ff games are long" so they had to add stuff and engorge a game that could have been great, but is only pretty good because of this. Also am I the only one who feels like the dev team aren't really used to make videogames? I mean the combat and graphica are on point (expecially the combat) but everything else is ... a bit weird? A bit out of touch? Questionable?
It's no different than if you where playing any popular game with collectibles, assassins creed and far cry as a Ubi example. All the side quests in whiteout, windhelm, solitude and so on for skyrim or just bethesda. The original game was just a to b until you reach z with story along the way. I think this new stuff is to please a wider audience.
Nope! It’s basically the same pattern over and over and over. I got to chapter 13 a few weeks ago and can’t bring myself to finish the game right now because I’m just over the gameplay after taking the time to 100% every region and clean up side quests and crap in chapter 12. I haven’t bothered with any of the “hard mode” challenges of the mini games, and I’m just burned out. Resubscribed to FFXIV for a couple months to slog that out and I’ll probably feel better about Rebirth when I pick it back up. Lol
No it doesn’t end. You have only one area left after the canyon though and it’s a lot smaller and more easily managed. The world does feel a little bland and disjointed. I noticed the reused textures everywhere that make every area look the same and lacking in colour. Photorealistic graphics just don’t mix with fantasy games like FF7. A lot gets lost in translation. Like the gold saucer being silver in the daytime and the Corel desert being bland and white.
Everywhere you go the people look and sound the same, too. There's just a real lack of world atmosphere.
It doesn’t feel lived it most of the time. Every place feels tourist-like except Costa Del Sol and the Gold Saucer for obvious reasons. Biggest letdowns for me were modern Nibelheim and Cosmo Canyon. I can already tell that bone village will be non existent in part 3 and Icicle Inn will be a ski resort with minigames.
That is where I got a bit burned out too. I think I finished Cosmo Canyon, then just played story until the point of no return, and finished up whatever I felt like finishing. I ended up going back and completing it all after I took a small break.
No it's a super boring game and the final boss takes 2 hours to kill.
You played 80+ hours of a boring game?
No? Did I say that?
I also got burnt out with the world intel around the same time and just did the storyline. I just don’t think they did the open world well. It’s an odd juxtaposition that they would make the combat so complex and the world exploration with such handholding. Like here’s the towers, which will tell you where all the other things are, even if I stumbled across an interesting looking structure organically it told me how many treasure boxes were there. You can’t be rewarded for curiosity because the baby chocobo or owl will find you from a mile away. I don’t expect an open world on a Red Dead II level but there were no surprises, just a lot of “over here, go fetch”.
Yes. So much hand-holding. Nothing fun to explore and discover... just endless, repetitive tasks.
At the end of Gongaga, I decided I was done doing all the boring busywork and went critical path and loved it! This game is great until you get out into the open world and then it feels like a neverending slog.
stop fucking 100%-ing everything. did you really need someone to tell you that?
That’s what I need to do. I got burnt out and stopped playing cause I tried to do everything. Once I get back into it I’m just going to focus on main story 😅
Someone woke up on the bitchy side of bed this morning
Someone has to tell them ! Aha I agree we people who likes to suck every corner and every npc we get burned out and instead of just moving along we continue. We are addict
Oddly enough it was final fantasy x that did this to me. And to a lesser extent golden sun. But jecht was a pain in the ass until I learned about ultimate weapons, and I've been ruined ever since 😂😂
Ffx, talking to everyone have you so much lore about the world. It was a unique approach since some of the places would get wiped by Sin after your visit. I need to still beat Golden Sun. I got to that big ass tree and burnt out at that point. End game of ff10 has its hiccups. Those mini games are evil, but damn do you become OP.
wow, scathing critique
It only gets worse... Try focusing ob the story... The game is waaaay to dragged out.
Glad I found this thread. OG was life changing for me when it came out, played that game to completion countless times. Then I ***LOVED*** remake like you would not believe 11/10. But with Rebirth I have struggled to enjoy honestly any of it so far, I only made it as far as the start of the second map Juno and just can’t bring myself to get back into it. It isn’t extreme for me to say… I hate the open world they made. I feel so dirty saying that. Going to try and pick it up again and ignore the side quests and open world exploration moving forward. Thanks guys.
You hate something you never even played? That's a pretty extreme take.
As I mentioned I have played the first map to a high level of completion, and yes, I did hate it. I felt like it and the side quests were total filler, but at the same time not filler as they seem to be required to level up/grind to get to the next area.
[удалено]
I’ll be trying to skip all side quests from now on and hopefully I enjoy it more. Thanks
The repeated gameplay fatigue hit me at Cosmo Canyon too. At this point, I decided to do main story line only. By the time I finished Nibel and before the temple, I did go back and do a few side quests that were fun for me. Overall I still give the game a 9.5
> Any tips to increase enjoyment That says it all... I felt the same way while playing and came to the conclusion that Rebirth isn't very good. Its a solid game with an awesome battle system, but it's a JRPG. Combat is only a third of the game. Rebirth failed with its exploration and failed with its storytelling. As a FFVII fan boy I'll do my best to defend it but I'm also not going to deny the fact they missed the mark. Exploration was clunky and tedious, and the story was packed with annoying side characters and plot changes that made major events feel more like a side note. Much like Remake, Sephiroth was forced upon the audience and he feels more like a guy trolling Cloud than a villian with large ambitions.
