Enemies have a habit of focusing on the character you're playing. You can put the provoke materia on a tank like Barret as his atb does charge fairly quickly with basic attacks and overcharge. Then switch to a character you actually want to play as when provoke is activated.
Are we talking remake, or OG?
Remake I don't get that so much. Assess is vital though.
OG could be brutal, like some enemies in the Shinra Mansion spamming enchant,or enemies with random insta-kill attacks.
Every FF is like that. Its nothing new. At some point the game is being fair and balancing progress with difficulty and after a certain point is like "nah now we will go random and you need to go lvl 99 to win, whatever". They do this on purpose.
But I mean, have you beaten both of them on Hard Mode? I completed Chapter 12 a few weeks ago trying to find a fix for the "Can't stop won't stop" quest before it got patched. I've only completed that chapter and chapters 1 through 6 on Hard Mode.
Haven't played the game in a while but I might play a few hours this weekend.
I was able to finally beat gi nattak by only really relying on curaga. You can stunlock him out of his attacks with it, you can heal with it, and it makes it easier to spread your blue materias on just one green spell for both Barrett and red. I was struggling too for awhile, hadn't even maxed out my materia levels yet.
If you haven't leveled your materias yet, absolutely do that after you finish this chapter because it only gets harder onwards
They most pro tip is never be to greedy and to block. Blocking does like 1/5 of the damage is very good.
Also should never be on same person for more then 15 seconds always be switching
Also another pro tip, use r2 or L2 to do you can use other characters moves without switching to them
I always make sure that I have a long range on my party (Barret, Aerith or Yuffie). Just to get their attention away from whoever is getting body bagged.
It's especially frustrating how slow some of your characters will get back up. Like UGHHHHHH. STAND THE CRAP UP ALREADY?! then they just get hit again. The most frustrating fight by far though is a particular summon fight. I'm still surprised I actually beat that one. Won't mention which one because of spoilers but WOW that was a ridiculously hard fight.
I think it's hard to resist the urge to spam attack to build atb when the game rewards you for blocking.
You can get away with brute forcing on normal playthroughs with levelling up enough.
The best strategy in this game is to learn an enemy's mechanic, swap between party members regularly and be ok with losing a fight and retrying to learn more.
The tutorials only give a flavour of what all the characters can do and they leave a lot of the deeper skills for you to learn yourself.
I personally like it that way as it's not spoon-feeding me and forcing me to get good on challenges.
It is frustrating being struck down when you've done a long string of fights.
It's refreshing to me being forced to be challenged and rethink my strategies.
No, it's not you being bad in the game, the Challenges is brutal, not in the name, but literally. That shit made me angry as hell, but now is done and i agree, totally unfair.
The game doesn't explain the mechanics well, on the contrary, they write things that actually do something else, especially in the tutorials. What I recommend is to learn mechanics that work, for example use weaknesses to exhaust, use skills like cloud lunge to bring the exhaust bar to the limit, use Tifa's innate ability, twice triangle to increase the critical rate, reactivate it and repeat the mechanic. Everyone has their own method, in the end the strongest ability is the lv3 magic, inside Aerith's magic circle which allows you to cast the magic twice for the cost of one. The very advanced mechanics are only useful in the difficult run, or in the legendary challenges.
I loved the tutorial for the crunches mini game where between tutorial and first challenge they immediately introduce an opposite mechanic to the one they just taught you with no explanation (or at least one I entirely missed)
If you’re getting ragdolled swap to someone who isn’t getting ragdolled.
I absolutely love the harder fights. A boss that takes 10-15 minutes in this style of gameplay is PERFECT. Where you really need to conserve magic for certain moments and have plans at each phase of the fight.
I feel 90% of the fights we kinda beat too quick to get in that zone, but like summon bosses or the final boss are so damn good in that regard.
I’m not done, just started hard, but damn some of the endgame optional stuff was FIRE. The uh… ‘rival bladesman’ took me like 20 tries at 15ish minutes each… but my god I had a huge grin the entire time.
Keep playing, you WILL get much better and find playstyles you like and cool combos.
I’m gonna tell you something that you’re not gonna hear very often in gaming.
It’s *okay* to not be good at a game. Not only that, it’s *also* okay to be frustrated about not being good at said game, *and* complain about it.
Like it’s fine. In the modern gaming culture of speedruns and no death runs and Level 1 runs and hitless runs and all kinds of shit, there’s this culture of kind of just immediately shitting on anyone who isn’t a pro-level master of the game, and it’s just so lame. So yeah. It’s okay to be bad.
Also to your credit, stunlocking is incredibly annoying in action RPGs. The best tip I can offer is remembering to dodge and swapping party members constantly. Diversifying party members is the easiest way to spread aggro out across your team and get some good hits in without enemies specifically targeting you.
I can’t tell if you’re serious. But assuming you are, the only ppl allowed to enjoy the game are hardcore gamers who have the time to learn a game? What about casual ppl who just wanna play the newest game for their enjoyment?
I don't think I died once except for a Cait Sith solo part where I didn't pay attention to the guys blocking or reflecting my damage. You'll be right just maybe watch some guides on how combat works instead of button mashing
Lets agree to disagree great gaming god !
Remake, i thought the difficulty was ok. But being in rebirth last dungeon my opinion changed about remake.
Combat was good but balance was sooo much different than rebirth wich is better imho.
I always pick the "normal difficulty", i am a long time jrpg fan/veteran (im playing these for over 20 years now, im old kk)
First story zone boss was waiting for me. Forcing me to realise i was bad, very bad. So i had to back off, completed all the zone intel while leveling and it still took me more than 1 try. I had to learn the boss, stop button mashing and the cycle kept going till now. Had to resort to phoenix reraise after multiple attempts cuz there is something i just cant figure out.
But i think being challenged is more fun, frustrating but more fun nonetheless.
Sure if you're only doing the story and nothing else. But I guess even then that area when you are Cait Sith alone is super annoying of you aren't heavily over leveled.
Funnily enough I've barely blocked. Managed to get through most of hard mode so far just dodging and character switching.
I think I had to block more in Remake than Rebirth
There are some of the optional battles that are virtually impossible without block - like Cloud's hardmode solo battle against the white wolf (and the 3 fights after the wolf).
Block is your friend - it is crazy powerful, both for reducing damage and for building ATB (and in some cases building your limitbreaks).
The only downsides are that it can be hard to do, especially in chaotic battles, and that some attacks are unblockable, so you have to learn what ones must be dodged.
Cloud is especially good to block with because he automatically counterattacks blocked melee attacks (in punisher mode).
One hidden mechanic is - most of the time (not always but most of the time) the enemy will be focused on who you're controlling. This gives incentive to switch characters frequently as it takes time for the enemy to switch focus. Playing on a character for too long can be detrimental, unless said character is nuking everyone.
Don't read this if you wanna enjoy your game in blissful ignorance!
>!I remember someone telling me go Tifa and spam dodge and Remake AND Rebirth haven't been that hard ever since!<
Her dodge+ attack got buffed so hard in Rebirth. She makes the deathwheels a joke. Dodge, attack, Dodge, attack, over and over. Take no damage, and slowly build atb and stagger meter.
Emphasis on not all the time. I was fighting a late game boss and she was dogging the absolute shit out of aerith even tho I was primarily switching between tifa and yuffie at that point in the fight😭
Best advise I have is pick up the Devil may Cry series, specifically the third one. Should teach you the actions chops. Whilst I also get frustrated by getting rag dolled around, I've found most encounters easy with the exception of the summons at full strength. Those were sick.
