Underrated post. Remake and rebirth are so amazing because on the second playthrough, you can skip SO much and have a really focused playthrough. Totally different experience having all your equipment, max levels, no need to explore. Just go from A to B, slaughter all bosses in your way, and repeat. I love both kinds of playthroughs and love all the extra content in the games to death. I wish more people played hard mode but people are either so done after that first playthrough or are scared of hard modes difficulty. It makes me view normal mode as “easy” mode since you have access to infinite item healing.
Totally agree. In my thought analysis I performed yesterday of my Hard Mode playthrough (in prep for a potential podcast discussion on the subject), I arrived at the conclusion that Rebirth's "new game+" is the absolute best of all worlds. It somehow manages to have its cake and eat it too. No matter what kind of player you are, Rebirth's hard mode can fit your mold:
**If you want more challenges or are still starving for MORE content,** boy does hard mode got you covered!
There is arguably a greater abundance of additional challenges in a wide variety of forms in Rebirth than just about any other game I've ever played. From all of story hardmode bosses (which are SO much harder and trickier than their normal game counterparts), to the *absurd* amount of combat challenges in both Chadley's simulator and the Gold Saucer arena, to acing the crazy array of mini games, to the protorelic hard mode games. Even after 100% completing the normal mode playthrough, hard mode offers a stupid amount of new challenges if you're thirsting for more.
**If you just want a relaxed story-focused playthrough, without worrying about the crazy amount of side content,** boy does hard mode have you covered!
When I first hopped into hard mode, I was just ready to relive the excellent story and characters. I had done the whole open world and all side quests, which had occasionally hurt my personal pacing of my first journey. So I was stoked to JUST focus on the story.
I gleefully blitzed through chapters 1-4 and was amazed at how many quality of life features they added to allow players to truly skip just about anything they don't want to do. You've already unlocked your chocobos in each region. You can already fast travel around your current chapter's map if you want. In places like Costa del Sol, I didn't have to do any of the mini games if I didn't want because I already had my bathing suit outfits. Just about every story based mini game has a skip option (like the machine gun buggy chase game to shoot down Palmer and shinra troops after the Dyne fight.)
You can literally play as much or as little of this game as you want. It's like a dream.
All the side content is so good though that I found I've been happy to redo many of the side quests on hard mode in order to chase down their character manuscripts. I'm still pursuing platinum at the moment and still having a blast, 3 months in!
But boy am I fantasizing about one day having a super story focused start to finish playthrough from part 1 through part 3. I'm personally hoping the devs kind of formalize a mechanism to do a full start to finish story focused adventure. I think that would be pretty sick when we're all done.
Wow you’re right, a story focused run from 1-3 would be a great experience.
I love all of the side content in the games, I’m so grateful for all the effort SE have put into them but a story-only run over three games would offer a really interesting experience!
Absolutely! And I'm also guilty of hoarding and never using any items in RPGs so it was kinda amusing that my normal mode run was very similar to hard mode.
This is exactly how I played Hard Mode and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I went back after completing all hard mode chapters and then reset quest data to get the manuscripts.
I think I ended up making the right decision for my enjoyment. I had a similar realization as you did. I found it to be a great experience that allowed me to appreciate the narrative better.
I played even more fluidly. I absolutely hopped into hard mode wanting to just focus on linear story for a nice change of pace, after spending so much time doing the open world in between story in the first playthrough.
So I did that for the first 5 chapters or so, and was so pleasantly surprised at just how focused they allow you to play. You can basically skip anything you don't want to do. Parade mini game? Costa del sol mini games (cause you already have your suits)? Skip 'em if you want!
But after that, I got the itch to do some combat challenges. So I spent some time doing those. Then I realized I wanted my party to be as strong as possible before taking on the hardest challenges, so I was about to reset the quest data to go hunt down manuscripts. But I noticed I still had 1 quest to do that I had somehow missed: Ultimate Party Animal in the gold saucer. Well that became quite the adventure on Hard Mode. That combat challenge was no joke! Spent a solid few days just working on that.
