Hey NightSkyPrince. I like seeing how you are successful enough to get commercial sponsorship. Keep going strong, and I look forward to you breaking 100k subscribers.
final fantasy 15 is a strange final fantasy easily able to miss most of the game if you dont look for it where ff7 rebirth actually feels like pure perfection as a rpg experience where side quests can be a nice way to break up replays
I just completed the game a couple minutes ago and maaaaan, what a masterpiece. I feel so lucky to be alive to be able to play this, it is extraordinary in every sense.
One of the things I really want to see in FF17 is the GLORIOUS return of non-human party members, and not just a cat boy or bunny girl, an actual animal like Red XIII. It's a small thing yes but I think it really adds to the party dynamic.
GOTY 2024. They nailed this game. Pt 3 is gonna be HUGE. Totally agree on summons in VR..it wouldve been sick to find an ultinate altar or something and fight them in the field
Yea but sucks that modern games just add too many unnecessary things in the games like with this too, annoying mini games,‘complicated ending.’ But was enjoyable overall yea
Couldn’t agree more, plus items that are rare that can only be found by exploration. I get it that they try to do homage to the orignal game with the mini games. But overdoing it is a different thing.
Peoples was expecting on Ronin, Dragon Dogma 2, Stellar Blade, they are great but none of them as comprehensive as FF7 Rebirth. Battle system arguable, but Rebirth offered best in story immersions: characters, voice actors, bgm, dialogues, storyline, worldview and etc. Exploration & Minigames just icing of cakes but could be better
Normaly I would hate a lie, but this time I would love if they had lied for money and now say soemthing like "sorry part 3 is so big we need to split it in two games".
Epic and terrifying, especially if we get a sub. Emerald Weapon will be the size of Gold Saucer and will be lurking around a corner underwater just waiting to murder the party lol
I think they gave us a little taste on what the weapon fights will be on rebirths last boss. Segmented and all party members will be involved. Thats what i felt when i first fought it.
100% agree on the exploration. I always go back and reference the Bahamut/Eden side quest from FFVIII because it was one of my favorites of all time. There were multiple ways to find the island you needed to get to but the game never held your hand. Once you get to the island you get a huge lore dump with a really fun and mysterious dungeon and a legendary boss at the end. Was such a great part of the game and it was completely missable which was a great reward for exploration. Not all side quests need to be this way but I do think this needs to be a staple in the FF series moving forward. The mystery and true exploration back in the day is what made those games so great.
What about the Necrohol in FFXII or the various optionnal dungeons in XV ? Apart from XIII and XIII-2, exploration was never really gone. The concept of a dedicated World Map understandably died when the games became fully free 3D because it doesn't really offer anything more when it comes to exploration and scale, and it would be silly to have realistic characters the size of buildings.
Rebirth is freaking MASSIVE and there is clearly much more to the world as we saw when we were travelling to the Northern Continent. I’d be happy for FF7R3 to reuse what we got in Rebirth as well as add the rest of Gaia, accessible with the Highwind- Wutai, Rocket Town, Mideel and everywhere else they’re bound to add in. If FF7R3 gets a physical edition (which I very truly hope so) it might even be on THREE discs!
@@Realmreaver1 yeah 15 had a big explorable first map, but it was so big it became kinda tedious to explore because it never ended. The end of it it was just a narrow path forward which could have been explorable map. I still feel they could have done the same with Northwood in FF7 Rebirth.
I think that the reason FF16's map felt like a mild attempt was because, even though the areas are between large and medium, they feel empty, there are very little things to do outside of battling monsters, talking to npcs or ridding a chocobo to get from point A to point B. FF7 Rebirth technically have slightly larger maps than FF16, but they feel bigger because there's a lot to do and to find, even thought there are markers of where you have to go. And even having the markers, in some zones, the marker is very general, you have to find your way to reach the place, because the marker is in a 2D map but you are on a 3D environment, so you might be on the right spot but still far from it. While not perfect, FF7 Rebirth approach to World Map is much more close to what a modern World Map should be than previous attempts, even with FF16's attempt. If they can tweek it even further for part 3, I guess they could improve over it in future games, but that will depend on the director or creative behind the game, since some developers at many AAA game companies, don't really like doing this kind of maps.
More so than anything else, I miss that sense of adventure with how large the world 'felt' in a classic FF game. Technically the playable areas of 15 and 16 might be larger than the PS1 titles, but they feel far smaller. Rebirth is the only modern game to replicate that feeling for me. It's a miracle that the game exists, but that's what Final Fantasy's used to be made of.
Yea the problem was, with the evolution of graphics, comes with costs and limits. Back then, they could make these world map, but making it now with today’s graphic is so gonna cost a lot. A big risk especially ff main entries dont really sell more than 10million in one week unlike gta series. It’s an rpg franchise with a big market but not big enough to guarantee they can risk making it that big.
Something I feel like people don't consider in this game is that you can just not activate the towers as soon as you see them and explore the world more naturally. The world is designed in a way where the intel world content isn't difficult to find without them aside from maybe the combat intels. It makes things feel 10x more natural and less like you're just heading to marked points on your map. But yes I do think the game needed more things that you can kinda just stumble upon. The cache locations are already that and its fine but something more.
@@gamerprince-tl5hg That would be you compensating for a bad design, not a good design. It would still be a flaw of the game, in my opinion. That's why the first zone has the worst design, as nothing even triggers before you activate the first tower.
@@Makuragio OK I don't really care. The option for finding stuff without walking to point markers is still in the game. Thats the point I was trying to make. Not sure why you're trying to start an argument.
I felt like Rebirth is what a modern Final Fantasy should be in terms of party builds and exploration. It felt like an evolution of the previous FF games. There has to be a balance when it comes to maps. Too confined and it feels like you're on rails. Too open and it derails the momentum of the narrative. And, being fair, most Final Fantasy games were generally linear until you aquired an airship. New vehicles or mounts could get you to new places but you were locked to a specified path.
Your 2nd point is why I hate that the community landed on "linear" to describe what people had an issue with. FF isn't Skyrim or The Sims, you aren't there to write your own story. You're there to experience a narrative, which is an inherently linear thing. What people felt constrained by was two things. First, a physically narrow exploration system. People liked being able to wander around and feel like they are navigating a large area, even if it isn't dense with events. There are only a few things on the world map in e.g. FF7 or FF8 that aren't major destinations, but just that they were there and felt physically distant from the places you HAVE to go gives the world a grander feel. Second, choices not mattering. Again, I don't think anyone is asking for Mass Effect in a Final Fantasy story, but people miss being able to make choices that have tangible consequences, like not being able to recruit a character unless you fight a boss or losing them because you didn't wait for them. Or even much smaller things like taking certain actions in a flashback scene affecting the state of the world when you return there in the present, making certain items or equipment available or unavailable based on that choice. Neither of those things, the exploration or the choices, is really well described by saying you don't want "linear."
@@Mike-di1og Yep, but people are like mindless parrots/sheeps and the concept of no handholding and go-anywhere-anytime is popular so. They will just use the example that FF aint Elden Ring or TotK as a crutch. But as you said those games arent played for the narrative and party members. Pacing is everything in such a game so if the player is just wasting half the time trying to find the next narrative beat or party member side quest it evaporates the whole cohesion. Games like Elden Ring or Skyrim are gameplay centric games in allot of ways. Choice and consequence is gameplay. Elden Ring has exploration as gameplay. Meanwhile FF has literally all its gameplay tied to story. Except for maybe party combat. But the reason that’s so good is because its a great vehicle to transport the narrative forward. Not as a thing on its own. People saying these things about FF honestly could damage the franchise if the devs listened. I wonder if they realize that. Allot of times I feel like ‘gamers’ have zero concept of what makes a great game or why variety in games is important. They say that games are all copies of eachother. But at the same time hold every open world game to the same checklist standard.
@@Mike-di1og I mean let's be real, optional party members will never be a thing again in any modern RPG without some sort of cut corners. Games are just too expensive to make these days to implement something that the devs aren't sure that every player will experience.
@@Mike-di1ogthis is a good point kinda. However, if you look at FF6, for instance, it is not linear. Even ff7 has totally missable and nonlinear points. My first playthrough, I never got yuffie or vincent, as an example. This is the nonlinerarity people seek which aligns closely to what you described. In FF6, you have to get swallowed by a monster to recruit a hidden party member in a hidden dungeon. Compare that with how ff16 is structured! In ff16, its a corridor that sometimes is wide enough for you to find a chest and a series of battles until you get to the final boss.
Agree - there could be more organic discovery instead of towers telling you everything and summons being solely in the VR is not a great experience. It was odd that when you enter a new region, the VR suddenly has a new summon to battle and you can earn that materia. Pirate's quest was also a bit of a letdown - you get a really cool & exciting prompt, but the rewards are just relic a, b, c that you use the transmuter for (no fanfare) and the quest outro talks about treasure the compass can lead you to, but it's just another ingredient for the transmuter. Overall there was a bit too much hand-holding, so nothing felt like a true discovery.
Yeah literally lmao. I was so excited because I thought I would have to go globe-trotting and look for clues and ask around for rumors to discern the location of each piece, but nope. It's just kill 3 monsters in the last (very small) area and you finish the quest, and the reward is just... an accessory that helps you find pirate jetsam...
