Okay so everyone knows what i'm about to do here right? I'm gonna praise the shit out of this game yet again, because they somehow took an already great game and used the updated hardware to make it even better.
The original release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake was plagued with technical issues. While none of these really got in the way of the game's enjoyment, a lot of them were jarring problems that could pull you out of the better moments in the game. The biggest issue of course being the textures in lots of places. Not the generally low rez textures on things like the ground or really close examination of metal railings or whatever, but the textures that flat out didn't load. Doors, flowers, and entire walls of buildings simply didn't load their full texture at all. And it wasn't like and occasional thing, these textures didn't load 100% of the time.
With Intergrade, I'm happy to say that stuff is fixed. While some low textures remain they are only noticeable by rubbing your face up and down the walls so they no longer stand out in anyway. Top that off with a buttery smooth 60fps that makes traversing the world feel better. 60fps also makes combat even more fluid and incredible. I was frankly surprised at how much of a drastic difference combat felt at the higher frame rate, maybe due to the hyrbid action nature of the combat. Combine this with the fast loading, textures, and higher resolution and it is enough to make it feel like playing for the first time all over again.
Then with added delight there is an entire new section featuring Yuffie. What's interesting is that the Yuffie DLC exists outside of the main game and you can start it right from the main menu, even without having played the main story (I know because I purposefully deleted all my save data to make the experience fresh). And Yuffie's DLC is frankly great. Yuffie is a delightful character and she is done excellently here, and while her main mission is fairly short her DLC is also loaded with a decent amount of side content including a treasure hunt of sorts that is taking from the original game, and a whole new boardgame mini game to play called Fort Condor!
Fort Condor is the biggest side piece here as it has a whole progression system, collectable pieces and tournament to grind out. It's not a super complex game and basically plays exactly like Clash Royale if that rings any bells for people. Basically you have a trinity of units, tanks, melee, and ranged, with each unit being weak and strong against another type. Basically rock, paper, scissors. Each unit costs a specific amount of mana, which generates over time throughout the match. You place the units with the goal of marching to the enemy's base and destroying their three towers in the 3 minute time limit. You can customize and mix and match your "loadout" which allows you to bring 8 unit-types into the game on a set rotation. The strategy here is the bring the best units to counter whatever units your opponent is using (which may involve playing and loosing to them to see what they do). At the end of the 3 minutes (or when all 3 of someone's towers are destroyed) the game ends, if there are towers remaining the the person with the highest total health of all remaining towers wins. However if there is a perfect tie, in which you and your opponent have the exact same life total of tower remaining you enter SUDDEN DEATH! During sudden death your mana recharges lightning fast, allowing you to spam the shit out of your units, but your opponent also gets to do that as well. The first to destroy any tower wins.
It's not complex, and it's a total copy of Clash Royale, but regardless it is fun. You earn good rewards and collecting units from the people you spank is a neat aspect and adds to the run time of Yuffie's DLC.
As with the rest of the FF7 cast, Yuffie plays completely differently allowing her to mix melee combat with ranged attacks using her throwing star. Her real unqiue gimmick though is she can activate elemental ninjitsu which allows her to add a magic element to some of her attacks. This helps her capitalize on enemy weaknesses. However despite her impressive toolkit and play style, her DLC is actually pretty challenging which was surprising. I think i got more gameover's in the first chapter of her mission than I did with the entire Hardmode playthrough of the base game. They throw a lot of status aliments and such at you that can wear Yuffie down quickly.
Her combat interaction with Sonon, the non-playable character that tags along with her mission is also pretty slick. During combat you build up synergy with Sonon and once you max it out you can unleash team-up attacks that basically win non-boss fights automatically. They are pretty destructive. However if you fuck up, you can lose the synergy you build, so it's not an automatic win and you have to play decently well in order to use it reliably.
Then there is a new super boss who've I've not touched yet. This boss is fought in the main game so it does add content to the core of the original release as well. On top of that there is a seven minute expanded ending that leads the party into where I would assume Part 2 is going to kick off......capped off with a short clip that will make people's brains hurt.
All in all, they did something that I didn't think they could or would do, but they made the best game (imo) of last year even better.
