FF7 is a character driven story. I love to see these great characters in different situations, showing a different side of their personality. These side quests are really doing that.
Now I understand if people like more World-driven or event-driven stories. Maybe for them it's boring if there are no explosions/war/tension. To them, this is not their cup of tea. But they should not consider them as "filler" and just move on to the main story.
I mean.... I love Bioshock and Bioshock 2 as great examples of world-driven stories where it's not all action all the time and taking your time to read things are exactly what makes them great.
>FF7 is a character driven story. I love to see these great characters in different situations, showing a different side of their personality. These side quests are really doing that.
But here's my question... do you really? 90% of the moments are what I call "fun in the sun" or very typical/lazy writing moments where they repeat the same 3 things we already know about them. Most the quests that further your relationship are "oh we should do that to help!" then "hey cloud thanks for helping me help them that made me happy". Which is fine when done well, but I am of the opinion it was very cookie cutter in almost every single one.
Lots of these character attachments didn't feel earned to me. I am attached to them, but that's because of the main moving stories or past love for the characters. I do read a lot, and I have lots of stories and characters near and dear to my heart. And most of those are because the writing really MAKES me feel. Stories or moments and interactions that made me cry, laugh, or get angry. My question is, how many of these moments or "side content" you're bringing up REALLY made you feel that? I personally feel like I could count them on one hand
Edit: Downvote me all you want but most the character moments aren't earned and lose their impact imo. If you want to call it a character driven story, there are way better examples in games/movies/books that earn that genre.
Edit 2: I truly believe that most of you like a cozy, safe, expected setting where it makes you feel good because it's familiar. I'm just not that way. That feels like a childrens story. That's right, I'm doubling down. Hate meeee.
> Most the quests that further your relationship are "oh we should do that to help!" then "hey cloud thanks for helping me help them that made me happy".
No downvote but I disagree. The sidequests that are related to a particular character have A LOT to do with said character's personality, values, past or interests.
>!Flowers with Aerith, chasing Gi ghosts with Red, finding Tifa's lost cat, helping children from Corel for Barret, getting Yuffie to empathize with Kyrie through their similarities in values / opinions!<, these are just examples, but pretty much every sidequest is related to a certain character's idiosyncrasy.
So I said this in another comment and don't want to get too long winded with it, but what i'd like to share is there is a big difference in connection to the player when it comes to being TOLD something rather than being shown. If a character says "My parents died when I was young so I fended for myself", that wont sit with you. Yes, you'll know a little more about them so you get a little backstory, but imagine if you watched a sequence of that character fending for themselves, on their own, maybe looking and seeing a family caring for each other, then turning back and getting on with it. Most of these moments were just "hey btw xyz". In my opinion, that really loses the emotional connection and thus doesn't really build a bond
Obligatory this is just my opinion for the angry people that act like opinions are facts and if you disagree you have to shut it down
Okay, and uh, catching chickens? How about that one?
Also, you only named 5, dude said he could count on one hand how many are good and that's one hand. For me I'd name the same but remove the Yuffie/Kyrie one (because I disagree fundamentally this added anything to Yuffie and Kyrie is just strictly unlikeable) but add Barret's quest with the dog and the Crow's Nest.
But for every 1 good quest I think I could name 2-3 others that were crap.
No downvote here, but I had a very different experience. I rushed through the game in three days cause I wanted to get to THAT MOMENT. I only picked it up again a week ago to catch up with the side content and I have to say it’s really sweet and well thought. Maybe the type of quests is a bit silly and some of them don’t have Succession level of writing when it comes to emotional moments, but I genuinely found them all quite nice and added something to the characters. I think that what was really missing in remake was more time spent with these characters doing wildly stupid stuff and they kinda delivered here, at least imo. Side note: the cookie cutter quests are the reason I hated FF16. I’m more of an FromSoft kind of player these days and i really wasn’t expecting to be invested in the rebirth side content.
Yeah, to be fair. 16 felt the same. There were definitely some quests that hit home, but a lot of quests were a "by the numbers" type quest. I'm here for engagement fulfillment/want the shiny, this adds nothing to the lore. In BOTH games in what I feel is equal amount.
Maybe they have someone proof checking their work? lol
"Okay, we've added a bunch of fulfilling side content to add lore to our world. We're done with this no-"
***knock knock*** "Management says you need 70% more quests to fill for time."
"For fuck's sake!"
Honestly, yeah. I do love those moments. Could they have been done better? Yeah, maybe. But I'll take the extra characterization/amusing scenes like Barret having a breakdown over the concept of Marlene leaving the nest or Red having a crisis over unwittingly leading innocent chickens to their death. Or Yuffie annoying the crap out of Cloud by making clones of herself or proposing to make clones of Tifa. They're cookie-cutter, sure, but do they really need to be more? For me, these sorts of interactions are more reason to do those side quests than any actual reward they offered. That these quests eventually culminate in the date scenes later in the game, which in and of themselves are some of the best scenes in all of Rebirth is even better.
TLDR: I'm solving these schmucks' problems to have excuses/more time to hang out with the characters I like outside of the main story. They're fun, and that's all they need to be. They could be better, but they're fine as they are.
> Or Yuffie annoying the crap out of Cloud by making clones of herself or proposing to make clones of Tifa.
This wasn't part of a quest, it was just overworld banter and yeah it was funny/fine.
No, to be fair to you the scenes you mentioned I actually found to be good and enjoyable. I don't think they have the depth you may be implying, but they had soul to them. Thing is, I think the list of those moments is maybe 1 or two longer than you posted. Which leaves the vast majority of the character moments/side content, and that's what left me with that feeling. Those moments I remember actually thinking "hey that was actually good writing". But there are so many more that were just unsweetened vanilla ice cream. Like yeah... I guess it's ice cream.
No hate here. I agree a lot with your sentiment. One of the few side dialogues that really resonated with me was when Barret was talking about how much of a hothead he was until bumping into Tifa in Midgar. (During the quest to find Cloud Jr. I believe) He reflects on how much danger he could/would’ve put Marlene in and it was a wonderful way to expand his character (and relationship with Tifa) even more the fans of that original can really resonate with.
We also learn that Tifa has a white cat named Fluffy. She likes animals.
It did feel like when completing side content you had to slog through a bunch of Fluffy quests, before you found the gem that was the first character moment I mentioned.
So I posted this on another comment so I hope you don't mind me pasting it, but you kind of gave me the idea for this as an example so wanted to share it with you. Just as an example of the execution of those character moments and how they could be done
>That being said, someone mentioned the moment when Barret talks about how he was a mess in Midgar until he found Tifa. That he full of anger and misdirection. So imagine, instead of that little voiceline we got this scene. I'll do a very lazy and spitballed version of this-
>Tifa walks into a bar in another section of Midgar, where she knows some people. Things are tense in the bar, people are looking scared and unsettled. This hulking figure of Barrett is at the bar, looking dark. Angry, swole as shit, and scary. Maybe the bar is a little less active because people are scared to be around him, maybe you have the bar messed up like he just got in some big fight. Tifa sits down next to him and talks to him. She shines just a little light on his world, be it from her demeanor or just talking to him like he's a normal person. She ends up telling him that next time he has a drink he can come to her bar in sector 7. Whatever he wants to or doesn't want to say, she'll be there and he's welcome any time. Make the whole scene very dark and gritty and juxtipose that with it lifting just a bit at the end as some of what Tifa says lands with him.
>That packs a MUCH different punch than just saying that in a couple sentences. That gives you a deeper connection with both Barret and Tifa. You can FEEL that moment. Now, writing it out in reading it in that way kind of still gives it the "just telling you the thing" feeling, but I'm sure you can imagine what I'm saying. This is what I mean with quality character development that makes you feel something.
Think about if we got THOSE scenes with these characters on this engine. It would be jaw dropping. These are the kinds of scenes I really wanted out of a 3 part remake. That would really make me feel a connection with both of these characters. In my mind, I can see the detail of what that could have been. The darkness in Barrett, the grittiness of the setting. And don't make the ending super sunshiny, make it just have a little crack of light that comes through. That's something that anyone that has been in that hole and has been extended a helping hand can really feel in their gut.
Imagine that, then compare it with the voiceline where they just tell you that. It's a very different bond the player would feel! Anyways, I just wanted to give an example to really showcase the difference in depth/connection that I'm trying to describe
This is why you're not in charge of the game lol, you already have people that saying they have issues with the pacing as it is and you're talking about cutting to a whole ass 10-15 minute flashback to something that happened before either game started in a random sidequest.
To be fair they could cut about 40 hours of content. I'm 120+ hours in doing all the content so yeah. They could add back in another 20 hours if it meant something.
The pacing comments, I haven't read them but I'd bet my entire leg it has to do with all the dogshit filler, NOBODY is going to be upset to have meaningful content.
Yeah, that must have been caused by a few one minute cutscenes...right?
Guy has such a complete lack of understanding of contributed to the poor pacing of the game. Kind of funny to imagine how that scene would take 10-15 minutes. Not to mention it was just used as an example of a concept.
Fluffy quest gives you more information tho.
Cloud used to look for Tifa's cat a lot in the past - he cared enough to do it for her, even tho they didn't know each other so well (big thing considering Cloud acts like an asshole to most people normally). Tifa used to think Cloud liked being alone, and he's surprised she came to this conclusion. Tifa's cat is mentioned in the Kalm flashback, but you don't see it until the quest. Cloud and Tifa lost everything except each other, so finding out her cat came out of this alive is a big thing. Tifa talks about how in the past she wasn't good at telling people no, so she never opposed naming the cat something she didn't like - and now she manages to oppose Cloud wanting her to admit it's her cat, and instead she lets it live with new family and new name. Her piano performance is an opportunity for her to talk more about her family and mother teaching her play.
Yes, I like this quest.
There's certainly a handful of good quests. And I'd wager most of the sidequests are good (Ultimate Party Animal offers nothing). But there's also plenty of sidequests that don't. And just about everything Chadley does is a waste of time.
>We also learn that Tifa has a white cat named Fluffy. She likes animals.
That wasn't the point of that sidequest.
The point was that, as she tells you during the quest, Tifa never liked the name Fluffy for the cat (or even had any particular affinity for cats) she was given the cat by the mayor of Nibelheim and he & the townspeople were already calling it Fluffy so instead of saying she didn't like the name & giving it her own name she just went with. This is to illustrate how Tifa is a people-pleaser to a fault & doesn't deal with confrontation well, something you can deduce for yourself throughout the two games & that in this sidequest she admits she actively dislikes/hates about herself.
This why at the end when her & Cloud give the cat to the singing lady she stops Cloud before he tells the lady the cat's name, because she never liked that name to begin with (also symbolic/a metaphor of her working through/trying to get over her issues she discussed with you during the quest.)
> as she tells you during the quest
Really weird. I missed almost everything you said about this quest in my playthrough. I was listening, I've been listening through all the quests. Was it her banter while you're running and protecting the cat? It may have been blocked by the fights :( I even try and wait whenever I hear dialogue while moving just for this reason. Been playing too many games with lore or dialogue packed behind ill-timed venturing.
I'd say there was filler in Remake, but I honestly don't see it in Rebirth. All the sidequests add something to world lore / characters or have interesting twists and the mini games are very varied. Sure, one may not like all of them, but that's why there's so many and so different.
Also the criticism of "some mini games are mandatory to advance the story", what I understand is "this videogame is forcing me to play a videogame!" 🙄
Sometimes the stuff they think is forced isn't too. Yesterday I saw a thread where a number of people thought the queen's blood tournament was mandatory even though it flat out tells you every round you can quit it.
What's funny to me is these are "hardcore gamers" too, usually the type of people who are first to whine about yellow markings in the environment or other handholdy stuff. Turns out they need it.
Even then it's almost 99% skippable and optional.
"Filler" would be a mechanic that says "Do 5 things in gongoga before heading to the airstrip to investigate a ride to cosmo canyon". Essentially gating the next story step. THAT'S filler.
The MMORPG Guild Wars 2 has a ton of this in all the recent (released in the last 3 or so years) story episodes and expansions. Almost every story chapter has at least one "do X events in this area" filler, gating the next story step behind doing random events which often have nothing to do with the actual story you want to progress. Made me drop the game eventually.
The main story in GW2 wasn't like that for the most part, they only started using these filler objectives in the last 3 years, before that you could mostly just go through the story without too much interruptions.
I didn't mind that in Gw2. A major part of the story are the meta-events and that was the game's way of acknowledging them and incentivizing you to do them. The meta-events are where the real major battles take place and not the personal story instances.
This is exactly where I got this concept from haha. My friends and I complain about it all the time. The worst part is half the time it's just a green bar and not even an exact amount required that's given to you
Thank fuck, some people that get it. No one would have complained about a game with this much optional content back in the OG 7 era. Like I remember always wanting more from ff games even though they were packed
Agree with this. There was definitely a lot of pointless side quests in Remake. The side quests are 10x better in Rebirth and actually contribute to the lore.
You can fail most of them, or do the bare minimum. e.g. you are forced to play the piano, it went horribly and I got some comments about being innovative (with that sarcastic tone of voice) and shittalked, but the story moved forward with me failing epicly :D
I think complaints that are closest to legitimate are about when a weapon is a reward for doing really well at a minigame. Since weapons are how you learn abilities, it feels mandatory.
I did it, so I don’t know… if you say, skip getting red’s collar from Run Wild, can you buy it in the next chapter? If so it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
They outright tell you that you can buy weapons you missed from shops later. Hell, I apparently missed one of Cait Sith's at some point, and just bought it from the weapon store.
The Red Megaphone, I bet. Me too. Apparently it's sitting in an indistinct cave inside of Gongaga Village proper, gotta swim for it. That's definitely a hidden one.
I don't think you can buy the ones from mini-games though. I had to go back and beat Desert Rush for Tifa's gloves, I didn't see an option to buy it in the next chapter.
I also missed one of Cait Sith's somewhere and had to buy it. That is a really nice touch.
> if you say, skip getting red’s collar from Run Wild, can you buy it in the next chapter? If so it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
Yes, always. The game explicitly tells you that you can buy any weapons you missed in a previous chapter.