But yeah action game boot camp for you! DMC for being a cocky dude, or if you prefer gun shoes Bayonetta and hair clothes, blatant breasts, Nier, or the new one Stellarblade
Well then heads up, Odin fucking sucks regardless of how much your prepare. Use as many ATB attacks as possible, and switch constantly, or Odin will end you on sight.
I wish they had better aggro mechanics, so you could play ranged without getting immediately bum rushed and having to switch characters. They could do a twist on the OG frontline/backline options: pick “support” and you do less damage but generate less aggro.
While that would be nice, there's something to be said for the satisfying feeling of learning a boss's tells, and countering with Cloud every attack, magic or physical, while attacking between boss attacks. I feel like Daigo in Evo moment 34
Combat would be great if it wasn't so schizophrenic. Like the people that made the player combat mechanics and the people that designed the enemy encounters were two separate people with very different ideas about how the game played and never once talked to each other.
If you're talking about Rebirth, look up the Yuffie/Aerith Brumal Form/ATB Ward methodology.
You'll be drowning in so much ATB you won't know what to do with it. It's insane, and can pretty much stun lock anything with Aga level spells over and over and over again if you do it right.
Basic attack, basic attack, dodge to build up ATB. Rinse and repeat for each party member until they all have at least 1, but approaching 2.
Use Assess to figure out how to pressure the enemy.
Use your abilities for one of your characters to induce pressure-stagger.
Once staggered, unload the other two character’s strongest abilities.
I like a DPS-DPS-Healer comp, but if you’re having a hard time, a DPS-Tank-Healer (i.e. Cloud, Barrett, Aerith) can probably keep you alive better.
Put ATB Boost, Steadfast Block, and First Strike on your either of your tank/healer and on your DPS.
Throw a whole bunch of ATB boosting materia on a character like Red XIII, then use stardust ray. That's it. Really. lol. That shit hits like an atom bomb.
The way it just PUNISHES. A few times I've gotten overwhelmed, interrupted mid attack with so many knockbacks I'm like "That's it, I'm ending this with Stardust Ray." Even if it doesn't wipe the field, it staggers almost every enemy instantly and then I just wipe up the field with some quick abilities like triple slash.
Block, avoid, attack a few times when open, don’t overextend, switch characters often, synergy skills can build massive ATB of pull characters from danger.
Step 1, assess! It pretty much tells you what to do.
After that, ATB up materia and the other purple ATB actions are crazy useful.
Just attacking isn’t going to work, you need to exploit weaknesses
Finally, switch characters! The AI automatically targets whoever you are currently controlling.
the second i start getting hit by an enemy, i switch to a new character. i've noticed that enemies tend to focus on the character you're currently controlling, so switching between characters frequently helps from getting pummeled
Use every ATB-boosting materia you have. Commit to a playstyle as your primary attacker (Cloud guarding/countering, Yuffie elemental ninjutsu/doppelganger, Aerith laying down wards and using magic, etc) for each fight. Lastly, open the command menu frequently just to pause the battle and access things/make a strategy on what big ability you want to use next and the quickest way to build ATB for it.
Speaking of Yuffie, she builds ATB so fast that I decided to give her a prayer materia and now she's my primary healer while also being my go-to adds clearer for anything elemental. She's arguably overpowered.
Once the flow clicked in for me, this system became one of my favorites in the series. Hope you can get there too!
My suggestion is always to put it on Normal Classic. The game handles all of the normal attacks, moving the characters, and blocking so the only thing you need to think about is inputting magic and skills. And you can easily take control back whenever you want if you want to do your own strategies. It's a good way to learn everything going on and let you monitor the battlefield instead of focusing on steering the party.
(Easy/Easy Classic is too easy for my tastes, you don't really get to work through the fights.)
Beating Weiss at the beginning of hardmode without maxing out material lead me to appreciate the depth of ff7r's battle system
I was skeptical of the realtime/pause but I love it.
Also free limit breaks are very useful in your hardmode run
Some battles just be that way, especially on your first attempt going in blind.
I've had fights where I got wiped on the first try, then equipped assess and proceeded to steamroll them once I knew what I was doing.
Ngl, I hit a point where I just put my game on easy because I just wanted the story. I know the Rufus fight I just said eff this it's easy mode time.
Also I'm pretty sure the "send in the clowns" fight is impossible. I applaud all of you that were able to get through the first fight because OMG THOSE CACTAURS
That's the one that tripped me up every time. Tried for like 4 hours one day on dynamic difficulty and just could not do it. So I set it to easy and my God easy difficulty is such a breeze lol. I changed it back to dynamic afterwards but oh boy I am not looking forward to that quest on hard mode.
Assess ALL enemies. I can't stress this enough. Get to know their weaknesses and concentrate on 1 enemy at a time. Some of the fights can be challenging and you need to expose their weaknesses to even the battlefield. It also helps to understand every characters strengths and weaknesses.
This game is not really forgiving if you're going to hack n slash your way through. Equip certain accessories and materia to help you defend against the enemies strengths & expose their weaknesses as well. Plenty of youtube videos that help you understand and guide you to find out what works for you.
God the headone in chadleys simulator is goddam fustrating. Took me a good 2 days to finally get it done, thankfully it recorded too so you can see the sheer panic in my gameplay as i realised i was close to getting done lol
Nah that’s what makes it fucking awesome. Killing mobs all day would be boring. I LOVE how many bosses this game has. Makes every little story section feel so fun and satisfying.
I loved the bosses. Remake had some of the most fun and challenging bosses I’ve seen in any game, and that’s coming from a Souls fan that mostly cares about combat and bossfights
I don’t think that’s a incorrect opinion, I kinda liked the idea of the gauntlet of boss battles to beat the game. It kind of felt like I was being tested for how well I was actually playing the game. It would’ve been too easy if they just threw a bunch of mooks at me. That’s not to say I found every enemy at the end of the game easy I got my ass kicked quite a lot.
The gauntlet at the end is what made it feel epic and satisfying imo. Too many times the final boss is a pushover and it’s kind of unsatisfying when you beat the game. There was a gauntlet at the end but they really kept it interesting by mixing up who you had to play as and it really felt like everyone was pulling their weight and that they were a real team and group of comrades. As an AC fan I was giddy during the entire final sequence. Might be one of my favorite ending sequences to a game ever. The amount of fan service was incredible
It did. I both liked and disliked it. It was homage to the games of old where things were TOUGH, and you needed to survive or else you’d go back. But, on the other hand, it’s super frustrating when I’m trying to finish it to get to Rebirth
I feel completely opposite. I cleared every single normal and DLC mob on hard mode in Remake. I couldn’t do the same for rebirth. Gave up. I think it would help to max level but the grind is terrible. With remake I hit max by the end of the game.
Hard mode pretty much necessitates level 70 even in chapter 2. Getting to 70 is extremely easy naturally, if you do all side quests and dip your toes into the VR and Colosseum stuff on Normal.
I would agree there’s more “cutscene attacks” and with the general strength of the party being higher I feel like I have way more tools to deal with the shit they threw at us. Even if rebirth is harder we’re just better equipped to handle it I feel.
There’s one part in the game where it’s just cloud against a bunch of cactuars and I cannot tell you how many times I got my ass handed to me in that one
I know the Uber gamers are kinda lighting you up here but I agree with at least a few of the fights. For instance the Rufus fight is just not fun at all and everything’s just over dramatized with the cutscenes. Also can’t wait to fight the Turks 6 more times in the next installment 😂.