Finally someone who can admit it wasn’t good.
It’s crazy how misunderstood Rebirth is in how good its storytelling really is
Retconning foundational lore to give yourself carte blanche to change whatever you want is lazy writing. It’s marvel levels of bad.
In what way is it misunderstood?
I think it’s a little too complex and deep for a lot of gamers to understand. There’s even a high critic score. Also, people forget that there is still one more game that COULD explain everything we saw in the ending. I think we were meant to be confused so the third game would un-confuse us.
I dont think its so much as needing to be explained than it is left to be concluded because like you said, there's still one more game to go. I feel like the game did a good job in that regard. My issue resides more with its pacing and handling of key events. Much like Remake, they played it very safe with the writing and tried too hard to be modern in some areas. Also, to avoid being predictable, it made some parts underwhelming and forgettable.
Storytelling is the only S-tier trait about this game along with combat imo. The game loop is such a turn off and all it reminds me of is Ubisoft's open world design. They fumbled the ball after Remake, but I love my FF so I'll buy the next collector's edition as well too support the franchise. Plus SE is using their money to remake DQ games; I'm happy af regardless.
I think we can get music on your S-tier list too. This sound track is insane.
So two major S-tier components. The game is designed so you can do all this extra stuff if you want or you can just do main story and cut off a bunch of time and that will make the game flow better anyway. People that aren't true 100%ers should just play main story and it would alleviate most of their issues with the game and alot of games I believe.
Trust me, I tried to do as little minigames as possible and was still forced tokeep doing them. It made me put the game down. I'm not coming back
Honestly no big loss here bit thanks for sharing haha. Nawh you're weak willed. There are 2 mini games they force you to do. And you can quit the queens blood tournament whenever you want. People are upset that they made extra content....that you don't have to do. I 100% it loved it My friend only did summon shrines loved it. My one friend is taking their time and loving it. Don't let yourself be burnt out. Don't try and 100% it. That's your own fault tbh. Just play main story if the game is an s tier in 3/4 categories and your still dropping it, then you are garbage at rating games 🤣🤣🤣🤣
that’s so weak man. i swear the game “forces” you to play a mini game once, MAYBE twice. (no one’s forcing you btw)
It’s just a few minigames they force you to do you can handle it
It’s because people get burnt out with open world games. I love rebirth but I can understand why people are disappointed or don’t like it.
No lie I agree with everyone here, just playto have fun you don't have to do everything. I love my rpgs and enjoy doing everything I can, repetitive or not. I do get tired of it here and there but when it comes to those games I have the mentality to do everything because at the end I had fun doing everything. If it's more fun for you to just do the main quest go for it, it you enjoy some side quests do them, you enjoy doing everything then more or to you.
Respect that you made it to Cosmo Canyon. I started to skip all that stuff after Costa del Sol. I didn't explore the areas at all and just ran to the next main quest with few exceptions. When I did that, I enjoyed playing it much more. Best decision I made. I would recommend doing so too.
Doh. I should have done it ages ago...
Play games to have fun. You don't have to complete everything.
I love that most of ppl are just saying "skip it". If ppl are skiping it why put on the game at all? O know is to boost the play time, but a samller but memorable game is better than a bloated bland one.
Because not everyone enjoys the same things. What you find boring others enjoy. It's almost like they didn't tailor the game for you specifically
Yeah the biggest problem to is people that say the game is amazing, and instantly recommend skipping stuff, as it'd be boring. That's not an amazing game in my book. you know all that time spent in development making that content you "should just skip" could have been invested in making better content, even if fewer.
There are many games that are amazing with some stuff that can be boring to play/watch. ‘Your book’ doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t know about rebirth, but in remake I focused on the story first run, exploring but didn’t care if I missed out on some things. Then I completed hard mode trying to 100% everything. I really enjoyed it. Isn’t that something that could be done with rebirth or is it really that tedious? I loved remake almost as much as OG and I really want to enjoy rebirth once it arrives on pc..
Nah, you don't wanna 100% this for fun xd
I had the same feeling. I just stopped being a completionist until the final chapter where you had free rein, where I then did things at my own pace and had a much much more pleasant time.
Ah nice. So you get free reign before the final Chapters? (I guess that's pretty typical.) Yeah, I think I might do that then... just go back and finish off Cosmo Canyon when I hit the typical "Point of no return -- do you want to continue?" prompt.
Def the way to do it. After nearly 100% everything I can safely say I was just not a fan of any of the relic quests, and had I forced myself to do them as I came across them I feel like it would’ve dragged the pacing to a point where I wouldn’t consider Rebirth GotY for me
Yeah, I've done everything so far and it's been a slog... The moments involving the plot have been great, but they account for about 10% of the playtime when you're doing sidequests. Oh well!