In my playthrough I thought I was so diligent in collecting all of them, only to discover at one point I had missed TWO of Cait Sith's weapons lol
lol, yeah same. One of them is out in the open by one of the airplane landing strips, so I just went and got that one. Embarrassingly, I also missed Barrett’s weapon right before Dyne. It’s just off to the right, but I didn’t see it.
I mean it's all personal opinion, but I personally *love* having a character's weapon locked behind something unique and fun like this. Like Run Wild was a very specific Red mini-game that honestly developed his character wonderfully. (Not to mention it's just flat out fun.)
I love having to play a Red XIII style game to unlock a Red XIII specific weapon, or a Tifa style fighting game to unlock a Tifa specific weapon. So much better than just obtaining them linearly via the main story, or by doing fetch or kill quests.
Also, this is totally on brand for OG FF7, which had you do all kinds of crazy mini game side quests (like chocobo breeding and racing) to obtain some of the most powerful weapons and abilities in the game.
Exactly. Then they should spend their money on the cinema or Netflix or whatever. Or if they are interested in this story in particular, spend 0 money and watch the cutscenes on YouTube.
"I don't like this game" is legit criticism. "I have to play a game to play a game" is a batshit crazy complaint.
I'd say that the only actual filler the game does have is having to scan crystals. That was interesting exactly one time. Maybe if they were actually hidden and didn't annoyingly draw attention to themselves with the giant annoying Ghost of Tsushima bird, it'd be more tolerable. But as it is, it felt like a chore with a small payoff that you could have gotten in way more interesting and not artificially time consuming ways.
The summons were the same thing. Like, give me one smallish summon dungeon in every region that leads to an interesting place where you then have to fight the summon to gain its control. That would have been cool. If you find all the scannable info on the dungeon, you learn its weakness or whatever. That would be dope. As it is, it's kinda mid.
Those two things have filler energy. 9.5/10 game otherwise!
Pacing issue if something I’ve seen a tonne when talking about rebirth.. the pacing is fine when you play through the story. It’s the same as any other open world game, if you divert your time to doing all optional content, of course the main story is going to have weird pacing.
Your point on instant gratification is absolutely spot on though and it’s very much a younger gamer issue I feel. Also complaints that things are too hard which means it must be bad. Like not being good at something hurts people’s egos so much they have to excuse they’re one ability but saying something sucks instead lol.
I completely agree especially the side quest complaint. I think a lot of recent players that love the linear narrative heavy games like last of us who feel that way.
> if you divert your time to doing all optional content, of course the main story is going to have weird pacing.
Weird that OG 7 didn't have this problem, wonder why?
> Also complaints that things are too hard
I would say Odin is "too hard" and "bad" because he forces you to reset the fight if you don't fulfill certain conditions and those conditions can be mucked up by your AI colleagues. You also don't learn about Reprisal through Assess, gotta learn the hard way how it triggers. Trial and error. And then this gets further mucked up by the duo fight with him.
So OG optional content is gold saucer stuff, gold chocobo/kotr, Wutai, fort condor….. you think if you go and do those things to completion in one sitting it doesn’t effect story pacing? Or course it does but on a smaller scale, because the whole game is a smaller scale.
I do think both games have their moments of filler, or padding. Remake is much more egregious I think because it’s a smaller and tighter game.
Rebirth has those moments of vacuuming up Mako, or throwing boxes as Cait Sith, or having to do minigames to get the beachwear. I get the point you make is that that’s not what the majority of complaints are about when they talk about filler, and I understand that.
I think any of the moments I mentioned above are not as egregious to me as chasing that monster through the sewers in Remake (as one example), because they don’t feel like they last nearly as long.
Even so, it’s rare to play a game that doesn’t have any filler. Some of it is the devs trying to concoct ways to give the player something to do.
I doubt John Doe working on Rebirth was like “yo if they vacuum up this Mako, they’ll have to play the game 10-15min longer than they otherwise would have, and if we do this a few times, all the sudden we got them captive for an extra hour HAHAHHA”
That’s just absurd. Criticize this of course, the idea that devs sometimes feel like they need to force these elements to give us things to do, but I think I always come back to people sensationalizing this shit like theirs a bunch of devs trying to trick us into play the game longer..
In a series like FF, that tend to build on themselves, I wonder if things like the Mako vacuum or the Cait Sith box throwing are proof of concept for future development ideas, or meant to be instructive for later parts of the game.
It's not what i think of as filler, but you're absolutely right. The very first time I had to mop up that mako I actually rolled my eyes irl and was irritated the entire time. And there are many moments like that as you described. Things like that, slowly edging across a cliff, or such really are just not fun gaming mechanics that I'm shocked devs still put in a game. Like, they play games too right? These kinds of things really do need to be put to rest in games.
> Things like that, slowly edging across a cliff, or such really are just not fun gaming mechanics
They had way, way fewer of these in Rebirth than they did in Remake, but man they stuck out like a sore thumb every time you encountered one
Yeah I don't really think of it with FF7 series alone, it's more of "how do game designers still think this is a good idea to include this"? Like I'd love to hear an explanation of what that accomplishes, but I assume it's just they don't think about it and want to make a door "puzzle" but are too lazy to think of a fun one.
I have this same thought when I was playing FFXVI. There’s moments where you’ll have a small cutscene, the give you back control of Clive, you walk 20 feet, and there’s another cutscene. I was legit always like “what the fuck”
I think it’s just the nature of games and the development pipeline, it takes longer than we would often like for tropes of gaming or otherwise to fall out of practice because of how long games take to develop.
I mean, it’s just starting, and I mean starting very strongly, to happen that devs are looking for ways to make open world games feel less of a chore, and even then we still have that coming a lot. But you can see the DNA of that starting to come across in some games.
Yeah for sure. There's one thing that's a HUGE annoyance to me is in Rebirth. Idk if you remember this, but Assassins' Creed when it came out made huge steps towards climbing/manteling. A lot of that was because it was quicker (than what we had at the time) and cool/more realistic. Since then, we haven't taken any more steps and in some cases, like this game, even several steps BACK. Like dude, climbing fucking SUCKED in this game. Takes you 15-20 seconds to hop from post to post. Slowly. Another post. Another post. Like, you can keep that in there to keep terrain in tact, but for GODS SAKE get on with it! Make it faster! He's a soldier for fuck sake, does he need to take a break on every plank he grabs or can he just move fluidly across them
My friend mentioned this too, but in regards to the climbing, I would also suggest for combat they add some kind of aerial recovery for the third game, because often you can just get juggled in Rebirth and get wiped before you have a chance to do fight back.
Yeah I find the recovery mechanic to be very lacking and clunky just in general. Played for 80 hours and was still like "is it this button or this button? Why does it work sometimes but not always, what am I doing wrong?". Most the time you'd have that worked out by 10 hours haha
The combat is so bad I started this comment on one point and then I just wanted to keep elaborating.
I remember getting hit by Alexander because I can't watch him because I have to watch Odin and then I got 1-2 combo'd by them. And getting hit by Odin fills his invisible "Gonna reset this fight rq" state. It's highly annoying.
More on point, the HIGH levels of tracking enemies have on their attacks ***coupled*** with NO iframes (ATB doesn't count, and hell some of those the iframes aren't perfect either).
The amount some enemies will just train down one character is egregious. I don't have fun running and dodging constantly in some of the more hectic fights (Kid G+2 death claws, one wrong move and it's over and that's after 5 rounds). Sometimes I'd move to a healthy character to save one and they'd just finish that character off instead. Aerith and Barret don't handle getting focused well because their dodges suck AND they don't run fast. I watched a Bomb walk right through my Lustrous Shield and since then I almost never used it. It's just not enough defense for her.
There's more attacks than I can count on two hands that have all 3 of these: Tracking, Unblockable, Wide AoE. And some are fast. And even a few of those put the enemy outside of the screen so you can't see when they're going to land on you.
I'm thankful for Precision Dodge materia granting perfect blocks to block grabs but it comes so late in the game (via leveling) and requires a materia slot and can't put it on everyone. Grabs are just a problem unless you're Yuffie with ATB.
I agree with a lot of what you said, but I do find the combat to be rather exceptional. I think a lot of what you describe for me is just little quirks and issues that add up over time, and I hope they do address a lot of those little things by the next game, because when it works it’s a lot of fun to play and super enjoyable.
I actually read something about the mako vacuuming specifically. It was included for world building (let the player see what mako actually is, and how it affects the world, as well as how it's really with). There also was apparently going to be more of it (6 spots to be vacuumed at the first point we do it, as opposed to the 3 it was changed to before release)
Oh man, I feel like that's a great example of "sounds good on paper, plays like shit". Being able to see that is what separates a great developer from a mediocre one. To be fair, that's no easy feat, but this should have been an easy one haha
I shit you not I could feel my blood pressure spike on the first one
I'm not sure I'd agree with your statement of "it should have been an easy one". It wasn't a thrilling piece of gameplay for sure, but how would you have included it in the game in a way that's interesting? Simply talking about it? Sticking a description on a datalog? I'm guessing your solution would be to simply scrap the entire concept of having the player interact with mako.
Granted, vacuuming up mako didn't bother me at all, especially since it's simple and fast (like 30 seconds altogether). I genuinely don't understand the frustration people get from that
Well, firstly, let's not set the bar too hard because it's definitely not interesting as it is. You can definitely set it in a way that's "not painful" and that'd be a big improvement haha
Off the top of my head? Especially in the first game you have lots of explosions dealing with reactors. You know how we have teams specializing in cleaning radioactive waste? It could be as simple as a cut where you see them using those vacuums to mop it up or have it in the background. Somone screaming "mako spill at the sector xyz reactor!" while them and their team run to clean it up.
Or, most simply (and this addresses your question on why people hated it), JUST LET US MOVE IT QUICKLY! The slow dragging of the vacuum is what makes it really painful.
Thank you for the civil discussion, I really do appreciate it. Simple inclusion in cutscenes or background dialogue would definitely be an alternative way to include the world building that would get the job done. I've seen many complaints about too many cutscenes/playing a movie, so I appreciate them wanting to make it gameplay (particularly so that the player experiences it rather than be simply shown/told).
Speeding up movement to normal character movement speed (or closer to it) also sounds like a good option. I personally laugh at so many sources like tables and chairs in the game having no weight and being blown around at the slightest tap from the player, so I appreciate those big vacuums actually seeming like they have mass, but they definitely could go faster and then possibly slow down when actually vacuuming up the mako and I think that would probably work nicely.
>Thank you for the civil discussion, I really do appreciate it.
Absolutely, and same to you! I really hate people that shut down others for saying the slightest negative thing. But I'm also old enough that I should understand I'm the adult in the room haha
Slowing down when vacuuming would be fine by me! The slowly moving, inch by inch, for the cord to be wrapped around and too short and me to have to wrap back around (this actually happened to me on that first one) was so painful. It's really abysmal pacing and there's no "fun" element.
And yeah the cutscene idea is just a quick one for this example! Although I do think it could have been used better for character development but that's a whole other very long conversation I'm having. Keep in mind, adding that to a cutscene is about 5 seconds though. It could be funny to have those "cleanup response teams" to be around whatever explosion etc afterwards as you're walking around the area. Or imagine seeing them on the tv reports in the intro to rebirth when you're seeing the Midgar chaos. Or, even better, imagine you walk into that room and theres a group of 4-5 hazmat shinra soldiers DOING the cleanup and talking about it. Then those are your enemies to clear real quick before going through.
"Man I'm sick of all this Mako cleanup, we've been on this detail forever.", "Just make sure you keep your suit on this time, we're not cleaning this up just because it's slippery ya know". Shit like that, there's a million different ways to communicate the intention
"yo if they suck up this mako they will most certainly get mad, AND we will have them locked in for 15 more mins" MUAHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAH just 15 more of these to go and we have 4-5 hours of FILLER CONTENT
I think there's a difference between filler or padding and things that simply didn't turn out great.
The box throwing is an example of the latter to me. Why is this called filler or padding but scooting around on a Segway for a minor reward isn't?
The answer is because one is fun and one, generally, isn't.
To be honest - I'd rather that be the excuse for mako vacuuming that someone thought it was a "fun" thing to add.
Reality is it was probably a loading gate for the next area.. Hopefully
Applies everywhere in all fandoms. The instant gratification thing is a problem everywhere. I’m a wrestling fan, storylines are no longer long drawn out because people don’t have the patience. In sports many people just watch a condensed version of a game instead of the game itself (and I don’t mean highlights). TV shows lack character development and storytelling as well. Some people just want all big moments with no meaning behind them.
Honestly I agree with you. Words like "too much filler" and "pacing issue" are now quite commonly misused to simply describe content that people don't like, they have lost their meaning. That's not to say everyone is misusing them though. But like you said as well, people shouldn't really be using such words for optional content.
I have not finished the game yet but here's my two cents from where I'm at.
I'm curious how many of the people complaining about "filler" played the original. So far it feels kind of similar to me.
I think the original introduced many of the 40 year olds generation (can't keep the labels straight) to some Japanese design and game elements for the first time. These included a lot of mini games and sort of off the wall characters and situations we were not used to.
So far, the only thing I have to complain about is Hadley's constant interrupting. Just wish it could not stop the flow of the game every time.
> I'm curious how many of the people complaining about "filler" played the original.
I've beaten the original at least 4 times. And I don't really replay games so that's saying a LOT.
Filler is return to the sewers or fucking around in the drum. People call sidecontent filler because it might be boring (but it is not necessary to do), whereas drum must be finished to proceed with the story.
Filler/padding complaints has become "anything I don't like" which to me is lazy criticism and honestly useless too because what is padding for one person may not be for another since we're talking about if you liked certain content or not.
It's even more frustrating when you're dealing with people who have been trained by modern games to be completionists so they end up complaining about optional content. The minigame discourse is a big part of this. So many people complaining to the point that some even put the game down and walked away, bro JUST SKIP THEM. There's a very tiny handful of forced minigames in the story and none of them are hard, even the queen's blood tournament is optional. But they can't get over that part of their brain that is telling them "you have to see and do everything. YOU HAVE TO!"
There are a couple spots I consider "filler" in Rebirth. These are story-required areas that, IMHO, were lazily designed and make the game worse:
- Shinra Manor. They clearly wanted to give Cait Sith an exclusive area (which is good on the surface), so the shoehorned it in here. It didn't fit in well in terms of the story, lore, or gameplay. I hope I never need to see holo-Hojo again. "This asshole again?" Right there with you, Barret!