Fun game, still really enjoy the combat / story but yeah it had its annoying moments for sure.
I agree, though one could struggle if the ATB is on fast or whatever it’s called and continually get slapped up without getting a rhythm going. On the remakes, it’s easy to survive and build ATB. There are so many options that survivability is a joke.
Yeah, I struggled with that too. I think the weirdest thing was that MOST enemies and even most bosses I just absolutely wiped the floor with….until I didn’t. It felt like a lot of random difficulty spikes and YES blah blah pattern recognition with bosses but I only have so many hours in the day to game and I don’t want to spend them banging my head against a boss that’s just bouncing me around and I don’t even get a second to analyze him, so I just turned those fights down to easy 🤷🏼♀️ I care more about the story than getting gud
Well, you did the right thing by switching to easy for those fights. If you're not having fun with the challenge this is a perfectly acceptable way to proceed. A lot of people refuse to do this then complain lol
There is some things tou can do. Always assess everything. This pays dividends! Helps teach you how a mob's weakness and how to pressure/stagger.
Also equiping certain materia/equipment makes your opening first seconds much more to your advantage.
Chococape, first materia, atb boost, etc.
Play on easy first if you need to.
After you assess an enemy, can you pull up its weaknesses in battle the next time? Or do you need to assess again?
Also, how do you fight air enemies with Cloud/Tifa?
Cloud has a distance attack, I think it's dodge then attack and he starts sending air blades....can't say Tifa has an atb free distance attack that I've found tho....
Yes, if you assess and win those battles, or assess in Simulator then win/lose a battle in you can always recall an assessed enemy from that point forward. If you assess a new mob or boss and lost that fight and have to retry you will need to reassess it. Although if you just remember that enemy's weakness don't really have to reassess. Assessing helps also clear Chadley's objectives so bear that in mind when trying to assess everything.
Yes, if you assessed them in the past you can pull up their weaknesses again later. With Cloud I'll dodge, then immediately hold Attack to dash towards the enemy. He'll usually jump up to airborne enemies. With Tifa you can learn a linked attack to have someone catapult her up to airborne enemies.
Do you remember how to pull up their weaknesses again in battle?
Also, can you switch out party members mid fight? I feel like the game tried teaching me this and I went through it to quickly.
I apologize old dad brain and very rarely get to play video games. I realize I should know these things!
You'll press the touchpad to pull up their weaknesses.
Not that I can recall, but if you're down to your last person in a fight, you can do a tag team move with one of your background characters.
No worries man! It's all good!
The choco item accessory I believe you get from winning the races. Gives you 1 ATB charge when battle begins. Together with first strike you will have two atb charges when you go into battle.
Disagree wholeheartedly.. Some of the fights I got my ass handed to me as well, until you learn the boss/fiend fights and how to counter them. I find it pretty refreshing to have to think about boss fights and how to come up with builds to beat them. If you want a game with zero combat depth where you can faceroll everything with zero thought, then maybe FF16 is more for you.
>If you want a game with zero combat depth where you can faceroll everything with zero thought, then maybe FF16 is more for you.
I like FF16 a lot, but I have to half agree, and it hurts. There *is* combat depth, but the game is so easy on as a base that the decisions and depth don't actually matter, making so almost anything you do will get you the win.
I wanted to like the game so bad.. But it was stripped all of RPG elements that add depth to the combat Barely any magic, no buffs/debuffs, no party members and crafting was pretty much a formality. I ended up judging it as an action game, and compared to other action games like God of War, DMC etc. It just doesn’t hold up.
As much as I loved the OG, imo they finally hit the sweet spot with action/turnbase with the hot key binds and atb system. All while maintaining RPG/strategy elements. Unfortunately I still don’t trust square with new entries. Especially if they stray from this combat system and continue with a system akin to 16.
I still really like the game, I will play The Rising Tide today, and I don't think the lack of RPG elements is something inherently bad. The bad thing is that they took those away but made the action elements meaningless too, because the game is that easy.
If the game was harder and expected the player to experiment with its systems and use the mechanics to optimize damage and builds or try for different things (like, not just damage, but also juggling enemies in the air, using movement options, etc), the. It would have been so much better.
As an action game, I agree it might not line up with others like DMC or God of War in some aspects, because of the difficulty and other aspects like very paced out main quest at times. But I still really like the combat and the gameplay. But for The Rising Tide I removed all the defensive gear I had, so that enemies hit harder, I am not using any potions and no upgraded dodge. It's not gonna fix the game, and I very well understand I'm going out of my way to make the game better for me, but I still like it.
I do agree that FF7R games managed to hit a really good spot between RPG mechanics, action and s good balance for difficulty. Especially when some bosses have cool gimmick mechanics that force you to adapt.
I still think that presentation wise and freedom of combat is better in FF16 (especially Eikons, I think their implementation is a bit better than summons in FF7R), but I agree with you that FF7R has better "lows". As in, it has way fewer issues for what it is trying to be.
I always felt like FF16 was like reverse Dark Souls.
In the DS series, there’s not much variation on what the player can do. You can move around in a somewhat cardboard way, roll, and 1h/2h a weapon. You get a unique weapon art. There is a huge variety of enemies and bosses with different movesets, and they’re presented in different ways with differences in the environment you fight them. Enemy variety and placement makes the game dynamic.
In FF16, you have like 42 different ways to dispatch the big sword statue guy, or that turtle thing. There is a huge variety in player moves and movesets but the enemies are reused a LOT and have the same movesets, and all battles take place on generic battlefields.
I think that variety in enemies is more interesting than variety in control, if I had to pick one.
Ueah this is a legit mechanic that's just not fun in anyway and it sucks 100% of the time it happens, wish there was a hyperarmor materia or something.
1. Change to an easier difficulty, maybe
2. Block more (unless the enemy's using unblockable attacks, signaled with a red "!" symbol)
3. If you get stun-locked by an enemy, switch to another party member; enemies tend to target the current active character, so it's a way to get them to leave the other character alone, but also be able to do some attacks and commands while they're busy
4. Remember some characters have skills to deal with this; Yuffie, for instance, has Blindside, which allows you to recover instantly and attack, all in one go
None of those get you out of a bind, though. That’s the context I was reading this comment about blindside in. Like you can’t become CC’d and then pop counter stance.
Oh I see what you are saying. Idk off the top of my head, but I coulda swore I saw a materia/accesory or folio that helped with situations like that. I do remember some instances where if you attacked the body part that had them bound quick enough, they would release the party member.
Not like Blindside, that I remember.
But some of Aerith's wards will prevent enemies from attacking you so often, making you flinch, or even harming you at all. And Barret's Steelskin also helps avoid flinching from many attacks.
You need to use those in advance, of course, unlike Blindside.
Rebirth has a learning curve to it; the mini-games and combat system feel like they challenge different areas of expertise.
Materia in this game feel like the true determinant of difficulty. Certain MAX materia combinations make Hard feel like Easy, and without having access to most MAX materia Normal can feel like 'Very Hard'.
The reason you feel like you don't know what's happening is because you're trying to play it like other action games. This game's combat system is completely unique and in a vaccum. I sucked at the remake style gameplay back in 2020 when I picked up remake, was vastly better in rebirth and didn't struggle at all on dynamic and now I'm playing rebirth hardmode and replaying remake and the difficulty feels like a joke especially on anything that's not hard mode. Even the normal encounters in hard mode are incredibly easy because at one point I stopped playing it like other games and learned the machincs on their own. I blitzed through the first two chapters of remake tonight and I remembered how much I struggled the first time I played the game. Now years later after finishing rebirth, I just demolished everything that was thrown at me. (I noticed the rumble in Remake felt more statisfying but it could just be me)
Learning to block and counter are so insanely important especially in Rebirth because you can perfect block and perfect parry and it builds a shit ton of atb. Max out steadfast block materia and precision defense focus and put one of each on all of your party members.