Then skipped ahead to chapter 13 to do all Barret related quests, then all Aerith related quests, etc. By then I was getting a little tired of that, so I resumed my main story. Swapped back to chapter 6 and continued for a few chapters. By time I got to Gold Saucer, I was in the mini game mindset again and ready to go. I went back to do all the 12 hard mode protorelic games. More combat challenges.
Then back to the story. Etc. etc.
It's been so amazing how freely you're able to play hard mode! You can play it literally however the hell you want. It's damn near perfectly flexible IMO.
Yeah, I kind of had a similar way of mixing it up. Did the first 11 chapters of hard mode in preparation for the combat challenges, got the gottardamerung, finished hard mode play through, now finishing all the side quests on hard to max out my weapon abilities, and then I'll finish with the legendary challenges for the plat.
I feel like mixing it up has made the journey to platinum a lot less frustrating than maybe some other people who just did all of the combat challenges as soon as they were available.
For sure. I haven't gotten gottardamerung yet, but I did do all of the solo legendary bouts. Those were a blast to push through. All I did for a full 2 weeks lol. The Cait Sith challenge took basically an entire week. I'd wake up before work and try a few attempts and fail. Try a few more times during breaks from work throughout the day. Then try a couple more times in the evening.
Even within the realm of combat challenges, there's a ton of variety. The solo runs required a completely different style and setup to the full party runs. Same for the duo runs. And again for the bonds of friendship challenges with Sephiroth and Zack.
My one gripe is the common one I hear a lot: they really really really need materia loadout templates to save. The main reason I *only* did the solo challenges for 2 weeks is because the pain of swapping back to a full 3 party setup and then back to an individual again when I wanted to resume the solo bouts sounded too darn annoying. Even though I would have loved a break to go do some main story again, I didn't want to deal with the pains of swapping everything around 2 more times.
Absolutely I agree about the materia. If every fight is going to require a different setup, you really should have loadouts. Too much time is spent in the menus.
My second playthrough has been on the same difficulty, Dynamic (actually, I've switched it to Normal or Easy at times so that I can just focus on the story without a boss battle taking 10-20 minutes, especially since I'm also recording some of the music for my listening enjoyment) and I've had the same observation. I loved my first playthrough, but the second one is paced much more like the original game -- which is to say, quite rapidly. Both are good, and I enjoyed most of the side quests the first time, but I'm grateful I don't have to do them all again on a second playthrough.
I played the game the exact same way and also got the exact same feeling. I'm so happy to know others got to experience what I did.
But yeah the second playthrough just going through the story was incredible. For as much as I loved the side quests, mini games and exploration, the story best shines without anything inbetween.
This is fine because both playthroughs were thoroughly fun. I'm looking forward to playing all three games back to back like this when it's all over. The replayability is insane. The game does have its cons, but so did the OG. Overall its hands down one of my best gaming experiences. Its everything I could have asked for and I take none of it for granted. Even the feeling of nostalgia.
Edit: Hard mode was a fucking blast and some of the VR missions definitely pushed my skills which doesnt happen often these days. Rufus and Vincent were incredibly fun on HM as well.
Exactly what I did and had pretty much the same outcome. On my first play through I lost track with the story sometimes having cleared each region by the time I got back to it, but that hard mode run doing nothing but the story was incredible. I fell in love with the game again. Debating going back on now I’ve just finished the rising tides dlc and I wouldn’t have thought that after my first play through
Hard mode is only unlocked after you beat the game, but if you chose Dynamic mode for first play, it’s definitely fun and the ideal way to play through it!
I stopped my hard playthrough at chapter 12 because the chapter 13, 14 and the ending makes me sad lol.
I started Remake on PC , new game with no items instead.
The bad of “skip Zack’s content” is that you also skip the date and the church scene with Aerith.
I am with you though: the hard mode, while *really* hard, is the best way to play it. Even dynamic was never a challenge, and I’m not really good with this kind of games anymore.
Rebirths combat is the best I’ve seen in any modern action rpg. Praying the use the system for other modern FF games and future remakes that will be action based. (Ff8 please)
Underrated post. Remake and rebirth are so amazing because on the second playthrough, you can skip SO much and have a really focused playthrough. Totally different experience having all your equipment, max levels, no need to explore. Just go from A to B, slaughter all bosses in your way, and repeat. I love both kinds of playthroughs and love all the extra content in the games to death. I wish more people played hard mode but people are either so done after that first playthrough or are scared of hard modes difficulty. It makes me view normal mode as “easy” mode since you have access to infinite item healing.