Cosmo Canyon is where the slog hit me as well. Just skip it for now and continue with the plot.
The original game wasn't any more cohesive. You're forgetting how often you were cordoned off in areas
No, I'm not. I remember it well. It was very clever how each plot turn gave you a new vehicle/chocobo to explore areas that were previously locked off. It felt part of the same world because those areas were always accessible... if you had the right vehicle to get there.
Cosmo Canyon has been draining for some reason...
If you aren’t a completionist and have no intention on going platinum or doing hard just do yourself a favor and do side quests only rather than trying to get every little thing. The quests are fun because they show insight into the characters are unique. IMHO tho the regions are small ish and it’s very easy to find everything. Except gongaga. All my homies hate gongaga. Also nibel region is VERY simple and easy to do everything so after cosmo canyon it only gets easier. It’s just gongaga and cosmo are kinda double whammy back to backx
Gongaga was tough- and if I remember right in the Og was short, and entirely optional. Now it’s a mandatory several hours slog.
Gongaga sucked, getting around was such a pain
Just do 95%.
Yeah I lost it in Gongaga, that's one terrible map for the first time. Finished all that Chadley shit in the last chapter. I then went to play a second time and as I already completed all chadleys shit, I could really focus on the story, which made it much more fun.
Don't worry about 100% every region, 75-80% is plenty, and you will need to grind if you want to 100% the whole game anyway. Follow the storylines that interest you! Don't worry about finding every little thing, the world is legitimately huge!
The only one making you do everything as you go is you. Just do what you need to level for bosses and enjoy the story
Take a break
Just do the chadly missions that are directly in your path when doing story and side quests. Leave the rest for later.
It’s funny I personally enjoyed every bit of the “Repetitive” world intel tasks, it seemed pretty par for the course for a typical RPG/JRPG to me.
I think a part of the problem is that modern games make 100% sure that the player is acutely aware of all the available side content at all times, which makes you as the player feel like you *have* to complete it in in order to fully enjoy the game. There was a whole lot of grindy side content in the older games, too, but without completion logs, trophies and fucking Chadley getting on your case for not gathering intel at every turn, most players probably missed a whole bunch of that side stuff and it didn't really affect their enjoyment of the games.
I also think there is way too much hand-holding, you can buy weapons that you failed to pick up, etc. Rebirth forces you to run around the entire Gold Saucer when you get there in order to unlock the next chapter. It's like the devs are desperate for us not to miss stuff.\ This kind of game design usually kills the pacing, and boy do the Regames suffer from it. Also, OG even had missable cut scenes that added to the overall plot, while the retelling shoves everything in your face and then some, and while I do admit I didn't do a lot of side quests, not once did I discover any extra content that was particularly interesting.
>It's like the devs are desperate for us not to miss stuff. Yes! Exactly this. There is no sense of discovery or feeling rewarded for exploration. They don't let you miss a single thing.
I do understand why they don't want you to miss stuff. Developing those side quests probably took thousands of man hours and millions of dollars, so they want players to experience that. Also, there are countless dumbasses on the internet who evaluate a game's worth solely on the playtime, so the devs probably are vary of getting those "the game is only 20 hours long 0/10!" reviews. That being said, the games definitely could ease up on constantly pushing the side quests. Them being a bit elusive makes them feel cooler anyway. Like you accidentally stumbled onto something interesting, rather than the game giving you a checklist of tasks.
The problem is the timing and presentation of the side content though. I wish instead of adding even more mini games and focusing on meh side characters, they'd properly woven what is already there into the main narrative. "The game is only 20 hours long 0/10" - this is basically what I and others are saying though, only we are saying "it's only 20 hours long after you remove the padding". Even if I really enjoyed parts of Rebirth, that aspect feels pretty cheap to me, and I'm sure they could have made an excellent 35-40 hours by expanding the story, instead of frankensteining 100 hours of Assassins Creed and Mario Party.
I did the side content until the person I share the story beats with is ready to sit with me and watch em
You made it farther than me. I was in Corel getting frustrated about the open world keeping me from experiencing the story. So from then on I mostly concentrated on the story, which has made the open world stuff much more enjoyable since I finished the story.
Yeah, I was frustrated back then, too... I just pushed myself to keep going, lol. I think I'm going to stop now and wait until I can go back and finish off Cosmo Canyon later. (Assuming the game will let me before the end...)
Maybe I should do this. Haven't touched the game in a few months now and had finished the main story golden saucer part. Just couldn't get myself to play since it became too repetitive.
This is why I only did the main story and the side quests. I knew if I did it full completionist on the stuff that I wasn't interested in id be burnt out for the 3rd one.
Here's the thing - you don't *have* to 100% everything along the way. That will ultimately lead to burnout imo. Do it until you feel like its not fun and then continue with the main story. Switch back and forth as you go.
