Board 8 > I'm playing Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth for the first time *spoilers as I go*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Dice and slot machine mechanics are the worst.

There are way better Cait strats for the VR challenges around now than there were in the weeks after release - I just watched someone destroy his whole set in 5 minutes, making use of the 50% debuff extension you can get with his Iron Microphone (and e.g. Slow and Stop statuses). His kit is so weird though, and to play optimally you need to do some unusual things (e.g. jumping off the moogle to use the i-frames as a dodge).

But I found him by far the least fun to play, certainly without getting a lot of outside advice. His last VR challenge took me nearly 20 minutes because I could only think to play it very defensively.

I enjoyed playing as Cait generally, as well as his solo parts in Shinra Manor lab! But I know it's an infamously widely hated part of the game...

Definitely good stuff coming up though!

I'm glad this Cait Sith section is widely loathed. Thst hopefully means nothing left is on this level of nonsense. I do like the character more in Rebirth but as a section of the game Shinra Manor was awful.

All I did tonight was two Nibel sidequests, at which point I got spooked by the whole world opening up with a bunch of extra stuff to do.

The first sidequest involved finding a lost cat for the lady living in Cloud's old house. It was nice having Cloud and Tifa talk about their past, and their memories of her old cat. Of course, it turns out that Fluffy is the cat we were searching for, having survived the destruction of Nibel. We rescued her and her kittens from monsters, brought her back to town, and Tifa played a song for everyone on the piano. Overall, this was a cute sidequest with lots of nice character moments.

The next sidequest (more of a world intel thing, I guess) was following black robe guys to the protorelics. This was... less good. The black robe guys ambled along slowly, and even the characters all groaned about how boring it was to follow them. The game's solution was to let me shove them ever so slightly forward, barely faster than they could walk. That doesn't really solve the problem. Still, there were nice moments here dealing with SOLDIER degradation and Cloud's fear of it. The former SOLDIER they met in Kalm was even among the black robes, which is kind of harrowing. We beat up Gilgamesh at the end, got the protorelic, and all was well. The only other ominous thing was that Hojo is starting to do experiments on Chadley, but for now he seems fine.

I headed to the airport next and met with Cid. I guess he knew Aerith's mother, though why he's only bringing this up now, I'm not sure. He was sad to learn Ifalna had died, and agreed to fly everyone to the Gold Saucer for free. Vincent also decided to tag along because he has unfinished business with Sephiroth. Aw yeah, the party is all together! I still don't like Cid much, but at least this version of him is simply boring as opposed to the abusive asshole he was in the original. As for Vincent, he's still a kind of flat character, but damn does he ever look cool. Glad to have him aboard.

The airplane's engines exploded, we landed in the water, and then I had to sail us over to Costa del Sol. Once I arrived... oh man, the whole world opened up. Every region has new quests. There's a spooky pirate's treasure spread across the world guarded by fiends who sound like optional superbosses. It even told me that a lot of minigames in the Gold Saucer have been upgraded. Oh... oh no. I'm going to spend the next several sessions hunting all this stuff down! I don't mind, I enjoy the game, but those probably won't be the most interesting updates. Still, thanks for following along with the playthrough, everyone.

Final note: Yuffie has a new song! She sung it when we were slowly following the robe guys. "Following these guys to wherever they lead. Oh, robed guys, you must be cooking underneath those robes". I love you, Yuffie. I also liked how, when Cid told them about Wutai declaring war and Midgar getting bombed, Yuffie was all hyped about it while everyone else just felt sad because war is destructive. Still, none of them had their homeland attacked in a war by Shinra. I can see Yuffie's point of view.

That cat was in Traces of Two Pasts, too, haha.

Anyway, you can now float around on the Tiny Bronco in a manner which is closer to the old-school days of single-player FF than ever before! Its only part of the world, of course, but its freedom! Its a world map!

Makes me so damn stoked for part 3.

SaveEstelle posted...

Anyway, you can now float around on the Tiny Bronco in a manner which is closer to the old-school days of single-player FF than ever before! Its only part of the world, of course, but its freedom! Its a world map!

Honestly, this really surprised me. I'd noticed ports in various towns, but I figured we'd just travel to there through a loading screen at some point. When the Tiny Bronco crashed and I was just... on an interconnected open world, it was great. The open world in this game is honestly incredibly well put together. The individual areas were great on their own, but now they've been stitched together!