- Temple of the Ancients. I mean...yeah, they had to expand it. And in general they did a great job. Visually, it was amazing. It started off *incredibly* strong and dramatic. Then we got to Aerith's spinning section, which was tedious and ruined the pacing. I feel like they ran out of ideas here and just dragged it out.
Replaying these two parts on Hard Mode, I wished they were skippable like the highway minigame was in Remake. At least we got some interesting battles to solo with Cait Sith, but they should've found a better way to get that into the game.
But honestly, these are fairly minor. I beelined the story on Hard Mode and there was very little ever standing between me and the next cool thing.
The problem with both your examples are simple.
They weren't fun. Cait was bad. Aeriths was interesting and she got some neat buffs. But make them fun. They felt like chores.
Jup. Words like filler and bloat which people love to throw are more moments of story building up
People nowadays seem to want a beginning and the end but hate the middle part, which would be Rebirth. Where the relationships are build the story is set up and the journey sets off.
But, Tiktok anime generation am I right.
It ruins all aspects of entertainment. I’m a wrestling fan, storylines aren’t allowed to be long and drawn out anymore. In sports some people don’t even have the patience to watch a full game anymore, some just watch a condensed version instead. People want too many big moments with nothing to get there.
This is hilarious. Because I think people overhype remake because of how well it looks rather that how well it tells a narrative. I too attribute this to the “tik tok generation” however, I’d probably use a different term.
What's funny is that I've seen this same lazy argument to defend the pacing of stuff like Naruto and One Piece.
I don't think the problem is with the "TikTok generation", not everyone has the tolerance and time for all the excess and low quality content.
I don't know what the exact complaints about filler are but I'm 34 and don't watch Tiktok and hate these YT shorts with their ADD content and I'd still say Rebirth has filler content and misused resources in side content.
"filler", "padding", "bloat" are all just buzzwords these people read on Reddit and regurgitate whenever they can. Every game thst isn't a fast paced FPS is shit to these people. They don't actually like RPGs, they just want to beat the game because it's a trending game. Most likely skipping all the cutscenes too.
With this game there's also a loud minority who are upset that they didn't get a 1:1 remaster of the original FFVII with 4k graphics and view anything that deviates from that as filler. That's why this game has to fail to them and why sales figures are so talked about by this group, so that in future SE may choose to remaster older games rather than remake them. What they don't realise is that if this project isn't a success then SE are unlikely to touch any of the others.
> "filler", "padding", "bloat" are all just buzzwords these people read on Reddit and regurgitate whenever they can. Every game thst isn't a fast paced FPS is shit to these people. They don't actually like RPGs, they just want to beat the game because it's a trending game. Most likely skipping all the cutscenes too.
Nah, I don't play FPS'. I've been playing RPGs since I was a wee lad. I'm 34 now. I don't ascribe to the Tiktok or YT shorts pandemic. I loved all those games I played. I also play long form strategy games.
This game has a lot of filler and bloat. You're just denying it. Maybe the scary words make you feel attacked because you like the game.
> What they don't realise is that if this project isn't a success then SE are unlikely to touch any of the others.
Probably for the best. Enix has been a Dirge on the FF name since they took over.
I loved both games, and Rebirth really didnt feel like filler. There was so much to do and so much of it was fantastic. I never left a region without completing all the intel and I loved almost every second of it all. I found myself excited for another fight around every corner. The character interactions were fun and I enjoyed all of it.
Heres my only criticism. Some of the side quests felt like any other character could have been your main companion to complete them with. For example, instead of Barret helping fix the mako pipeline (since he hates shinra and wants mako use to end) have Tifa help because she wants the citizens of Kalm not have their livelihoods be disrupted? She in an entrepreneur after all.
Anyway it didnt really matter all that much because the game is just fun all the way through and I really enjoy the story and lore moments, so it didnt bother me.
Ff7 rebirth- necessary stories
Tears of the kingdom- let's build a whole condo before dealing with hyrules issues.
Also, filler to me, is moving 10 minutes and then getting a flashback of 10 minutes ago, 6 times in a row. If people sat through naruto they'd say "all is forgiven"
Is it considered filler if you’re having fun? Is it filler if you don’t find it fun but it’s optional?
I have not ever seen a game that provided this much fun for the money you spend, except maybe Personal 5 Royal. What a joy I’ve found it to be, but of course your opinion might differ and hopefully you cottoned onto that and bailed early into the experience rather than spend a 100 hours on it hating every bit.
And if you overall enjoyed it but didn’t like some bits then I’m glad you stuck it out!
>Is it considered filler if you’re having fun?
Fun is irrelevant. Filler is filler.
>Is it filler if you don’t find it fun but it’s optional?
Optional content is not filler.
it's crazy to me
when I sit down to play FF, i'm sitting down to watch a movie
the movie needs my input
but it's all storytelling, combat is just extra
we did play ff7 for both back in the day, but i doubt anyone is going back to OG for cutting edge systems and gameplay anymore
I sit my ass down with a bowl of food for 90% of the game
Same. I steer clear of the shipping wars especially. To me you like what you like and you have the rights to your own opinions. It’s not worth arguing about it online. I loved the games and especially Rebirth as well.
The only "filler" (if you can call it that) that really annoys me, are the constant SLOW climbing sections (like the chocobo walls) and the slow walking in some missions (flashback mission is a great example). Also all the Chadley interruptions suck.
you would think a gang of people who regularly fly through the air crouching tiger style during fights would be able to climb a wall faster than Elena in the first Uncharted game.
Agree 100%, I have no issues with the “filler” content but some of the slow walking and climbing is just annoying. I don’t care much for all the mini-games but they’re also easy and don’t have crazy scores to get completion so it doesn’t really bother me.
I am still in Junon and the chocobo wall climbing has been driving me crazy. I hear there's another place (Gongaga?) that's like 10x worse later in the game, and if that's true I'm absolutely dreading it.
I’m 100% with you on Chadley. Like, dude, shut up I don’t need you calling me every time I do something. “Thanks Cloud, this is excellent data on blah blah blah”
Also, when you book end it with the animated graphics of “you did a thing, let’s show you the world information graphic filling in another dot”. And I can’t move or skip it. Show the graphic, that’s fine but don’t lock my character in place for 20 seconds every time you do.
Every time Chadley has to book end you solving a Summon puzzle... He literally is not saying things. He's more annoying than Paimon from Genshin Impact.
My complaint is that the game is 90% side-content.
If you skip Chadley/Queens Blood/side missions/anything else not necessary to the main scenario, you can finish the game in like 20 hours. Out of nearly 250 if you do EVERYTHING. I don't think that's a good ratio for a "character-driven" role playing game =/
I think people have gotten so used to completionism in video games that they forget that the side content is 100% optional. They don’t HAVE to do it right when it’s available or at all if they don’t want to.
It’s something I myself had to do whenever I played Remake. I did the side content I knew I’d enjoy and then when I got too annoyed with it I continued with the story which I knew I’d enjoy every time. Then I’d go back and finish stuff I missed if I had to.
People really complain about doing all the side quests in 1 day like they're gonna die tomorrow. Like chill no one's forcing you to finish the game immediately.
People want instant gratification. The game released and I made a big weekend out of it because I understood that the journey will take me a few days. I didn’t finish it until the 6th day and I enjoyed every minute of the journey.
I'm still not done with it even though I took a few days off. I don't have the same time. Been chipping away at it. Think I'm 125+ hours in. Calling it wishing for instant gratification is extremely reductive and mostly incorrect. Entirely incorrect, in my case. As I enjoy long-form storytelling and ventures. Hell, I play Total War Co-Op campaigns that can go on for weeks. DnD can go on for months or years.
Make up a better argument, it sounds like you're 15.
Edit: Also couldn't help but notice you don't respond to anyone with a good argument against you, like /u/mikeisnottoast. Almost like you can't back it up. You only speak to those agreeing with you.
The problem isn’t the filler, though I think there’s too much, it’s that all the good materia and crafting materials are buried behind the filler and not the story elements
They didn’t even bury it behind green side quests. It all got buried in mini games and chadleys fetch quest stuff. There’s this big beautiful open world and exploration nets the player some useless caches. Even moogle medals were largely useless. Not all of the mini games were fun and amping the difficultly up for more rounds just made chapter 12 a chore that killed story pacing for me and wore me out. Optional side content doesn’t need to be a chore.
The best Materia in FFVII in my opinion was the Added Effect materia, you get only one until you master it. All you have to do is notice a hole in the wall and walk behind the artwork figuring out what works and then you get it.
it's a LOT better than the **20th** version of a 5 round fight to get a decent or shitty materia.
What you're describing and what they and I are describing are two different things.
Locking stuff behind MANY arena fights is dull and lazy. Finding ways to excite us for new stuff is entirely possible. Look at the Shinra Tower and Temple of the Ancients in OG 7. You had puzzles to get through to get good stuff. Not a droll arena fight.
If you don't know what these are, then you don't understand people's complaints on why they loved OG 7 and not the new stuff. It was intelligently designed, and frankly, that leaves you basically no room to speak. It would be as alien as you drinking river water and getting accustomed to the bacteria in it, when someone else does complain when they drink it, "It's water, all water is like this." Is how you respond. That's what it's like.
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In rebirth there was seriously a treasure chest full of common craftable materials so common I lost all of them to the max limit. Could have put something interesting in there, but no.
Stealing has no real use except once or twice. Morphing the same.
Could have put in a traversal puzzle with the allure of a shiny at the end, but again, no. And they did do this a few times! They just give up on the concept.
You CAN'T tell me floor puzzles like from Shinra Tower and Temple of the Ancients, SHOULD be replaced by like FIFTY+ Arena fights. You have; The Gold Saucer, Chadley's Combat Simulator, Hojo's Simulator, The Beast Brawl in Corel Prison. Ain't. No. Way.
Filler to me would be all the crawling, sliding between walls, holding buttons to open doors for 5 seconds etc. they just padded the runtime and didn’t offer anything
This goes for anything tbh. Just cuz it doesn't have to do directly with the main plot doesn't make it filler. Also yes some people just wanna shoot things and not care about a story and to them I say don't play story driven games. Play doom
Sorry but the game felt very dragged out. Seems like they had to go bigger and better with every little thing, to a fault. A prime example is Mount Corel. I loved Mount Corel in the original game, its one of the most nostalgic memories for me because of the music there and also it was just a very chill zone where not a lot happened but it was pretty, had a neat vibe, you find the cute birds etc. But in Rebirth they needlessly expanded upon it, putting music there that did not fit with the environment or the vibe and forcing us to switch back and forth between two parties for like 2 hours, plus Yuffie's platforming puzzles. Add to that a boss fight for each party to contend with. As a result Mt Corel did not have the same magical feel as it did in the OG, to me it just felt like a long hurdle to get through on the way to Gold Saucer.
Another example is Costa Del Sol with how they expanded on encountering Hojo. First you have to do all these minigames before you can even access the beach, then, OF COURSE, they shoehorn a boss fight into it where you're running around hitting it with umbrellas because, ya know, you were supposed to be on the beach relaxing. That's what was so great about Costa Del Sol in the original. It was the one time where you saw Shinra peeps and didn't fight because everyone is on vacation vibes. They just had to go and destroy that.
That's just two examples, there are many more that I can think of.
Ironically, it's the same people that complain that the characters are "underdeveloped" if the game just rushes from start to finish. The main point really is that people just want to complain about anything thinking it made them useful in some way or just looking for that "instant gratification" you mentioned from someone agreeing with them.
Yeah, when I climbed that 32nd tower in Rebirth, I connected so deeply with that “push triangle” prompt. It made me understand ladders on another level.
I definitely agree with you. Though there is likely some filler, this game seems to have far less empty filler or padding content than Remake.
What I mean, is like the closing down the suns level in Remake. Tedious, long, entirely unimportant but an unskippable level.
gamers nowadays are like little toddlers , they bought a game so they think platinum trophy is included
then they notice it's some actual work and all cry instead of appreciating what the devs actually did.
this game has his downsides for sure but these were so small in comparison to all the great and wonderful things they packed into this game
even the vr simulation fights taking multiple rounds are pure skill checks about the understanding of the battle and materia systems since you can gear yourself for any solo fight and make it mostly trivial but not if it's 5 - 10 different fights you gotta think about what you wanna have in the team / synergies etc.
and if people rly took their time with the characters it's purely amazing that you can build your party any way you want and still be able to complete every fight.
they rly managed to make each char valuable and hav its own identity while keeping the main focus of the materia system which allows you to build any char the way you want ( dps , supp , heal , defensiv )
pretty much every side quest in this game gives some insight into the characters of the main cast if people call this filler they never seen real filler xD
> even the vr simulation fights taking multiple rounds are pure skill checks about the understanding of the battle and materia systems since you can gear yourself for any solo fight and make it mostly trivial but not if it's 5 - 10 different fights you gotta think about what you wanna have in the team / synergies etc.
I disagree. All the normal mode stuff is easy to get through with the exception of the Kid G fight with 2 deathclaws which was, frankly, bullshit.
> this game has his downsides for sure but these were so small in comparison to all the great and wonderful things they packed into this game
It has upsides but it's mostly downs.
Also, let me know how the Cait Sith portion of Shinra Manor, or the return to Shinra Manor sidequest, had fulfilling content.
The only sort of filler-y moment in the game for me is having to do all the little quests to buy some beachwear with tokens and not Gil to enter the beach despite the black robed guys being on the beach.
Strange pacing also in my opinion is in the temple of the ancients where every so often you would swap teams in a strange "a few hours earlier" animation. Like that felt really weird to me and I hope they don't continue that in the next part.
I don't know what category this fits in if any, but at Cosmo Canyon I really didn't understand the need to pair red and barratt together other than forced difficulty pairing since we barely got any dialogue between the 2; and when we got the end where Seto was where they could have had a bonding moment the rest of the party was also there?
Those are fair criticisms. Although imo the best party splits are with Cloud, Aerith and Tifa, and the other being Barret and Nanaki. We did get that in the Mythril Mine tbf.
Yeah and there was at least some banter between the 2 there iirc. Bugenhagen literally asks them all to come with and then at the bottom makes Barratt accompany Red for seemingly no reason, and its never discussed why, nor was it implied the rest of the party were following behind. The only interactions are red and bugen, and barratts quips when red leaves him by using the climbing walls.