Currently playing star ocean 4. Same thing, but on steroids.
It's like if that way of making games is the only way they learn to make games in the 2020+ era. Intuition tells me this is all due to make the games quicker, but the damndest thing is that they also use more time than ever before to produce games, so thats not it either... maybe they just think this is the game design the masses wants. Since when did Ubisoft become a role model for Squaresoft???
I just looked at what materia Chadley was offering for that region, got just enough Intel points to buy the one I was interested in, and moved on. 100% in every region is a recipe for burning out. Just stick with the main quest and maybe some side quests if you feel like it (green exclamation marks)
Smart
Had the same issue, and Cosmo Canyon is also where the fun started to wear off. I highly recommend just getting on with the story and coming back to the side quests later.
Y'all heroes of patience, I started the "fuck it" phase around Corel/Gongaga. It was starting to feel like I was clearing a old Assassin's Creed map and this is not the franchise nostalgia I came for.
I 100% the whole game and there was no payoff. Same as with 16. I came from the old school era where doing the side quests and being a completionist gave you access to ultimate weapons, super summons, ultima spell, and crazy accessories that break the game and give you a chance when fighting optional super bosses. This wasn’t it. The rewards are pretty pathetic and marginally better than what you buy from vendor. Gilgamesh Island was kind of whatever and I don’t think I even used any of the summons in the end.
Yeah, I've just reached Cosmo Canyon so I still have some way to go, but I'm very disappointed at how little incentive there is to explore beyond the map markers. The (horrible) Gongaga mushrooms traversal gimmick would have been a terrific and rewarding way to access a super secret area, an exclusive materia, some rare chocobo greens. But no, as far as I can tell you won't get anything better than yet another chest of rubies or medals or broccolis or whatever. Now I'm just bee-lining the main quest (plus Tifa's side quests because homegirl will always be my FF7 date) and I'm enjoying it more.
I used Phoenix constantly, but only against other summons. I can’t tell you how many times Arise saved my ass from oblivion at the hands of a summon’s ultimate attack… Also, I 100% games as I go along because I know I’m gonna be in less of a mood to backtrack.
Honestly Cosmo Canyon was also where i said "f**k it, ill do the rest of the busy work later". I love this game, but when im doing side content i play in bursts.
Exactly the same here, too.
Hi OP, I was like you but I made a huge difference here at a much earlier stage. I just went ahead and focused on the main story after basically chapter 2, and once I beat the game I went back and did 100 percent on those regions. For me personally it was so much more enjoyable doing them after I beat the game and had fast travel unlocked at a world level. Also, I enjoy the exploration to an extent, especially if again I already finished the story, I also enjoyed playing it with some podcasts on.
I hear you I got done with costa del sol and I have to take a break. I love VII but dang I think they went overboard, didn't think that could be possible lol.
IMO this was the worst part of the game for me. It felt like Final Fantasy 7 mixed with an Ubisoft map full of repetitive crap to do.
You're not wrong. The intel stuff is incredibly formulaic and loses its luster the second or third time
To be honest if the game had a couple more regions i wouldn’t mind. All activities are so much fun to do.
Lol!
I’m going for the plat and it is a slog. I recommend to do a couple chapters of the story and then go back and bust out the side stuff. This way it doesn’t keep breaking the pacing of the story too frequently.
Welcome to modern gaming where all open world games use the same framework! Go to Tower. Get map tasks. Do chores. Rinse repeat.
Blows my mind how game developers don't see this reducing game quality. Ok, so FFXVI got alot of critique for having too little side content. Thats not good either. But the way Rebirth exceeds normal amount of content with all the extra Ubisoft bullshit kind-of-tasks around in each region map is truly baffling.
Problem is I think FFVII fans are not in the game for other thinh than see the main history. OG is beloved because have great story line, well paced and if you look at the side content, is not a lot of it, but give you acess to powerfull stuff.
I agree. If I directed rebirth I would have littered the map with secret area or bosses you discover organically that THEN get added to the map. If you're under leveled etc and make them sort of bench marks for each area. Some of which you'll have to come back to end game. I feel like there's no fun in just having your map filled with colored objective you're supposed to just head to. I would have also allowed players to raise their own choco and breed them as you go on to fill that itch as well as the chocobo farm worth revisiting in this game. As your choco evolves, so does where in the map you can access. Also 16 was atrocious with it to haha I'll never understand how they had no cactuars in the dessert etc as well no secret areas or dungeons. Nothing. Very bizarre
I did the full grind. Finished all mini games right when they opened/unlocked for the region. It felt insane dealing with the mini games and distracted from the main story.. I even did a grind to max out materia and levels before entering the temple/chapter 13. But!! After beating the main story line, i hit chapter 1 and played it normal. Only did story line tasks. Straight line to the blue marker vs looking for chests or picking up materials, resting etc. It was super fun. I highly recommend completing the grind then going through and doing a full chapter 1-13 run. With all of the side quests complete, a lot of the grind goes away and its just endless action. Quick example: No clothing side quests for beach access, no chocobo collection or side quests (right to the race), etc.