Yeah, I feel like it would have been way more exciting if they would've taken the unique materia you earn from the intel points and just hidden it around the open world, maybe with some unique challenges to access some of them. And just had you access the summon fights from the shrines themselves. It kind of kills the fun of exploration when you already know that pretty much everything worth finding is already marked on the map for you. It also would have helped with the pacing for me, since my ocd brain wouldn't have been compelled to complete every world intel checklist before moving on with the story. Thankfully at least the world intel all carries over to chapter select.
You guys know you could've just not activated the towers first and just activate them last lol. Nothing in the game is truly that difficult to find without them if you have enough curiosity to explore. That's what I did starting from Corel region.
@@gamerprince-tl5hg Some players are like you who are ok ignoring parts of the game like the towers, and some are like @phootaphan9166 who think differently and can't get past it. I think the game could have had both discoveries that are found via tower, and some that are not. Don't get me wrong, I love this game but it's not perfect, and IMO this is one area for improvement.
@@jebooody Yeah I agree with you on everything. The game definitely needed more stuff you can just stumble upon. Just saying you can still get that kind of feeling of discovery by just activating the towers last instead of immediately upon seeing them. Everything much more natural and fun for me when I started doing that. Yes it is a little dumb that i'm telling people to ignore something useful and tbh i think the game could've just not had them and it would've been fine. But I do get some people actually want it and aren't bothered by point markers so I'm glad people like me still have options to avoid them.
BG3 is the gold standard for exploration in my opinion Two fundamentals are important: -Interconnectivity -Content dense without hand holdingbut having ittowhere no matter direction you go in you have some kind of encounter. I started to enjoy exploration more in Rebirth when I stopped caring aboutthe tasks and just wandered around stumbling across content. Unfortunately some of the content is too similar in nature and begins to become a bit rote and predictable. The terrain in some areas also makes traversing it a bit more cumbersome than it should be.
different expectations. final fantasy 7 remake aims to bridge fantasy with reality. They have the technology to guide so going blind wont be so immersive.
The world map in the original FINAL FANTASY VII, VIII, and IX, were all memorable and fun to explore. VIII in particular has many secrets to find and felt rewarding to explore.
It's high tech game that why it's like that... have some kind of high tech mark on map. If not so, then would still be something similar. Like where the hut to hide near the swamp. A person gave you information, you would look up the map. Whether, it has a mark for you or mark it yourself. But this is known information vs unknown info (if there's any) need to unlock yourselves.
I still think that the summons should’ve been fought in their temples and not the VR simulator. Like it could’ve been done as when you find the first temple, you’re given the choice to challenge that summon at full power and get him now or hunt down the rest to weaken him and then fight him. Thus you are truly proving yourself to the divine or how Chadley puts it, instead of just fighting a copy of them
Throughout the first part of the game i was going back and forth looking at the world map and whatever section i was in trying to fit everything together (like how you can vaguely see shinra tower from parts of Kalm and the grasslands) but it wasn't until i randomly returned to gongaga and noticed my way point distance in cosmo canyon itself made it seem like i could technically walk the that i started tripping on if they were going to make one continuous world. Sure enough shortly later you get the hobbled tiny bronco for the first time and that came true. I spent the next hour cruising the ocean reliving my journey in a new light. Loved it
i think part 3 will be even bigger than this and what’s crazier is that we’ll be able to travel everywhere. I feel like we got a hint of that in rebirth and i think they’ll surprise us again
The question of the world map has fascinated me since Rebirth. As you said, the world map was meant to represent a planet sized world, but in a vulgarised or schematic way. The smart thing about it was that they suggested the scale of things, wich triggered your imagination into reconstructing the real size of the world in your mind, and that led to this feeling of travelling great distances. That world aspect is something that most zone-based FF games since X retained with more or less success, by showing you the world on a map. But it was at the cost of being able to travel on it outside of cutscenes, like X or XIV. I think Rebirth is the opposite of that. You can now walk on that "world" map, but in the end, because everything is real scale, it's a tiny island surronded by a scarely gigantic ocean. And, as far as I know, there is nothing out there past the horizon (might be wrong) I'm fine with this formula being the future of the franchise, but it also means that a part of FF will be lost. Now, is the sacrifice worth it ? That's another question
some of the mini games should be fine tuned though. Like gears and gambits and the cactuar games, they just feel like chores and fillers, but you have to do it because of the rewards…
I agree with the open world arguments made, however, I also feel that we need more enemy encounters to bolster this open world. To me, there just seems to be waaaaaay too much space in Rebirth just for a small amount of enemies to litter the map. This also subtracts from the battle RPG elements because you’re doing more mini games than you are actually fucking fighting things to level up. Granted, I know the mini games are meant to raise your party Level. However, with so many of them being non-optional, you end up with more skills that you have to unlock and not enough upgrade points to spend. It’s especially annoying for completionist players who spend a lot of time doing all the side shit. So you’d think that a way to mitigate that would be to add more enemy encounters in the open world to give you an opportunity to get stronger. I’m rambling. As much as I love FFVII rebirth, there’s a lot of issues with it for me.
The world really was jaw-dropping. And with the track record of the people who make this game, I'd say their saving best for last! I'd love it if we could get a few more different things like the grapple guns from Cissnei or what Yuffie brought with the ropes. If they could throw in one or two more things like that to traverse certain areas or solve puzzles, things could be even cooler than the above and beyond they've given us! This game was incredible.
The next FF game/world map needs actual secrets. There are literally ZERO secrets in Rebirth because everything is attached to some checklist or map marker. That diminishes the enjoyment of exploration, imo.
Yeah. I was saying this in various places ever since the Tower cutscene reveal in one of the previews and most people didn't believe it. Shock beyond shock, it wound up becoming the case. Gamers are so dumb.
I recently saw a reddit post, where a player played ff7og and was getting lost because it didn't have markers on the map. Truly, figuring out what to do next and finding secrets by accident was part of the game in the older times. Now even if you're not listening or paying much attention to conversations, it's fine because after cutscene the next destination is already marked. I also noticed this, im replaying ff9 and im getting lost because im paying less attention to the script. I feel that the maps should only cover the common items and treasures and leave the secrets really secret. I think ff15 got this, almost. Almost, because the secret dungeons in ff15 were too obvious for me. 😂 The atmosphere is giving me a hint that im getting closer to a door or cave opening. 😂 Or that the more im closer to the edge of the map i know there's gonna be an opening somewhere lols
Guys. You could've just not activated the towers first. You can absolutely find stuff without them. But I do agree some actual secret locations would've been nice.
It's true and even I forgot that because the rest of the game was so forgettable rofl. But yeah it did have a classic world map and it worked just fine. Not sure why everything needs to have realism and be open world these days, because world maps convey the feeling of adventure just as well as any other method and is also extremely cost-effective, allowing resources to be spent in honing other pieces of content. Dragon Quest XI also had a world map even though it was only accessible by ship and air, but it was at least there in some form. I'll never forget the feeling of being excited to get that "airship" because it had been so long since I got one in a large-scale JRPG.
Stoppppp I had forgotten about this game 😭 I was stuck on a part and yes went on CZcams to see how to pass it just to have a spoiler of the ending and it ruined me so much I stopped playing it
Chocobo dig spots are finite, not marked on the map, and often contain some valuable stuff (I think each region has a unique figurine for Johnny's collection to dig up). Cache locations aren't marked on the map until you discover them (or beat the game). But yeah, they didn't really need the intel towers. Would have been way more interesting to just let the owls lead you to lifespring grottos, the breakable crystals lead you to summon shrines, and maybe have actual NPC conversations point to fiend intel locations. And figure out something else for discovering protorelic stuff and moogle houses. Excavation sites and superfiend fights could still be discovered by Lifespring grottos, though.
Yeah tbh the game's world doesn't really feel like it needed towers. Starting from Corel, i started activating the towers last and most of the stuff wasn't too difficult to find. The NPC dialogue for combat intel locations would've been a good idea. I think tying every overworld content to Chadley might've been the problem.
The Elden ring example is kinda hilarious because people complained fairly enough that they ended up making markers for NPC'S on the map pretty soon after release and I seriously doubt final fantasy needs to do stuff like that
Funny that you should talk about "various cultures and way of life" with the video showing the Iron Kingdom's crystal. A culture or land we never really got to see. That was my first red flag on FFXVI, how Jill's story was just blazed through without us knowing anything about the Iron Kingdom. She knew some old lady there, and the king was a horrible man that died as soon as we met him. As strong as FFXVI started, the story just fizzled out as you teleported around the world... So happy rebirth is this good, but I agree with all your points on discovery, especially about the summons.
Exploring the Ff VII REBIRTH map/and world, is one of the most satisfying things in the game! As you said, I hope they implement that way of exploring worlds in future FF games!😊 Speaking of mini games... playing Queen's blood has been the most addictive minigame for me!😂❤ As always, this was a great video NSP! Thank you for making this!🤩🙌🏽
This all started with stranger of paradise which is basically the events immediately preceding final fantasy 1 from way back in the late 1980s. I would love it if Square decided to make all the other final fantasies to be like 7rebirth....imagine going through 9 like this, or imagine the opera scene from 6 done in the 7rebirth style....I would love that if they brought all their final fantasy games into modern graphics and game play.