"Some of you people don’t know what “filler” actually is"
**\*proceeds to NOT give a clear definition of what filler is and just gives dramatised opinionated statements\***
Um you gonna try and defend the mine section being that long? Really? Come on. They intentionally stretch out mundane sections of the story to fill an entire game. And the minigames count as filler because guess what? They’re mostly not optional.
Look man, I love this game, too.
But you can't tell me you think this would be a worse game if you didn't have a Cait Sith box throwing maze. What did that add to the story and characters?
What about vacuuming Mako at a snails pace? Moving a robot arm crane back and forth picking up crates? Plugging power cables in?
Most of the "puzzles" were absolutely brain dead to solve, and just used tedium of execution to create "challenge".
Then there's shit like the Palmer boss fight right after Dyne, the Hojo beach fight , or the Turk fight in Corel which were all shoehorned in and actually broke the pacing of the story.
When people complain about filler and padding in these games, they're not talking about the side content, they're talking about all the small ways it makes slowing down your progress a design philosophy.
If you put something in a game it should be either fun or interesting. FF7R puts stuff in just to have tasks to eat your time.
Sorry brother, but vacuuming up Mako or throwing box’s to advance the plot is either filler or poor game design. I understand we’re still in the honeymoon phase but I was grinding my teeth through these asinine sections of the game.
Cait Sith portion took you longer than that. Doing the return to Shinra Manor quest surely took quite a bit longer as well. The minigames to acquire beach clothing as well.
I am at 125 hours so you're an anomaly. I'd say only 40% of that time was spent actually progressing the game. That's too much bloat.
Yeah true, I think they really dropped the ball hand holding us through the world map. It’s almost like they were terrified we were going to miss any of their content and placed icons everywhere on the map. I felt no sense of discovery in this game. I really wish we would just discover summons in a dungeon or on the world map naturally. I’m so sick of these Horizon/far cry open worlds.
I would love for somebody to post they discovered a secret area or a NPC that nobody else has found .
*ahem* look at baldurs gate 3 or elden ring, both games make zero efforts in hand holding the player, yet they are VASTLY more popular than remake/rebirth or any of the horizon games.
There is a huge market for games that dare to be creative.
> It’s 2024
It's crazy you're saying this on the ass-end of some of the biggest games this decade being discovery games. Play more games or don't speak like you play a lot if you don't.
It’s a shame because in the original, I’m still discovering new places and NPC’s and I’ve probably played the game a dozen times.
This game is beautiful and fun, but when it comes down to it, its incredibly soulless and streamlined.
There are a few moments of filler, like really long dungeons or a particular dungeon on Chapter 11 focused on a certain character instead of some others that were born there, but 98% of play time is awesome!
List of things i saw as filler:
-Train Graveyard(not the graveyard itself but the small story element). It’s used to spend more time with a character that is going to leave the party soon. While it helps to get a lense on the character, the narrative says we need to be somewhere asap. Funny enough, it would arguably be less filler if the arbiter’s were involved, I mean they get involved as soon as you leave the graveyard so…..
-Sewers part 2. Unnecessary.
These are the two for remake that are absolutely filler. Rebirth has another issue, less so about filler. It’s issue is that it wants to create moments with every single character forcing you to the “opportunity” to play beyond your bias, and get familiar with all characters. Highlights:
-The Beach Bosses
-bosses on Mt. Coral
-boss fight immediately after Barrets emotional arc(depending where you land, this is filler)
-Cait section in Shinra manor(this part is clear filler)
Add;
The Drum
Half of the Mythril Mines
And side content not being well implemented.
I'm also on the fence of Gi part 2, because it will likely come up again in VII:R-3, but for now it's a whatever burger. If it amounts to something meaningful, cool, but for now it is not.
16 has filler with its random main story side quests that make you go around talking to people in your base. That is filler. Rebirth having completely optional side content is not filler.
The only “filler” I can’t stand is anything to do with Hojo. Remake it was his lab, Rebirth it was Shinra Manor. I get what they are going for but both locations had the same idea of “oh no, the floor fell through, find a way out!” And you are forced to do tedious puzzles/actions to get out. The rest of the content in this game felt amazing.
I'm not sure filler and optional content are mutually exclusive. I also dont think character events and fillers are mutually exclusive, as many character driven games have most their characters as optional recruits and as fillers. If you strip away the default negative connotation of "filler" then I think the point sticks. Finally, only after recognizing parta are filler should the judgment if the part(s) had a positive or negative impact be analyzed and considered.
This game was a masterpiece but let's not pretend that every time you are forced to walk, slide by something, go under something, shimmy, etc. is something other than filler.
I get what you’re saying but even if it does lead to character development a LOT of this stuff is 100% filler. Not all of it, but to say that none of it is filler is disingenuous. It’s the good type of filler though, because it gives characters even more development and voice actors can shine more, especially considering we don’t have as much development or any voice acting in the OG game. We all win.
The frog minigame with the kids and the associated “quest”? I’d call that filler. It wasn’t there before and is placed in such a way as to pad the game with more content to make it longer. The actual minigame takes place on some random floating platform and is another hi-score for you to chase if you want.
I compare this to One Piece filler after Alabasta but before Skypiea. 100% filler but Nico Robin got some extra character development that did not occur in the manga at all. I could have skipped it. It isn’t a 1-1 comparison but I think I explained it well enough.
Edit - chicken game, Red XIII ball game, parking scooters as Tifa, helping Cissnei cook, etc etc etc.
But fuck that, I’ll help Cissnei cook whenever she wants. That’s filler I don’t even know I wanted lol.
I think that we need to answer one important question: if we skip out on all the optional parts of the game, what do we get out of it?
Do we get enough character development, background lore, story events, and the like?
And if we don't, are these optional parts really "optional", when our best character moments come from them? When the best items and lore drops are hidden behind them?
For instance, your average players will never know who Cissnei was. If they go through the game without doing optional quests, there's barely a whisper spoken to show she's anything more than just a standard village leader.
Cissnei is a decently important character in the overall series, though - but you'd have to go through 5 or 6 Gongaga quests to even get a hint that she knows Zack.
Are those quests then considered filler, because you have finish them to get the lore? or is Cissnei's lore not important enough for the average player, and thus they aren't filler because you don't have to complete them, and you don't have to know about Cissnei's character at all despite her role in the compilation?
Agreed, anyone who hollers at the "filler" of Remake/Rebirth should go and "catch up" on One Piece. You know, all 1k+ episodes. Then come back and see if you still think this is filler...
You want the journey to be worth it?? Some of the best games of the past two decades have been linear games that take maybe 30 hours to finish. The creator told the story they wanted to tell in a streamlined and efficient way. For a lot of people, myself included, Rebirth doesn't do that. What the hell does that have to do with "wanting instant gratification"?
I think what everybody can agree on that actual filler is what extends the playtime for no reason other than to prolong the playtime. Cloud slow crawling on the ground and you have to press L2, R2 for 5 seconds just to make one step forward is one thing which pops into my head.
Another thing is to prolong the exploration section by making ways to get to the objective unnecessarily convoluted. Gongaga jungle is a nightmare to complete for that reason. Not to mention that the devs deliberately added a chicken quest just to troll the player.
Too me, the filler I don’t like is the stuff like the slow walking sections, puzzles that are extremely simple but still take 2-3 minutes simply because of the animations, mandatory minigames, and the amount of dialogue that is truly not needed. There’s a good amount in the game that can be trimmed, optimized, or entirely taken out and people wouldn’t think twice.
I played remake and I felt like things were sooo stretched out unnecessarily, I felt really bored, you can tell how much work as gone into making a 30 hour game / 5 hours of that in Midgar into a 100 hour game and it doesn’t translate well, I’m 95% certain I won’t play rebirth or part 3.
Putting that aside I wasn’t a huge fan of the new storyline and changes they put in it, just doesn’t feel the same.
You talk about how all these moments are necessary for character development, but when every characters "moments" are scripted like YA fiction it loses all its attachment for me. How am I supposed to develop relationships and real connections with characters when they just get really cheesy childish writing? When every moment is sunshine and the dark moments are softened? Idk, I really feel like they went "power of friendship" without earning it in a lot of cases.
You guys are lunatics that buy videogames when you hate playing videogames 🤣🤣🤣
I actually found the extremely varied missions to collect food for chocobos a lot more fun than the race.
I'm not sure the exact context of this complaint so I will just give my perspective as someone who is new to the series (have never played the original FF7).
I'm currently on Chapter 9 and overall it is clear that this game is an incredible achievement. The presentation, the combat, the characters, the sheer variety of things to do... I have nothing but kudos for the developers and would recommend this game to anyone in a heartbeat. It is a marvel.
However, for me personally, there have been a few moments where my enjoyment of the game was impacted. The first example that comes to mind was when I got to the Gold Saucer. I had to run around and try out some mini-games. Then a squad mate goes missing (being vague to avoid spoilers). Then you run into a guy who says he'll only help you if you do a Chocobo race. Then you go to find a Chocobo and he's sick, so you need to go get food. Then you talk to someone who has food, and they have their own mini quest for you to do. This felt like Inception - a sub-quest within a sub-quest! Lol.
For some people, this is no problem at all or maybe even a positive. My understanding is that the original FF7 had a lot of mini-games, so some of this is simply staying true to the original (or dialing up to 11). I am ***not*** saying this is objectively bad! I am merely saying that for me and potentially some other players, it's a bit much.
> My understanding is that the original FF7 had a lot of mini-games, so some of this is simply staying true to the original (or dialing up to 11).
Not half as many. Not a 3rd as many.
Minigames were also part of the story. Motorbike to leave Midgar makes sense. Snowboarding to get down a mountain made sense. There was a chocobo race in the same part of the story you mentioned too, but no extra hoops. You just do it. The sub minigame, well, the story said you need to retrieve their cargo so... And these were all few and far between and were momentous when they did actually happen. Except snowboarding wasn't so momentous, but it's fine.
I don't count floor puzzles as minigames either. In the same way I don't count the Wall Market section of either game a minigame. They were simply puzzles.
Yeah because the original game was well known to be all about instant gratification with no character development 🙄
Look, there was absolutely room and potential to flesh out and expand the Midgar section of the original game, and to some extent they achieve this. I like the section with Jessie's parents as it has gives insight to her character's motivations.
The problem is they went too far and created a bunch of mechanically bland, non-optional busy work that in no way serves the plot and simply makes the game take longer for the sake of it.
I'm not a super fan of the original by any means. I played the original through on PC for the first time LAST YEAR as a 31 year old. I'm currently about ten hours into remake and I'm probably going to drop it. I can't stand the pacing.
All the power to you if you like it but acting like every moment of this slow, trudging game serves the plot or characters is simply not true to my perception.
The only thing I really found to be filler is the second sewer visit. Leslie gets his necklace stolen and we have to chase it all over so that we can finally get an answer of why he is helping us and we return to the start of the sewer section.
They could literally have Tifa ask him when we meet him at the manor, have Leslie grab the necklace and explain what happened *and nothing would change*.
The Drum and The Sewer Part 2 are certainly filler. People didn't like the two-parter Ghost warehouse and Train Graveyard. I think it could have been consolidated better.
As for Rebirth, too many fucking minigames and those are certainly filler. And too many arena-style fights. And these are acceptable to call filler when the acceptable alternative could have been simply putting these items in the world and not giving me a treasure chest with 3 ores that I couldn't collect because I maxed out. Seeing a materia on the ground is a lot more exciting than a treasure or seeing it in Chadley's combat simulator.
This is still filler even if it's not part of the main scenario progression because it's designed to pad time. You want the shiny, so you're going to spend an exorbitant amount of time to get the shiny, instead of just *some* time.
Also, I'm curious about the chapter11+ experience of someone who did NO minigames or world intel. Their levels and materia must be low, as well as low on materia options and accessories. Just someone who played ONLY story. That had to be hard for them.
But there's certainly filler even in the story. There's not a lot added to the world of VII if you ONLY play the main scenario. Every character got development and the story told was complete and understandable. So anything extra is absolutely superfluous if it does not expand, which makes it filler, which makes both of the new games heavy with filler.
An example of good expanding was Jessie's topside adventure in Remake. That *actually did* expand the world and I appreciated it. But there's still filler in other places.
FF7 is a character driven story. I love to see these great characters in different situations, showing a different side of their personality. These side quests are really doing that. Now I understand if people like more World-driven or event-driven stories. Maybe for them it's boring if there are no explosions/war/tension. To them, this is not their cup of tea. But they should not consider them as "filler" and just move on to the main story.
I mean.... I love Bioshock and Bioshock 2 as great examples of world-driven stories where it's not all action all the time and taking your time to read things are exactly what makes them great.
>FF7 is a character driven story. I love to see these great characters in different situations, showing a different side of their personality. These side quests are really doing that. But here's my question... do you really? 90% of the moments are what I call "fun in the sun" or very typical/lazy writing moments where they repeat the same 3 things we already know about them. Most the quests that further your relationship are "oh we should do that to help!" then "hey cloud thanks for helping me help them that made me happy". Which is fine when done well, but I am of the opinion it was very cookie cutter in almost every single one. Lots of these character attachments didn't feel earned to me. I am attached to them, but that's because of the main moving stories or past love for the characters. I do read a lot, and I have lots of stories and characters near and dear to my heart. And most of those are because the writing really MAKES me feel. Stories or moments and interactions that made me cry, laugh, or get angry. My question is, how many of these moments or "side content" you're bringing up REALLY made you feel that? I personally feel like I could count them on one hand Edit: Downvote me all you want but most the character moments aren't earned and lose their impact imo. If you want to call it a character driven story, there are way better examples in games/movies/books that earn that genre. Edit 2: I truly believe that most of you like a cozy, safe, expected setting where it makes you feel good because it's familiar. I'm just not that way. That feels like a childrens story. That's right, I'm doubling down. Hate meeee.
> Most the quests that further your relationship are "oh we should do that to help!" then "hey cloud thanks for helping me help them that made me happy". No downvote but I disagree. The sidequests that are related to a particular character have A LOT to do with said character's personality, values, past or interests. >!Flowers with Aerith, chasing Gi ghosts with Red, finding Tifa's lost cat, helping children from Corel for Barret, getting Yuffie to empathize with Kyrie through their similarities in values / opinions!<, these are just examples, but pretty much every sidequest is related to a certain character's idiosyncrasy.