Part One of worldwide sidequest extravaganza:

-I fought some monsters for the former bandit idiots in the Kalm area. These guys are kind of annoying, so this was a meh sidequest.
-Did another dolphin race in Lower Junon area. This was a Yuffie sidequest and at the end she demanded the kids each pay her a materia. But, she was clearly joking. I like Yuffie, good sidequest.
-The unit I did the military parade with needed help fighting a monster. It was annoying that I had to sniff with a chocobo and track it across multiple fights, but otherwise this was a fine sidequest. I liked seeing the military bros again, plus their hot commander.
-Kyrie was scamming the mayor of Costa del Sol, who hired Cloud to finish her job... and kill Kyrie at the end. I laughed when we met up with Kyrie. Yuffie was like, yeesh, this girl is too much even for me! That's some self-awareness there, Yuffie. I collected the monster parts, killed the beach monsters, and then Kyrie reconciled with her grandmother and went home without me needing to kill her. I like Yuffie sidequests and I like Kyrie, so this was a good sidequest.
-In Gongaga, I helped Cissnei hunt down a tough monster and she revealed that she's still waiting for Zack even though she knows he's dead. I like Cissnei, good sidequest.
-Also in Gongaga, I helped Barret and Red take pictures for a children's book author to get inspiration from. This was a meh sidequest, not much gained from the characters. The children's book idea she came up with was painfully generic.
-I did the new Costa del Sol Queen's Blood matches and a few of the new bonus ones at the card challenge shop there. Still have a lot more of those to do, though.
-I also sailed around the world and fought the four pirate friends guarding treasure. They weren't superbosses after all. They were surprisingly easy, actually.

I still have to do Cosmo Canyon and Nibelheim, a few Chadley simulations, more challenges for Queen's Blood, and then all the minigames in the Gold Saucer. But I feel like I made good progress today! It's fun sailing around the world hitting boxes and solving problems. Rebirth is a good game.

Just a heads up (not that you necessarily need it) but people use that Nibel sidequest to gain a lot of levels very quickly. You can look up how to do it if you want. It's pretty easy.

Leonhart4 posted...

Just a heads up (not that you necessarily need it) but people use that Nibel sidequest to gain a lot of levels very quickly. You can look up how to do it if you want. It's pretty easy.

I looked it up, and it was fighting the bees in the Tifa cat quest I already did. Maybe there isn't anything else in Nibel. Oh well, I'm not too worried about my level. I'm at 46 right now and I looked it up, the game is typically beaten at 50.

Yeah that's really only an issue for Hard Mode stuff and you can just reset the mission infinitely in the post game.

Didn't have much time to play tonight, only did the Nibel sidequest.

It honestly started promising. Reports of a spooky voice coming from Shinra Manor. I was excited! Finally, the manor will be spooky. Barret was frightened, but he pretended not to be. Vincent tagged along too and shared some history of the place. As we descended, the spooky singing could be heard. Genuinely creepy.

Then... it turned out to just be one of Hojo's experiments and all the quest involved was fighting a bunch of simulations, then a dragon thing that sang for some reason. Man, what a letdown. All that setup for just another Hojo AI thing. Shinra Manor in Rebirth sucks. I did all the simulations, including the extra ones, and unlocked a side room with some treasure.

I also started a quest in the criminal town below the Gold Saucer. Leslie, Corneo's lackey from the first game who set off in search of his missing girlfriend, has tracked her down to here. Gus, the over-the-top crime lord, is giving her away as a prize in his arena. Five one-on-one matches, and humans only, so yay I won't need to use Cait Sith. But... oh... oh no, I need to use Aerith. I annihilated the first match with Yuffie, no problem. Then, the second one with Aerith against two Bombs... man, this is going to take some trial and error.

I reread Kotesu's helpful advice in post 138 of this topic, but Aerith still takes some getting used to. It doesn't help that Bombs don't have an elemental weakness to exploit, and they're constantly shooting fire at me. I'm confident I'll figure this out, but I ran out of time and stopped for the night. At least, once I finish with Aerith, Cloud/Tifa/Barret should finish this quest no problem and rescue Leslie's girlfriend.

I remember hating Aerith vs Bombs

Yeah, I looked up a video for a strategy on that fight to help me beat it

Robazoid posted...

no problem and rescue Leslie's girlfriend.

i forgot there could still be spoilers for me

my strategy for Aerith vs. Bombs: level up an elemental materia, so I could make her immune to fire damage

(it's not a spoiler, just hiding it in case u don't actually want help)

Epyo posted...

my strategy for Aerith vs. Bombs: level up an elemental materia, so I could make her immune to fire damage

(it's not a spoiler, just hiding it in case u don't actually want help)

This is actually a great idea and I'm embarrassed that I didn't think of it. Thank you.