I just think it's awesome that everything is to scale, it lets you know how huge the world truly is. And letting us explore it for ourselves has ways of teasing us. Like in this map we can see Midgar from at least three different locations. Kalm, that one cape you go collect flowers at, and on the ocean in the Tiny Bronco, and it makes me want to go up and see how big it really is is so badly. FF7 Remake already did a good job showing us how bit it is from inside, and this game did a decent job too with the first Zack part where you go outside the city wall. I'm just hyped for Part 3 now and this is only going to make the wait harder. Now if they can just get a remaster of Dirge of Cerberus going. On that note it was funny seeing just how happy Mr Mercer was at finding out who he was recording lines for.
Nomura's mention of world maps in Versus XIII dates back to at least a 2010 Gematsu article where he mentioned an airship flying over the map: _"The other day, I saw a test of an airship flying over the world map. I felt that I was seeing a Final Fantasy-like screen for the first time in a long time. However, the fact that things have become realistic made us concerned about what to do about the scale. It's the same scale as past FF games, but even then, it's so wide that you can't make out the first town."_
I hope they can pull off full world map exploration on the Highwind. I haven’t seen that type of exploration in a Final Fantasy game since IX. I also hope exploration inside of the ship is huge.
Alot of the locations in 16 were connected. You could fast travel somewhere and walk to other fast travel points. There were definitely areas that weren't connected but a lot of them would connect to each other
I love the world map structure but I hope they don't take Rebirth's approach of exploration and reward systems in part 3 or XVII. The entire game has only two really interesting optional places which are Gilgamesh island and the cave that you have to enter during one of the quests in corel. Weapon rewards are also never missable or hidden in interesting places and you get most of the gear passivley through the crafting system. 80-90% of the non-crafting loot you can find is also completely useless because it's either heal items you don't need or materia you already have. Same for Gil. Gil feels completely useless in this game. I wish they would have put more resources into making exploration and exploration rewards great than constantly having minigames where 70% of them aren't even fun to play. Getting some of the coolest rewards from a single source aka Chadley through the world intel currency also makes it really boring because it turns the entire reward structure into "Hey do this tedious task for currency" instead of surprising people with cool loot in dungeons or the overworld. Honestly I don't get how anyone can say that the reward and exploration system in this game is great, when FFXII and even FFXV clear Rebirth regarding that. One of these games was made in 2006 btw. FFXII had tons of optional zones, you could run randomly into summons, the gearing rewards were much better, it had zones that changed depending on the weather and the hunts were a lot more interesting and the best thing it didn't have Chadley. I see the vision of the world map structure and support it but it's very rough currently. I want more meaningful loot and exploration, less handholding, a less passive crafting system where I actually have to worry about crafting mats and also improvements regarding the usage of gil. I think the overall answer to the perfect "world map" is a mix of already established systems in past games.
i loved the icons on the world map, but to me the explorations found without the towers were already provided with those areas with treasure chests. so i didnt get that feeling where i wasnt finding much through explorations.
This game is so perfect. Still playing at 470 hours. Learning how to solo all summons at full might with each character before I choose one to go for a rulers of the outer worlds solo attempt
@@thehater6189That's what actual fans do. You should be able to not only quote the damage formulas for each weapon in the game for each character at each level, but also the exact defensive stats for every enemy. Any time damage pops up on the screen, you should already know in advance how much it's going to be. Stuff like that takes time.
I suppose they could go back to the old "world map" format, with the characters in "chibi mode", with the camera from above and the main settings/cities as areas that can be accessed through "landmarks" and with the characters and textures with "full 3D rendering" only within them. With this perhaps we can have, not only less expenses for the developer but more content within the game.
Great Video, truly think most FF Fans would agree for the most part on common ground with your assessment points here. In addition to great reviews like these, we just need to keep sending the Devs appreciation so they don’t get burnt out from the toxic side of the fanbase. Devs need to hear we appreciate their art how they want to present it. The peeps that want to think they can force the devs to do what they want need to be shut down. But yeah Great vid as always
FF7Rebirth honestly is one of the best modern FF games that set an example of what future FF games can pull off. The overworld in Rebirth is mindblowing with how beautiful and open the area is while doing various activities. I wonder how Part 3 will pull off the open world since I believe Rebirth isn't the best at free roaming exploration and can use many improvements. It can only go up from there though. great job by the team 🙏🏼
Love all of the classic FF world map themes playing in the background. That's such a nice touch. I agree, it would have been cool if there were a few 'more rewarding' secrets to find on the world map that weren't marked by icons. In Part 3, I'm hoping we'll find more awesome Materia by exploring off the beaten path towards interesting but unmarked landmarks (instead of buying most of them from Chadley.) Fighting Summons in their natural environment (instead of in VR) would be really cool too, especially if there is a short little mini dungeon in their habitat to discover and explore on the way to face them. I think it would make them even more intimidating.
It is easier said than done building a world map at this scale is a huge undertaking requiring a lot of resources and ideas filling the world with unique NPCs and activities is not easy FF7 remake and rebirth were possible because it has over 25 years of history across multiple games so the developers can use a lot of ideas from them
I love that everything’s an icon on the map and had no idea people actually enjoyed the days when those weren’t there. I get stressed when I’m lost in a video game so I really hope they don’t take that away. If I remember correctly, the 3 people from Avalanche HQ that you come across in Cosmo Canyon weren’t marked on the map and it was cool coming across them but I remember thinking “what if I wasn’t lost looking for this one quest and I never came across this? That would suck!” I’m all for the icons but maybe there should be an option to remove the icons for those who are really adventurous
I know I'm in the minority here in this community but I've never really been a fan of the world map as it can be frustrating to navigate especially early on and is heavily dependent on whatever the game's travel systems are currently available; in practice towards the later single digit games they're normally just hub areas to go between instanced areas with extra steps. Personally I have no issue with more structured zones, they just need more activities within those zones. Still respect the opinion and understand other ppl feel differently so I'm glad there are simultaneous games to scratch the itches of various preferences.
It should be easier for Square to make world maps work like in rebirth now that they've the formula down. Also, part three is where I think we get complete and total freedom across Gaia, since they can reuse everything, now they simply need to create Midgard and Wutai regions.
I dont get the issue withe the remnawave towers. They are fine. I enjoyed climbing up them and sliding down the poles and getting loot. My only nitpick is that I wish they indicated a lot of things on the map when you activated them, sometimes only one or two icons would appear on the map which made it a bit anti-climactic. It would be more satisfying to see a bunch open up when activated, but thats about it.
I'm alright with Final Fantasy XII'x style. Though it was a little disappointing the way that airships were a huge part of it but we didn't get to fly any. But I could still run from one end of the map to the other and going into the capitol city of Arcadia was a huge culture shock.
Tbh, I really loved FF7 Rebirth's story, characters, and character interactions, especially loved the final two chapters of the game but the things I ended up getting really burnt out on was the the huge ass world map with soo many things/mini-game(some of them being really annoying and I hated). I...I just couldn't anymore. It was really ruining the pacing of the story and I just wanted to continue with the story but that feeling of missing out on something, possibly more story/character interactions sucked but I don't have that much time to dedicate to one game since I have many others in my backlog(and many anime to watch), not to mention real life responsibilities so I have to keep going with the story. Having no icon to tell me where something like a quest or thing I should go to or someone would make what I ended up being burnt out on in Rebirth even worse cause I'd just be wasting time walking around not doing anything(for me since that sense of progress comes from going through the story) and I'd feel like I wasted a lot of time lol Hence why I like the characters/stories in the Xenoblade games but the world really hindered my enjoyment of the games overall and makes it hard to go back to them cause I don't wanna deal with those huge ass world maps again lol I'm getting that same feeling with Rebirth now. Where I'd love to replay the game for the story again but I don't really wanna deal with that big maps and side stuff again, especially some mini-games. Ugh, this sucks. I still love the game and I'm glad I started FF7 with the remake trilogy instead of the original. ^_^
Yeah, I think FF VII: Rebirth is almost GOAT/Game of the Year as an traversal experience. It does nearly everything so well. I really hope they can carry out part 3 and onward with the same spirit.
8:47 It’s weird because the one big flaw with the open world all ties back to how Chadley functions both gameplay and narrative wise. Think about it, at every region you meet him he’s essentially saying “Oh hey Cloud, I already did a widescan of all the things of notice in the area but you can throw heavy work of finding, activating and opening chests at said notice points.” To take it step further and tie all the special materia to his combat challenges, while fun, and personal shop also removes the novelty of finding materia on nonlinear routes with challenging enemies. The ones you do find usually aren’t the big-shot materia and even then it’s few and far between from region to region.
When I started with Rebirth, I turned off the minimap asap (just like in Remake). I also first explored each area and only then activated the tower. It made SUCH a difference!
