Mera'din

Wait, there's no benches? I thought that was what you were supposed to use? Not that I'm fare enough in to have seen one anyway but Jeeze. O_o Apparently you can save scum the breakable crates though if you get into too much of a tight spot I've read. XD And yeah, I thought about using it with Barrier, but I didn't use it enough to justify it over the MP savings of having it on Cure. Regen to all right away in a fight was nice too. I didn't do much with Refocus, but saw it's usefulness. Was a fan of ATB Boost on Tifa though. Could recharge a bar instantly and really rip into things with her. Apparently I need to make use of Steal as well in this run since one of Aerith's weapons has to be stolen. X_x

I could see Yuffie being more of a hybrid. Some Tifa style melee stuff along with throwing her Shuriken for some ranged abilities. Maybe her unique ability would to switch styles (ala Cloud) but between melee and ranged combat. Would definitely give her a useful niche to stand out with. Agree with Vincent too. His limit breaks would be a lot more interesting in this style of game too. Cid should be fun too. I played Dragoon in FFXIV when I had played it and it's a fun style of gameplay that would translate well into this system I think. Started my hard play through and got through the first chapter. I feel like it's going to get pretty brutal before the end. Have to be REALLY careful with your MP. I also think it's a dick move that you're not allowed to use items at all, but chests and the breakable crates still drop items. >:| May have to actually use the Refocus materia too. Didn't feel like it served much purpose initially, but in Hard it may make all the difference in some fights. Side note: It took me WAY to long during my initial play through to realize that the Magnify Materia worked on more than just attack magic and is basically the 'All' materia from the original. Magnify linked with Cure is a godsend. XD

Consoles also charge for updates (or cut a deal with the developer where they're allowed x number of free updates and then charge after that) so it's an even worse argument at that point. XD Also, this:

So, I finished it. They definitely dropped some Kingdom Hearts into this shit. Jesus. Not that I didn't enjoy every second of it, but the end just goes nuts. O_o Have very minimal complaints about the game overall and there seems to be a semi-decent amount of replay value with some of the stuff that unlocks after beating it. Hard Mode sounds like it will be pretty damn frustrating but will have to wait and see on that. As wary as I was of the music after the demo, ultimately it worked out. Still feel like some of the redone music lost some of its "oomph" but it's still the music I know and love and found myself really enjoying it throughout the game with few exceptions. Still not a fan of a lot of the "Jazz" versions from the music discs though. A few of them were cool, but a lot of it is almost unrecognizable to me. Some of the non-Jazz ones I liked a lot better. Maybe I just don't like Jazz? XD I loved how unique each character felt to play too. Really glad they give you the opportunity to fully use each of them and I found myself switching between them regularly. Also like that you can designate a "primary" for when fights start too if you prefer someone other than Cloud to start. Now for the spoiler stuff Hopefully it won't take long to put out more. There some interviews translated recently from the Ultimania they put out for the game that says the story going forward won't change dramatically from the original as some people worried it would, and that they were discussing doing shorter, more frequent releases vs bulky releases with a long down time between. As long as it's priced accordingly though, I wouldn't mind shorter more frequent releases. Just wish they would have had a plan for this shit in place already. Honestly annoyed with their short sighted approach to this. I don't know if they wanted to wait and make sure it was actually well received or what but come on. Edit: Now that I've read your whole spoiler post @Psycho666Soldier, I feel like I was on the right track with some of my thoughts about the end. We seem to agree pretty heavily on what the intent was so I'm confident that is probably the right way to look at it.

Pretty much purely FF7 Remake and Persona 5 Royal pretty evenly. Play Royal while my wife is awake since she played the original version and wanted to watch me play through it and play 7 when she's in bed since she wants to play through that herself and doesn't want to catch any spoilers. Been working out pretty well so far so that I can keep going on both games. Had also been playing Quantum Break on PC before FF7 dropped. Will need to get back into that soon before I forget what the hell was happening. XD

FF7 is probably the game I've replayed the most (never go over 2 or 3 with anything usually but have played through FF7 a good 6+ times at least), but it's been a solid 15 years at this point since I have so I think I'm good for replay finally. XD As for the rest of the FFVII stuff, I love me some Advent Children though it's actually starting to look dated now compared to Remake (seeing Barrett especially). Crisis Core was a pretty solid game. I actually still have it on the PSP (though I'm not 100% sure my PSP actually still work. >_> ). Dirge of Cerberus was interesting enough, but it got pretty awkward at times (gameplay was pretty mediocre overall). We never did get any kind of port of Before Crisis though. That seems like it was mostly AVALANCHE faffing about vs Shinra/The Turks though from what I recall. May have been an influence for some of the new story stuff in Remake honestly. Really surprised they didn't bother rerelease/remaster CC and DC though by this point.

I think once I finish up with Remake I'm going to do another run through the original. There is so much nostalgia fuel in it that I'm having flashbacks to the original constantly and trying to remember exactly how the story went. I bought it on PS4 a while back but never got around to it so this will be a good opportunity. Think I'll be done with Remake soon-ish if I ever get some time to play (been working a lot) and then plan to do a Hard run through but I look forward to playing the original again when I'm done.