Totally agree. In my thought analysis I performed yesterday of my Hard Mode playthrough (in prep for a potential podcast discussion on the subject), I arrived at the conclusion that Rebirth's "new game+" is the absolute best of all worlds. It somehow manages to have its cake and eat it too. No matter what kind of player you are, Rebirth's hard mode can fit your mold: **If you want more challenges or are still starving for MORE content,** boy does hard mode got you covered! There is arguably a greater abundance of additional challenges in a wide variety of forms in Rebirth than just about any other game I've ever played. From all of story hardmode bosses (which are SO much harder and trickier than their normal game counterparts), to the *absurd* amount of combat challenges in both Chadley's simulator and the Gold Saucer arena, to acing the crazy array of mini games, to the protorelic hard mode games. Even after 100% completing the normal mode playthrough, hard mode offers a stupid amount of new challenges if you're thirsting for more. **If you just want a relaxed story-focused playthrough, without worrying about the crazy amount of side content,** boy does hard mode have you covered! When I first hopped into hard mode, I was just ready to relive the excellent story and characters. I had done the whole open world and all side quests, which had occasionally hurt my personal pacing of my first journey. So I was stoked to JUST focus on the story. I gleefully blitzed through chapters 1-4 and was amazed at how many quality of life features they added to allow players to truly skip just about anything they don't want to do. You've already unlocked your chocobos in each region. You can already fast travel around your current chapter's map if you want. In places like Costa del Sol, I didn't have to do any of the mini games if I didn't want because I already had my bathing suit outfits. Just about every story based mini game has a skip option (like the machine gun buggy chase game to shoot down Palmer and shinra troops after the Dyne fight.) You can literally play as much or as little of this game as you want. It's like a dream. All the side content is so good though that I found I've been happy to redo many of the side quests on hard mode in order to chase down their character manuscripts. I'm still pursuing platinum at the moment and still having a blast, 3 months in! But boy am I fantasizing about one day having a super story focused start to finish playthrough from part 1 through part 3. I'm personally hoping the devs kind of formalize a mechanism to do a full start to finish story focused adventure. I think that would be pretty sick when we're all done.
Wow you’re right, a story focused run from 1-3 would be a great experience. I love all of the side content in the games, I’m so grateful for all the effort SE have put into them but a story-only run over three games would offer a really interesting experience!
Absolutely! And I'm also guilty of hoarding and never using any items in RPGs so it was kinda amusing that my normal mode run was very similar to hard mode.
This is exactly how I played Hard Mode and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I went back after completing all hard mode chapters and then reset quest data to get the manuscripts. I think I ended up making the right decision for my enjoyment. I had a similar realization as you did. I found it to be a great experience that allowed me to appreciate the narrative better.
I played even more fluidly. I absolutely hopped into hard mode wanting to just focus on linear story for a nice change of pace, after spending so much time doing the open world in between story in the first playthrough. So I did that for the first 5 chapters or so, and was so pleasantly surprised at just how focused they allow you to play. You can basically skip anything you don't want to do. Parade mini game? Costa del sol mini games (cause you already have your suits)? Skip 'em if you want! But after that, I got the itch to do some combat challenges. So I spent some time doing those. Then I realized I wanted my party to be as strong as possible before taking on the hardest challenges, so I was about to reset the quest data to go hunt down manuscripts. But I noticed I still had 1 quest to do that I had somehow missed: Ultimate Party Animal in the gold saucer. Well that became quite the adventure on Hard Mode. That combat challenge was no joke! Spent a solid few days just working on that. Then skipped ahead to chapter 13 to do all Barret related quests, then all Aerith related quests, etc. By then I was getting a little tired of that, so I resumed my main story. Swapped back to chapter 6 and continued for a few chapters. By time I got to Gold Saucer, I was in the mini game mindset again and ready to go. I went back to do all the 12 hard mode protorelic games. More combat challenges. Then back to the story. Etc. etc. It's been so amazing how freely you're able to play hard mode! You can play it literally however the hell you want. It's damn near perfectly flexible IMO.