Honestly I would have been just as happy if we got a world map like type-0 but I am extremely happy how it turned out and it reestablish the standard rpg as it did so many years ago
Definitively agree a brand new Fantasy with the great ideas and elements of Rebirth. Exploration side quests, secrets, mini games. New cast a new story might be awesome but we probably have to wait at least 5yrs for something like that. In the meantime, having a blast replaying the chapters in hard mode. Haven't replay a game right away in years. On other thoughts FF VI remake would have been awesome with Rebirth formula.
I believe every final fantasy fantasy after Rebirth need to use the Rebirth formula, the world travel and combat, I was surprised that 16 didn't use the amazing combat introduced in Remake.
This is by far, the best Final Fantasy game ive ever played. 16 was headed in the right direction but it had so many boring ai generated side quests. FF7 Rebirth fixed that. Every quest in this game is interesting and fun.
Bro, you are so right! At the beginning of the game, when I first left Kalm and saw the world map, my mouth dropped, and my brain jumped out of my skull then took a nap. This game is so fulfilling that is square call me and said "hey pay us $30 more now " I'd do it.😂 YOU'RE THE GREATEST NSP!!!🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I did what I could and what could stomach to continue doing, which is about 95% of the game's content. I beat it in 110 hours, 50/61 trophies. It was a grand adventure, but I have no intention on revisiting unless there is DLC. I loved it, but I was tired toward the end.
Assuming they polish the combat for Cid and Vincent. The highwind is a bonafide airship giving us access to the entire map. 3 things I think would lead to perfection; 1. Make the parts one game, with full progression and locked content. 2. OG Tifa 3. Heavy expansion of all good minigames. Please let them revisit the game afterward and hide/polish more content. Fix the handling on the Gbike into a roadrash minigame. Allow for alphabetical item lists instead of random. 😅 I also hope items/monsters only unlock after the seventh playthrough.. OG 8/10 Remake 7/10 Rebirth 9/10 We need Reunion.
Regarding some of your spoiler videos... One of my biggest gripes with the story and ending is that it's still obvious sephiroth is still in Cloud's head, yet he nor the people around them seem to notice as often as they should. Especially with the ending where Cloud takes out the black materia and says "Reunion". Like... motherfucker, how can you still trust yourself to not destroy the world unless your mind is just so far gone.
Can we say in the broadest terms possible that Final Fantasy is kinda a metroidvania, cause abilities or items that help open new areas for exploration or traverse back to old areas and access new stuff 🤔🤔
@@TheNightSkyPrince So final fantasy 1 is one of the earlier know recorded “metroidvania” games since Metroid released in August 1986 and Castlevania in September 1986, FF1 was December 1987
It only really becomes similar to a metroidvania once you obtain an airship. And even then backtracking to explore old areas to clean up missed content/side quests isn't exclusive to Metroidvanias, as this has been a thing in FF since the first one as well as other adventure games.
@@TheNightSkyPrince Gongaga was very metroivania with how lost the player could get. Your idea in this video of going back to old areas with new abilities to unlock new locations is one of the things that makes metroidvanias so great, really hope part 3 or FF17 uses that.
I couldn't agree more! Rebirth is the first FF in more than 20 years that made me feel like the natural evolution of the world exploration as it existed from FFI to IX, and it's been amazing to get this sense of adventure and discovery again. FFXII had and interesting approach to the world map back in its day, but because all the regions were separated from one another and then divided up into several sections, it never really felt the same. I did not care for XVI's teleportation to random entree points to those three same regions over the whole game, those regions felt completely disjointed and the sense of journey was missing. As for FFXVII, I really hope we get something similar to Rebirth, but maybe with exploration feeling a little more organic and less checklisty and formulaic, like give me a reason storywise to traverse those regions and make me notice the interest points myself along the way.
My only issue with not having an icon the map to show quests is that it forces you to talk to literally everyone one that you see and that is something not worth my time. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but I will definitely say that I appreciate the devs respecting my time because I refuse to invest that much time to find hidden quests.
I love that they put a world map but if Im being honest, it was one of the most confusing world maps I've played. Each zone got progressively harder to navigate.
Except for the small detail of FF7 Rebirth using the Ubisoft formula (not just the towers but all of it), which is the opposite of true exploration, but rather a hand-held checklist/marker experience. Ironically, the more controversial title (for a bunch of good and some bad reasons) in Dragon's Dogma 2 is much closer to the true exploration experience, which in turn next to nobody fully chooses to experience (very few people have the "find 50+ caves" achievement), but the vast majority just rushing through whatever they immediately get presented on a silver platter. People have been so conditioned into being guided that most of them now feel like a game that has next to zero exploration has all the exploration and a game that is all about exploration being too much of a chore. FF7 Rebirth is also much less of a true exploration game than OG FF7 was. While it has much more content, none of it is actually "hidden" in a way that would qualify it as exploration content. All of it is guided and weaved into the main thread. I personally don't believe that either DD2 or even Elden Ring went far enough with the open world, exploration experience. Elden Ring dipped into this a couple times with huge hidden areas that were presented in a way that left players in awe when finding them. We need much, much more of this. Not just small caves with usually lackluster item rewards and repetitive design. That and finding quests through listening in taverns or sudden overworld events should be the industry standard for open world RPGs. Not guided checklists and automatic map markers.
Everything about this game blew me away. It's everything i ever dreamed of and more. This, to me, beats the original in many ways. Something i thought would be impossible and has become probably the greatest game i ever played!!! Nothing can replace the original, but this is right there!!!!
I don't like when quests don't show on the map cuz i always feel like i can miss some, i paid full price i want to do every quest there is, and if the game doesn't show me where they are... how can i know if i miss some? then i would have to look it up online and i'm not just plaing anymore, now it feels like i'm studying.... i'm a full grown adult, i just want to play silly games withouth having to do research
You can argue Botw and Totk as well. game has 120 shrines and 900 korok seeds. shrines tend to be varied until a certain point and korok seeds also have samey puzzles
I really hope square fixate this formula mainly the world , mini games and the quests, I don't mind if they want to change a little in the combat system but fixate the rest.
people arguing over having to collect symbols from the map.. you could also do the towers last :P and check if you missed anything ;) not the way 95% will do but i loved it ;)
I am VERY curious how they plan on doing Knights of the Round in part 3. Since we have to fight the summons prior to getting their materia, I wonder if it will be a multi-part boss-like battle against the knights (a-la FFXIV). Or we just find it on that round island like in the OG
They need to make a better attempt at making discoverability meaningful, while avoiding selling all the best gear in shops. Menus don’t have the same appeal as stumbling onto a unique item within the world. This means that they are going to have to drop the hand-holdiness and trust that the player sensibilities will want to venture into the corners of the map.
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The part where you said "Needs a character to Explore the world hasn't been done before"
- Legend of Legaia
- Dark Cloud
Have done this.
Hey NightSkyPrince. I like seeing how you are successful enough to get commercial sponsorship. Keep going strong, and I look forward to you breaking 100k subscribers.
final fantasy 15 is a strange final fantasy easily able to miss most of the game if you dont look for it where ff7 rebirth actually feels like pure perfection as a rpg experience where side quests can be a nice way to break up replays
Anyone feel empty and lost since completing the game 😂 I wish I took my time and could go back to experience it again for the first time.
Same. Can't wait for part 3!
Have you plat it yet?
Im stuck on jenova 😂..but i plan on finishing ff7r plat then starting hard mode for rebirth. my favorite game of all time now.
@@Faramir1104 no I’m getting there though!
Broooo! Life ain’t been the same since I’ve finished it 😅
I just completed the game a couple minutes ago and maaaaan, what a masterpiece. I feel so lucky to be alive to be able to play this, it is extraordinary in every sense.
I only had issue with the chapter 14 pace. It seemed rushed.
Hilarious
@@Faithaven Chapter 14 is a absolute mess. Incredible game tho
One of the things I really want to see in FF17 is the GLORIOUS return of non-human party members, and not just a cat boy or bunny girl, an actual animal like Red XIII. It's a small thing yes but I think it really adds to the party dynamic.
Bring back Ronsos!
So you're just going to pretend that 16 didn't have a dog as a party member?
@@wood1066that doesn’t really count
We had Torgal in FFXVI
Based
GOTY 2024. They nailed this game. Pt 3 is gonna be HUGE. Totally agree on summons in VR..it wouldve been sick to find an ultinate altar or something and fight them in the field
Yea but sucks that modern games just add too many unnecessary things in the games like with this too, annoying mini games,‘complicated ending.’ But was enjoyable overall yea
Couldn’t agree more, plus items that are rare that can only be found by exploration. I get it that they try to do homage to the orignal game with the mini games. But overdoing it is a different thing.
@@benmasb3138 i agree yea
Peoples was expecting on Ronin, Dragon Dogma 2, Stellar Blade, they are great but none of them as comprehensive as FF7 Rebirth. Battle system arguable, but Rebirth offered best in story immersions: characters, voice actors, bgm, dialogues, storyline, worldview and etc. Exploration & Minigames just icing of cakes but could be better
Normaly I would hate a lie, but this time I would love if they had lied for money and now say soemthing like "sorry part 3 is so big we need to split it in two games".
I'm here just imagining how epic Ruby and Emerald Weapons encounters are going to be in part 3.
Epic and terrifying, especially if we get a sub.