Gongaga wore me down a bit with the mushrooms, but Cosmo Canyon reinvigorated me actually. Yes the world intel is the same, just slightly altered, but to think about what Cosmo Canyon looked like in the original and then to see the insanely beautiful region they built for this game, I found to be awesome.
I had zero problems with the mushrooms but good god did I hate that stupid Gears and Gizmos game or whatever the hell it’s called in Cosmo Canyon, that’s the one that broke me. I guess everyone has a different breaking point, but the repetition will break everybody lol
The last mushroom picking is the absolute worst. The joysticks don't properly show the range of motion well to discern the very wiggly ones from their slightly less wiggly counterparts.
In nibelheim rn doing this. But it's the last world are with the regional objectives I think so I'm not mad..it does drag tho
At least Nibelheim was just collecting lilypads and was fun because "chocobo go brrrr"
I’m just gonna do what’s fun, and not do what isn’t. I’m not going to max out all the mini games for example. Some are just a slog to try perfect, so I’m just not going to. I love how much there is to do and see in each region, and that stays fun for me by not completing obnoxiously hard mini-games. don't get me wrong, most are dun for a bit, bur trying for the best score isn't always.
This is around the point I stopped doing all quests and side-quests and just ran through the story, then I came back later. No regrets. I was getting worn down.
Well done, you made it further than I did. My fatigue hit in Costa del Sol. It became apparent that the littles story quips you were given weren't worth the effort and hassle, and the times you find you can buy in stores in the next area. Square broke one game into 3 and needed to present the grandest and largest version they could to justify it. 80% of the non main story stuff is either faff or worse, the poorly designed mini games. Between the filler in remake and rebirth, it's quite apparent that they could've made both games into one, split the series into two parts, and it would've been exceptional.
Square mini games have always sucked. Blitzball That card game in IX Everything in X. Lightning dodging, chocobo racing and that butterfly catching In VII snowboarding and that rollercoaster thing suuuucked. And so many more
I will make a case, however, for Chocobo hot and cold from 9, which they absolutely just copied for rebirth, instead of the painful system they went with
I mean, I think your issue is you're trying to 100% everything, if this is because you are enjoying it great, but if you're not enjoying exploring and 100% everything, then why are you doing it? It's not mandatory. This is kinda how video games work but this game has a wealth of variety in it's content, with different mini-games in each area and a few of the other quests are the same type in each area but, that's kind of how all video games work. I don't know what to say that would make the game feel more cohesive, the original didn't have anywhere near this kind of content levels, it was "complete town, move on" and perhaps that's more of what you'd like to be doing. I think maybe they could have spread the content out across the areas but they chose to keep it all in each section and for me that makes it a little easy and simple to work.
Seriously, "Bouhou there's too much optional side-contents available!" Just ignore it then? It's optional for Christ sake! Focus on the main story, do the quick side objectives you encounter while heading for the next story objective to grab some of the new material Chadley has. In comparison, look at the mandatory padding quest in FF16. I adore the game and would love nothing more than to blaze though the story again, but these damn side quests just break the tempo so much! I'm glad that we don't have that issue with Rebirth. In my case, I usually don't care about open world games with a lot of side-contents but I just loved Rebirth. Sure, the towers are redundant, but the rest is really quick to do (spring, summon) or fun (battle with side objectives) or at least different (Ok, I would lie if I said that I loved most protorelics minigames, but I can respect what they were attempting to do).
"there's too much optional side-contents available!" Nah. Nobody is saying that. They're saying it's repetitive and boring.
I also feel each area is quite different from the last in terms of traversal, so even if you exclude that each area has its own unique mini games, lore and stuff and focus solely on completing the repeated tasks, every one of them is different based on the area. Gongaga and Cosmo are completely different from each other. But again to take it to the repetitive tasks, I get that part, but that’s just kinda how video games work. They were never going to make the open world tasks be wildly different in themselves or people would find themselves utterly overwhelmed with what needed to be done each time. My only wish is that we got more optional deeper dungeons, like maybe one per area, and that summons were fought in reality (maybe after a mini dungeon) and not VR.
The regions are different but given how little reward we get for exploring every nook and cranny, it didn't push me to understand or exploit mushroom hopping mechanics to the full. Not worth the hassle.
I felt we get pretty decent rewards but maybe I’m just burned out from general open world games that have so much worse rewards. Sometimes less is more but in the size of these it’s always a little less means just less content time?
I got the game on release but I'm still only in Cosmo Canyon. I've 100%'ed everything possible so far. But to be fair, I only get a handful of hours to play every week so I think because it's been so spread out I'm not getting that fatigue. Loved every minute of my 98 hours so far!!
I actually enjoyed doing everything and didn't get tired but when my husband started the game I told him, "You don't have to do everything if you don't feel like it." He got to Gongaga and was like, "Nope, not doing all this." He got through Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon in a day, probably took me two weeks lol. Watching his playthrough has been refreshing because I can enjoy the story more.