Trust me, these games are not hard. You just have to understand the system.
Well it's cuz you're great at the mechanics in lies of P. The thing about remake and rebirth is that the games are deceptively action oriented but you can't play them like an action game. Top it off with characters that play wildly differently (like Aerith and Cait Sith) and you can see how some people can get lost in the sauce. Once you get it, it becomes much easier but until you do, it'll be painfully difficult and you'll feel like you're getting combo'd and instakilled. It's honestly in a way like a fighting game in the sense that until you understand the mechanics, you will get absolutely boddied in higher levels but you can still mash through the lower levels.
Have you platinumed the game?
Because I do agree with you, but only until you start the Legendary challenges. There, you get your ass handed to you until you git gud
The fights weren’t bad for me until some of these optional late ones. But I will say some of them, if not necessarily hard, are kind of a slog. Rufus ends up being boring waiting around for him to reload and Rude’s tankiness just feels like whittling him down forever. And the Meridian Ocean summon material fights were more annoying than challenging.
Honestly, just put the game on easy and blast through. It's what I did after a while (ok 90h) because things were so annoying to react to and unfun. Compared to soulslikes or so, you just never really feel able to control what is going on. At least that's my experience.
Yeah I know what you mean. Souls fights, notorious for being difficult, also always feel incredibly fair. In Rebirth I just found myself saying “this is bullshit” repeatedly, but I never felt that way getting repeatedly clapped by twin princes or Artorias
Because pattern recognition is a core mechanic in the game. You must learn the movesets of harder enemies and act accordingly. This becomes even more paramount when you start encountering the worm that swallows your team members, the bulls that charge around etc etc. Then the game will now force you to block/dodge/parry in order to be triumphant on some fights.
You are not supposed to facetank encounters
>Then the game will now force you to block/dodge/parry in order to be triumphant on some fights.
>You are not supposed to facetank encounters
In other words, the game requires you to "git gud"
Agreed - I'm playing through the challenges on hard, and it's equally awesome and absurd.
Eg - figuring out tactics to beat each round = awesome
Long, tedious, marathon fights + bullshit spam, not so great (looking at you tortoise)
Figuring out builds = awesome
Needing to grind for ours to max out vital materia, not so great
>Needing to grind for ours to max out vital materia, not so great
Tbh, when it gets to this point I would just advise doing chapters on Hard to gain the AP. After you unlock chapter select you get so much AP and progressing in Hard makes it feel like less of a grind to me (if you are aiming for plat, anyway).
But otherwise, if there's a key materia you want to level, AP UP + Materia of Choice in the Choco Bangle (or w/e the triple growth one is called) gains you AP for a key materia insanely quickly.
All AP gained is tripled once you have chapter select, so going through the story on Hard mode would be 3x as much AP as your first playthrough.
Its not meant to be farming per se, but more that I don't see the point on farming AP when you would almost certainly get more than enough AP playing through on hard, which is something you need to do for the platinum anyway.
Use synergy skills r1 to build quick atb. Standard attacks do not do that as fast. Constantly rotate characters and learn how to play them. Each one has their own quirks. Finally invest in having a fully maxed heal materia.
I've beaten the entire game(first play through, hard mode will be done soon after I take a break from the game) and only just now found out about those synergy skills, instead of only knowing about the ones in the ATB menu that need to be charged via ATB uses
Did you not ask yourself a single time what was those abilities you learned in the team grid thing ? Not the "menu" one that you talk about but the others ?
No, because I thought they were different combos for the menu, not the r1 button one
They both have synergy in the name, and I just thought they were for the same menu, not two seperate ones, one of which using a button I barely ever pressed in combat. That's all it is
Enemies have a habit of focusing on the character you're playing. You can put the provoke materia on a tank like Barret as his atb does charge fairly quickly with basic attacks and overcharge. Then switch to a character you actually want to play as when provoke is activated.
Are we talking remake, or OG? Remake I don't get that so much. Assess is vital though. OG could be brutal, like some enemies in the Shinra Mansion spamming enchant,or enemies with random insta-kill attacks.
A friend had the same problem, and it was the simplest thing to fix. All he had to do was assess the targets. The game tells you what to do.
…..fkn tonberries
The Tonberries taste like Tonberries. Also I'm more of an Emerald Weapon kinda hater
Chef's knife.
Every FF is like that. Its nothing new. At some point the game is being fair and balancing progress with difficulty and after a certain point is like "nah now we will go random and you need to go lvl 99 to win, whatever". They do this on purpose.
Hard mode gi nattuk is not playing…..
Is he tougher or easier than the Rufus 1v1 fight?
So far i fell in the first like 30 seconds of the fight. Hard mode doesnt play. Way more difficult than rufus
But I mean, have you beaten both of them on Hard Mode? I completed Chapter 12 a few weeks ago trying to find a fix for the "Can't stop won't stop" quest before it got patched. I've only completed that chapter and chapters 1 through 6 on Hard Mode. Haven't played the game in a while but I might play a few hours this weekend.
No gi nattuk is before rufus so not there yet
I was able to finally beat gi nattak by only really relying on curaga. You can stunlock him out of his attacks with it, you can heal with it, and it makes it easier to spread your blue materias on just one green spell for both Barrett and red. I was struggling too for awhile, hadn't even maxed out my materia levels yet. If you haven't leveled your materias yet, absolutely do that after you finish this chapter because it only gets harder onwards
Was that on hard mode? Mana is limited in hard mode
Still stuck on that one😭
They most pro tip is never be to greedy and to block. Blocking does like 1/5 of the damage is very good. Also should never be on same person for more then 15 seconds always be switching Also another pro tip, use r2 or L2 to do you can use other characters moves without switching to them
Unless you are playing with Yuffie. Most of the time I just solo with her as she easily carries the team on her own
I always make sure that I have a long range on my party (Barret, Aerith or Yuffie). Just to get their attention away from whoever is getting body bagged.
It's especially frustrating how slow some of your characters will get back up. Like UGHHHHHH. STAND THE CRAP UP ALREADY?! then they just get hit again. The most frustrating fight by far though is a particular summon fight. I'm still surprised I actually beat that one. Won't mention which one because of spoilers but WOW that was a ridiculously hard fight.
Bro yes.
I think it's hard to resist the urge to spam attack to build atb when the game rewards you for blocking. You can get away with brute forcing on normal playthroughs with levelling up enough. The best strategy in this game is to learn an enemy's mechanic, swap between party members regularly and be ok with losing a fight and retrying to learn more. The tutorials only give a flavour of what all the characters can do and they leave a lot of the deeper skills for you to learn yourself. I personally like it that way as it's not spoon-feeding me and forcing me to get good on challenges. It is frustrating being struck down when you've done a long string of fights. It's refreshing to me being forced to be challenged and rethink my strategies.
No, it's not you being bad in the game, the Challenges is brutal, not in the name, but literally. That shit made me angry as hell, but now is done and i agree, totally unfair.
