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Minigame Ranking #40: Tracking Shai Hulud

Surprise, there are actually 40 minigames because I forgot about one until just now.

First, let me just say that I genuinely like everything in this game (though certainly some of these annoyed the shit out of me). I tend to think "pointlessness" and "unoriginality" are worse qualities to have than annoyance. Therefore, the last place minigame is this random-ass quest from Cosmo Canyon where you have to track a sandworm using an item found in the Moogle Emporium. This wasn't particularly difficult or annoying, but it just seems extremely pointless. Similarly...

Minigame Ranking #39: Tracking a Monster Using a Chocobo or Red XIII

You do this a couple times. The first time I think is kind of interesting, because it shows Red XIII still kind of faking being a bad-ass and boasting to have a strong sniffer, only to be outdone by a chocobo. So that's some nice characterization. Doesn't make the gameplay mechanic any more interesting though!

I think this game does a good job not doing a bunch of stuff that's been done to death by open world games (or it does it better than most at least). However, if I have to follow my nose (i.e. a color scent trail) to find some monsters or corpses or fruit loops or whatever it'll be too soon. It's one of those more recent video game tropes that's just been done to death.

You might say "well shouldn't the vibration detector be higher since it's at least different?" That's a fair point, but it's also just feels completely unnecessary.

Hint for Character #67: Not a fan of Splinter Cell.

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68 . Garth, aka Gus's Hype-Man, aka "I really wanted to have 69 characters on the list so people could say 'nice' in the topic"

Perish the thought of my anger at Square Enix impacting my love for Shinra Middle Manager. SE will patch it and all will be forgiven.

As far as NPC's go, Garth is extremely unremarkable with little plot relevancy to speak of. He's second banana/hype man to Gus, who will be make an appearance later in the list. His best scene is Gus's introduction, where some of his dialogue gets ADR'd in.

I want to say he existed in the original FF7 but I can't prove that (and how could anyone?). It would be cool if he was the guy hiding behind the couch that Barret stone cold murders in the original. The fact that this scene isn't in Rebirth is a huge downer by the way.

Garth is kind of involved in the Chocobo racing quest, which is one of the better side stories of Rebirth. But we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

Hint for Minigame #39: The worst/most forgettable minigame experience in FF7 Rebirth involves Moogles.

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69 . The Other "Other" Shinra Soldier at Nibelheim (aka the boy who drowned, aka the straw that broke the Sephy's back)

Are there theories about this guy yet? Like he survived drowning, lost his memory, and decided to become a professional Queens' Blood player? That Sephiroth only really went off the deep end because he failed to grab this dude in the flashback? That if he had been there he would've put a cold one right between Sephy's eyes before he even stepped one foot outside the Shinra mansion? Because it's all true. I'm calling it now: Remake Part 3 ends with a time travel sequence in which you save this dude, which butterfly effects the whole adventure out of existence. Somehow he saves Corel too.

Anyway, someone had to be #69. Not much to actually say here about the character himself, but I will take the time to acknowledge how awesome the Kalm flashback sequence is. Like most of the game itself, it's as though the devs ripped it out of my imagination. Rebirth is in so many ways more of a faithful remake than Remake was, and these two hours felt like 1997 again. The way that Cloud feels like Cloud doing a Zack impression... just really good writing and directing, seriously.

Hint for 68: Party on, dudes.

I've been kind of hyperfixating on this game since I finished it a few days ago. Therefore, even though there's like four topics on this game right now I'm going to do another one.

There will be SPOILERS in this topic, though I'll put the major story stuff from the last chapter in spoiler tags.

I'm going to rank 69 NPC's (not including Vincent and Cid).
I'm going to rank 39 minigame/minigame like activities.
I'm going to rank the ten "main" characters.

Write-ups will range in length, quality, and subject matter.

Hint for #69: This person's death changed everything.

rebirth is absolutely goated

also tomnook should really just play the game

also with odin you should be constantly debuffing him somehow

if he's debuffed he won't blow the horn unless he's 25% or below in my experience

Aqua Teen
Home Movies
Venture Bros
Rick and morty

10

pretty much perfect. great characters and multiple moments that could be considered the pinnacle of the series.

odin killed me a lot

what really helped me was actually adjusting the materia setup and making sure everyone had some kind of ATB up materia (either ATB stagger or ATB synergy etc)

cloud/tifa/barret was my squad

DnDer posted...

He could also be talking about the people who see "lane merge, 1 mile" or similar notices for construction, where people don't try merge ahead of time and race right up to the bottleneck making everyone's commute longer as they jam up the line.

this is what you're supposed to do. it's called zipper merging

_stingers_ posted...

During chapter 11 during the Nibel reactor climb, Yuffie calls us the Yuffie Recon Patrol or YRP for short. Sneaky FFX-2 reference in the wild!

I stood up and cheered when this happened

Kotetsu534 posted...