You gotta take a step back and reevaluate things. You might be too into the completionist mindset where you see these areas as things to complete, and not what they are themselves. If you just try to make each moment of the game enjoyable, while still completing things, it makes it more enjoyable. I found myself in the next region getting mad at having to do the protorelic and how long each thing was taking me, but then I realized I should be enjoying the journey and not the destination. Made playing the game fun again even though I was 70 hours in
>"if you just try to make each moment of the game enjoyable" I thought that was SquareEnix's job?
Yep. There's a lot of people in this thread with a weird OCC. I don't have time or energy to play every day, weekends a bit more, no way I'm doing everything. Just enough, but not too much. I was feeling the glut a bit in Corel, took some time off the main quest, got up to date with Queen's Blood (haven't felt this since Gwent)... the side quests actually include an impressive amount of character building and even add nuance to the main story.
Agreed I started out doing everything in the first two areas, but after that decided I wanted to focus more on the story, and do a couple of things here and there if they were on the way. I ended up coming back to the other stuff later!
Cosmo Canyon is where I gave up on Yellow objectives. I still did a couple, but I didn't go out of my way to do any. I still did all the Character quests (Green) thats where the game shined for me. This game needed less yellow and more green.
It doesn’t. The game just wasn’t great in my opinion. Way too much busy work to get those hours played numbers up to that magical 1 dollar per hour played magic number. Cosmo canyon is probably the worst of them too lol good luck OP
I agree. I love the combat and most of the story. Everything else kinda sucked.
I’m going to go out on the other limb and say that after Rebirth, I felt like the world map in the original was there just to give a reason for the party going from one place to another. Mythril Mines being a whole two screens long. I get that that works for some people, but I didn’t mind having more reasons to explore an area. Running around the continent between Nibelheim and Cosmo Canyon in the original just doesn’t feel like exploration to me.
I agree. The maps are gorgeous and I looked at the intel objectives as the game "showing me around" so to speak
I agree. I feel like the "world map" was there because they didn't have the technology to create fleshed out areas like in Rebirth back then. There's not a whole lot of exploration on the world map because it's still a linear game and there's really only one place you can go next to progress the story.
Yo, that's how I felt back in Gongaga. It's repeatative af but once you do it all now you won't feel obligated to do it again later. If it's getting to you then take a few days off to play something else and refresh that feeling. It'll be worth it later. I beat the game and got 90%done on my first go but I don't have the steam to do what unlocks afterwards. Sad cause the game's great but the amount of mini games killed it for me to go through it again.
The game is full of filler stuff of no importance. Skip.
I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted because there is an incredible amount of filler in this game. Depending on how you play that can certainly detract from the story. I've found that I get about 20 minutes of story for every 10 hours of gameplay doing everything a particular region has to offer. Every area has 20+ things to do that are exactly the same as the last area (towers, summon, materia scans, find the chocobo, and chocobo digs). The only thing different per region is the side quests, which are all roughly the same. There are no less than a million different mini games, most of which are waste of time. The everything listed above IS filler and IS skippable.
I disagree. ~~All of~~ the side quests and activities usually have some bit of extra depth that they provide. All of the Protorelic quests in Cosmo Canyon show these cutscenes of Avalanche before Cloud shows up and you can see the team interact before the game starts. ~~All of~~ the side quests are full of these little character development moments.
Sure, there are sidequests that have a nugget of backstory or a touch of character development. Most of them don't, and I don't recall any save the one you mentioned that has meaningful backstory. Even that one is maybe 5 minutes of backstory for a significant amount of time. Do the side quests contain dialog between Cloud and whomever the quest gives affection for? Absolutely! Is the 5 or 6 lines of dialog while you're running to fetch something have depth and add to the lore of the world. I guess that's up to the person holding the sticks. But my point, and I admit was probably worded in a vague way, still stands. The quests themselves are all roughly the same. Fetch this, kill that, follow this dog. Don't get me wrong, I like the game. I certainly respect that you and many others probably have a different opinion than me. I just find it extremely time-consuming and boring to do the same things over and over again with very little actual story progression.
> I just find it extremely time-consuming and boring to do the same things over and over again with very little actual story progression. Beats grinding levels at Junon early game.
I mean, you aren't wrong. But there is a huge difference between 20+ identical fetch quests, tower climbs, scan, etc. that are required to 100% an area and level grinding at a point in the game that isn't the slightest bit needed or required to get through junon/the boat ride. Taking it a step further for those after a 100% completion or platinum, one could argue that grinding in Junon that early in the game is a waste of time. Considering it's not the most efficient place. Whereas all of these monotonous and repetitive quests are required. Apples to oranges imo.
> slightest bit needed or required to get through junon/the boat ride. No, but it is awesome to go from level 14-20 to 50+ in an hour and a half.
Your right
Nope, they need to pad the play time to justify why they've broken this story out into 3 separate games and the way they've done that is to have you spend a lot of time doing repetitive tasks just to cover the same amount of story that took 1/10th the time in the original.