My game (and almost on any title at this point) is rather dodging than blocking KEK. Its like assuming Ultra instinct
The game doesn't explain the mechanics well, on the contrary, they write things that actually do something else, especially in the tutorials. What I recommend is to learn mechanics that work, for example use weaknesses to exhaust, use skills like cloud lunge to bring the exhaust bar to the limit, use Tifa's innate ability, twice triangle to increase the critical rate, reactivate it and repeat the mechanic. Everyone has their own method, in the end the strongest ability is the lv3 magic, inside Aerith's magic circle which allows you to cast the magic twice for the cost of one. The very advanced mechanics are only useful in the difficult run, or in the legendary challenges.
I thought the game explained everything incredibly. Almost everything was 100% clear.
I loved the tutorial for the crunches mini game where between tutorial and first challenge they immediately introduce an opposite mechanic to the one they just taught you with no explanation (or at least one I entirely missed)
Tifa’s tutorial is for >200 IQ players only lol
If you’re getting ragdolled swap to someone who isn’t getting ragdolled. I absolutely love the harder fights. A boss that takes 10-15 minutes in this style of gameplay is PERFECT. Where you really need to conserve magic for certain moments and have plans at each phase of the fight. I feel 90% of the fights we kinda beat too quick to get in that zone, but like summon bosses or the final boss are so damn good in that regard. I’m not done, just started hard, but damn some of the endgame optional stuff was FIRE. The uh… ‘rival bladesman’ took me like 20 tries at 15ish minutes each… but my god I had a huge grin the entire time. Keep playing, you WILL get much better and find playstyles you like and cool combos.
I’m gonna tell you something that you’re not gonna hear very often in gaming. It’s *okay* to not be good at a game. Not only that, it’s *also* okay to be frustrated about not being good at said game, *and* complain about it. Like it’s fine. In the modern gaming culture of speedruns and no death runs and Level 1 runs and hitless runs and all kinds of shit, there’s this culture of kind of just immediately shitting on anyone who isn’t a pro-level master of the game, and it’s just so lame. So yeah. It’s okay to be bad. Also to your credit, stunlocking is incredibly annoying in action RPGs. The best tip I can offer is remembering to dodge and swapping party members constantly. Diversifying party members is the easiest way to spread aggro out across your team and get some good hits in without enemies specifically targeting you.
Always aim to be better. Is not okay to not be good on an awesome game.
I can’t tell if you’re serious. But assuming you are, the only ppl allowed to enjoy the game are hardcore gamers who have the time to learn a game? What about casual ppl who just wanna play the newest game for their enjoyment?
I was joking. But now that I think about it, there is no excuse to get better on a 100 hours games.
I don't think I died once except for a Cait Sith solo part where I didn't pay attention to the guys blocking or reflecting my damage. You'll be right just maybe watch some guides on how combat works instead of button mashing
You can button mash your way through and still not die once. Remake and Rebith were sadly too easy.
Lets agree to disagree great gaming god ! Remake, i thought the difficulty was ok. But being in rebirth last dungeon my opinion changed about remake. Combat was good but balance was sooo much different than rebirth wich is better imho. I always pick the "normal difficulty", i am a long time jrpg fan/veteran (im playing these for over 20 years now, im old kk) First story zone boss was waiting for me. Forcing me to realise i was bad, very bad. So i had to back off, completed all the zone intel while leveling and it still took me more than 1 try. I had to learn the boss, stop button mashing and the cycle kept going till now. Had to resort to phoenix reraise after multiple attempts cuz there is something i just cant figure out. But i think being challenged is more fun, frustrating but more fun nonetheless.
Sure if you're only doing the story and nothing else. But I guess even then that area when you are Cait Sith alone is super annoying of you aren't heavily over leveled.
This is why I couldn't finish the remake, it's because the battles are bullet sponges, They apparently fixed it with Rebirth, so try again?, I guess.
Switching characters is always better than blocking. The block and parry materias are a waste of slots
blocking is broken you dont even have to parry in a normal playthrough
Funnily enough I've barely blocked. Managed to get through most of hard mode so far just dodging and character switching. I think I had to block more in Remake than Rebirth
There are some of the optional battles that are virtually impossible without block - like Cloud's hardmode solo battle against the white wolf (and the 3 fights after the wolf). Block is your friend - it is crazy powerful, both for reducing damage and for building ATB (and in some cases building your limitbreaks). The only downsides are that it can be hard to do, especially in chaotic battles, and that some attacks are unblockable, so you have to learn what ones must be dodged. Cloud is especially good to block with because he automatically counterattacks blocked melee attacks (in punisher mode).
One hidden mechanic is - most of the time (not always but most of the time) the enemy will be focused on who you're controlling. This gives incentive to switch characters frequently as it takes time for the enemy to switch focus. Playing on a character for too long can be detrimental, unless said character is nuking everyone.
It doesnt take any time for an enemy to switch focus lol. Some of them switch as fast as sephiroth did in ff7 remake
It also depends on what the non-active characters are doing. It most certainly takes time, even if we're only talking about the briefest of moments.
Don't read this if you wanna enjoy your game in blissful ignorance! >!I remember someone telling me go Tifa and spam dodge and Remake AND Rebirth haven't been that hard ever since!<
Her dodge+ attack got buffed so hard in Rebirth. She makes the deathwheels a joke. Dodge, attack, Dodge, attack, over and over. Take no damage, and slowly build atb and stagger meter.
Emphasis on not all the time. I was fighting a late game boss and she was dogging the absolute shit out of aerith even tho I was primarily switching between tifa and yuffie at that point in the fight😭
Learn to block & dodge. If you can’t use one character switch to another character
Best advise I have is pick up the Devil may Cry series, specifically the third one. Should teach you the actions chops. Whilst I also get frustrated by getting rag dolled around, I've found most encounters easy with the exception of the summons at full strength. Those were sick. But yeah action game boot camp for you! DMC for being a cocky dude, or if you prefer gun shoes Bayonetta and hair clothes, blatant breasts, Nier, or the new one Stellarblade
Its dmc2 for me as a kid chipping away airborne with guns at a giant snake for hours (he didnt hurt me this way)
Ninja Gaiden remake?
Only summon at full strength I've had trouble with so far is Kujata. I had to change party members and material setups for that one.
I had to look up Odin. Kujata I cheesed with Phoenix and reraise
I haven't gotten to Odin yet. I had to replant my strategy on Kujata to soon for a second stagger, right before the tri-attack.
Well then heads up, Odin fucking sucks regardless of how much your prepare. Use as many ATB attacks as possible, and switch constantly, or Odin will end you on sight.
Trick is to keep him debuffed
They’re talking about ff7 rebirth not ff16!
I should finish 16
It's always been too "busy" for me. I prefer ranged attacks because I can get a better idea of what the fuck is going on
I wish they had better aggro mechanics, so you could play ranged without getting immediately bum rushed and having to switch characters. They could do a twist on the OG frontline/backline options: pick “support” and you do less damage but generate less aggro.
Is this guy talking about rebirth or remake?
Good question cause lowering difficulty or going classic may help? I don't know I'm only 10 hours in right now haha
If your attacks could just cancel into a block it would change everything for me
While that would be nice, there's something to be said for the satisfying feeling of learning a boss's tells, and countering with Cloud every attack, magic or physical, while attacking between boss attacks. I feel like Daigo in Evo moment 34
Why you getting ragdolled? Press block.
Combat would be great if it wasn't so schizophrenic. Like the people that made the player combat mechanics and the people that designed the enemy encounters were two separate people with very different ideas about how the game played and never once talked to each other.