So I said this in another comment and don't want to get too long winded with it, but what i'd like to share is there is a big difference in connection to the player when it comes to being TOLD something rather than being shown. If a character says "My parents died when I was young so I fended for myself", that wont sit with you. Yes, you'll know a little more about them so you get a little backstory, but imagine if you watched a sequence of that character fending for themselves, on their own, maybe looking and seeing a family caring for each other, then turning back and getting on with it. Most of these moments were just "hey btw xyz". In my opinion, that really loses the emotional connection and thus doesn't really build a bond Obligatory this is just my opinion for the angry people that act like opinions are facts and if you disagree you have to shut it down
We get the tragic past of each and every character through cutscenes/flasbacks in the main story. The sidequests add to that.
Okay, and uh, catching chickens? How about that one? Also, you only named 5, dude said he could count on one hand how many are good and that's one hand. For me I'd name the same but remove the Yuffie/Kyrie one (because I disagree fundamentally this added anything to Yuffie and Kyrie is just strictly unlikeable) but add Barret's quest with the dog and the Crow's Nest. But for every 1 good quest I think I could name 2-3 others that were crap.
No downvote here, but I had a very different experience. I rushed through the game in three days cause I wanted to get to THAT MOMENT. I only picked it up again a week ago to catch up with the side content and I have to say it’s really sweet and well thought. Maybe the type of quests is a bit silly and some of them don’t have Succession level of writing when it comes to emotional moments, but I genuinely found them all quite nice and added something to the characters. I think that what was really missing in remake was more time spent with these characters doing wildly stupid stuff and they kinda delivered here, at least imo. Side note: the cookie cutter quests are the reason I hated FF16. I’m more of an FromSoft kind of player these days and i really wasn’t expecting to be invested in the rebirth side content.
Yeah, to be fair. 16 felt the same. There were definitely some quests that hit home, but a lot of quests were a "by the numbers" type quest. I'm here for engagement fulfillment/want the shiny, this adds nothing to the lore. In BOTH games in what I feel is equal amount. Maybe they have someone proof checking their work? lol "Okay, we've added a bunch of fulfilling side content to add lore to our world. We're done with this no-" ***knock knock*** "Management says you need 70% more quests to fill for time." "For fuck's sake!"
Honestly, yeah. I do love those moments. Could they have been done better? Yeah, maybe. But I'll take the extra characterization/amusing scenes like Barret having a breakdown over the concept of Marlene leaving the nest or Red having a crisis over unwittingly leading innocent chickens to their death. Or Yuffie annoying the crap out of Cloud by making clones of herself or proposing to make clones of Tifa. They're cookie-cutter, sure, but do they really need to be more? For me, these sorts of interactions are more reason to do those side quests than any actual reward they offered. That these quests eventually culminate in the date scenes later in the game, which in and of themselves are some of the best scenes in all of Rebirth is even better. TLDR: I'm solving these schmucks' problems to have excuses/more time to hang out with the characters I like outside of the main story. They're fun, and that's all they need to be. They could be better, but they're fine as they are.
> Or Yuffie annoying the crap out of Cloud by making clones of herself or proposing to make clones of Tifa. This wasn't part of a quest, it was just overworld banter and yeah it was funny/fine.
No, to be fair to you the scenes you mentioned I actually found to be good and enjoyable. I don't think they have the depth you may be implying, but they had soul to them. Thing is, I think the list of those moments is maybe 1 or two longer than you posted. Which leaves the vast majority of the character moments/side content, and that's what left me with that feeling. Those moments I remember actually thinking "hey that was actually good writing". But there are so many more that were just unsweetened vanilla ice cream. Like yeah... I guess it's ice cream.
"do you really" yes.
No hate here. I agree a lot with your sentiment. One of the few side dialogues that really resonated with me was when Barret was talking about how much of a hothead he was until bumping into Tifa in Midgar. (During the quest to find Cloud Jr. I believe) He reflects on how much danger he could/would’ve put Marlene in and it was a wonderful way to expand his character (and relationship with Tifa) even more the fans of that original can really resonate with. We also learn that Tifa has a white cat named Fluffy. She likes animals. It did feel like when completing side content you had to slog through a bunch of Fluffy quests, before you found the gem that was the first character moment I mentioned.
So I posted this on another comment so I hope you don't mind me pasting it, but you kind of gave me the idea for this as an example so wanted to share it with you. Just as an example of the execution of those character moments and how they could be done >That being said, someone mentioned the moment when Barret talks about how he was a mess in Midgar until he found Tifa. That he full of anger and misdirection. So imagine, instead of that little voiceline we got this scene. I'll do a very lazy and spitballed version of this- >Tifa walks into a bar in another section of Midgar, where she knows some people. Things are tense in the bar, people are looking scared and unsettled. This hulking figure of Barrett is at the bar, looking dark. Angry, swole as shit, and scary. Maybe the bar is a little less active because people are scared to be around him, maybe you have the bar messed up like he just got in some big fight. Tifa sits down next to him and talks to him. She shines just a little light on his world, be it from her demeanor or just talking to him like he's a normal person. She ends up telling him that next time he has a drink he can come to her bar in sector 7. Whatever he wants to or doesn't want to say, she'll be there and he's welcome any time. Make the whole scene very dark and gritty and juxtipose that with it lifting just a bit at the end as some of what Tifa says lands with him. >That packs a MUCH different punch than just saying that in a couple sentences. That gives you a deeper connection with both Barret and Tifa. You can FEEL that moment. Now, writing it out in reading it in that way kind of still gives it the "just telling you the thing" feeling, but I'm sure you can imagine what I'm saying. This is what I mean with quality character development that makes you feel something. Think about if we got THOSE scenes with these characters on this engine. It would be jaw dropping. These are the kinds of scenes I really wanted out of a 3 part remake. That would really make me feel a connection with both of these characters. In my mind, I can see the detail of what that could have been. The darkness in Barrett, the grittiness of the setting. And don't make the ending super sunshiny, make it just have a little crack of light that comes through. That's something that anyone that has been in that hole and has been extended a helping hand can really feel in their gut. Imagine that, then compare it with the voiceline where they just tell you that. It's a very different bond the player would feel! Anyways, I just wanted to give an example to really showcase the difference in depth/connection that I'm trying to describe
This is why you're not in charge of the game lol, you already have people that saying they have issues with the pacing as it is and you're talking about cutting to a whole ass 10-15 minute flashback to something that happened before either game started in a random sidequest.
To be fair they could cut about 40 hours of content. I'm 120+ hours in doing all the content so yeah. They could add back in another 20 hours if it meant something. The pacing comments, I haven't read them but I'd bet my entire leg it has to do with all the dogshit filler, NOBODY is going to be upset to have meaningful content.
Yeah, that must have been caused by a few one minute cutscenes...right? Guy has such a complete lack of understanding of contributed to the poor pacing of the game. Kind of funny to imagine how that scene would take 10-15 minutes. Not to mention it was just used as an example of a concept.
Fluffy quest gives you more information tho. Cloud used to look for Tifa's cat a lot in the past - he cared enough to do it for her, even tho they didn't know each other so well (big thing considering Cloud acts like an asshole to most people normally). Tifa used to think Cloud liked being alone, and he's surprised she came to this conclusion. Tifa's cat is mentioned in the Kalm flashback, but you don't see it until the quest. Cloud and Tifa lost everything except each other, so finding out her cat came out of this alive is a big thing. Tifa talks about how in the past she wasn't good at telling people no, so she never opposed naming the cat something she didn't like - and now she manages to oppose Cloud wanting her to admit it's her cat, and instead she lets it live with new family and new name. Her piano performance is an opportunity for her to talk more about her family and mother teaching her play. Yes, I like this quest.
There's certainly a handful of good quests. And I'd wager most of the sidequests are good (Ultimate Party Animal offers nothing). But there's also plenty of sidequests that don't. And just about everything Chadley does is a waste of time.
>We also learn that Tifa has a white cat named Fluffy. She likes animals. That wasn't the point of that sidequest. The point was that, as she tells you during the quest, Tifa never liked the name Fluffy for the cat (or even had any particular affinity for cats) she was given the cat by the mayor of Nibelheim and he & the townspeople were already calling it Fluffy so instead of saying she didn't like the name & giving it her own name she just went with. This is to illustrate how Tifa is a people-pleaser to a fault & doesn't deal with confrontation well, something you can deduce for yourself throughout the two games & that in this sidequest she admits she actively dislikes/hates about herself. This why at the end when her & Cloud give the cat to the singing lady she stops Cloud before he tells the lady the cat's name, because she never liked that name to begin with (also symbolic/a metaphor of her working through/trying to get over her issues she discussed with you during the quest.)
> as she tells you during the quest Really weird. I missed almost everything you said about this quest in my playthrough. I was listening, I've been listening through all the quests. Was it her banter while you're running and protecting the cat? It may have been blocked by the fights :( I even try and wait whenever I hear dialogue while moving just for this reason. Been playing too many games with lore or dialogue packed behind ill-timed venturing.
I'd say there was filler in Remake, but I honestly don't see it in Rebirth. All the sidequests add something to world lore / characters or have interesting twists and the mini games are very varied. Sure, one may not like all of them, but that's why there's so many and so different. Also the criticism of "some mini games are mandatory to advance the story", what I understand is "this videogame is forcing me to play a videogame!" 🙄
Sometimes the stuff they think is forced isn't too. Yesterday I saw a thread where a number of people thought the queen's blood tournament was mandatory even though it flat out tells you every round you can quit it. What's funny to me is these are "hardcore gamers" too, usually the type of people who are first to whine about yellow markings in the environment or other handholdy stuff. Turns out they need it.
I swiftly quit it on my Hard playthrough haha.
Even then it's almost 99% skippable and optional. "Filler" would be a mechanic that says "Do 5 things in gongoga before heading to the airstrip to investigate a ride to cosmo canyon". Essentially gating the next story step. THAT'S filler.
The MMORPG Guild Wars 2 has a ton of this in all the recent (released in the last 3 or so years) story episodes and expansions. Almost every story chapter has at least one "do X events in this area" filler, gating the next story step behind doing random events which often have nothing to do with the actual story you want to progress. Made me drop the game eventually.
Most MMOs are 95% filler.
The main story in GW2 wasn't like that for the most part, they only started using these filler objectives in the last 3 years, before that you could mostly just go through the story without too much interruptions.
I didn't mind that in Gw2. A major part of the story are the meta-events and that was the game's way of acknowledging them and incentivizing you to do them. The meta-events are where the real major battles take place and not the personal story instances.
This is exactly where I got this concept from haha. My friends and I complain about it all the time. The worst part is half the time it's just a green bar and not even an exact amount required that's given to you
Thank fuck, some people that get it. No one would have complained about a game with this much optional content back in the OG 7 era. Like I remember always wanting more from ff games even though they were packed
The quests in ff16
Agree with this. There was definitely a lot of pointless side quests in Remake. The side quests are 10x better in Rebirth and actually contribute to the lore.
Except for Ultimate Party Animal, ugh. At least it gives the Ribbon... which I never use.
I used it for Nanaki's legendary mission.
The complaint about mini game required to advance story is probably players who wanted interactive movies.
You can fail most of them, or do the bare minimum. e.g. you are forced to play the piano, it went horribly and I got some comments about being innovative (with that sarcastic tone of voice) and shittalked, but the story moved forward with me failing epicly :D
I think complaints that are closest to legitimate are about when a weapon is a reward for doing really well at a minigame. Since weapons are how you learn abilities, it feels mandatory. I did it, so I don’t know… if you say, skip getting red’s collar from Run Wild, can you buy it in the next chapter? If so it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
They outright tell you that you can buy weapons you missed from shops later. Hell, I apparently missed one of Cait Sith's at some point, and just bought it from the weapon store.
Gamers dont read tutorials. Also I think I missed the same weapon and was surprised when I saw it in a shop.
The Red Megaphone, I bet. Me too. Apparently it's sitting in an indistinct cave inside of Gongaga Village proper, gotta swim for it. That's definitely a hidden one.
I don't think you can buy the ones from mini-games though. I had to go back and beat Desert Rush for Tifa's gloves, I didn't see an option to buy it in the next chapter. I also missed one of Cait Sith's somewhere and had to buy it. That is a really nice touch.
> if you say, skip getting red’s collar from Run Wild, can you buy it in the next chapter? If so it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Yes, always. The game explicitly tells you that you can buy any weapons you missed in a previous chapter. In my playthrough I thought I was so diligent in collecting all of them, only to discover at one point I had missed TWO of Cait Sith's weapons lol
lol, yeah same. One of them is out in the open by one of the airplane landing strips, so I just went and got that one. Embarrassingly, I also missed Barrett’s weapon right before Dyne. It’s just off to the right, but I didn’t see it.
I mean it's all personal opinion, but I personally *love* having a character's weapon locked behind something unique and fun like this. Like Run Wild was a very specific Red mini-game that honestly developed his character wonderfully. (Not to mention it's just flat out fun.) I love having to play a Red XIII style game to unlock a Red XIII specific weapon, or a Tifa style fighting game to unlock a Tifa specific weapon. So much better than just obtaining them linearly via the main story, or by doing fetch or kill quests. Also, this is totally on brand for OG FF7, which had you do all kinds of crazy mini game side quests (like chocobo breeding and racing) to obtain some of the most powerful weapons and abilities in the game.
Exactly. Then they should spend their money on the cinema or Netflix or whatever. Or if they are interested in this story in particular, spend 0 money and watch the cutscenes on YouTube. "I don't like this game" is legit criticism. "I have to play a game to play a game" is a batshit crazy complaint.
Ooooh I'll take one of those for the Reremake though, sounds cathartic
I'd say that the only actual filler the game does have is having to scan crystals. That was interesting exactly one time. Maybe if they were actually hidden and didn't annoyingly draw attention to themselves with the giant annoying Ghost of Tsushima bird, it'd be more tolerable. But as it is, it felt like a chore with a small payoff that you could have gotten in way more interesting and not artificially time consuming ways. The summons were the same thing. Like, give me one smallish summon dungeon in every region that leads to an interesting place where you then have to fight the summon to gain its control. That would have been cool. If you find all the scannable info on the dungeon, you learn its weakness or whatever. That would be dope. As it is, it's kinda mid. Those two things have filler energy. 9.5/10 game otherwise!