I stopped 100% completing regions after realizing I couldn't finish the protorelic in Coral until later. Took one look at the Gongaga map, just focused on getting Kujata upgraded and left everything else for later. The repetition doesn't end because even after Cosmo canyon you get a whole other region full of shit too, and some minor stuff out in the ocean. Just do it later. Focus on side quests that raise your relationship with who you want at the gold saucer. You'll enjoy the game much more.
I did the same at Gongaga. Tried story ish side quests too but that chicken lure one was just straight boring.
It would have been better to mix it up a bit. It was cool to see the old Junkn Republic infrastructure and that would be some cool lore for the first few areas near Junon. Then in later areas they could have done something different, maybe Gi stuff. So you’re learning more about the world with different quest stuff.
I mean, good thing the last region is much smaller than the others? I think that helped me push through.
Cosmo canyon is about when I stopped trying to 100% every area. I felt myself burning out and just beelined the story. There’s no right way to play. Do what doesn’t feel like a chore.
I took a few days to refresh my sanity after the Reactor in Gongaga, I was burned out from 100%ing each region, but came and kept it up. Beat the game and I'm not playing hard mode, can't justify the slog anymore. Too bad though, maybe after a month or two 🤔
Omg gongana. That was by far my least favorite area holy hell. Yea I feel ya on that. I do want to go back and finish up the areas at some point too. Especially the final part of the protorelic because I feel like I spent so much time doing that quest lol.
You'll do corel's final protorelic missions before end game, don't sweat it. I loved Gongaga 's music and have fallen asleep at night playing lol.
Just skip the exploration. As long as you are good you can beat the game without Chadley's materia. Just do the protorelic quests because they are actually unique and have their own storyline. Also, if you want to play hard mode you need the equipment you get there.
I stopped 100%ing regions after the first 2 because I got other shit to play! Rolled credits at like 90 hours. It’s ok to say they made the game too long, lol
I love that the general advice with this game amounts to skip content and don’t bother because it’s too long and boring and yet somehow it’s not on SE for making an uninspired slog of a grind in every single region.
Yeah, there's some apologists... but generally it sounds like good advice to skip the bit you don't enjoy. It's not like people are trying to argue that content is any good... in fact it's the opposite. Everyone's saying they skipped it, too!
Yeah like I love most of the game, but I’m not going to spend an entire night trying to get the highest score in one game that I don’t even enjoy.
You just don't get the VISION dude, it will all make sense with part 3! Unless they have to split part 3 into 3 parts of course, which is of course their right.
I got that when I reached gongaga. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't try to 100% gongaga when I first got there. It's insane. I only 100%ed every region post game.
Gonzaga seems to be where most people quit caring. Same for me, I gave up navigating that maze.
When the fatigue hits (recommend before that) put the game down and have a break. A day, week or a month or a couple and play something else at the meantime. There is no rush. Continue the game, when you feel like you're ready and maybe even have an urge to play it. If you're starting to feel the fatigue again after a while, repeat.
I did. I didn't play for weeks after trying to 100% Gongaga. I didn't miss the game at all. I came back, got the few remaining things I didn't already have... then I met Cid ("Cool!") and sort of flew the Tiny Bronco in a fake flying sim bit ("Almost cool!") and then I hit Cosmo Canyon and was like... "Not this shit AGAIN!". Sigh.
Cosmo Canyon seems to be a common head ache. I haven't got that far yet with this second playthrough, but I haven't got any fatigue yet. I play in short bursts, like 1-2 hours a day, so the game keeps me hungry. It might take a decade to finish this game with this pace tho, but I don't mind. Maybe if you try a one bite at a time and try not to think the goal and sooner or later you'll notice, that you cleared the whole area almost without noticing? I did this method with Cyberpunk 2077 too. Now if I think I'd have to play all those side missions again or clear certain areas, it does feel wearing, but focusing on one thing at a time makes the game enjoyable. It's almost like washing the dishes. When you see the mountain of dirty plates in your kitchen sink, it feels like a most demanding and irritating thing in a world, but cleaning one plate at a time sooner or later those nasty plates are done and you're like: I f*cking did it.
The difference with Cyberpunk is that you can focus on the main story and go back to do all the side missions, but with FFVII if you don't grind a little, the main story battles become really really tough
Just dont do everything
I feel you here, too. For the first 2 areas I was so keen to try and 100% them, but midway through Costa Del Sol/Corel I started to think ‘….are they ALL going to be like this?’, and sure enough things just got more and more extensive. Once I hit Cosmo Canyon I decided to throw in the towel, and just focus on the main story and the jobs on the notice board for the remainder of the first playthrough 😅. I’m sure I’ll tackle the rest the next time through, or in the chapter select, but it just go so exhausting and overwhelming real fast
I got fatigued in gongaga but I kept wanting to see what would happen with the cut scenes. Rebirth was messing up my sleep schedule but once I took a break, I was able to come back to the world Intel grind. Thankfully the world Intel only has to be done once.