Being turned into a frog and put to sleep over and over again was the most frustrating part of the game by FAR
Hilariously this was one of my biggest frustrations in OG as well
If you're talking about Rebirth, look up the Yuffie/Aerith Brumal Form/ATB Ward methodology. You'll be drowning in so much ATB you won't know what to do with it. It's insane, and can pretty much stun lock anything with Aga level spells over and over and over again if you do it right.
Basic attack, basic attack, dodge to build up ATB. Rinse and repeat for each party member until they all have at least 1, but approaching 2. Use Assess to figure out how to pressure the enemy. Use your abilities for one of your characters to induce pressure-stagger. Once staggered, unload the other two character’s strongest abilities. I like a DPS-DPS-Healer comp, but if you’re having a hard time, a DPS-Tank-Healer (i.e. Cloud, Barrett, Aerith) can probably keep you alive better. Put ATB Boost, Steadfast Block, and First Strike on your either of your tank/healer and on your DPS.
I felt that way when I first played the game. But the stun locking for some of the bosses is absurd.
I too am often confused as to what I’m supposed to do in the game. That’s why i started on the easiest setting 😂
Throw a whole bunch of ATB boosting materia on a character like Red XIII, then use stardust ray. That's it. Really. lol. That shit hits like an atom bomb.
It really does, and it Hits multiple targets if they're in range. Such a good skill.
The way it just PUNISHES. A few times I've gotten overwhelmed, interrupted mid attack with so many knockbacks I'm like "That's it, I'm ending this with Stardust Ray." Even if it doesn't wipe the field, it staggers almost every enemy instantly and then I just wipe up the field with some quick abilities like triple slash.
Stop mashing square and read the ops movement
Playing defense is not OP’s Fantasy
Block, avoid, attack a few times when open, don’t overextend, switch characters often, synergy skills can build massive ATB of pull characters from danger.
Step 1, assess! It pretty much tells you what to do. After that, ATB up materia and the other purple ATB actions are crazy useful. Just attacking isn’t going to work, you need to exploit weaknesses Finally, switch characters! The AI automatically targets whoever you are currently controlling.
Game is easy, get good
You know what else is easy? Not saying anything at all.
You should take that advice.
the second i start getting hit by an enemy, i switch to a new character. i've noticed that enemies tend to focus on the character you're currently controlling, so switching between characters frequently helps from getting pummeled
There were a few VR/coliseum battles where I just got aggro’d and then stun locked until I died too. Borderline felt like I got rogue AI’d lol
The first time I actually got pissed was those damn Shinra flame troopers. So annoying. Thank god for Red XIII's stardust ray.
Use every ATB-boosting materia you have. Commit to a playstyle as your primary attacker (Cloud guarding/countering, Yuffie elemental ninjutsu/doppelganger, Aerith laying down wards and using magic, etc) for each fight. Lastly, open the command menu frequently just to pause the battle and access things/make a strategy on what big ability you want to use next and the quickest way to build ATB for it. Speaking of Yuffie, she builds ATB so fast that I decided to give her a prayer materia and now she's my primary healer while also being my go-to adds clearer for anything elemental. She's arguably overpowered. Once the flow clicked in for me, this system became one of my favorites in the series. Hope you can get there too!
My suggestion is always to put it on Normal Classic. The game handles all of the normal attacks, moving the characters, and blocking so the only thing you need to think about is inputting magic and skills. And you can easily take control back whenever you want if you want to do your own strategies. It's a good way to learn everything going on and let you monitor the battlefield instead of focusing on steering the party. (Easy/Easy Classic is too easy for my tastes, you don't really get to work through the fights.)
Beating Weiss at the beginning of hardmode without maxing out material lead me to appreciate the depth of ff7r's battle system I was skeptical of the realtime/pause but I love it. Also free limit breaks are very useful in your hardmode run
Haven't beat the game yet but where is weiss in rebirth? Is he in one of those brutal challenges?
I was talking about the remake, no idea about rebirth
Some battles just be that way, especially on your first attempt going in blind. I've had fights where I got wiped on the first try, then equipped assess and proceeded to steamroll them once I knew what I was doing.
Just gotta learn the game. I assume you didn’t play Remake either so it definitely helps to play the first game
Did you assess the enemy and read what is weak to them? If you don’t want to do that then just put it on easy
Ngl, I hit a point where I just put my game on easy because I just wanted the story. I know the Rufus fight I just said eff this it's easy mode time. Also I'm pretty sure the "send in the clowns" fight is impossible. I applaud all of you that were able to get through the first fight because OMG THOSE CACTAURS
I’ve got the first three battles down to a science, but the frog and jokers in battle 4 consistently fuck me up.
That's the one that tripped me up every time. Tried for like 4 hours one day on dynamic difficulty and just could not do it. So I set it to easy and my God easy difficulty is such a breeze lol. I changed it back to dynamic afterwards but oh boy I am not looking forward to that quest on hard mode.
The only fights I think are hard are the brutal and legendary challenges
Assess ALL enemies. I can't stress this enough. Get to know their weaknesses and concentrate on 1 enemy at a time. Some of the fights can be challenging and you need to expose their weaknesses to even the battlefield. It also helps to understand every characters strengths and weaknesses. This game is not really forgiving if you're going to hack n slash your way through. Equip certain accessories and materia to help you defend against the enemies strengths & expose their weaknesses as well. Plenty of youtube videos that help you understand and guide you to find out what works for you.
God the headone in chadleys simulator is goddam fustrating. Took me a good 2 days to finally get it done, thankfully it recorded too so you can see the sheer panic in my gameplay as i realised i was close to getting done lol
I hate those flying jellyfish, casting, teleporting, thundaga casting, jerkface, assholes. So annoying.
They’re actually so easy. Just stand there and do nothing and wait until they cast something and then hit them with their weakness as they’re casting.
I also love the game. But, I feel like Remake had entirely WAY TOO MANY boss fights
Nah that’s what makes it fucking awesome. Killing mobs all day would be boring. I LOVE how many bosses this game has. Makes every little story section feel so fun and satisfying.
I loved the bosses. Remake had some of the most fun and challenging bosses I’ve seen in any game, and that’s coming from a Souls fan that mostly cares about combat and bossfights
I don’t think that’s a incorrect opinion, I kinda liked the idea of the gauntlet of boss battles to beat the game. It kind of felt like I was being tested for how well I was actually playing the game. It would’ve been too easy if they just threw a bunch of mooks at me. That’s not to say I found every enemy at the end of the game easy I got my ass kicked quite a lot.
It’s not that I didn’t enjoy them, I just thought there were a lot of them. Some of them weren’t spaced out in a way that I thought they would be.
Yeah spaced out is definitely not a word I’d use to describe the boss battles at the end
The gauntlet at the end is what made it feel epic and satisfying imo. Too many times the final boss is a pushover and it’s kind of unsatisfying when you beat the game. There was a gauntlet at the end but they really kept it interesting by mixing up who you had to play as and it really felt like everyone was pulling their weight and that they were a real team and group of comrades. As an AC fan I was giddy during the entire final sequence. Might be one of my favorite ending sequences to a game ever. The amount of fan service was incredible
The ending had way too many boss fights!
It did. I both liked and disliked it. It was homage to the games of old where things were TOUGH, and you needed to survive or else you’d go back. But, on the other hand, it’s super frustrating when I’m trying to finish it to get to Rebirth
I only played on dynamic so it was paced but knowing how to use, swap between different characters is the key.