The worldwide sidequest adventure continues!

I finished the Dustbowl arena one. Thank you Epyo for the advice about just equipping fire element in my armor, that was all Aerith needed to win. Then, with the other three, I annihilated their enemies easily. Even the Jester that Cloud fought was wiped out by one limit break. Sadly, it turns out that the girl we rescued wasn't Leslie's missing girlfriend. Better luck in the next game, buddy. Highlight of this quest was Tifa kicking Gus in the gut and telling him to never sell another human being, because otherwise she'd destroy him. You go, girl.

Then I did the Cosmo Canyon quest, which involved an annoying minigame following vibrations until I could fight a sandworm for Zhije, the guy Yuffie met way back in Intergrade. Any quest involving Yuffie is a good one, but there wasn't much going on here.

Then, I decided to do some clean-up. I did the remaining Queen's Blood puzzles in Costa del Sol. Some of the ones to unlock character cards were annoying, and others were dead easy with only one or two possible places to put cards. I wound up looking up a few solutions, others I got first try.

Then I tried to do the Chadley simulations, and... I honestly got bored of them. I also tried to do the Odin summon battle, but man is it ever nonsense. Eventually he just does Zantetsuken, 9999 damage to everyone, game over. I looked up some strategies (but didn't want to use my one-time-use revive accessories), tried again with a new materia setup... and I still lost. Ugh. Maybe I don't need all the summons yet. Maybe I don't need to do all these boring Chadley simulations.

I'm seriously considering just heading to the Gold Saucer, doing minigames there until I'm sick of them too, and then moving forward. Nothing against the sidequests, most of them were fun. There's just too much miscellaneous nonsense to go with them. Chadley simulations, Hojo simulations, the Dustbowl arena, Queen's Blood puzzles, Gold Saucer minigames... it's too much! I want to progress the story. I guess I'll see how I feel tomorrow. Sorry for another boring update.

The Odin battle has some really intricate mechanics to it that I enjoy but it took me a lot of attempts, and a postgame loadout, to learn that and like it.

Odin is tough. I eventually had to stop and come back to it later before I beat him.

Okay, I continued a bit:

-I finished Queen's Blood. Fought the ghost of the creator, fought Vincent, then beat Regina while she was possessed. It was funny how intense that last standoff was, cards floating around and Vincent shooting them out of the air and all. So many powers were triggering in that last match that I'm surprised I won and have no idea how. But I did it! Queen's Blood, complete.

-Did the last sidequest, chocobo racing to win the Gold Cup. Once I did, Billy, the kid we've been helping all game, learned the truth about his parents. It was Don Corneo's fault, not Chocobo Sam's. Luckily, it sounds like I'm about to go beat the hell out of Don Corneo when I continue the story.

-I did the Expert version of the Star Fox space fighting minigame.

-I beat Yuffie in the Brawl minigame. I did the 'pause and see the move' cheese because fuck me this minigame sucks. I wouldn't have bothered for any other character, but since it was Yuffie I had to do it. Hopefully I boosted her friendship points enough to make her my date (but I doubt it).

-It was nice chatting with everyone around the Gold Saucer. Tifa was feeling hopeless, but Cloud cheered her up. Red wanted to race in the chocobo races (as mount or rider). Barret reminisced about Jessie at the theater. Yuffie was playing the worst minigame ever. And, lastly, Aerith and I tracked down Dio in the Battle Arena. He got beat up, so now he can't duel Corneo. He wants us to do it. I guess that's what I'll do next time!

So, that's it. I'm done all world intel except for the two protorelic ones in Corel that aren't available yet. I did all the sidequests. I completed Queen's Blood. I'm sick of minigames, so I'm finally going to move forward. Here's a list of what I haven't done:

-Queen's Blood challenges at the Gold Saucer
-Expert mode of the bike minigame
-Expert mode of the brawl minigame
-Various Chadley combat simulations
-Gold Saucer Battle Arena matches
-Most of the silver-tier chocobo races
-Dustbowl Arena matches
-Fort Condor expert mode

Otherwise, I think I've cleared out everything the game has to offer. I am thoroughly sick of minigames and meaningless simulated fights. I'm finally read to progress the next time I play and win that stupid keystone.