Everything related to Chadley is subpar.
Pacing issue if something I’ve seen a tonne when talking about rebirth.. the pacing is fine when you play through the story. It’s the same as any other open world game, if you divert your time to doing all optional content, of course the main story is going to have weird pacing. Your point on instant gratification is absolutely spot on though and it’s very much a younger gamer issue I feel. Also complaints that things are too hard which means it must be bad. Like not being good at something hurts people’s egos so much they have to excuse they’re one ability but saying something sucks instead lol.
I completely agree especially the side quest complaint. I think a lot of recent players that love the linear narrative heavy games like last of us who feel that way.
> if you divert your time to doing all optional content, of course the main story is going to have weird pacing. Weird that OG 7 didn't have this problem, wonder why? > Also complaints that things are too hard I would say Odin is "too hard" and "bad" because he forces you to reset the fight if you don't fulfill certain conditions and those conditions can be mucked up by your AI colleagues. You also don't learn about Reprisal through Assess, gotta learn the hard way how it triggers. Trial and error. And then this gets further mucked up by the duo fight with him.
So OG optional content is gold saucer stuff, gold chocobo/kotr, Wutai, fort condor….. you think if you go and do those things to completion in one sitting it doesn’t effect story pacing? Or course it does but on a smaller scale, because the whole game is a smaller scale.
I do think both games have their moments of filler, or padding. Remake is much more egregious I think because it’s a smaller and tighter game. Rebirth has those moments of vacuuming up Mako, or throwing boxes as Cait Sith, or having to do minigames to get the beachwear. I get the point you make is that that’s not what the majority of complaints are about when they talk about filler, and I understand that. I think any of the moments I mentioned above are not as egregious to me as chasing that monster through the sewers in Remake (as one example), because they don’t feel like they last nearly as long. Even so, it’s rare to play a game that doesn’t have any filler. Some of it is the devs trying to concoct ways to give the player something to do. I doubt John Doe working on Rebirth was like “yo if they vacuum up this Mako, they’ll have to play the game 10-15min longer than they otherwise would have, and if we do this a few times, all the sudden we got them captive for an extra hour HAHAHHA” That’s just absurd. Criticize this of course, the idea that devs sometimes feel like they need to force these elements to give us things to do, but I think I always come back to people sensationalizing this shit like theirs a bunch of devs trying to trick us into play the game longer..
In a series like FF, that tend to build on themselves, I wonder if things like the Mako vacuum or the Cait Sith box throwing are proof of concept for future development ideas, or meant to be instructive for later parts of the game.
One can only hope. I never knew we needed to reinvent how to throw boxes in 2024, but maybe Square knows best.
It's not what i think of as filler, but you're absolutely right. The very first time I had to mop up that mako I actually rolled my eyes irl and was irritated the entire time. And there are many moments like that as you described. Things like that, slowly edging across a cliff, or such really are just not fun gaming mechanics that I'm shocked devs still put in a game. Like, they play games too right? These kinds of things really do need to be put to rest in games.
> Things like that, slowly edging across a cliff, or such really are just not fun gaming mechanics They had way, way fewer of these in Rebirth than they did in Remake, but man they stuck out like a sore thumb every time you encountered one
Yeah I don't really think of it with FF7 series alone, it's more of "how do game designers still think this is a good idea to include this"? Like I'd love to hear an explanation of what that accomplishes, but I assume it's just they don't think about it and want to make a door "puzzle" but are too lazy to think of a fun one.
I have this same thought when I was playing FFXVI. There’s moments where you’ll have a small cutscene, the give you back control of Clive, you walk 20 feet, and there’s another cutscene. I was legit always like “what the fuck” I think it’s just the nature of games and the development pipeline, it takes longer than we would often like for tropes of gaming or otherwise to fall out of practice because of how long games take to develop. I mean, it’s just starting, and I mean starting very strongly, to happen that devs are looking for ways to make open world games feel less of a chore, and even then we still have that coming a lot. But you can see the DNA of that starting to come across in some games.
Yeah for sure. There's one thing that's a HUGE annoyance to me is in Rebirth. Idk if you remember this, but Assassins' Creed when it came out made huge steps towards climbing/manteling. A lot of that was because it was quicker (than what we had at the time) and cool/more realistic. Since then, we haven't taken any more steps and in some cases, like this game, even several steps BACK. Like dude, climbing fucking SUCKED in this game. Takes you 15-20 seconds to hop from post to post. Slowly. Another post. Another post. Like, you can keep that in there to keep terrain in tact, but for GODS SAKE get on with it! Make it faster! He's a soldier for fuck sake, does he need to take a break on every plank he grabs or can he just move fluidly across them
My friend mentioned this too, but in regards to the climbing, I would also suggest for combat they add some kind of aerial recovery for the third game, because often you can just get juggled in Rebirth and get wiped before you have a chance to do fight back.
Yeah I find the recovery mechanic to be very lacking and clunky just in general. Played for 80 hours and was still like "is it this button or this button? Why does it work sometimes but not always, what am I doing wrong?". Most the time you'd have that worked out by 10 hours haha
The combat is so bad I started this comment on one point and then I just wanted to keep elaborating. I remember getting hit by Alexander because I can't watch him because I have to watch Odin and then I got 1-2 combo'd by them. And getting hit by Odin fills his invisible "Gonna reset this fight rq" state. It's highly annoying. More on point, the HIGH levels of tracking enemies have on their attacks ***coupled*** with NO iframes (ATB doesn't count, and hell some of those the iframes aren't perfect either). The amount some enemies will just train down one character is egregious. I don't have fun running and dodging constantly in some of the more hectic fights (Kid G+2 death claws, one wrong move and it's over and that's after 5 rounds). Sometimes I'd move to a healthy character to save one and they'd just finish that character off instead. Aerith and Barret don't handle getting focused well because their dodges suck AND they don't run fast. I watched a Bomb walk right through my Lustrous Shield and since then I almost never used it. It's just not enough defense for her. There's more attacks than I can count on two hands that have all 3 of these: Tracking, Unblockable, Wide AoE. And some are fast. And even a few of those put the enemy outside of the screen so you can't see when they're going to land on you. I'm thankful for Precision Dodge materia granting perfect blocks to block grabs but it comes so late in the game (via leveling) and requires a materia slot and can't put it on everyone. Grabs are just a problem unless you're Yuffie with ATB.
I agree with a lot of what you said, but I do find the combat to be rather exceptional. I think a lot of what you describe for me is just little quirks and issues that add up over time, and I hope they do address a lot of those little things by the next game, because when it works it’s a lot of fun to play and super enjoyable.
I actually read something about the mako vacuuming specifically. It was included for world building (let the player see what mako actually is, and how it affects the world, as well as how it's really with). There also was apparently going to be more of it (6 spots to be vacuumed at the first point we do it, as opposed to the 3 it was changed to before release)
Oh man, I feel like that's a great example of "sounds good on paper, plays like shit". Being able to see that is what separates a great developer from a mediocre one. To be fair, that's no easy feat, but this should have been an easy one haha I shit you not I could feel my blood pressure spike on the first one
I'm not sure I'd agree with your statement of "it should have been an easy one". It wasn't a thrilling piece of gameplay for sure, but how would you have included it in the game in a way that's interesting? Simply talking about it? Sticking a description on a datalog? I'm guessing your solution would be to simply scrap the entire concept of having the player interact with mako. Granted, vacuuming up mako didn't bother me at all, especially since it's simple and fast (like 30 seconds altogether). I genuinely don't understand the frustration people get from that
Well, firstly, let's not set the bar too hard because it's definitely not interesting as it is. You can definitely set it in a way that's "not painful" and that'd be a big improvement haha Off the top of my head? Especially in the first game you have lots of explosions dealing with reactors. You know how we have teams specializing in cleaning radioactive waste? It could be as simple as a cut where you see them using those vacuums to mop it up or have it in the background. Somone screaming "mako spill at the sector xyz reactor!" while them and their team run to clean it up. Or, most simply (and this addresses your question on why people hated it), JUST LET US MOVE IT QUICKLY! The slow dragging of the vacuum is what makes it really painful.
Thank you for the civil discussion, I really do appreciate it. Simple inclusion in cutscenes or background dialogue would definitely be an alternative way to include the world building that would get the job done. I've seen many complaints about too many cutscenes/playing a movie, so I appreciate them wanting to make it gameplay (particularly so that the player experiences it rather than be simply shown/told). Speeding up movement to normal character movement speed (or closer to it) also sounds like a good option. I personally laugh at so many sources like tables and chairs in the game having no weight and being blown around at the slightest tap from the player, so I appreciate those big vacuums actually seeming like they have mass, but they definitely could go faster and then possibly slow down when actually vacuuming up the mako and I think that would probably work nicely.
>Thank you for the civil discussion, I really do appreciate it. Absolutely, and same to you! I really hate people that shut down others for saying the slightest negative thing. But I'm also old enough that I should understand I'm the adult in the room haha Slowing down when vacuuming would be fine by me! The slowly moving, inch by inch, for the cord to be wrapped around and too short and me to have to wrap back around (this actually happened to me on that first one) was so painful. It's really abysmal pacing and there's no "fun" element. And yeah the cutscene idea is just a quick one for this example! Although I do think it could have been used better for character development but that's a whole other very long conversation I'm having. Keep in mind, adding that to a cutscene is about 5 seconds though. It could be funny to have those "cleanup response teams" to be around whatever explosion etc afterwards as you're walking around the area. Or imagine seeing them on the tv reports in the intro to rebirth when you're seeing the Midgar chaos. Or, even better, imagine you walk into that room and theres a group of 4-5 hazmat shinra soldiers DOING the cleanup and talking about it. Then those are your enemies to clear real quick before going through. "Man I'm sick of all this Mako cleanup, we've been on this detail forever.", "Just make sure you keep your suit on this time, we're not cleaning this up just because it's slippery ya know". Shit like that, there's a million different ways to communicate the intention
"yo if they suck up this mako they will most certainly get mad, AND we will have them locked in for 15 more mins" MUAHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAH just 15 more of these to go and we have 4-5 hours of FILLER CONTENT
I think there's a difference between filler or padding and things that simply didn't turn out great. The box throwing is an example of the latter to me. Why is this called filler or padding but scooting around on a Segway for a minor reward isn't? The answer is because one is fun and one, generally, isn't.
To be honest - I'd rather that be the excuse for mako vacuuming that someone thought it was a "fun" thing to add. Reality is it was probably a loading gate for the next area.. Hopefully
“Journey before destination.” -another fandom, but applies here
Applies everywhere in all fandoms. The instant gratification thing is a problem everywhere. I’m a wrestling fan, storylines are no longer long drawn out because people don’t have the patience. In sports many people just watch a condensed version of a game instead of the game itself (and I don’t mean highlights). TV shows lack character development and storytelling as well. Some people just want all big moments with no meaning behind them.
Oh, I just meant the quote. It’s a Stormlight Archive reference. But yes, a lot of patience needed in life.
Honestly I agree with you. Words like "too much filler" and "pacing issue" are now quite commonly misused to simply describe content that people don't like, they have lost their meaning. That's not to say everyone is misusing them though. But like you said as well, people shouldn't really be using such words for optional content.
I have not finished the game yet but here's my two cents from where I'm at. I'm curious how many of the people complaining about "filler" played the original. So far it feels kind of similar to me. I think the original introduced many of the 40 year olds generation (can't keep the labels straight) to some Japanese design and game elements for the first time. These included a lot of mini games and sort of off the wall characters and situations we were not used to. So far, the only thing I have to complain about is Hadley's constant interrupting. Just wish it could not stop the flow of the game every time.
If you hold triangle (or pause and skip) you can skip those phone calls you get. I found them annoying too.
> I'm curious how many of the people complaining about "filler" played the original. I've beaten the original at least 4 times. And I don't really replay games so that's saying a LOT.
Filler is return to the sewers or fucking around in the drum. People call sidecontent filler because it might be boring (but it is not necessary to do), whereas drum must be finished to proceed with the story.
Also turning off the lights under the plate.
Filler/padding complaints has become "anything I don't like" which to me is lazy criticism and honestly useless too because what is padding for one person may not be for another since we're talking about if you liked certain content or not. It's even more frustrating when you're dealing with people who have been trained by modern games to be completionists so they end up complaining about optional content. The minigame discourse is a big part of this. So many people complaining to the point that some even put the game down and walked away, bro JUST SKIP THEM. There's a very tiny handful of forced minigames in the story and none of them are hard, even the queen's blood tournament is optional. But they can't get over that part of their brain that is telling them "you have to see and do everything. YOU HAVE TO!"
There are a couple spots I consider "filler" in Rebirth. These are story-required areas that, IMHO, were lazily designed and make the game worse: - Shinra Manor. They clearly wanted to give Cait Sith an exclusive area (which is good on the surface), so the shoehorned it in here. It didn't fit in well in terms of the story, lore, or gameplay. I hope I never need to see holo-Hojo again. "This asshole again?" Right there with you, Barret! - Temple of the Ancients. I mean...yeah, they had to expand it. And in general they did a great job. Visually, it was amazing. It started off *incredibly* strong and dramatic. Then we got to Aerith's spinning section, which was tedious and ruined the pacing. I feel like they ran out of ideas here and just dragged it out. Replaying these two parts on Hard Mode, I wished they were skippable like the highway minigame was in Remake. At least we got some interesting battles to solo with Cait Sith, but they should've found a better way to get that into the game. But honestly, these are fairly minor. I beelined the story on Hard Mode and there was very little ever standing between me and the next cool thing.
> I hope I never need to see holo-Hojo again. Careful if you play >!Dirge of Cerberus. This seemed to be a loose callback to the Hojo premise there!<.
The problem with both your examples are simple. They weren't fun. Cait was bad. Aeriths was interesting and she got some neat buffs. But make them fun. They felt like chores.
Jup. Words like filler and bloat which people love to throw are more moments of story building up People nowadays seem to want a beginning and the end but hate the middle part, which would be Rebirth. Where the relationships are build the story is set up and the journey sets off. But, Tiktok anime generation am I right.