Emerald Weapon will be the size of Gold Saucer and will be lurking around a corner underwater just waiting to murder the party lol
@@Griever8686 Hmmmm, I dunno about THAT big, though to be fair Ruby was about half the size of the Gold Saucer on the world map in the OG
I was just exaggerating 😅
I think they gave us a little taste on what the weapon fights will be on rebirths last boss. Segmented and all party members will be involved. Thats what i felt when i first fought it.
@@Griever8686 lol this is so true 😳 👀
100% agree on the exploration. I always go back and reference the Bahamut/Eden side quest from FFVIII because it was one of my favorites of all time. There were multiple ways to find the island you needed to get to but the game never held your hand. Once you get to the island you get a huge lore dump with a really fun and mysterious dungeon and a legendary boss at the end. Was such a great part of the game and it was completely missable which was a great reward for exploration. Not all side quests need to be this way but I do think this needs to be a staple in the FF series moving forward. The mystery and true exploration back in the day is what made those games so great.
What about the Necrohol in FFXII or the various optionnal dungeons in XV ? Apart from XIII and XIII-2, exploration was never really gone. The concept of a dedicated World Map understandably died when the games became fully free 3D because it doesn't really offer anything more when it comes to exploration and scale, and it would be silly to have realistic characters the size of buildings.
Rebirth is freaking MASSIVE and there is clearly much more to the world as we saw when we were travelling to the Northern Continent. I’d be happy for FF7R3 to reuse what we got in Rebirth as well as add the rest of Gaia, accessible with the Highwind- Wutai, Rocket Town, Mideel and everywhere else they’re bound to add in. If FF7R3 gets a physical edition (which I very truly hope so) it might even be on THREE discs!
Nomura was def right. Rebirth is what i thought versus 13 would be like back with those early trailers
I think the way 7 was handled here is what 15 should been more like
@@Realmreaver1 yeah 15 had a big explorable first map, but it was so big it became kinda tedious to explore because it never ended.
The end of it it was just a narrow path forward which could have been explorable map.
I still feel they could have done the same with Northwood in FF7 Rebirth.
@@agamersinsanityI used the out of bounds glitch in 15, man you should see the massive unused areas in the game it’s insanely big and detailed
I think that the reason FF16's map felt like a mild attempt was because, even though the areas are between large and medium, they feel empty, there are very little things to do outside of battling monsters, talking to npcs or ridding a chocobo to get from point A to point B. FF7 Rebirth technically have slightly larger maps than FF16, but they feel bigger because there's a lot to do and to find, even thought there are markers of where you have to go. And even having the markers, in some zones, the marker is very general, you have to find your way to reach the place, because the marker is in a 2D map but you are on a 3D environment, so you might be on the right spot but still far from it.
While not perfect, FF7 Rebirth approach to World Map is much more close to what a modern World Map should be than previous attempts, even with FF16's attempt. If they can tweek it even further for part 3, I guess they could improve over it in future games, but that will depend on the director or creative behind the game, since some developers at many AAA game companies, don't really like doing this kind of maps.
More so than anything else, I miss that sense of adventure with how large the world 'felt' in a classic FF game.
Technically the playable areas of 15 and 16 might be larger than the PS1 titles, but they feel far smaller.
Rebirth is the only modern game to replicate that feeling for me. It's a miracle that the game exists, but that's what Final Fantasy's used to be made of.
well said!
Yea the problem was, with the evolution of graphics, comes with costs and limits. Back then, they could make these world map, but making it now with today’s graphic is so gonna cost a lot. A big risk especially ff main entries dont really sell more than 10million in one week unlike gta series. It’s an rpg franchise with a big market but not big enough to guarantee they can risk making it that big.
Something I feel like people don't consider in this game is that you can just not activate the towers as soon as you see them and explore the world more naturally. The world is designed in a way where the intel world content isn't difficult to find without them aside from maybe the combat intels. It makes things feel 10x more natural and less like you're just heading to marked points on your map.
But yes I do think the game needed more things that you can kinda just stumble upon. The cache locations are already that and its fine but something more.
This is how im playing now the hard mode, first exploten everything and then towers to check if i miss something
Your suggesion would be good if the towers themselves were not part of the exploration rewards
@@Makuragio Yeah you could just do them last after you've already explored enough of the world to see what you missed.
@@gamerprince-tl5hg That would be you compensating for a bad design, not a good design. It would still be a flaw of the game, in my opinion. That's why the first zone has the worst design, as nothing even triggers before you activate the first tower.
@@Makuragio OK I don't really care. The option for finding stuff without walking to point markers is still in the game. Thats the point I was trying to make. Not sure why you're trying to start an argument.
I felt like Rebirth is what a modern Final Fantasy should be in terms of party builds and exploration. It felt like an evolution of the previous FF games.
There has to be a balance when it comes to maps. Too confined and it feels like you're on rails. Too open and it derails the momentum of the narrative. And, being fair, most Final Fantasy games were generally linear until you aquired an airship. New vehicles or mounts could get you to new places but you were locked to a specified path.
Your 2nd point is why I hate that the community landed on "linear" to describe what people had an issue with. FF isn't Skyrim or The Sims, you aren't there to write your own story. You're there to experience a narrative, which is an inherently linear thing. What people felt constrained by was two things. First, a physically narrow exploration system. People liked being able to wander around and feel like they are navigating a large area, even if it isn't dense with events. There are only a few things on the world map in e.g. FF7 or FF8 that aren't major destinations, but just that they were there and felt physically distant from the places you HAVE to go gives the world a grander feel. Second, choices not mattering. Again, I don't think anyone is asking for Mass Effect in a Final Fantasy story, but people miss being able to make choices that have tangible consequences, like not being able to recruit a character unless you fight a boss or losing them because you didn't wait for them. Or even much smaller things like taking certain actions in a flashback scene affecting the state of the world when you return there in the present, making certain items or equipment available or unavailable based on that choice. Neither of those things, the exploration or the choices, is really well described by saying you don't want "linear."
@@Mike-di1og Yep, but people are like mindless parrots/sheeps and the concept of no handholding and go-anywhere-anytime is popular so. They will just use the example that FF aint Elden Ring or TotK as a crutch. But as you said those games arent played for the narrative and party members. Pacing is everything in such a game so if the player is just wasting half the time trying to find the next narrative beat or party member side quest it evaporates the whole cohesion. Games like Elden Ring or Skyrim are gameplay centric games in allot of ways. Choice and consequence is gameplay. Elden Ring has exploration as gameplay. Meanwhile FF has literally all its gameplay tied to story. Except for maybe party combat. But the reason that’s so good is because its a great vehicle to transport the narrative forward. Not as a thing on its own.
People saying these things about FF honestly could damage the franchise if the devs listened. I wonder if they realize that. Allot of times I feel like ‘gamers’ have zero concept of what makes a great game or why variety in games is important. They say that games are all copies of eachother. But at the same time hold every open world game to the same checklist standard.
@@Mike-di1og I mean let's be real, optional party members will never be a thing again in any modern RPG without some sort of cut corners. Games are just too expensive to make these days to implement something that the devs aren't sure that every player will experience.
@@Mike-di1ogthis is a good point kinda. However, if you look at FF6, for instance, it is not linear. Even ff7 has totally missable and nonlinear points. My first playthrough, I never got yuffie or vincent, as an example. This is the nonlinerarity people seek which aligns closely to what you described. In FF6, you have to get swallowed by a monster to recruit a hidden party member in a hidden dungeon. Compare that with how ff16 is structured! In ff16, its a corridor that sometimes is wide enough for you to find a chest and a series of battles until you get to the final boss.
@@Kingdom850well, not in something like ff7R but in other types of games they still work
Agree - there could be more organic discovery instead of towers telling you everything and summons being solely in the VR is not a great experience. It was odd that when you enter a new region, the VR suddenly has a new summon to battle and you can earn that materia. Pirate's quest was also a bit of a letdown - you get a really cool & exciting prompt, but the rewards are just relic a, b, c that you use the transmuter for (no fanfare) and the quest outro talks about treasure the compass can lead you to, but it's just another ingredient for the transmuter.
Overall there was a bit too much hand-holding, so nothing felt like a true discovery.
Yeah literally lmao. I was so excited because I thought I would have to go globe-trotting and look for clues and ask around for rumors to discern the location of each piece, but nope. It's just kill 3 monsters in the last (very small) area and you finish the quest, and the reward is just... an accessory that helps you find pirate jetsam...
Yeah, I feel like it would have been way more exciting if they would've taken the unique materia you earn from the intel points and just hidden it around the open world, maybe with some unique challenges to access some of them. And just had you access the summon fights from the shrines themselves. It kind of kills the fun of exploration when you already know that pretty much everything worth finding is already marked on the map for you. It also would have helped with the pacing for me, since my ocd brain wouldn't have been compelled to complete every world intel checklist before moving on with the story. Thankfully at least the world intel all carries over to chapter select.
You guys know you could've just not activated the towers first and just activate them last lol. Nothing in the game is truly that difficult to find without them if you have enough curiosity to explore. That's what I did starting from Corel region.
@@gamerprince-tl5hg Some players are like you who are ok ignoring parts of the game like the towers, and some are like @phootaphan9166 who think differently and can't get past it. I think the game could have had both discoveries that are found via tower, and some that are not.