Especially to the person least capable of giving you a reason for why normal policy is different after just being talked to by the person who IS in fact capable. That's when you know they don't care about an actual answer to their problem and they just want to be a disruptive jackass.

I was almost late for work a couple weeks ago because I had to run in to grab food for work (so I had like 2 items) the person I was behind in line threw a giant baby fit about not being able to get a rain check on some fucking muffins. AFTER the manager came over and explained to him that they're not doing rain checks currently because of everything going on, but that she would take down his name and number and honor the price after everything went back to normal (effectively still technically giving him a fucking rain check). Waited for her to walk away and then started complaining at the cashier who was checking him out. Whole thing took like 15 min. -_-

Sometimes I'm grateful for my job and so glad I don't work in a customer service based job anymore. XD Worst we have to put up with is truck drivers, which CAN be an experience on occasion. At the moment, we have all the entrances locked and signs posted at EVERY door saying nobody is allowed in without authorization. The door the truckers used to come in to get checked in for loads has an additional sign telling them exactly how to contact us to do this (they can call on their cell phone, use the 'air phone' on the wall next to the door, and a radio is often left outside as well if the other two methods are too complicated for them). Sometimes the door gets left unlocked because we use that same door to go out to the grains building for samples, or to check on issues at the mills and some of the grain silos. It never fails, if it is not locked when a trucker pulls up, they always ALWAYS end up walking in and down to the control room (despite the fact that at least 75% of the drivers are the same guys every day). Luckily customer service rules don't tend to apply with us. Last time it happened the supervisor responded to the guy walking up with "Do you not know how to read? You can't be in here."

Yeah, the GeForce now thing makes no sense to me. How is this in any way affecting the publishers when you have to already own the fucking game? This has to be a pretty fucking gray area in general for copyright stuff I would imagine since you're effectively just playing games you already bought and Nvidia is probably just trying to play nice but it's getting downright idiotic at this point with how the game publishers are acting about it.

They did a protest here in MN too. Honestly expected better of the people here overall. I don't disagree with WHY they were protesting (overreach of power is an overreach of power regardless of circumstances and there have been repeated mixed messages about what exactly we're supposed to be doing and consequences therein) but the way they did it was fucking moronic. At least this wasn't one of the imbecilic places where they were trying to block ambulances and hospital entrances and shit. They all just stood around looking stupid at the governor's residence.

Yep. There's a general lack of places to send the stuff too due to the number of restaurants that have shut down and various other related issues. One of the hog farmers we sell feed to said they're looking at having to start slaughtering piglets soon because there's no room for them. Just had 30+ confirmed cases at the meat packing plant in a town close to where I live which doubled that county's cases overnight. Likely to see some here now because a fair number of people that work there live here or have spouses that work at the plant here.

I think most people did, other than his stuff. Everything else I've stumbled across from there is usually vapid pointless shit like "Lol I gave all the random NPCs backstories in FF7 Remake" (this is not a joke). His articles were always really good though. Looking forward to seeing where he is going.

Whelp. There goes basically the last person that kept Kotaku relevant.

I just hit Wall Market last night. Definitely noticed some differences, but they did a good job with it so far. There's enough familiarity in NPCs and events that I'm really happy with it. I like the new characters they added, and the increased presence of Johnny is actually kind of fun. The thing I found most impressive is the fact that I actually KNEW who some of the NPCs were supposed to be when I saw them. Things like the dress maker and his son, and the "mohawk punk" style npc they had that they used for the arena announcers were all specific styles of NPCs I remember from the original and I was impressed at how much effort they put into keeping them familiar to their original designs. As for soundtrack, I haven't minded the Wall Market music as much as some things. The redone music is a fairly mixed bag so far. Some of it is solid and holds to the original, and some of it just feels off. I honestly hate most of the "special" verisions of songs you get as collectibles in the game though. That jazz rendition of the Cosmo Canyon theme made me cringe. I sincerely hope they do a more traditional one when they get to that point in the story because that did not fit the feel of that place even a little. Beyond some of the music, the only real complaint I have so far is how restrictive they made some of the exploration. It's constantly redirecting you away from places it doesn't want you to explore, and not nearly as much stuff can be interacted with as I would have hoped considering the original. All the details are there, but none of the added touch. A recent example I can think of is finding the giant 'AVALANCHE' spraypainted across the wall in that secluded area and it was cool to see it but I would have expected some kind of interactivity or comment about it but there was nothing. Also, in Wall Market itself I remember being to do a lot of the 'leg work' for the dress stuff before even going to Corneo's place and you can't even pretend to find anything before hand now which was a little disappointing. At least the ability to interact with the vending machine in the inn and stuff to acknowledge that it has a purpose if nothing else. At least the one item machine still tries to shoot you when you mess with it so that was nice. Edit: Near the end of the Train Graveyard now. Overall feelings on Wall Market are mixed. They did some amazing things with that area, but I feel like some of it was almost... over indulgent and superfluous. I'm a bit disappointed with some of the things they took out/changed, but it's balanced pretty evenly with how much I enjoyed it regardless. It made for an enjoyable experience ultimately so I can't really fault them. Train Graveyard has been excellent though. Had a really well done creepy vibe that feels like what they probably WANTED to pull off with Ch. 13 of FFXV.

