Slave
User
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2004
- Messages
- 32,873
I've completed it now and the ending was certainly...an ending.
Chapter 13 and 14 were SUCH a letdown.
Firstly, I think the final boss is horribly designed. Not the way it makes you use the entire team - that's actually pretty cool - but the way you have to strip all your material across the entire team without any opportunity to swap things around between Jenova and Sephiroth. By the time I got to the final Sephiroth battle with Aerith and Cloud where he has insta-kills, I desperately needed to optimise their materia, and the only way to do it was to replay the ENTIRE THING. That whole last boss desperately needs some checkpoints.
Also, the number of timelines the game is juggling seemed to spiral a bit. I was content with having Zack and Biggs in one alternate timeline showing why the original game needed to happen as it did because if they live, the world basically ends up being doomed. But then, right at the end, it seemed to split off into even more, and it all ended up feeling a bit unnecessarily convoluted when the plot, until chapters 13 and 14, was actually pretty tight.
Some of the cut-scenes in chapter 13 were incredible, although I found the Temple Of The Ancients itself a bit of a slog. I was also slightly underwhelmed by the City Of The Ancients. I adore how ominous and atmospheric it is in the original. Considering how well every other location in the game got upgraded, this one felt like a bit of an afterthought. In fact, the last few hours as a whole feel so tonally different to the rest of the game. I get they needed a climactic ending and a big final boss; I also think they chose a very logical point to have all that happen. I just think it's executed quite poorly.
Firstly, I think the final boss is horribly designed. Not the way it makes you use the entire team - that's actually pretty cool - but the way you have to strip all your material across the entire team without any opportunity to swap things around between Jenova and Sephiroth. By the time I got to the final Sephiroth battle with Aerith and Cloud where he has insta-kills, I desperately needed to optimise their materia, and the only way to do it was to replay the ENTIRE THING. That whole last boss desperately needs some checkpoints.
Also, the number of timelines the game is juggling seemed to spiral a bit. I was content with having Zack and Biggs in one alternate timeline showing why the original game needed to happen as it did because if they live, the world basically ends up being doomed. But then, right at the end, it seemed to split off into even more, and it all ended up feeling a bit unnecessarily convoluted when the plot, until chapters 13 and 14, was actually pretty tight.
Some of the cut-scenes in chapter 13 were incredible, although I found the Temple Of The Ancients itself a bit of a slog. I was also slightly underwhelmed by the City Of The Ancients. I adore how ominous and atmospheric it is in the original. Considering how well every other location in the game got upgraded, this one felt like a bit of an afterthought. In fact, the last few hours as a whole feel so tonally different to the rest of the game. I get they needed a climactic ending and a big final boss; I also think they chose a very logical point to have all that happen. I just think it's executed quite poorly.