Aerith being (implicitly) a bit jealous of Cloud's and Tifa's memories of their childhood together was a different side of her character too which I quite liked because a bit of imperfection is more interesting.

This is a good point. Aerith actually expressing a complex and real human emotion was really strong characterization.

Definitely agreed on Shinra manor even though I enjoyed the Cait Sith stuff. It's just a bit lacking compared to the original. I would imagine some Vincent stans are unhappy with his introduction here but I thought it was mostly fine

3

yeah it's actively unfun between the music and the witness characters. the defendant, culprit, and murder itself I'm okay with but woof.

If they let you know where the mushrooms sent you gongaga wouldn't be so bad

but it's definitely tough to get through

Can we talk about how wild it is that this game made me feel just as bad (if not more so) about Aerith "dying" this time as it did the first time?

Honestly the main narrative is a storytelling masterclass aside from maybe Cosmo and Nibel, which feels like a slight dip.

Yuffie: Throw, Ninjutsu, Banishment once you get it. Rinse and Repeat. Cast doppelganger for ridiculous stagger damage. Add Shooting Star and I was tearing shit up.

Cait Sith: ATB ability materia helps. Regular combo plus Kitty Wallop builds ATB really quickly. Let's Ride will usually grant you an additional ATB if it hits. Fortune Telling is usually a crit. Moogle Knuckle is reliable damage and dice can really help. Alternatively, call the moogle and cast spells as the kitty.

Honestly, the battle system is a masterpiece. How they were able to make 7 distinct characters that ACTUALLY play differently and allow you to switch instantaneously between them. With double techs? It's like a dream.

gongaga's bad because there's no markers of chocomushrooms on the map or any indication of how far they send you. some mushrooms drop you off directly in front of them and others launch you 1000 feet. it's a jungle so it makes sense that it's somewhat hard to traverse but definitely frustrating.

I did lose to galian beast the first time. Roche was a cakewalk though.

I bet it comes out 2027

most of the world's already made. they'll follow tears of the kingdom's lead and keep the map the same, add wutai and a northern continent and change up the chadley stuff. IF they decide to make the game as big as this one, which again I'm not so sure they even do considering dev costs.

_stingers_ posted...

Also I haven't played ff7 in 15 years or so and I don't remember any of this Gi subplot, is this new or was this in the original? In the cave they mentioned coming from another planet so I'm guessing they're related to Jenova?

this is new and a good addition imo

yuffie is op, pls nerf

they can delist hearts r all they want

6/10

Vibes are way off in this one. It introduces Pearls and it's unique in that the victim is totally non sympathetic and kind of villainous himself. So that's the good. Gunpowder burn is bad. It's the "updated autopsy report" moment for Franziska, but it sucks. I refuse to go into more detail since I haven't played this case in five years probably.

I basically agree with the "Beagle Universe" reading but I don't think Cloud is "confused." It's beyond reason to think no one would've said "Hey Cloud, Aerith is actually dead" and that wouldn't have been talked through. I think Cloud is aware with what's going on. He's emotionally stunted and under the influence of Jenova/Sephiroth cells but he's not completely divorced from reality.

I expected to hate the overworld stuff based on what I'd been hearing but I ended up loving 90% of it.

As someone who HATES Horizon, which the director cited as an influence, I expected the worst. What separates it is that this game's combat is actually fun to play, the music and sound effects are extremely good, and the writing is stellar. There's also not a lot of pointless loot/gear. Gongaga sucked to get around in but I found the overworld stuff addicting for the most part.

The areas are largely well-designed too, in that you can tell where to go without looking at the map if you so chose. In Horizon, following the icons are essentially required.

I definitely would take Elden Ring and modern Zelda over this model but this was a pretty good open world

pjbasis posted...

Damn can't imagine loving it this much and still doubt part 3 is gonna be at least pretty dang good.

That was largely in reference to the fact that non-Switch console gaming is basically dead in Japan and AAA game costs are (with a few exceptions) no longer profitable based on sales numbers. I expect the third game to be smaller and a little more like Remake. Which some people will think is a positive!

I have no doubt it will be good, but I don't think I will ascend while playing it like I did during this game. We've run through most of the good stuff from the source material (all due respect to escaping from Junon and the lifestream section). It's downhill from here.

I was expecting this game to go way more off the rails, so that part 3 would be basically an all-new game with a few references to the original. But the game actually adhered to the source material way more than I thought it would.

gears and gambits seemed really hard until I realized I was reading the weakness icons wrong.

but yeah it kind of sucks, just like ff12

Kotetsu534 posted...

Checked and it doesn't double stack. Genji Glove also doesn't let that characters' Summon break the damage cap.

There has to be something more to what went on than "Cloud tried to save Aerith, but it turns out fate is unstoppable even when acted against." That's somewhat nihilistic for a big JRPG.