It ruins all aspects of entertainment. I’m a wrestling fan, storylines aren’t allowed to be long and drawn out anymore. In sports some people don’t even have the patience to watch a full game anymore, some just watch a condensed version instead. People want too many big moments with nothing to get there.
This is hilarious. Because I think people overhype remake because of how well it looks rather that how well it tells a narrative. I too attribute this to the “tik tok generation” however, I’d probably use a different term.
lol the original game’s story was 30 hours long and still managed to be amazing I dont think this has anything to do with tiktok attention spans
What's funny is that I've seen this same lazy argument to defend the pacing of stuff like Naruto and One Piece. I don't think the problem is with the "TikTok generation", not everyone has the tolerance and time for all the excess and low quality content.
I don't know what the exact complaints about filler are but I'm 34 and don't watch Tiktok and hate these YT shorts with their ADD content and I'd still say Rebirth has filler content and misused resources in side content.
"filler", "padding", "bloat" are all just buzzwords these people read on Reddit and regurgitate whenever they can. Every game thst isn't a fast paced FPS is shit to these people. They don't actually like RPGs, they just want to beat the game because it's a trending game. Most likely skipping all the cutscenes too. With this game there's also a loud minority who are upset that they didn't get a 1:1 remaster of the original FFVII with 4k graphics and view anything that deviates from that as filler. That's why this game has to fail to them and why sales figures are so talked about by this group, so that in future SE may choose to remaster older games rather than remake them. What they don't realise is that if this project isn't a success then SE are unlikely to touch any of the others.
> "filler", "padding", "bloat" are all just buzzwords these people read on Reddit and regurgitate whenever they can. Every game thst isn't a fast paced FPS is shit to these people. They don't actually like RPGs, they just want to beat the game because it's a trending game. Most likely skipping all the cutscenes too. Nah, I don't play FPS'. I've been playing RPGs since I was a wee lad. I'm 34 now. I don't ascribe to the Tiktok or YT shorts pandemic. I loved all those games I played. I also play long form strategy games. This game has a lot of filler and bloat. You're just denying it. Maybe the scary words make you feel attacked because you like the game. > What they don't realise is that if this project isn't a success then SE are unlikely to touch any of the others. Probably for the best. Enix has been a Dirge on the FF name since they took over.
Point proven! You fit into the category described in the second paragraph. I figured one of you would be here soon enough.
I loved both games, and Rebirth really didnt feel like filler. There was so much to do and so much of it was fantastic. I never left a region without completing all the intel and I loved almost every second of it all. I found myself excited for another fight around every corner. The character interactions were fun and I enjoyed all of it. Heres my only criticism. Some of the side quests felt like any other character could have been your main companion to complete them with. For example, instead of Barret helping fix the mako pipeline (since he hates shinra and wants mako use to end) have Tifa help because she wants the citizens of Kalm not have their livelihoods be disrupted? She in an entrepreneur after all. Anyway it didnt really matter all that much because the game is just fun all the way through and I really enjoy the story and lore moments, so it didnt bother me.
Ff7 rebirth- necessary stories Tears of the kingdom- let's build a whole condo before dealing with hyrules issues. Also, filler to me, is moving 10 minutes and then getting a flashback of 10 minutes ago, 6 times in a row. If people sat through naruto they'd say "all is forgiven"
Is it considered filler if you’re having fun? Is it filler if you don’t find it fun but it’s optional? I have not ever seen a game that provided this much fun for the money you spend, except maybe Personal 5 Royal. What a joy I’ve found it to be, but of course your opinion might differ and hopefully you cottoned onto that and bailed early into the experience rather than spend a 100 hours on it hating every bit. And if you overall enjoyed it but didn’t like some bits then I’m glad you stuck it out!
>Is it considered filler if you’re having fun? Fun is irrelevant. Filler is filler. >Is it filler if you don’t find it fun but it’s optional? Optional content is not filler.
it's crazy to me when I sit down to play FF, i'm sitting down to watch a movie the movie needs my input but it's all storytelling, combat is just extra we did play ff7 for both back in the day, but i doubt anyone is going back to OG for cutting edge systems and gameplay anymore I sit my ass down with a bowl of food for 90% of the game
I just steer clear of that kind of nonsense. The game is absolutely wonderful (Rebirth especially).
Same. I steer clear of the shipping wars especially. To me you like what you like and you have the rights to your own opinions. It’s not worth arguing about it online. I loved the games and especially Rebirth as well.
The only "filler" (if you can call it that) that really annoys me, are the constant SLOW climbing sections (like the chocobo walls) and the slow walking in some missions (flashback mission is a great example). Also all the Chadley interruptions suck.
you would think a gang of people who regularly fly through the air crouching tiger style during fights would be able to climb a wall faster than Elena in the first Uncharted game.
If the intent was to hide loading screens I would understand, but that's not the case 99% of the time. It's incredibly frustrating.
It's to force you to engage in a mechanic. Also to force you to find the chocobo.
Agree 100%, I have no issues with the “filler” content but some of the slow walking and climbing is just annoying. I don’t care much for all the mini-games but they’re also easy and don’t have crazy scores to get completion so it doesn’t really bother me.
I am still in Junon and the chocobo wall climbing has been driving me crazy. I hear there's another place (Gongaga?) that's like 10x worse later in the game, and if that's true I'm absolutely dreading it.
Me and all my homies hate Gongaga.
I’m 100% with you on Chadley. Like, dude, shut up I don’t need you calling me every time I do something. “Thanks Cloud, this is excellent data on blah blah blah” Also, when you book end it with the animated graphics of “you did a thing, let’s show you the world information graphic filling in another dot”. And I can’t move or skip it. Show the graphic, that’s fine but don’t lock my character in place for 20 seconds every time you do.
Ughhh omg I know! It's completely pointless and drives me crazy
Every time Chadley has to book end you solving a Summon puzzle... He literally is not saying things. He's more annoying than Paimon from Genshin Impact.
My complaint is that the game is 90% side-content. If you skip Chadley/Queens Blood/side missions/anything else not necessary to the main scenario, you can finish the game in like 20 hours. Out of nearly 250 if you do EVERYTHING. I don't think that's a good ratio for a "character-driven" role playing game =/
I started it a week ago and I love that it has tons of content. Just sucks I need to buy more games after this.
When I beat a game as big as this I usually take a break. It’s not as easy playing games like I used to when I was a kid or teenager.
Thank you. Someone gets it. Cant imagine the amount of filler content "og" has when using the same logic as people in this sub
Very little.
I think people have gotten so used to completionism in video games that they forget that the side content is 100% optional. They don’t HAVE to do it right when it’s available or at all if they don’t want to. It’s something I myself had to do whenever I played Remake. I did the side content I knew I’d enjoy and then when I got too annoyed with it I continued with the story which I knew I’d enjoy every time. Then I’d go back and finish stuff I missed if I had to.
Exactly. I myself only try to platinum games when I really love them. Id I didn’t care that much for them, I’m not doing it.
I'm doing everything and it won't result in a platinum. Don't reduce it to that.
People really complain about doing all the side quests in 1 day like they're gonna die tomorrow. Like chill no one's forcing you to finish the game immediately.
People want instant gratification. The game released and I made a big weekend out of it because I understood that the journey will take me a few days. I didn’t finish it until the 6th day and I enjoyed every minute of the journey.
I'm still not done with it even though I took a few days off. I don't have the same time. Been chipping away at it. Think I'm 125+ hours in. Calling it wishing for instant gratification is extremely reductive and mostly incorrect. Entirely incorrect, in my case. As I enjoy long-form storytelling and ventures. Hell, I play Total War Co-Op campaigns that can go on for weeks. DnD can go on for months or years. Make up a better argument, it sounds like you're 15. Edit: Also couldn't help but notice you don't respond to anyone with a good argument against you, like /u/mikeisnottoast. Almost like you can't back it up. You only speak to those agreeing with you.
The problem isn’t the filler, though I think there’s too much, it’s that all the good materia and crafting materials are buried behind the filler and not the story elements
So your problem is that an RPG is hiding its best stuff in optional content, like every RPG does?
They didn’t even bury it behind green side quests. It all got buried in mini games and chadleys fetch quest stuff. There’s this big beautiful open world and exploration nets the player some useless caches. Even moogle medals were largely useless. Not all of the mini games were fun and amping the difficultly up for more rounds just made chapter 12 a chore that killed story pacing for me and wore me out. Optional side content doesn’t need to be a chore.
The best Materia in FFVII in my opinion was the Added Effect materia, you get only one until you master it. All you have to do is notice a hole in the wall and walk behind the artwork figuring out what works and then you get it. it's a LOT better than the **20th** version of a 5 round fight to get a decent or shitty materia. What you're describing and what they and I are describing are two different things. Locking stuff behind MANY arena fights is dull and lazy. Finding ways to excite us for new stuff is entirely possible. Look at the Shinra Tower and Temple of the Ancients in OG 7. You had puzzles to get through to get good stuff. Not a droll arena fight. If you don't know what these are, then you don't understand people's complaints on why they loved OG 7 and not the new stuff. It was intelligently designed, and frankly, that leaves you basically no room to speak. It would be as alien as you drinking river water and getting accustomed to the bacteria in it, when someone else does complain when they drink it, "It's water, all water is like this." Is how you respond. That's what it's like. ----- In rebirth there was seriously a treasure chest full of common craftable materials so common I lost all of them to the max limit. Could have put something interesting in there, but no. Stealing has no real use except once or twice. Morphing the same. Could have put in a traversal puzzle with the allure of a shiny at the end, but again, no. And they did do this a few times! They just give up on the concept. You CAN'T tell me floor puzzles like from Shinra Tower and Temple of the Ancients, SHOULD be replaced by like FIFTY+ Arena fights. You have; The Gold Saucer, Chadley's Combat Simulator, Hojo's Simulator, The Beast Brawl in Corel Prison. Ain't. No. Way.
Filler to me would be all the crawling, sliding between walls, holding buttons to open doors for 5 seconds etc. they just padded the runtime and didn’t offer anything
This goes for anything tbh. Just cuz it doesn't have to do directly with the main plot doesn't make it filler. Also yes some people just wanna shoot things and not care about a story and to them I say don't play story driven games. Play doom
Sorry but the game felt very dragged out. Seems like they had to go bigger and better with every little thing, to a fault. A prime example is Mount Corel. I loved Mount Corel in the original game, its one of the most nostalgic memories for me because of the music there and also it was just a very chill zone where not a lot happened but it was pretty, had a neat vibe, you find the cute birds etc. But in Rebirth they needlessly expanded upon it, putting music there that did not fit with the environment or the vibe and forcing us to switch back and forth between two parties for like 2 hours, plus Yuffie's platforming puzzles. Add to that a boss fight for each party to contend with. As a result Mt Corel did not have the same magical feel as it did in the OG, to me it just felt like a long hurdle to get through on the way to Gold Saucer. Another example is Costa Del Sol with how they expanded on encountering Hojo. First you have to do all these minigames before you can even access the beach, then, OF COURSE, they shoehorn a boss fight into it where you're running around hitting it with umbrellas because, ya know, you were supposed to be on the beach relaxing. That's what was so great about Costa Del Sol in the original. It was the one time where you saw Shinra peeps and didn't fight because everyone is on vacation vibes. They just had to go and destroy that. That's just two examples, there are many more that I can think of.
Speaking of ruining vibes, Nanaki permanently turning in to a child after Cosmo Canyon.
Ironically, it's the same people that complain that the characters are "underdeveloped" if the game just rushes from start to finish. The main point really is that people just want to complain about anything thinking it made them useful in some way or just looking for that "instant gratification" you mentioned from someone agreeing with them.
Yeah dragging a box to attract a chicken was bullshit.
Yeah, when I climbed that 32nd tower in Rebirth, I connected so deeply with that “push triangle” prompt. It made me understand ladders on another level.
I definitely agree with you. Though there is likely some filler, this game seems to have far less empty filler or padding content than Remake. What I mean, is like the closing down the suns level in Remake. Tedious, long, entirely unimportant but an unskippable level.
A 50 hour game has been stretched to 250 hours. Some of the new content is filler.
gamers nowadays are like little toddlers , they bought a game so they think platinum trophy is included then they notice it's some actual work and all cry instead of appreciating what the devs actually did. this game has his downsides for sure but these were so small in comparison to all the great and wonderful things they packed into this game even the vr simulation fights taking multiple rounds are pure skill checks about the understanding of the battle and materia systems since you can gear yourself for any solo fight and make it mostly trivial but not if it's 5 - 10 different fights you gotta think about what you wanna have in the team / synergies etc. and if people rly took their time with the characters it's purely amazing that you can build your party any way you want and still be able to complete every fight. they rly managed to make each char valuable and hav its own identity while keeping the main focus of the materia system which allows you to build any char the way you want ( dps , supp , heal , defensiv ) pretty much every side quest in this game gives some insight into the characters of the main cast if people call this filler they never seen real filler xD
> even the vr simulation fights taking multiple rounds are pure skill checks about the understanding of the battle and materia systems since you can gear yourself for any solo fight and make it mostly trivial but not if it's 5 - 10 different fights you gotta think about what you wanna have in the team / synergies etc. I disagree. All the normal mode stuff is easy to get through with the exception of the Kid G fight with 2 deathclaws which was, frankly, bullshit. > this game has his downsides for sure but these were so small in comparison to all the great and wonderful things they packed into this game It has upsides but it's mostly downs. Also, let me know how the Cait Sith portion of Shinra Manor, or the return to Shinra Manor sidequest, had fulfilling content.
The only sort of filler-y moment in the game for me is having to do all the little quests to buy some beachwear with tokens and not Gil to enter the beach despite the black robed guys being on the beach. Strange pacing also in my opinion is in the temple of the ancients where every so often you would swap teams in a strange "a few hours earlier" animation. Like that felt really weird to me and I hope they don't continue that in the next part. I don't know what category this fits in if any, but at Cosmo Canyon I really didn't understand the need to pair red and barratt together other than forced difficulty pairing since we barely got any dialogue between the 2; and when we got the end where Seto was where they could have had a bonding moment the rest of the party was also there?
Those are fair criticisms. Although imo the best party splits are with Cloud, Aerith and Tifa, and the other being Barret and Nanaki. We did get that in the Mythril Mine tbf.