I took the day off playing to instead work on another project. I apologize for the delay. This is already my longest FF playthrough in terms of hours and days. I've also spend the last few playing minigames and doing sidequests rather than progressing. I apologize for how boring this must be to follow along with. I'll progress tomorrow and do my best to have something to talk about!

not boring at all. keep it up. I actually have so many thoughts about this game but I just don't have the time to sit down and compose them

I spent close to 150 hours on Rebirth. And I actually skipped a lot of the minigames with the help of wemod trainer. Just got max scores for everything. Made the game 1000% more enjoyable to me.

I used to hate cheating in games and would spend like 5 hours beating the drunk chocobo racing in FFX, now I say fuck that noise I ain't got time for that shit.

Made some progress!

First, I headed to the ghost hotel and had a nap. This led to a brief sequence with Zack in the alternate reality. These continue to be a complete waste of my time. Marlene told him about how Sephiroth will kill Aerith (jeez, thanks for the spoilers, Marlene) but maybe Cloud will save her if Zack can make him better. Zack decides to go to Hojo (yeah, he's going to be willing to help) but instead he found a note from Biggs about bombing Reactor 6. Zack decided to go stop Biggs instead. End scene. This was all pointless.

Back in the true timeline, Cloud went on a Gold Saucer date with... Barret. Fuck. I knew it. I messed up something or other with all the girls, of course I get stuck with Barret. At least it was framed as going to a play in honor of Jessie's memory, and that sequence opened with a surprisingly pretty VR version of Jessie's play. Then, Cloud and the others got to take part in an interactive virtual play. I did well enough on the minigame to get an S-rank. The highlight here was Barret hamming it up as the evil devil dude. Then Aerith sang a pretty song. Overall, the play sequence was nice.

The Skywheel trip with Barret was okay too. He opened up about his deceased wife, and he advised Cloud to admit it if he has feelings for anyone so he won't have any regrets. I predict Cloud won't take this advice, and that he'll regret it later. If it had given me a choice, I'd have picked Aerith for maximum angst.

Up next was the Battle Arena challenge against Don Corneo. I won the first three fights here just fine. I appreciated all the different ways the team threatened to destroy Corneo's testicles, a nice callback to the original game. Then, instead of getting the Keystone, the Turks burst in. Cait Sith stole it and ran off. I was left with Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith against Rude and Elena, but I did fine against them. Then... it was time for a 1v1 against Rufus. Ugh, I hated this battle in Remake, and I hated it here. Rufus just isn't a fun enemy to battle, he's more like a puzzle boss with all his counters. It took me a few tries, his dog coming in halfway through is bullshit, but eventually I won. If there's a Rufus duel in the third game I'm going to punch a wall in real life.

Next up was a brief, annoying hide-and-seek game with Cait Sith through the Gold Saucer. He still managed to hand off the Keystone to the Turks. Everyone was angry at Cait Sith, but for some unknown reason they opted not to destroy him. Only Yuffie seemed truly angry. And, you know what, I'm on Yuffie's side! They should have destroyed Cait. Instead, they just walked off. Vincent thinks he can track the Turks, though, so we'll follow them next time I play.

I finished the session by completing the newly available Corel region protorelics, tracking down cactuar shrines and doing the trials with Yuffie and Aerith. Just like before, the Yuffie one went fine, the Aerith one was annoying. Don Corneo and Gilgamesh tried to steal the treasure, but were fought off. Then the team dueled the goblin, Kid G, in a friendly sparring match. Since I finally had all the protorelics, Cloud had another chat with Gilgamesh, and a final area was opened up on the world map! I'll explore that too next time I play and complete the protorelics.

One final sidequest also became available in the Gold Saucer. I checked it out. The Shinra middle manager guy, a reoccurring character, has set high scores on all the minigames and wants me to beat them. Oh man... I don't want to do this. I'm still so sick of these minigames. This might be the one sidequest in the game I opt not to finish, but I'll decide that later.

Not much else to say. Rufus fight was annoying, Cait Sith is a traitor who I don't like anymore, the play and Aerith song was good, I'm sad I got stuck with Barret as my date, and I don't want to do anymore minigames. I'll wait and see what chapter select is like once I'm done, but at worst I'll watch the other possible dates on Youtube and comment on them later.

Robazoid posted...

Back in the true timeline, Cloud went on a Gold Saucer date with... Barret.

Hilarious.

In new game + there's chapter select and you can choose who to go on a date with.

Fun fact: when the game came out, the Shinra Middle Manager request was bugged and it annoyed me so much I almost quit playing the game

All of the gold saucer dates are good in this game. It continues to amaze me how well the rebirth team understands the characters.

Robazoid posted...

This might be the one sidequest in the game I opt not to finish

That's what I did!