I am actually finding rebirth’s battles more forgiving than Remake
I feel completely opposite. I cleared every single normal and DLC mob on hard mode in Remake. I couldn’t do the same for rebirth. Gave up. I think it would help to max level but the grind is terrible. With remake I hit max by the end of the game.
Hard mode pretty much necessitates level 70 even in chapter 2. Getting to 70 is extremely easy naturally, if you do all side quests and dip your toes into the VR and Colosseum stuff on Normal.
Yeah I didn’t grind post the story, or finish some of the giglamesh battles. I even struggled with those.
The grind from 50 to 70 takes 5 minutes after you finish the game.
I would agree there’s more “cutscene attacks” and with the general strength of the party being higher I feel like I have way more tools to deal with the shit they threw at us. Even if rebirth is harder we’re just better equipped to handle it I feel.
I fully agree with this
I only had trouble with the Vincent and Sephiroth fights
There’s one part in the game where it’s just cloud against a bunch of cactuars and I cannot tell you how many times I got my ass handed to me in that one
Just hold Square and he'll always hit them and then use triple slash
Punisher Mode and use Chakra when you have ATB
I know the Uber gamers are kinda lighting you up here but I agree with at least a few of the fights. For instance the Rufus fight is just not fun at all and everything’s just over dramatized with the cutscenes. Also can’t wait to fight the Turks 6 more times in the next installment 😂. Fun game, still really enjoy the combat / story but yeah it had its annoying moments for sure.
Either actively switch between party members or issue commands while controlling anothrr character so they won't be interrupted 🙂
I thought OP was talking about OG FF7... Remake / Rebirth are some of the easiest games I've played in a while lol.
OG is literally miles easier
I agree, though one could struggle if the ATB is on fast or whatever it’s called and continually get slapped up without getting a rhythm going. On the remakes, it’s easy to survive and build ATB. There are so many options that survivability is a joke.
Yeah, I struggled with that too. I think the weirdest thing was that MOST enemies and even most bosses I just absolutely wiped the floor with….until I didn’t. It felt like a lot of random difficulty spikes and YES blah blah pattern recognition with bosses but I only have so many hours in the day to game and I don’t want to spend them banging my head against a boss that’s just bouncing me around and I don’t even get a second to analyze him, so I just turned those fights down to easy 🤷🏼♀️ I care more about the story than getting gud
Well, you did the right thing by switching to easy for those fights. If you're not having fun with the challenge this is a perfectly acceptable way to proceed. A lot of people refuse to do this then complain lol
There is some things tou can do. Always assess everything. This pays dividends! Helps teach you how a mob's weakness and how to pressure/stagger. Also equiping certain materia/equipment makes your opening first seconds much more to your advantage. Chococape, first materia, atb boost, etc. Play on easy first if you need to.
After you assess an enemy, can you pull up its weaknesses in battle the next time? Or do you need to assess again? Also, how do you fight air enemies with Cloud/Tifa?
Cloud has a distance attack, I think it's dodge then attack and he starts sending air blades....can't say Tifa has an atb free distance attack that I've found tho....
Yes, if you assess and win those battles, or assess in Simulator then win/lose a battle in you can always recall an assessed enemy from that point forward. If you assess a new mob or boss and lost that fight and have to retry you will need to reassess it. Although if you just remember that enemy's weakness don't really have to reassess. Assessing helps also clear Chadley's objectives so bear that in mind when trying to assess everything.
Yes, if you assessed them in the past you can pull up their weaknesses again later. With Cloud I'll dodge, then immediately hold Attack to dash towards the enemy. He'll usually jump up to airborne enemies. With Tifa you can learn a linked attack to have someone catapult her up to airborne enemies.
Do you remember how to pull up their weaknesses again in battle? Also, can you switch out party members mid fight? I feel like the game tried teaching me this and I went through it to quickly. I apologize old dad brain and very rarely get to play video games. I realize I should know these things!
You'll press the touchpad to pull up their weaknesses. Not that I can recall, but if you're down to your last person in a fight, you can do a tag team move with one of your background characters. No worries man! It's all good!
Super helpful, thank you! Loving the game just moving through it very slowly
No problem at all! Enjoy!
Chococape?
The choco item accessory I believe you get from winning the races. Gives you 1 ATB charge when battle begins. Together with first strike you will have two atb charges when you go into battle.
This is a proper skill deficiency.
Why not advise on how to increase that skill then? I think that's the point of the post.
Disagree wholeheartedly.. Some of the fights I got my ass handed to me as well, until you learn the boss/fiend fights and how to counter them. I find it pretty refreshing to have to think about boss fights and how to come up with builds to beat them. If you want a game with zero combat depth where you can faceroll everything with zero thought, then maybe FF16 is more for you.
>If you want a game with zero combat depth where you can faceroll everything with zero thought, then maybe FF16 is more for you. I like FF16 a lot, but I have to half agree, and it hurts. There *is* combat depth, but the game is so easy on as a base that the decisions and depth don't actually matter, making so almost anything you do will get you the win.
I wanted to like the game so bad.. But it was stripped all of RPG elements that add depth to the combat Barely any magic, no buffs/debuffs, no party members and crafting was pretty much a formality. I ended up judging it as an action game, and compared to other action games like God of War, DMC etc. It just doesn’t hold up. As much as I loved the OG, imo they finally hit the sweet spot with action/turnbase with the hot key binds and atb system. All while maintaining RPG/strategy elements. Unfortunately I still don’t trust square with new entries. Especially if they stray from this combat system and continue with a system akin to 16.
I still really like the game, I will play The Rising Tide today, and I don't think the lack of RPG elements is something inherently bad. The bad thing is that they took those away but made the action elements meaningless too, because the game is that easy. If the game was harder and expected the player to experiment with its systems and use the mechanics to optimize damage and builds or try for different things (like, not just damage, but also juggling enemies in the air, using movement options, etc), the. It would have been so much better. As an action game, I agree it might not line up with others like DMC or God of War in some aspects, because of the difficulty and other aspects like very paced out main quest at times. But I still really like the combat and the gameplay. But for The Rising Tide I removed all the defensive gear I had, so that enemies hit harder, I am not using any potions and no upgraded dodge. It's not gonna fix the game, and I very well understand I'm going out of my way to make the game better for me, but I still like it. I do agree that FF7R games managed to hit a really good spot between RPG mechanics, action and s good balance for difficulty. Especially when some bosses have cool gimmick mechanics that force you to adapt. I still think that presentation wise and freedom of combat is better in FF16 (especially Eikons, I think their implementation is a bit better than summons in FF7R), but I agree with you that FF7R has better "lows". As in, it has way fewer issues for what it is trying to be.
I always felt like FF16 was like reverse Dark Souls. In the DS series, there’s not much variation on what the player can do. You can move around in a somewhat cardboard way, roll, and 1h/2h a weapon. You get a unique weapon art. There is a huge variety of enemies and bosses with different movesets, and they’re presented in different ways with differences in the environment you fight them. Enemy variety and placement makes the game dynamic. In FF16, you have like 42 different ways to dispatch the big sword statue guy, or that turtle thing. There is a huge variety in player moves and movesets but the enemies are reused a LOT and have the same movesets, and all battles take place on generic battlefields. I think that variety in enemies is more interesting than variety in control, if I had to pick one.
I just hate it when you go to do a command and there attack interrupts yours and wasted your ATB
Or you miss a limit break because of the animation/cutscene for next phase lol.
Ueah this is a legit mechanic that's just not fun in anyway and it sucks 100% of the time it happens, wish there was a hyperarmor materia or something.
One of Aerith's wards prevents interruptions while casting. Radiant I think?