Don't get me wrong, I love this game but it's not perfect, and IMO this is one area for improvement.
@@jebooody Yeah I agree with you on everything. The game definitely needed more stuff you can just stumble upon. Just saying you can still get that kind of feeling of discovery by just activating the towers last instead of immediately upon seeing them. Everything much more natural and fun for me when I started doing that.
Yes it is a little dumb that i'm telling people to ignore something useful and tbh i think the game could've just not had them and it would've been fine. But I do get some people actually want it and aren't bothered by point markers so I'm glad people like me still have options to avoid them.
BG3 is the gold standard for exploration in my opinion
Two fundamentals are important:
-Interconnectivity
-Content dense without hand holdingbut having ittowhere no matter direction you go in you have some kind of encounter.
I started to enjoy exploration more in Rebirth when I stopped caring aboutthe tasks and just wandered around stumbling across content.
Unfortunately some of the content is too similar in nature and begins to become a bit rote and predictable. The terrain in some areas also makes traversing it a bit more cumbersome than it should be.
different expectations. final fantasy 7 remake aims to bridge fantasy with reality. They have the technology to guide so going blind wont be so immersive.
Also, don't explore multiple areas in one sitting. Its alot and you tend to rush. Don't rush, this game marinates really nicely.
Palmers boss fight.. chefs kiss i couldnt focus the first time. I failed each phase because i was laughing
I just hope the part 3 will have another protagonist that replace chadley. Kid had more dialogues than our side character cloud 😢
Never clicked a thumbnail harder in my life
The world map in the original FINAL FANTASY VII, VIII, and IX, were all memorable and fun to explore. VIII in particular has many secrets to find and felt rewarding to explore.
It's high tech game that why it's like that... have some kind of high tech mark on map. If not so, then would still be something similar. Like where the hut to hide near the swamp. A person gave you information, you would look up the map. Whether, it has a mark for you or mark it yourself. But this is known information vs unknown info (if there's any) need to unlock yourselves.
The best thing is this feels like a Final Fantasy game. It is so Final Fantasy to the core. For me this is the first Final Fantasy for me since FFX.
I still think that the summons should’ve been fought in their temples and not the VR simulator.
Like it could’ve been done as when you find the first temple, you’re given the choice to challenge that summon at full power and get him now or hunt down the rest to weaken him and then fight him. Thus you are truly proving yourself to the divine or how Chadley puts it, instead of just fighting a copy of them
Throughout the first part of the game i was going back and forth looking at the world map and whatever section i was in trying to fit everything together (like how you can vaguely see shinra tower from parts of Kalm and the grasslands) but it wasn't until i randomly returned to gongaga and noticed my way point distance in cosmo canyon itself made it seem like i could technically walk the that i started tripping on if they were going to make one continuous world. Sure enough shortly later you get the hobbled tiny bronco for the first time and that came true. I spent the next hour cruising the ocean reliving my journey in a new light. Loved it
i think part 3 will be even bigger than this and what’s crazier is that we’ll be able to travel everywhere. I feel like we got a hint of that in rebirth and i think they’ll surprise us again
The question of the world map has fascinated me since Rebirth.
As you said, the world map was meant to represent a planet sized world, but in a vulgarised or schematic way.
The smart thing about it was that they suggested the scale of things, wich triggered your imagination into reconstructing the real size of the world in your mind, and that led to this feeling of travelling great distances.
That world aspect is something that most zone-based FF games since X retained with more or less success, by showing you the world on a map.
But it was at the cost of being able to travel on it outside of cutscenes, like X or XIV.
I think Rebirth is the opposite of that.
You can now walk on that "world" map, but in the end, because everything is real scale, it's a tiny island surronded by a scarely gigantic ocean.
And, as far as I know, there is nothing out there past the horizon (might be wrong)
I'm fine with this formula being the future of the franchise, but it also means that a part of FF will be lost.
Now, is the sacrifice worth it ?
That's another question
some of the mini games should be fine tuned though. Like gears and gambits and the cactuar games, they just feel like chores and fillers, but you have to do it because of the rewards…
I agree with the open world arguments made, however, I also feel that we need more enemy encounters to bolster this open world. To me, there just seems to be waaaaaay too much space in Rebirth just for a small amount of enemies to litter the map. This also subtracts from the battle RPG elements because you’re doing more mini games than you are actually fucking fighting things to level up.
Granted, I know the mini games are meant to raise your party Level. However, with so many of them being non-optional, you end up with more skills that you have to unlock and not enough upgrade points to spend. It’s especially annoying for completionist players who spend a lot of time doing all the side shit. So you’d think that a way to mitigate that would be to add more enemy encounters in the open world to give you an opportunity to get stronger.
I’m rambling. As much as I love FFVII rebirth, there’s a lot of issues with it for me.
The world really was jaw-dropping. And with the track record of the people who make this game, I'd say their saving best for last! I'd love it if we could get a few more different things like the grapple guns from Cissnei or what Yuffie brought with the ropes. If they could throw in one or two more things like that to traverse certain areas or solve puzzles, things could be even cooler than the above and beyond they've given us! This game was incredible.
The next FF game/world map needs actual secrets. There are literally ZERO secrets in Rebirth because everything is attached to some checklist or map marker. That diminishes the enjoyment of exploration, imo.
Yeah. I was saying this in various places ever since the Tower cutscene reveal in one of the previews and most people didn't believe it. Shock beyond shock, it wound up becoming the case.
Gamers are so dumb.
Having random chests or materia here and there wouldve gone a long way. People would complain though even though you can easily look up anything
I recently saw a reddit post, where a player played ff7og and was getting lost because it didn't have markers on the map.
Truly, figuring out what to do next and finding secrets by accident was part of the game in the older times. Now even if you're not listening or paying much attention to conversations, it's fine because after cutscene the next destination is already marked.
I also noticed this, im replaying ff9 and im getting lost because im paying less attention to the script.
I feel that the maps should only cover the common items and treasures and leave the secrets really secret. I think ff15 got this, almost. Almost, because the secret dungeons in ff15 were too obvious for me. 😂 The atmosphere is giving me a hint that im getting closer to a door or cave opening. 😂 Or that the more im closer to the edge of the map i know there's gonna be an opening somewhere lols
Guys. You could've just not activated the towers first. You can absolutely find stuff without them. But I do agree some actual secret locations would've been nice.
@@Kitth3n The cache locations have exactly that. Aside from the materia part.
One thing I really liked about Type-0 was that it had a world map
biggest reason i got excited and played that game when it cam eout
It's true and even I forgot that because the rest of the game was so forgettable rofl. But yeah it did have a classic world map and it worked just fine. Not sure why everything needs to have realism and be open world these days, because world maps convey the feeling of adventure just as well as any other method and is also extremely cost-effective, allowing resources to be spent in honing other pieces of content.
Dragon Quest XI also had a world map even though it was only accessible by ship and air, but it was at least there in some form. I'll never forget the feeling of being excited to get that "airship" because it had been so long since I got one in a large-scale JRPG.
And it was dark as frick
Stoppppp I had forgotten about this game 😭 I was stuck on a part and yes went on CZcams to see how to pass it just to have a spoiler of the ending and it ruined me so much I stopped playing it
Chocobo dig spots are finite, not marked on the map, and often contain some valuable stuff (I think each region has a unique figurine for Johnny's collection to dig up).
Cache locations aren't marked on the map until you discover them (or beat the game).
But yeah, they didn't really need the intel towers. Would have been way more interesting to just let the owls lead you to lifespring grottos, the breakable crystals lead you to summon shrines, and maybe have actual NPC conversations point to fiend intel locations. And figure out something else for discovering protorelic stuff and moogle houses. Excavation sites and superfiend fights could still be discovered by Lifespring grottos, though.
Yeah tbh the game's world doesn't really feel like it needed towers. Starting from Corel, i started activating the towers last and most of the stuff wasn't too difficult to find. The NPC dialogue for combat intel locations would've been a good idea. I think tying every overworld content to Chadley might've been the problem.
Protorelic and fiend intel stuff could be left with chadley, I feel like those worked well.
The Elden ring example is kinda hilarious because people complained fairly enough that they ended up making markers for NPC'S on the map pretty soon after release and I seriously doubt final fantasy needs to do stuff like that
Funny that you should talk about "various cultures and way of life" with the video showing the Iron Kingdom's crystal. A culture or land we never really got to see.
That was my first red flag on FFXVI, how Jill's story was just blazed through without us knowing anything about the Iron Kingdom. She knew some old lady there, and the king was a horrible man that died as soon as we met him. As strong as FFXVI started, the story just fizzled out as you teleported around the world...
So happy rebirth is this good, but I agree with all your points on discovery, especially about the summons.
Exploring the Ff VII REBIRTH map/and world, is one of the most satisfying things in the game! As you said, I hope they implement that way of exploring worlds in future FF games!😊 Speaking of mini games... playing Queen's blood has been the most addictive minigame for me!😂❤
As always, this was a great video NSP! Thank you for making this!🤩🙌🏽
This all started with stranger of paradise which is basically the events immediately preceding final fantasy 1 from way back in the late 1980s.