Yeah, it's not hard to get back to the date with Chapter Select

It also gives you the option to skip all Zack sequences, which is a wild self-own to include

I just beat Remake. Loved how Barrett and Raspberry were portrayed. Might have to support Raspberry in SMFFCC now. Bummed I didnt get to meet some other cast members.

I thought about making Rebirth my next game, but decided to sandwich Death Stranding 1 in between as a buffer. A little late to the party that is this topic, but Ill read through it soon enough.

You'll have to nominate Jessie back in...!

Barret is easily the worst date IMO, so that's a bummer!!

I had even worse luck than Roba! I got Yuffie on my first try!

Roba was behind on Yuffie since she was recruited. She was scared off and had to run back to beg to join. That loses points. Then picking Barret minecart route over Yuffie pretty much decided that Barret would be ahead of Yuffie if you are 100% doing sidequests. You would have had to sabotage the dialogues with Barret.

I didn't mean to sabotage Yuffie! Her motion sickness always makes me laugh and I wanted to give her the most intense minecart route to trigger it.

I picked Barret's route and still got Yuffie!

I was super close to getting Tifa though. She ended up being my #1 by the end of the game, just not in time for the date.

Does it show you relationship values at the end? Everyone has the same full light blue smiley face for me.

Mobilezoid posted...

Does it show you relationship values at the end? Everyone has the same full light blue smiley face for me.

Yeah, you can see everyone's point values in the post-game stats

I got Aeris first try. I did try to pick her over Tifa every chance I got though.

I ended up with Tifa without going for her, despite preferring Aeris and Yuffie. Thankfully, Tifa has by far the best date, so that worked out.

An easy thing to miss is that doing the synergy skills with Cloud also increase relationship values. I got Red XIII and I'm certain that's the reason why I got him over anyone else.

Bitto posted...

An easy thing to miss is that doing the synergy skills with Cloud also increase relationship values. I got Red XIII and I'm certain that's the reason why I got him over anyone else.

This is probably why I got Barret. I only really use Yuffie and Barret (rarely Tifa) so those two are the ones I've done synergy skills and abilities with.

The adventure continues!

First, I headed to Gilgamesh Island, figuring I could finish off the protorelics. Turns out... no. These involve fighting two summons each, and the recommended level for them is like 65-70. Ah, finally, the optional superbosses. I walked away like a coward and sailed north instead.

The Temple of the Ancients is an interesting location, filled with tough fiends and Shinra forces blundering their way through. I like how everyone reacts to the craziness. There's gravity shifting, so when we entered and saw a bunch of people on the ceiling, Red aptly described it as us abandoning sanity at the door. My favorite part is how often Yuffie gets to be the one to go 'yo, wtf is going on'. Like, at one point a Shinra guy fell down a sideways waterfall. Her reaction was, '...Hey, guys, did you see that?' and Barret said 'No comment'. It's great.

I also like the focus Aerith is getting here. She feels a connection to this place due to being half-Ancient, but it doesn't give her any protection. At one point, in an area where the Lifestream is angry, she tries to calm it... and succeeds only in splitting the team up. Aerith, Red, and Yuffie are off on their own (thank God Yuffie is with them to carry that team). I played the portion with Barret, Cloud, and Tifa. They wandered around a bit, Cloud got needlessly violent due to Sephiroth influence, and then Rude and Reno blew open a path and ran ahead. Then it switched to the other team, but that was where I stopped for the night. This is a huge area!

The one boss I fought so far was a red dragon who was surprisingly difficult. It took me two tries because on one of them I didn't have enough ATB ready to destroy his chest, and that meant he flooded the whole arena with magma. I'm not a fan of "you lose" triggers on bosses like that, just feels kind of lame. But I won the second time by rationing my ATB more.

Overall, this is a neat area. I'm excited to play more of it and hopefully get to the black materia before Shinra or Sephiroth (spoilers I bet we fail and it all ends in tragedy).

The Gilgamesh island fights aren't that bad if you use the elemental materia. They're fun.

I just turned it to Easy for the Gilgamesh island fights haha.

Yeah, that was the one part of the game where I switched the difficulty to Easy just because I didn't want to leave it undone

I also switched to easy for only Gilgamesh island. I dont regret it.

I am yet another person who switched it to easy mode to do Gilgamesh's island, before switching it back when heading to the temple of the ancients.

I probably should have done that. Oh well, I'm past the point of no return now! I tried Phoenix and Kujata with fire elements in my armor but I only got Kujata to 50%. Then he switched to lightning and annihilated me...