Wait a second, good lord. So not only do we have the more complex battle mechanics in Remake, but there are separate meters for Synergies as well as Skills, Affinity to keep track of, the map has layers, tabs, and subtabs, plus weapons skills and crafting?

I know I’m an old fogie who is not with the times, but I found Remake’s combat to already be bordering on overly complex and now there’s even more to keep track of: Attacking, manual blocking, manual dodging, manual character switching, locking on, Limit Breaks, ATB meters, Pressure meters, Stagger meters, and now…

They could have expanded Midgar but less so in the first game and made it either at least go through Kalm and the flashbacks or through Junon ending when they get on the ship, but no one asked me.

Bingo. At the pace they’re going with all the extra material, how are they going to go from the Forgotten Capital to the end of the original in one game without making it either feel rushed or making that game 150 hours long?

If both Remake and Rebirth cover only the plot of the first disc of the original, how are they going to cram the second two discs’ worth of plot into the last part of a trilogy, especially if it’s crammed full of constant unending minigames?

It was a big leap on its own to not just make the straightforward remake people had been asking for for 25 years, but respectable as long as they could put some boundaries around it, but it kind of seems like the trilogy is both too long (dragging Midgar out in Remake to the point of exhaustion and claustrophobia and…

I can’t believe they never did a Mario Odyssey 2 - having only one original 3D title of their most well-known and successful character over the entire lifecycle of a system is wild (no, I don’t think Bowser’s Fury counts, it’s a short tack-on to a re-release of a previous game).

Considering that the PS5 is going to be pretty dormant for the year and Microsoft’s gaming future is opaque at best, this was Nintendo’s huge chance to snipe a lot of customers and have a ton of attention for a year. Oops. 2024 is going to be a really fallow gaming year.

Musk oxen.

Anyone stupid enough to buy one of these things from that madman simply as a sign of their fealty absolutely deserves all the shitty things that come with it.

Yeah, it really feels like there are barely even any exclusive games that aren’t just upgrades of PS4 games. Which is great for those of us who didn’t have a PS4, but everyone else should rightly feel annoyed by this.

In what way exactly is Chappelle a terf? I can’t think of anything “radically feminist” he’s advocated - he’s just a plain old anti-trans bigot.

Yeah, just the Whispers as a symbol of “we’re messing with the entire timeline and framework of this game as a whole.”

Welcome to the club.

A-hyuck!

Man, FFVII is already pretty confusing and opaque in parts, but at least we’ve had a couple decades to become acquainted with it. Remake/Rebirth trying to retrofit the story to Frankenstein together every piece of lore and subsequent branch of the story is making this whole thing into a convoluted mess.

I plunked down for this package over the holiday break to finally play Zelda Minish Cap after never getting the chance despite being a Zelda superfan, and it was... surprisingly underwhelming. All for some new additions.

Coincidentally I just started playing FFX for the first time after having some version of it on a shelf for 15+ years, and I can confirm that as a new player with fresh eyes, Blitzball is trash and I hate everything about it.

It’s people like us who are propping up the 2D/3D games like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy that look gorgeous splitting the difference, I hope it becomes more of a lasting thing.

I think there are two lanes in the road for a great sequel: Those that drastically improved on/perfected the previous games but are still very recognizably in the original mold (Link to the Past, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Metroid, Mega Man X, Final Fantasy IV, Shining Force II for some favorite personal examples…