But you all should know how incredibly fucking Bias I am towards this thing so, take my words at face value.
The original release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake was plagued with technical issues. While none of these really got in the way of the game's enjoyment, a lot of them were jarring problems that could pull you out of the better moments in the game. The biggest issue of course being the textures in lots of places. Not the generally low rez textures on things like the ground or really close examination of metal railings or whatever, but the textures that flat out didn't load. Doors, flowers, and entire walls of buildings simply didn't load their full texture at all. And it wasn't like and occasional thing, these textures didn't load 100% of the time.
With Intergrade, I'm happy to say that stuff is fixed. While some low textures remain they are only noticeable by rubbing your face up and down the walls so they no longer stand out in anyway. Top that off with a buttery smooth 60fps that makes traversing the world feel better. 60fps also makes combat even more fluid and incredible. I was frankly surprised at how much of a drastic difference combat felt at the higher frame rate, maybe due to the hyrbid action nature of the combat. Combine this with the fast loading, textures, and higher resolution and it is enough to make it feel like playing for the first time all over again.
Then with added delight there is an entire new section featuring Yuffie. What's interesting is that the Yuffie DLC exists outside of the main game and you can start it right from the main menu, even without having played the main story (I know because I purposefully deleted all my save data to make the experience fresh). And Yuffie's DLC is frankly great. Yuffie is a delightful character and she is done excellently here, and while her main mission is fairly short her DLC is also loaded with a decent amount of side content including a treasure hunt of sorts that is taking from the original game, and a whole new boardgame mini game to play called Fort Condor!
Fort Condor is the biggest side piece here as it has a whole progression system, collectable pieces and tournament to grind out. It's not a super complex game and basically plays exactly like Clash Royale if that rings any bells for people. Basically you have a trinity of units, tanks, melee, and ranged, with each unit being weak and strong against another type. Basically rock, paper, scissors. Each unit costs a specific amount of mana, which generates over time throughout the match. You place the units with the goal of marching to the enemy's base and destroying their three towers in the 3 minute time limit. You can customize and mix and match your "loadout" which allows you to bring 8 unit-types into the game on a set rotation. The strategy here is the bring the best units to counter whatever units your opponent is using (which may involve playing and loosing to them to see what they do). At the end of the 3 minutes (or when all 3 of someone's towers are destroyed) the game ends, if there are towers remaining the the person with the highest total health of all remaining towers wins. However if there is a perfect tie, in which you and your opponent have the exact same life total of tower remaining you enter SUDDEN DEATH! During sudden death your mana recharges lightning fast, allowing you to spam the shit out of your units, but your opponent also gets to do that as well. The first to destroy any tower wins.
It's not complex, and it's a total copy of Clash Royale, but regardless it is fun. You earn good rewards and collecting units from the people you spank is a neat aspect and adds to the run time of Yuffie's DLC.
As with the rest of the FF7 cast, Yuffie plays completely differently allowing her to mix melee combat with ranged attacks using her throwing star. Her real unqiue gimmick though is she can activate elemental ninjitsu which allows her to add a magic element to some of her attacks. This helps her capitalize on enemy weaknesses. However despite her impressive toolkit and play style, her DLC is actually pretty challenging which was surprising. I think i got more gameover's in the first chapter of her mission than I did with the entire Hardmode playthrough of the base game. They throw a lot of status aliments and such at you that can wear Yuffie down quickly.
Her combat interaction with Sonon, the non-playable character that tags along with her mission is also pretty slick. During combat you build up synergy with Sonon and once you max it out you can unleash team-up attacks that basically win non-boss fights automatically. They are pretty destructive. However if you fuck up, you can lose the synergy you build, so it's not an automatic win and you have to play decently well in order to use it reliably.
Then there is a new super boss who've I've not touched yet. This boss is fought in the main game so it does add content to the core of the original release as well. On top of that there is a seven minute expanded ending that leads the party into where I would assume Part 2 is going to kick off......capped off with a short clip that will make people's brains hurt.
All in all, they did something that I didn't think they could or would do, but they made the best game (imo) of last year even better.
But you all should know how incredibly fucking Bias I am towards this thing so, take my words at face value.