Yeah. As a big fan of Twin Peaks: The Return, I'm all about artists refusing to give audiences the ending/expectations they want. I think ambiguous endings are typically better than happy ones. If the devs wanted to do this, they would've. They're setting up a revival/reunion payoff for the third game I think.

No one knows for sure, but I definitely think it's a lot more than "Cloud's crazy and just seeing things" or "it's Jenova." Like Red XIII acknowledges Aerith's presence (kinda sorta).

MacArrowny posted...

Chapter 12 - the song at the Gold Saucer was terrible. Can't believe they thought this was a good idea.

I liked it a lot

stafoc posted...

I'm a bridge engineer, so I might be able to shed... Hopefully a little bit of light on the bridge questions.

pretty good post. thank you!

_stingers_ posted...

Man I just spent like 45 minutes getting the star on two legs? Nothin to it. Shit was so much harder than the others

practicing this and getting A rank was so fun

3

The points are almost all due to Maggey becoming a semi-relevant side character later on

125 hours, did everything except for the gilgamesh island super battles and that one quest that got glitched with the recent patch. looks like I might be able to do it easy in chapter selection.

wow. this game was PERFECT. really blown away by everything. this might be the last AAA console jrpg we get of this quality based on where the market is headed. couldn't have asked for a better game to go out on.

I'm also not convinced that "our" Aerith is actually dead.

1. In a game that makes it very clear that it understands the iconic moments in the source material the scene where cloud lowers Aerith's body into the water isn't included. We get everyone sitting by the edge being sad, but not this. It's omission seems really telling.
2. Cid randomly asks "what did Aerith actually do" or something in the very end.
3. No one actually says "I can't believe she's dead" or anything like that
4. Cloud can not only see Aerith and have conversations with her, but he also sees the big scar in the sky that no one else can

So it's possible that it's a "two worlds overlapping" thing going. It's for sure meant to be ambiguous at least.

Also I thought for sure Lodbrok was going to be cloud's dad or old cloud from an alternate timeline all the way until the ending, so don't listen to me

9/10

This one gets a lot of flack for being messy canonically but it has really cool original characters, music, etc. I love it.

got the g-bike bug in chapter 12 (can't progress the quest even though I beat the guy's score by 2000 points)

ugh

yep that's a 10

8/10

An important case, though not altogether satisfying. The first real case that gives players a sense of the series as a whole (partner investigations, big twists, etc.) Dee Vasquez isn't great imo and the last day of investigation feels weird.

Chess
Checkers
Monopoly
Scrabble

I don't know how any actual website stay in business anymore tbh. Seems like it's all being replaced by aggregators and tik toks. Just changing of the times.

Best in the genre in a decade is a bit much (unless you're not counting any Marvel in there for some reason). It's good but the finale is straight up bad

6/10

I give both 1-1 and 1-2 a lot of leeway because they're still doing a bunch of game building. Yeah the ending and the culprit suck, but I feel if you went straight from 1-1 into an actual unknown mystery it could have been disorienting. The gameplay build in going from "extremely obvious" to "extremely obvious with an investigation section" to "not obvious at all with an investigation section" is important.

OT2 is much better than Sea of Stars

It is a very good JRPG, if you're okay with a Canterbury Tales like ensemble story rather than a typical party-banter driven experience.

6/10

A perfect tutorial case. From a game design standpoint, hugely important. As other people have said, in terms of the heights the series reaches later it's quaint. Funny, and I actually like how it can be fully read and beaten in less than twenty minutes.

Also Japan is in a recession and they PS5 itself isn't a huge seller

try physical therapy if you can/your injury allows for it. It really helped mine

Can't hear y'all cause I'm too busy playing GOTY, Best Final Fantasy Game of all Time, FF7 Rebirth

Papers Please
Disco Elysium
Kentucky Route Zero
Journey

I don't think Thanos actually wanted to help people though. It's typical Malthussian logic that's employed by sociopaths. Which makes him sympathetic but still villainous imo.

dang I feel honored to have gotten an honorable mention. I feel like I haven't really opened up to you all despite being here for 20 years of life.

thanks! but you should dislike chrono chross and like ff7 remake if you truly want to get on my level

Isquen posted...

Sorry the question is vague, as I *am* at work, but let me try and rephrase it.

What's a piece of work you can talk at length about that you could still sell somebody on viewing/reading for one reason or another?

In my two examples, I actually rather liked The Authenticity Project's writing style and characters - apart from the two alcoholics, and just hated that they wound up the best off in the ending. In Game of Thrones, the series especially, I thought the pacing was brilliant and the overarching storyline great (until it wasn't.)

I think the rephrase is just confusing me more

One Piece I guess

I'm trying to think of a RPG series where I actually do this and I think the closest I get is Trails, which usually has pretty strict story-driven character parties anyway. But it's definitely the series where I have characters I never want to touch (get out of here Machias and Elliot)

Thanos, High Evolutionary, Purple Man

the purple trio