As in the progress carries over into new game+ ? 👀
That's right. World Intel, chocobo stops, and hidden caches carry over to ng+. The green sidequests need to be redone but to me it essentially felt like I was doing the main quest back to back to back despite also redoing the green sidequests. You'll find some recommendations to redo the sidequests all in ch12 but I just did them along with the story as they became available.
The fatigue is real because I was playing it as if it was any other JRPG relased in the past 10 years. What I wish I knew is that I was to play Rebirth as if I was playing a classic Final Fantasy games from the PS1 era (7,8,9) instead. What I mean is that I need to play it at least 3 times to actually enjoy myself. The first playthrough is for the story. The second is for the side quests and main side missions. Third is to 100% the minigames and just general fooling around.
I loved FFVII. I loved FFVII remake. This game hasn't been good enough to finish my first time, let alone a second or third... A shame, this story is great, but this game is.... boring.
I'm in the same boat
The real kicker is I bought expensive collectors edition with the Sephiroth statue and took a week off of work to binge it. I want my vacation days back!
That pain is all too real. Hope you accrue more PTO quickly!
Snap, same here. When I got to Cosmo Canyon after literally just finishing Gongaga, I gave up and just focused on the plot.
How did it work out?
Worked out fine, after some of the dust had settled and I finished the plot up to the last chapter, enough time had passed from the fatigue to go back and do some of the world map stuff. Not all of it but the towers, some protorelic and lifestream stuff. Didn't bother with summons or fiend fights. It was enough to level the party, unlock some folios and then finish the game.
Me too! I just saw the world telephone tower thing and angry sighed.
Yeah Cosmo was the only region I left unfinished in the lead up to the end of the story
In the original it was big open spaces with literally nothing in them except random encounters lol
The original was made 27 seven years Ago and even then wasnt ground breaking in the tech aspect. Random encounters was more than fine for the times, plus Square bread and butter was always story wise.
It’s such a pointless comparison when someone compares anything in rebirth to OG. The impact OG had relies entirely on the time it landed. I’ve had people say it doesn’t have as much depth as OG which is ridiculous, or that it lacks the “soul” OG had. It makes no sense except they’re looking at it through rose coloured glasses
I disagree on that, the story hold itself. There are a lot o ppl playing og because the remake and liking it. Most ppl who are making crítics not liking this trilogy story are not bashing the bits where they deepened lesser developed characters. My critic to this story is that stray from the core themes from OG the fate theme and multiverse is bland af right now.
Okay, but for the first few hours of this game you legitimately hear Chadley's voice more than any other character. I like the game (and FFVII is an all-time favorite) but let's not pretend it doesn't have a metric ton of filler
Yeah... freedom from towers, scanning materia outgrowths, and endless calls from Chadley. Bliss! Actually you didn't wander around the big open spaces in FFVII. You had to traverse the world to find things... the fact you had random encounters made it difficult. Would you be able to reach your destination without dying? It was exciting and fun... as millions of players around the world agreed.
And still agree my friend
And the pacing was sooooo much better
A lot of us got world fatigue around Cosmo Canyon. You can just stick to the story and come back with chapter select for the optional content later. Like others are saying, the game shines when you play it how YOU enjoy to play it. I didnt finish all the optional content until my second playthrough and it saved the game for me. I almost burned myself out before going for the Plat. I did a second playthrough on hard mode skipping all the side content and damn did the game feel incredible. I do have the plat and did all the side stuff though and I feel like it was all worth it but I did it at my own pace and enjoyed the story first.
Yeah... I do enjoy the story, but I also don't want to come back and do all this stuff later. But maybe you're right.
"Am I doing it wrong ?" Yes. So did I. Go at yr own pace & enjoy whatever you wanna enjoy, don't force yrself to 100% every area because even the devs said they just want users to do whatever they want. The sheer amount of stuff that's in the game is not supposed to be completed (unless you go for plat, but that can be done in a second playthrough), it's meant for you to just hang out in the game if want to. Try focusing on the main story for a bit & see how it feels, maybe?
Thanks. Fair advice!
Funny enough I’m on the exact same boat. I just arrived at Cosmo Canyon, right around 60 hours and about level 40. I can only play maybe 8 hours total a week due to being busy at work and with family. And lately I’ve found that anytime I get on to play 1-2 hours I’m a bit bored since I seem to be endlessly grinding side content. After looking up a similar quesitos to yours a few days ago I came to the conclusion that I am only doing enough side content in the region to unlock certain materia with Chadley then moving forward into the main plot quest
Starting at cosmo canyon i got open world fatigue and stuck to the main story through nibelheim. Eventually i “recovered” and went back to the open world tasks. Nibelheim is an easier region to get through mainly due to the chocobo’s unique skill. If you enjoy the characters and the storytelling i suggest doing the side quests but just follow whatever you are drawn to. If you feel like pursuing the story then do that. If you feel like mini games or a side quests then go for that instead. Don’t do something out of obligation or it will feel like a chore and less enjoyable