Yeah, there were weirdly few copies of it or something because the day after I got mine I was looking into something and was on Amazon and the only availability on it was from 3rd party sellers who had super inflated the price.

Aaaaand my whole company just got (at least) 10% sliced off their pay for (at minimum) the next 3 months, they removed the employer contributions on our 401k, and we're on lockdown from any overtime. Amounts to approx. a $2.25 per hour pay cut for me personally. I now make less than I did when I started this job 3 years ago. Attempting to mitigate the damage by increasing my withholding limit for Fed/State taxes (let them take more than necessary just to be safe normally), bottoming out my own 401k contribution (should add about 5% back on), and reducing my HSA contribution.

Ch. 8 with around 16 hours of play time. Specifically I'm in the Sector 5 slums doing side quests at the moment.

So I knew that they had replaced all the VAs, but hadn't actually looked at WHO was doing the voices. As such, Sephiroth is STILL voiced by someone known for playing Superman. Specifically, it's Tyler Hoechlin who plays Superman in Supergirl and the other DC TV shows on CW.

I believe it's a one year exclusive on Playstation and then it will come out on Xbox. There have also been insinuations of a PC port but nothing specific has been said. Completely forgot to mention the NPC conversations. I'm constantly stopping to listen to them, and they change regularly as you progress through the story. Of particular note to me was the random people you would run into in the slums that were from the plate but stuck down there because of what you did. Especially the Shinra employees. Does an excellent job of showing both sides of the conflict from the "little guy" perspective. Also liked how much more emphasis they put on the fact that Barret's AVALANCE cell wasn't the only on and was actually kicked out of the main organization. If I remember correctly, they only kind of insinuate that in the original (the separate cell part anyway, not sure if they use the rest) and it gets glossed over pretty heavily though they may have elaborated on it in some of the compilation stuff that I'm forgetting.

Game is fantastic so far. They DEFINITELY added a lot of shit onto the original stuff. I'm like 11 hours in and JUST got to Reactor 5. They really fleshed out some of the side characters too, Jessie especially. Some interesting new characters and story elements too and I'm looking forward to seeing how everything plays out. The level design is visually excellent too. Lots of little details and interesting things to look at throughout the areas I've seen. Though the layout is pretty "hallway" like a lot of the time (not faulting it for that since it was pretty much the same in the original while in Midgar), it's laid out organically enough that it doesn't feel stilted and awkward like FFXIII did. Combat gets a bit chaotic sometimes, and it can be hard to follow and properly dodge/block stuff a lot of the time. Each character feels unique to play as though, and switching between them feels rewarding in the right situations. As crazy as some fights can get though it at least isn't visually vomiting glow effects all over your screen every 2 seconds like KH3 tended to do. >_> Really impressed with the other game systems though. Materia works almost exactly like it did in the original, with some specific modifications where needed due to the altered gameplay (only 1 summon materia per character for example, and you can't just use them whenever you feel like it). They put a weapon upgrade system into as well so you're not relying on hunting down a new weapon to increase your damage and other stats. Each level you get unlocks SP for the weapon and you use that to unlock stat nodes on the weapon itself (not unlike a super simplified FFX-style sphere grid type of thing). Any weapons you acquire are have the same SP unlocked as what you currently have. Each weapon also has an ability tied to it that after extended use becomes permanent on your character regardless of weapon. Only other real complaint is I'm not a huge fan of some of the new voice actors. MOST of them are similar enough to the ones they've always used before that it's mostly negligible, but there's a couple that are just different enough to rub me the wrong way. Also not a fan of how Square handled this part of it either. From what I've read previously, most of the old VA's were completely blown off when it came to this (David Hayder style). Like most of the main characters literally didn't know they wouldn't be doing voices in the game until the first trailer came out that had the characters speaking and it wasn't them. I get it for a few who came off as pretty wooden most the time, but there are a couple that I'm really disappointed they don't have for it. Though I haven't seen the Turks in the game yet, I'm of the opinion that not using Quinton Flynn and Cripsin Freeman for Reno and Rude is downright stupid. Out of who I've actually heard so far though, I'm upset about George Newbern. Got really used to Sephiroth sounding like evil Superman over the last 15 years. XD

I never had much issue with battery life in mine initially. However, they did seem to start losing charge life a lot faster than others. All my PS3 controllers are still fine, but I've legitimately had to buy replacement batteries for 2 PS4 controllers at this point and switch them out which would be fine except you can only find cheap 3rd party replacements that don't work worth shit.

From what I've read, even a physical copy is going to be an hours worth of installing shit off the disk. Get your harddrive ready. XD