I would love it if Square decided to make all the other final fantasies to be like 7rebirth....imagine going through 9 like this, or imagine the opera scene from 6 done in the 7rebirth style....I would love that if they brought all their final fantasy games into modern graphics and game play.
I just think it's awesome that everything is to scale, it lets you know how huge the world truly is.
And letting us explore it for ourselves has ways of teasing us. Like in this map we can see Midgar from at least three different locations. Kalm, that one cape you go collect flowers at, and on the ocean in the Tiny Bronco, and it makes me want to go up and see how big it really is is so badly. FF7 Remake already did a good job showing us how bit it is from inside, and this game did a decent job too with the first Zack part where you go outside the city wall.
I'm just hyped for Part 3 now and this is only going to make the wait harder. Now if they can just get a remaster of Dirge of Cerberus going.
On that note it was funny seeing just how happy Mr Mercer was at finding out who he was recording lines for.
World maps are incredibly important. That's why more modern games like Ni No Kuni are so damn memorable.
The Synergy attack with Aerith and Barret has one of the best animations.
Nomura's mention of world maps in Versus XIII dates back to at least a 2010 Gematsu article where he mentioned an airship flying over the map:
_"The other day, I saw a test of an airship flying over the world map. I felt that I was seeing a Final Fantasy-like screen for the first time in a long time. However, the fact that things have become realistic made us concerned about what to do about the scale. It's the same scale as past FF games, but even then, it's so wide that you can't make out the first town."_
I hope they can pull off full world map exploration on the Highwind. I haven’t seen that type of exploration in a Final Fantasy game since IX. I also hope exploration inside of the ship is huge.
I like some of the points made here. One thing I’d like to see for both combat and exploration is a jump button though.
The traversal was great and enjoyed it alot, but the 1st time I found myself saying "wow" was approaching junon from across the pond on the bronco
Alot of the locations in 16 were connected. You could fast travel somewhere and walk to other fast travel points. There were definitely areas that weren't connected but a lot of them would connect to each other
I love the world map structure but I hope they don't take Rebirth's approach of exploration and reward systems in part 3 or XVII. The entire game has only two really interesting optional places which are Gilgamesh island and the cave that you have to enter during one of the quests in corel. Weapon rewards are also never missable or hidden in interesting places and you get most of the gear passivley through the crafting system. 80-90% of the non-crafting loot you can find is also completely useless because it's either heal items you don't need or materia you already have. Same for Gil. Gil feels completely useless in this game. I wish they would have put more resources into making exploration and exploration rewards great than constantly having minigames where 70% of them aren't even fun to play. Getting some of the coolest rewards from a single source aka Chadley through the world intel currency also makes it really boring because it turns the entire reward structure into "Hey do this tedious task for currency" instead of surprising people with cool loot in dungeons or the overworld.
Honestly I don't get how anyone can say that the reward and exploration system in this game is great, when FFXII and even FFXV clear Rebirth regarding that. One of these games was made in 2006 btw. FFXII had tons of optional zones, you could run randomly into summons, the gearing rewards were much better, it had zones that changed depending on the weather and the hunts were a lot more interesting and the best thing it didn't have Chadley.
I see the vision of the world map structure and support it but it's very rough currently. I want more meaningful loot and exploration, less handholding, a less passive crafting system where I actually have to worry about crafting mats and also improvements regarding the usage of gil. I think the overall answer to the perfect "world map" is a mix of already established systems in past games.
The world itself is just as much an important character to the game as the actual characters themselves.
Glad we got it back.
I only watched the movie version, but by the looks of it, rebirth world map is definitely not barren and im happy.
i loved the icons on the world map, but to me the explorations found without the towers were already provided with those areas with treasure chests. so i didnt get that feeling where i wasnt finding much through explorations.
This game is so perfect. Still playing at 470 hours. Learning how to solo all summons at full might with each character before I choose one to go for a rulers of the outer worlds solo attempt
470 hours!!!! The game is like a month old. Like 850 hours have passed since the game came out. Youve spent half of that time playing ff7????
@@thehater6189That's what actual fans do. You should be able to not only quote the damage formulas for each weapon in the game for each character at each level, but also the exact defensive stats for every enemy. Any time damage pops up on the screen, you should already know in advance how much it's going to be. Stuff like that takes time.
Almost completely done with Gongaga. Whoever designed that layout was bonkers. Yeah its beautiful but a nightmare to traverse.
Wait for cosmo canyon bro 😂
Yeah just started it. I can tell it’ll be a pain as well.
I suppose they could go back to the old "world map" format, with the characters in "chibi mode", with the camera from above and the main settings/cities as areas that can be accessed through "landmarks" and with the characters and textures with "full 3D rendering" only within them.
With this perhaps we can have, not only less expenses for the developer but more content within the game.
I can tell that part 3 is going to be huge, even bigger than Rebirth and remake together in my opinion.
Great Video, truly think most FF Fans would agree for the most part on common ground with your assessment points here.
In addition to great reviews like these, we just need to keep sending the Devs appreciation so they don’t get burnt out from the toxic side of the fanbase. Devs need to hear we appreciate their art how they want to present it. The peeps that want to think they can force the devs to do what they want need to be shut down. But yeah Great vid as always
FF7Rebirth honestly is one of the best modern FF games that set an example of what future FF games can pull off. The overworld in Rebirth is mindblowing with how beautiful and open the area is while doing various activities. I wonder how Part 3 will pull off the open world since I believe Rebirth isn't the best at free roaming exploration and can use many improvements. It can only go up from there though. great job by the team 🙏🏼
Love all of the classic FF world map themes playing in the background. That's such a nice touch.
I agree, it would have been cool if there were a few 'more rewarding' secrets to find on the world map that weren't marked by icons.
In Part 3, I'm hoping we'll find more awesome Materia by exploring off the beaten path towards interesting but unmarked landmarks (instead of buying most of them from Chadley.) Fighting Summons in their natural environment (instead of in VR) would be really cool too, especially if there is a short little mini dungeon in their habitat to discover and explore on the way to face them. I think it would make them even more intimidating.
It is easier said than done
building a world map at this scale is a huge undertaking requiring a lot of resources and ideas
filling the world with unique NPCs and activities is not easy
FF7 remake and rebirth were possible because it has over 25 years of history across multiple games
so the developers can use a lot of ideas from them
I love that everything’s an icon on the map and had no idea people actually enjoyed the days when those weren’t there. I get stressed when I’m lost in a video game so I really hope they don’t take that away.
If I remember correctly, the 3 people from Avalanche HQ that you come across in Cosmo Canyon weren’t marked on the map and it was cool coming across them but I remember thinking “what if I wasn’t lost looking for this one quest and I never came across this? That would suck!” I’m all for the icons but maybe there should be an option to remove the icons for those who are really adventurous
I know I'm in the minority here in this community but I've never really been a fan of the world map as it can be frustrating to navigate especially early on and is heavily dependent on whatever the game's travel systems are currently available; in practice towards the later single digit games they're normally just hub areas to go between instanced areas with extra steps. Personally I have no issue with more structured zones, they just need more activities within those zones.
Still respect the opinion and understand other ppl feel differently so I'm glad there are simultaneous games to scratch the itches of various preferences.
It should be easier for Square to make world maps work like in rebirth now that they've the formula down.
Also, part three is where I think we get complete and total freedom across Gaia, since they can reuse everything, now they simply need to create Midgard and Wutai regions.
I believe it opens up a lot of ideas for them in future games.
Casually playing the Lost Odyssey OST during the surfshark ad. Sad so many missed out on that game
I dont get the issue withe the remnawave towers. They are fine. I enjoyed climbing up them and sliding down the poles and getting loot.
My only nitpick is that I wish they indicated a lot of things on the map when you activated them, sometimes only one or two icons would appear on the map which made it a bit anti-climactic. It would be more satisfying to see a bunch open up when activated, but thats about it.
Next game should be advent children i want that fusion sword, lets go bois.
I'm alright with Final Fantasy XII'x style. Though it was a little disappointing the way that airships were a huge part of it but we didn't get to fly any. But I could still run from one end of the map to the other and going into the capitol city of Arcadia was a huge culture shock.
Tbh, I really loved FF7 Rebirth's story, characters, and character interactions, especially loved the final two chapters of the game but the things I ended up getting really burnt out on was the the huge ass world map with soo many things/mini-game(some of them being really annoying and I hated). I...I just couldn't anymore. It was really ruining the pacing of the story and I just wanted to continue with the story but that feeling of missing out on something, possibly more story/character interactions sucked but I don't have that much time to dedicate to one game since I have many others in my backlog(and many anime to watch), not to mention real life responsibilities so I have to keep going with the story.
Having no icon to tell me where something like a quest or thing I should go to or someone would make what I ended up being burnt out on in Rebirth even worse cause I'd just be wasting time walking around not doing anything(for me since that sense of progress comes from going through the story) and I'd feel like I wasted a lot of time lol Hence why I like the characters/stories in the Xenoblade games but the world really hindered my enjoyment of the games overall and makes it hard to go back to them cause I don't wanna deal with those huge ass world maps again lol I'm getting that same feeling with Rebirth now. Where I'd love to replay the game for the story again but I don't really wanna deal with that big maps and side stuff again, especially some mini-games. Ugh, this sucks.