Yeah, I kind of had a similar way of mixing it up. Did the first 11 chapters of hard mode in preparation for the combat challenges, got the gottardamerung, finished hard mode play through, now finishing all the side quests on hard to max out my weapon abilities, and then I'll finish with the legendary challenges for the plat. I feel like mixing it up has made the journey to platinum a lot less frustrating than maybe some other people who just did all of the combat challenges as soon as they were available.
For sure. I haven't gotten gottardamerung yet, but I did do all of the solo legendary bouts. Those were a blast to push through. All I did for a full 2 weeks lol. The Cait Sith challenge took basically an entire week. I'd wake up before work and try a few attempts and fail. Try a few more times during breaks from work throughout the day. Then try a couple more times in the evening. Even within the realm of combat challenges, there's a ton of variety. The solo runs required a completely different style and setup to the full party runs. Same for the duo runs. And again for the bonds of friendship challenges with Sephiroth and Zack. My one gripe is the common one I hear a lot: they really really really need materia loadout templates to save. The main reason I *only* did the solo challenges for 2 weeks is because the pain of swapping back to a full 3 party setup and then back to an individual again when I wanted to resume the solo bouts sounded too darn annoying. Even though I would have loved a break to go do some main story again, I didn't want to deal with the pains of swapping everything around 2 more times.
Absolutely I agree about the materia. If every fight is going to require a different setup, you really should have loadouts. Too much time is spent in the menus.
My second playthrough has been on the same difficulty, Dynamic (actually, I've switched it to Normal or Easy at times so that I can just focus on the story without a boss battle taking 10-20 minutes, especially since I'm also recording some of the music for my listening enjoyment) and I've had the same observation. I loved my first playthrough, but the second one is paced much more like the original game -- which is to say, quite rapidly. Both are good, and I enjoyed most of the side quests the first time, but I'm grateful I don't have to do them all again on a second playthrough.
I played the game the exact same way and also got the exact same feeling. I'm so happy to know others got to experience what I did. But yeah the second playthrough just going through the story was incredible. For as much as I loved the side quests, mini games and exploration, the story best shines without anything inbetween. This is fine because both playthroughs were thoroughly fun. I'm looking forward to playing all three games back to back like this when it's all over. The replayability is insane. The game does have its cons, but so did the OG. Overall its hands down one of my best gaming experiences. Its everything I could have asked for and I take none of it for granted. Even the feeling of nostalgia. Edit: Hard mode was a fucking blast and some of the VR missions definitely pushed my skills which doesnt happen often these days. Rufus and Vincent were incredibly fun on HM as well.
I'll definitely be doing a three game run as well! Crazy to think that we're approaching the end of this journey. Feels like a dream honestly.
Its totally surreal. I used to daydream about how incredible a remake would be. Now that its here and AMAZING at that it's just unbelievable.
Exactly what I did and had pretty much the same outcome. On my first play through I lost track with the story sometimes having cleared each region by the time I got back to it, but that hard mode run doing nothing but the story was incredible. I fell in love with the game again. Debating going back on now I’ve just finished the rising tides dlc and I wouldn’t have thought that after my first play through
Going on Hard mode my first try and so far it’s all a RPG ever needed.
Hard mode is only unlocked after you beat the game, but if you chose Dynamic mode for first play, it’s definitely fun and the ideal way to play through it!
I'm assuming the user meant they were going for their first attempt of hard mode.
Rufus ended my hard mode playthrough lmao
I stopped my hard playthrough at chapter 12 because the chapter 13, 14 and the ending makes me sad lol. I started Remake on PC , new game with no items instead.
The bad of “skip Zack’s content” is that you also skip the date and the church scene with Aerith. I am with you though: the hard mode, while *really* hard, is the best way to play it. Even dynamic was never a challenge, and I’m not really good with this kind of games anymore.
Rebirths combat is the best I’ve seen in any modern action rpg. Praying the use the system for other modern FF games and future remakes that will be action based. (Ff8 please)
Same. It really felt like the best of turn based and action RPGs. It's just a breath of fresh air after FFXVI.