They’re calling the vibe of the whole thing “NASA punk,” which you can make of what you will

In the sense that I expect it to be essentially be the equivalent of a pulpy sci-fi dime store novel - a mystery to solve, things to discover, a few paths to take to get there?

The “hero’s” quest and their MacGuffins, a tale as old as time.

Same.

They’ve never promised a free expansion.

That, and the fact that this “we are opening refunds” isn’t really based on “we don’t know when this is coming out” and more “what you were told you were getting when you pre-ordered in 2020 might be changing, we’re not going to hold you to that if you don’t want to” kind of thing.

To go along with this, apparently there are some elements in the (apparently canon) side stories/novels that were made in the FF7 continuity that suggest a certain amount of...interaction with things via the Lifestream that both Sephiroth and Aerith are able to achieve (I last looked into it shortly after Remake came…

The lines from Sephiroth in the footage seem to be aimed at Cloud, talking about an unnamed “she” that can mess with your mind or take the form of those you know or love.

that’ll change once i hit the late-/end-game

More like the headline drives clicks and thus ad revenue. Happens all the time here - even unchanged articles that are more measured and nuanced takes on situations get clickbait titles that set a different tone.

The swing without a return part is akin to baseball...

I solved that one by accident, sorta.

Most game developers aren’t going for the “UI to seamlessly blend in” approach, though.

Yep - if it’s not obvious from the response itself in the video, the answer about grapes is much more tongue in cheek than it is “we took these grapes seriously and perfected them” and is based on the humorous situation from XIV.

Yeah, I’ve seen some that did pretty much all the glyphs/tears as soon as they found out about them, which I wouldn’t recommend.

but one, in particular, won’t show up until you’ve found all the tears or taken a different approach to this questline we’ll touch on in a minute.

Yep - though I will say it feels very intentional this time that the creators of the game are going with the “It’s up to your interpretation” with this one.

They definitely have a reputation of doing that...but this particular scenario adds the wrinkle that getting players to adopt the shift to F2P MTX heavy OW2 (that completely “replaced” the original) was predicated on the idea that this other element was coming.

The games I’ve seen come closer to having a working “reward for being morally grey” system are usually ones where said “reward” is tied to small groups or individuals.

I remember a lot of the criticism of how it played centering on how the mechs weren’t lumbering and slower, like MWO.