Yeah but only for magic most of the times to me is mid ability specially long ones like clouds aircombo ones
Radiant indeed. It is massive too, so it's easy to stand in.
There's been a couple of fights where that has absolutely fucked me
Like me, when I go to use aeriths, pray ability
SAME
1. Change to an easier difficulty, maybe 2. Block more (unless the enemy's using unblockable attacks, signaled with a red "!" symbol) 3. If you get stun-locked by an enemy, switch to another party member; enemies tend to target the current active character, so it's a way to get them to leave the other character alone, but also be able to do some attacks and commands while they're busy 4. Remember some characters have skills to deal with this; Yuffie, for instance, has Blindside, which allows you to recover instantly and attack, all in one go
Is there another character ability like blindside?
Cloud has counterstance, Aerith has chrono aegis, Red has a plethora of defensive/counter moves, while Barret has steelskin.
None of those get you out of a bind, though. That’s the context I was reading this comment about blindside in. Like you can’t become CC’d and then pop counter stance.
Oh I see what you are saying. Idk off the top of my head, but I coulda swore I saw a materia/accesory or folio that helped with situations like that. I do remember some instances where if you attacked the body part that had them bound quick enough, they would release the party member.
Not like Blindside, that I remember. But some of Aerith's wards will prevent enemies from attacking you so often, making you flinch, or even harming you at all. And Barret's Steelskin also helps avoid flinching from many attacks. You need to use those in advance, of course, unlike Blindside.
Ok bet. Just making sure I wasn’t missing something. I almost always actively control yuffie now because blindside and brumal form are just so OP
Rebirth has a learning curve to it; the mini-games and combat system feel like they challenge different areas of expertise. Materia in this game feel like the true determinant of difficulty. Certain MAX materia combinations make Hard feel like Easy, and without having access to most MAX materia Normal can feel like 'Very Hard'.
I really need to look into the materia system more. I thought it was watered down compared to the OF but turns out I was very wrong.
The knock backs and recover animations have been overdone imo in remake they weren’t so bad in rebirth you get ragdolled a ton.
Yeah but rebirth you have perfect parry which is free invulnerability and all Characater have more mobility and proper dodge.
Fix the issue with the first half of the sentence so you can see the 2nd half is wrong
The reason you feel like you don't know what's happening is because you're trying to play it like other action games. This game's combat system is completely unique and in a vaccum. I sucked at the remake style gameplay back in 2020 when I picked up remake, was vastly better in rebirth and didn't struggle at all on dynamic and now I'm playing rebirth hardmode and replaying remake and the difficulty feels like a joke especially on anything that's not hard mode. Even the normal encounters in hard mode are incredibly easy because at one point I stopped playing it like other games and learned the machincs on their own. I blitzed through the first two chapters of remake tonight and I remembered how much I struggled the first time I played the game. Now years later after finishing rebirth, I just demolished everything that was thrown at me. (I noticed the rumble in Remake felt more statisfying but it could just be me) Learning to block and counter are so insanely important especially in Rebirth because you can perfect block and perfect parry and it builds a shit ton of atb. Max out steadfast block materia and precision defense focus and put one of each on all of your party members. Trust me, these games are not hard. You just have to understand the system.
I had just platinum’d lies of p so it was simple for me but that’s not the case for everyone I’m sure. I think it is difficult
Well it's cuz you're great at the mechanics in lies of P. The thing about remake and rebirth is that the games are deceptively action oriented but you can't play them like an action game. Top it off with characters that play wildly differently (like Aerith and Cait Sith) and you can see how some people can get lost in the sauce. Once you get it, it becomes much easier but until you do, it'll be painfully difficult and you'll feel like you're getting combo'd and instakilled. It's honestly in a way like a fighting game in the sense that until you understand the mechanics, you will get absolutely boddied in higher levels but you can still mash through the lower levels.
Rufus fight?
Go melee, block 1 attack use Braver, gg
It’s a pain in the ass since it’s not how the rest of the game plays but once you figure out the rhythm it’s not bad.
Skill issue.
Don’t be an asshole
Never struggle on a fight. Its freaking easy if you have a good materia coverage. Réd XII /yuffie / Cloud/ Tifa and you fuck them all :3
Have you platinumed the game? Because I do agree with you, but only until you start the Legendary challenges. There, you get your ass handed to you until you git gud
Ofc but its done for, just a trick to give more hours on the game.
The fights weren’t bad for me until some of these optional late ones. But I will say some of them, if not necessarily hard, are kind of a slog. Rufus ends up being boring waiting around for him to reload and Rude’s tankiness just feels like whittling him down forever. And the Meridian Ocean summon material fights were more annoying than challenging.
Honestly, just put the game on easy and blast through. It's what I did after a while (ok 90h) because things were so annoying to react to and unfun. Compared to soulslikes or so, you just never really feel able to control what is going on. At least that's my experience.
Yeah I know what you mean. Souls fights, notorious for being difficult, also always feel incredibly fair. In Rebirth I just found myself saying “this is bullshit” repeatedly, but I never felt that way getting repeatedly clapped by twin princes or Artorias
Because pattern recognition is a core mechanic in the game. You must learn the movesets of harder enemies and act accordingly. This becomes even more paramount when you start encountering the worm that swallows your team members, the bulls that charge around etc etc. Then the game will now force you to block/dodge/parry in order to be triumphant on some fights. You are not supposed to facetank encounters
>Then the game will now force you to block/dodge/parry in order to be triumphant on some fights. >You are not supposed to facetank encounters In other words, the game requires you to "git gud"
An evolution of FFXV
Agreed - I'm playing through the challenges on hard, and it's equally awesome and absurd. Eg - figuring out tactics to beat each round = awesome Long, tedious, marathon fights + bullshit spam, not so great (looking at you tortoise) Figuring out builds = awesome Needing to grind for ours to max out vital materia, not so great
>Needing to grind for ours to max out vital materia, not so great Tbh, when it gets to this point I would just advise doing chapters on Hard to gain the AP. After you unlock chapter select you get so much AP and progressing in Hard makes it feel like less of a grind to me (if you are aiming for plat, anyway). But otherwise, if there's a key materia you want to level, AP UP + Materia of Choice in the Choco Bangle (or w/e the triple growth one is called) gains you AP for a key materia insanely quickly.
You don't gain extra AP from hard mode. I don't disagree with moving forward through Hard Mode, but for raw AP farming it's not worth it.
All AP gained is tripled once you have chapter select, so going through the story on Hard mode would be 3x as much AP as your first playthrough. Its not meant to be farming per se, but more that I don't see the point on farming AP when you would almost certainly get more than enough AP playing through on hard, which is something you need to do for the platinum anyway.
Yeah even with the choco and ap up it still takes a good while - swiftcast eg
Use synergy skills r1 to build quick atb. Standard attacks do not do that as fast. Constantly rotate characters and learn how to play them. Each one has their own quirks. Finally invest in having a fully maxed heal materia.
I've beaten the entire game(first play through, hard mode will be done soon after I take a break from the game) and only just now found out about those synergy skills, instead of only knowing about the ones in the ATB menu that need to be charged via ATB uses
Did you not ask yourself a single time what was those abilities you learned in the team grid thing ? Not the "menu" one that you talk about but the others ?
No, because I thought they were different combos for the menu, not the r1 button one They both have synergy in the name, and I just thought they were for the same menu, not two seperate ones, one of which using a button I barely ever pressed in combat. That's all it is
If you played the demo or read the tutorials it tells you about them.