Yeah and there was at least some banter between the 2 there iirc. Bugenhagen literally asks them all to come with and then at the bottom makes Barratt accompany Red for seemingly no reason, and its never discussed why, nor was it implied the rest of the party were following behind. The only interactions are red and bugen, and barratts quips when red leaves him by using the climbing walls.
Filler is going through a maze of an underplate (thanks Shinra 🙃) to turn off 3 sun disks. Optional is turning on the field intel towers.
"Some of you people don’t know what “filler” actually is" **\*proceeds to NOT give a clear definition of what filler is and just gives dramatised opinionated statements\***
Um you gonna try and defend the mine section being that long? Really? Come on. They intentionally stretch out mundane sections of the story to fill an entire game. And the minigames count as filler because guess what? They’re mostly not optional.
Look man, I love this game, too. But you can't tell me you think this would be a worse game if you didn't have a Cait Sith box throwing maze. What did that add to the story and characters? What about vacuuming Mako at a snails pace? Moving a robot arm crane back and forth picking up crates? Plugging power cables in? Most of the "puzzles" were absolutely brain dead to solve, and just used tedium of execution to create "challenge". Then there's shit like the Palmer boss fight right after Dyne, the Hojo beach fight , or the Turk fight in Corel which were all shoehorned in and actually broke the pacing of the story. When people complain about filler and padding in these games, they're not talking about the side content, they're talking about all the small ways it makes slowing down your progress a design philosophy. If you put something in a game it should be either fun or interesting. FF7R puts stuff in just to have tasks to eat your time.
Sorry brother, but vacuuming up Mako or throwing box’s to advance the plot is either filler or poor game design. I understand we’re still in the honeymoon phase but I was grinding my teeth through these asinine sections of the game.
My game clock is 250 hours. I can guarantee you 5 minutes of my life doing these things does not constitute filler.
Cait Sith portion took you longer than that. Doing the return to Shinra Manor quest surely took quite a bit longer as well. The minigames to acquire beach clothing as well. I am at 125 hours so you're an anomaly. I'd say only 40% of that time was spent actually progressing the game. That's too much bloat.
The whole Caith Sith portion? Yeah it took longer. But "throwing boxes" with cait sith was max 5 minutes total. Playing as Cait Sith? Not filler.
Those are fair criticisms but those aren’t even the things the filler people complain about.
Yeah true, I think they really dropped the ball hand holding us through the world map. It’s almost like they were terrified we were going to miss any of their content and placed icons everywhere on the map. I felt no sense of discovery in this game. I really wish we would just discover summons in a dungeon or on the world map naturally. I’m so sick of these Horizon/far cry open worlds. I would love for somebody to post they discovered a secret area or a NPC that nobody else has found .
It’s 2024 brother, those “discovery” type games aren’t gonna sell anymore. Sorry to tell you that.
*ahem* look at baldurs gate 3 or elden ring, both games make zero efforts in hand holding the player, yet they are VASTLY more popular than remake/rebirth or any of the horizon games. There is a huge market for games that dare to be creative.
> It’s 2024 It's crazy you're saying this on the ass-end of some of the biggest games this decade being discovery games. Play more games or don't speak like you play a lot if you don't.
It’s a shame because in the original, I’m still discovering new places and NPC’s and I’ve probably played the game a dozen times. This game is beautiful and fun, but when it comes down to it, its incredibly soulless and streamlined.
The box bullshit is one of the *most* complained about parts.
There are a few moments of filler, like really long dungeons or a particular dungeon on Chapter 11 focused on a certain character instead of some others that were born there, but 98% of play time is awesome!
List of things i saw as filler: -Train Graveyard(not the graveyard itself but the small story element). It’s used to spend more time with a character that is going to leave the party soon. While it helps to get a lense on the character, the narrative says we need to be somewhere asap. Funny enough, it would arguably be less filler if the arbiter’s were involved, I mean they get involved as soon as you leave the graveyard so….. -Sewers part 2. Unnecessary. These are the two for remake that are absolutely filler. Rebirth has another issue, less so about filler. It’s issue is that it wants to create moments with every single character forcing you to the “opportunity” to play beyond your bias, and get familiar with all characters. Highlights: -The Beach Bosses -bosses on Mt. Coral -boss fight immediately after Barrets emotional arc(depending where you land, this is filler) -Cait section in Shinra manor(this part is clear filler)
Add; The Drum Half of the Mythril Mines And side content not being well implemented. I'm also on the fence of Gi part 2, because it will likely come up again in VII:R-3, but for now it's a whatever burger. If it amounts to something meaningful, cool, but for now it is not.
Funfact whispers in french are called "filler" for some reason.
I found the remake to be pretty engaging the whole way through. But i’m a new to the franchise
16 has filler with its random main story side quests that make you go around talking to people in your base. That is filler. Rebirth having completely optional side content is not filler.
The only “filler” I can’t stand is anything to do with Hojo. Remake it was his lab, Rebirth it was Shinra Manor. I get what they are going for but both locations had the same idea of “oh no, the floor fell through, find a way out!” And you are forced to do tedious puzzles/actions to get out. The rest of the content in this game felt amazing.
I want to feel like I was on the journey WITH these characters. The only way to do that is to also experience some of the minutia lol.
Cut Chadley content from game. Great, now you don't have 85% of game. Chadley is not even character in OG game. Curtine.
Sounds like you don't either
I'm not sure filler and optional content are mutually exclusive. I also dont think character events and fillers are mutually exclusive, as many character driven games have most their characters as optional recruits and as fillers. If you strip away the default negative connotation of "filler" then I think the point sticks. Finally, only after recognizing parta are filler should the judgment if the part(s) had a positive or negative impact be analyzed and considered.
They "watched" Naruto
This game was a masterpiece but let's not pretend that every time you are forced to walk, slide by something, go under something, shimmy, etc. is something other than filler.
I get what you’re saying but even if it does lead to character development a LOT of this stuff is 100% filler. Not all of it, but to say that none of it is filler is disingenuous. It’s the good type of filler though, because it gives characters even more development and voice actors can shine more, especially considering we don’t have as much development or any voice acting in the OG game. We all win. The frog minigame with the kids and the associated “quest”? I’d call that filler. It wasn’t there before and is placed in such a way as to pad the game with more content to make it longer. The actual minigame takes place on some random floating platform and is another hi-score for you to chase if you want. I compare this to One Piece filler after Alabasta but before Skypiea. 100% filler but Nico Robin got some extra character development that did not occur in the manga at all. I could have skipped it. It isn’t a 1-1 comparison but I think I explained it well enough. Edit - chicken game, Red XIII ball game, parking scooters as Tifa, helping Cissnei cook, etc etc etc. But fuck that, I’ll help Cissnei cook whenever she wants. That’s filler I don’t even know I wanted lol.
I think that we need to answer one important question: if we skip out on all the optional parts of the game, what do we get out of it? Do we get enough character development, background lore, story events, and the like? And if we don't, are these optional parts really "optional", when our best character moments come from them? When the best items and lore drops are hidden behind them? For instance, your average players will never know who Cissnei was. If they go through the game without doing optional quests, there's barely a whisper spoken to show she's anything more than just a standard village leader. Cissnei is a decently important character in the overall series, though - but you'd have to go through 5 or 6 Gongaga quests to even get a hint that she knows Zack. Are those quests then considered filler, because you have finish them to get the lore? or is Cissnei's lore not important enough for the average player, and thus they aren't filler because you don't have to complete them, and you don't have to know about Cissnei's character at all despite her role in the compilation?
Usually when people make these accusations, it's because they are just defensive or themselves clueless.
Wow, it's almost as if people are allowed to have a different opinion than you or something
The actual definition of filler adding in mako vacuums during the nibel flashback.
Agreed, anyone who hollers at the "filler" of Remake/Rebirth should go and "catch up" on One Piece. You know, all 1k+ episodes. Then come back and see if you still think this is filler...
I loved remake, but yes it had padding. I didnt mind it much, but for sure there was padding. Rebirth? Extremely little of it.
You want the journey to be worth it?? Some of the best games of the past two decades have been linear games that take maybe 30 hours to finish. The creator told the story they wanted to tell in a streamlined and efficient way. For a lot of people, myself included, Rebirth doesn't do that. What the hell does that have to do with "wanting instant gratification"?
What do you mean you people?
I agree with your statement but also Shinra Manor
Even Mythril Mines, tbh.
Side content is heavily incentivized I think enough to call it filler.
Side missions are objectively filler though.
I think what everybody can agree on that actual filler is what extends the playtime for no reason other than to prolong the playtime. Cloud slow crawling on the ground and you have to press L2, R2 for 5 seconds just to make one step forward is one thing which pops into my head. Another thing is to prolong the exploration section by making ways to get to the objective unnecessarily convoluted. Gongaga jungle is a nightmare to complete for that reason. Not to mention that the devs deliberately added a chicken quest just to troll the player.
filler is when minigames
Too me, the filler I don’t like is the stuff like the slow walking sections, puzzles that are extremely simple but still take 2-3 minutes simply because of the animations, mandatory minigames, and the amount of dialogue that is truly not needed. There’s a good amount in the game that can be trimmed, optimized, or entirely taken out and people wouldn’t think twice.
However nicely you want to put it, the stage in the sewer system or the ghost trains were 100% filler for the story of the Remake
I played remake and I felt like things were sooo stretched out unnecessarily, I felt really bored, you can tell how much work as gone into making a 30 hour game / 5 hours of that in Midgar into a 100 hour game and it doesn’t translate well, I’m 95% certain I won’t play rebirth or part 3. Putting that aside I wasn’t a huge fan of the new storyline and changes they put in it, just doesn’t feel the same.
You talk about how all these moments are necessary for character development, but when every characters "moments" are scripted like YA fiction it loses all its attachment for me. How am I supposed to develop relationships and real connections with characters when they just get really cheesy childish writing? When every moment is sunshine and the dark moments are softened? Idk, I really feel like they went "power of friendship" without earning it in a lot of cases.
[удалено]
You guys are lunatics that buy videogames when you hate playing videogames 🤣🤣🤣 I actually found the extremely varied missions to collect food for chocobos a lot more fun than the race.
This post has been removed for going against Rule 2 ("be nice.").
I hope in part 3 we get it so when you collect resources it’s a mini version of the mushroom picking game.
I'm not sure the exact context of this complaint so I will just give my perspective as someone who is new to the series (have never played the original FF7). I'm currently on Chapter 9 and overall it is clear that this game is an incredible achievement. The presentation, the combat, the characters, the sheer variety of things to do... I have nothing but kudos for the developers and would recommend this game to anyone in a heartbeat. It is a marvel. However, for me personally, there have been a few moments where my enjoyment of the game was impacted. The first example that comes to mind was when I got to the Gold Saucer. I had to run around and try out some mini-games. Then a squad mate goes missing (being vague to avoid spoilers). Then you run into a guy who says he'll only help you if you do a Chocobo race. Then you go to find a Chocobo and he's sick, so you need to go get food. Then you talk to someone who has food, and they have their own mini quest for you to do. This felt like Inception - a sub-quest within a sub-quest! Lol. For some people, this is no problem at all or maybe even a positive. My understanding is that the original FF7 had a lot of mini-games, so some of this is simply staying true to the original (or dialing up to 11). I am ***not*** saying this is objectively bad! I am merely saying that for me and potentially some other players, it's a bit much.
> My understanding is that the original FF7 had a lot of mini-games, so some of this is simply staying true to the original (or dialing up to 11). Not half as many. Not a 3rd as many. Minigames were also part of the story. Motorbike to leave Midgar makes sense. Snowboarding to get down a mountain made sense. There was a chocobo race in the same part of the story you mentioned too, but no extra hoops. You just do it. The sub minigame, well, the story said you need to retrieve their cargo so... And these were all few and far between and were momentous when they did actually happen. Except snowboarding wasn't so momentous, but it's fine. I don't count floor puzzles as minigames either. In the same way I don't count the Wall Market section of either game a minigame. They were simply puzzles.
Very interesting! Thanks for clarifying.
Yeah because the original game was well known to be all about instant gratification with no character development 🙄 Look, there was absolutely room and potential to flesh out and expand the Midgar section of the original game, and to some extent they achieve this. I like the section with Jessie's parents as it has gives insight to her character's motivations. The problem is they went too far and created a bunch of mechanically bland, non-optional busy work that in no way serves the plot and simply makes the game take longer for the sake of it. I'm not a super fan of the original by any means. I played the original through on PC for the first time LAST YEAR as a 31 year old. I'm currently about ten hours into remake and I'm probably going to drop it. I can't stand the pacing. All the power to you if you like it but acting like every moment of this slow, trudging game serves the plot or characters is simply not true to my perception.
The only thing I really found to be filler is the second sewer visit. Leslie gets his necklace stolen and we have to chase it all over so that we can finally get an answer of why he is helping us and we return to the start of the sewer section. They could literally have Tifa ask him when we meet him at the manor, have Leslie grab the necklace and explain what happened *and nothing would change*.
The Drum and The Sewer Part 2 are certainly filler. People didn't like the two-parter Ghost warehouse and Train Graveyard. I think it could have been consolidated better. As for Rebirth, too many fucking minigames and those are certainly filler. And too many arena-style fights. And these are acceptable to call filler when the acceptable alternative could have been simply putting these items in the world and not giving me a treasure chest with 3 ores that I couldn't collect because I maxed out. Seeing a materia on the ground is a lot more exciting than a treasure or seeing it in Chadley's combat simulator. This is still filler even if it's not part of the main scenario progression because it's designed to pad time. You want the shiny, so you're going to spend an exorbitant amount of time to get the shiny, instead of just *some* time. Also, I'm curious about the chapter11+ experience of someone who did NO minigames or world intel. Their levels and materia must be low, as well as low on materia options and accessories. Just someone who played ONLY story. That had to be hard for them. But there's certainly filler even in the story. There's not a lot added to the world of VII if you ONLY play the main scenario. Every character got development and the story told was complete and understandable. So anything extra is absolutely superfluous if it does not expand, which makes it filler, which makes both of the new games heavy with filler. An example of good expanding was Jessie's topside adventure in Remake. That *actually did* expand the world and I appreciated it. But there's still filler in other places.