I still love the game and I'm glad I started FF7 with the remake trilogy instead of the original. ^_^
Yeah, I think FF VII: Rebirth is almost GOAT/Game of the Year as an traversal experience. It does nearly everything so well.
I really hope they can carry out part 3 and onward with the same spirit.
8:47 It’s weird because the one big flaw with the open world all ties back to how Chadley functions both gameplay and narrative wise. Think about it, at every region you meet him he’s essentially saying “Oh hey Cloud, I already did a widescan of all the things of notice in the area but you can throw heavy work of finding, activating and opening chests at said notice points.” To take it step further and tie all the special materia to his combat challenges, while fun, and personal shop also removes the novelty of finding materia on nonlinear routes with challenging enemies. The ones you do find usually aren’t the big-shot materia and even then it’s few and far between from region to region.
I miss the world map and would love to see it back. There's no need to make everything real life size
Glad you came around NSP
When I started with Rebirth, I turned off the minimap asap (just like in Remake). I also first explored each area and only then activated the tower. It made SUCH a difference!
Honestly I would have been just as happy if we got a world map like type-0 but I am extremely happy how it turned out and it reestablish the standard rpg as it did so many years ago
Definitively agree a brand new Fantasy with the great ideas and elements of Rebirth. Exploration side quests, secrets, mini games. New cast a new story might be awesome but we probably have to wait at least 5yrs for something like that. In the meantime, having a blast replaying the chapters in hard mode. Haven't replay a game right away in years.
On other thoughts FF VI remake would have been awesome with Rebirth formula.
I believe every final fantasy fantasy after Rebirth need to use the Rebirth formula, the world travel and combat, I was surprised that 16 didn't use the amazing combat introduced in Remake.
This is by far, the best Final Fantasy game ive ever played. 16 was headed in the right direction but it had so many boring ai generated side quests. FF7 Rebirth fixed that. Every quest in this game is interesting and fun.
I think the correct would be Overworld😊
Bro, you are so right! At the beginning of the game, when I first left Kalm and saw the world map, my mouth dropped, and my brain jumped out of my skull then took a nap. This game is so fulfilling that is square call me and said "hey pay us $30 more now " I'd do it.😂
YOU'RE THE GREATEST NSP!!!🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I did what I could and what could stomach to continue doing, which is about 95% of the game's content. I beat it in 110 hours, 50/61 trophies. It was a grand adventure, but I have no intention on revisiting unless there is DLC. I loved it, but I was tired toward the end.
Final fantasy has returned
If you liked rebirths world design, you will love the worlds of the xenoblade chronicles saga
i love it!! I hope they surprise us with more DLC while we wait for part 3
Assuming they polish the combat for Cid and Vincent. The highwind is a bonafide airship giving us access to the entire map.
3 things I think would lead to perfection;
1. Make the parts one game, with full progression and locked content.
2. OG Tifa
3. Heavy expansion of all good minigames.
Please let them revisit the game afterward and hide/polish more content. Fix the handling on the Gbike into a roadrash minigame. Allow for alphabetical item lists instead of random. 😅 I also hope items/monsters only unlock after the seventh playthrough..
OG 8/10
Remake 7/10
Rebirth 9/10
We need Reunion.
Regarding some of your spoiler videos...
One of my biggest gripes with the story and ending is that it's still obvious sephiroth is still in Cloud's head, yet he nor the people around them seem to notice as often as they should. Especially with the ending where Cloud takes out the black materia and says "Reunion". Like... motherfucker, how can you still trust yourself to not destroy the world unless your mind is just so far gone.
I was completely blown away by the world of Rebirth. It was absolutely remarkable.
Can we say in the broadest terms possible that Final Fantasy is kinda a metroidvania, cause abilities or items that help open new areas for exploration or traverse back to old areas and access new stuff 🤔🤔
Actually... you're so right. The world map was kind of a lite metroidvania lol
@@TheNightSkyPrince So final fantasy 1 is one of the earlier know recorded “metroidvania” games since Metroid released in August 1986 and Castlevania in September 1986, FF1 was December 1987
It only really becomes similar to a metroidvania once you obtain an airship. And even then backtracking to explore old areas to clean up missed content/side quests isn't exclusive to Metroidvanias, as this has been a thing in FF since the first one as well as other adventure games.
@@TheNightSkyPrince Gongaga was very metroivania with how lost the player could get. Your idea in this video of going back to old areas with new abilities to unlock new locations is one of the things that makes metroidvanias so great, really hope part 3 or FF17 uses that.
I couldn't agree more! Rebirth is the first FF in more than 20 years that made me feel like the natural evolution of the world exploration as it existed from FFI to IX, and it's been amazing to get this sense of adventure and discovery again. FFXII had and interesting approach to the world map back in its day, but because all the regions were separated from one another and then divided up into several sections, it never really felt the same. I did not care for XVI's teleportation to random entree points to those three same regions over the whole game, those regions felt completely disjointed and the sense of journey was missing.
As for FFXVII, I really hope we get something similar to Rebirth, but maybe with exploration feeling a little more organic and less checklisty and formulaic, like give me a reason storywise to traverse those regions and make me notice the interest points myself along the way.
What terrain can the buggy get me over that I can’t just walk? Did I miss something? I just love the buggy, I would take it anywhere ❤
No views in 7secs damn fell off
Lmaaao!
7 seconds till a view
😂
@@marckoster1997time enough for you perhaps
Is this the newest joke on CZcams? I've seen it a bunch of times now
My only issue with not having an icon the map to show quests is that it forces you to talk to literally everyone one that you see and that is something not worth my time. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but I will definitely say that I appreciate the devs respecting my time because I refuse to invest that much time to find hidden quests.
I love that they put a world map but if Im being honest, it was one of the most confusing world maps I've played. Each zone got progressively harder to navigate.
Lol, I liked when exploration got tricky like in gongaga.. you get the feeling of getting lost in a jungle as you would.. it adds to the adventure.
Except for the small detail of FF7 Rebirth using the Ubisoft formula (not just the towers but all of it), which is the opposite of true exploration, but rather a hand-held checklist/marker experience.
Ironically, the more controversial title (for a bunch of good and some bad reasons) in Dragon's Dogma 2 is much closer to the true exploration experience, which in turn next to nobody fully chooses to experience (very few people have the "find 50+ caves" achievement), but the vast majority just rushing through whatever they immediately get presented on a silver platter.
People have been so conditioned into being guided that most of them now feel like a game that has next to zero exploration has all the exploration and a game that is all about exploration being too much of a chore.
FF7 Rebirth is also much less of a true exploration game than OG FF7 was. While it has much more content, none of it is actually "hidden" in a way that would qualify it as exploration content. All of it is guided and weaved into the main thread.
I personally don't believe that either DD2 or even Elden Ring went far enough with the open world, exploration experience. Elden Ring dipped into this a couple times with huge hidden areas that were presented in a way that left players in awe when finding them. We need much, much more of this. Not just small caves with usually lackluster item rewards and repetitive design. That and finding quests through listening in taverns or sudden overworld events should be the industry standard for open world RPGs. Not guided checklists and automatic map markers.
Everything about this game blew me away. It's everything i ever dreamed of and more. This, to me, beats the original in many ways. Something i thought would be impossible and has become probably the greatest game i ever played!!!
Nothing can replace the original, but this is right there!!!!
I don't like when quests don't show on the map cuz i always feel like i can miss some, i paid full price i want to do every quest there is, and if the game doesn't show me where they are...
how can i know if i miss some? then i would have to look it up online and i'm not just plaing anymore, now it feels like i'm studying.... i'm a full grown adult, i just want to play silly games withouth having to do research
Even Elden Ring's open world is formulaic. Not to a Ubisoft degree but it still is.
You can argue Botw and Totk as well. game has 120 shrines and 900 korok seeds. shrines tend to be varied until a certain point and korok seeds also have samey puzzles
I really hope square fixate this formula mainly the world , mini games and the quests, I don't mind if they want to change a little in the combat system but fixate the rest.
Ni No Kuni 2 has a really cool world map too, which had Skirmishes, a type of combat unique to the world map
people arguing over having to collect symbols from the map.. you could also do the towers last :P and check if you missed anything ;)
not the way 95% will do but i loved it ;)
Imagined Tetsuya Nomura and Takahashi work on a new Final Fantasy game 👍. They surely like their game to be open world 👍.
Yes I love that the world map is back, and I'm also looking forward to the return of Airships with the Highwind in part 3.
I am VERY curious how they plan on doing Knights of the Round in part 3. Since we have to fight the summons prior to getting their materia, I wonder if it will be a multi-part boss-like battle against the knights (a-la FFXIV). Or we just find it on that round island like in the OG
They need to make a better attempt at making discoverability meaningful, while avoiding selling all the best gear in shops. Menus don’t have the same appeal as stumbling onto a unique item within the world. This means that they are going to have to drop the hand-holdiness and trust that the player sensibilities will want to venture into the corners of the map.
for me the exploration in rebirth is almost perfect I would be happy if they used the same formula with adding more stuff
Definitely agree with finding summons out in the wild. They should have done that for Rebirth.