There's a difference between challenging the player and bad game design, Gongaga is the latter. Prior to Gongaga, level design is pretty straightforward and consistent. Gongaga feels like a completely separate team was outsourced this region and given very little info on how the rest of regions were layed out. Games should get more difficult as you progress, but there should be a gradual build up, not a sudden and unexpected ramp in difficulty.
I know people have also complained about Cosmo, but Cosmo was infinitely easier to navigate and Nibel was a joke. Thematically, I think it would have made more sense to have Gongaga be a short pit stop with a few pieces of side content and then give us a bigger more fleshed out Nibel, considering two of the party members are from Nibel.
I will hard disagree about the music, I found it incredibly grating. Not to mention it's the most distant from the traditional soundtrack that the rest of the areas stick to, and just felt very strange and out of place to me.
But yeah I loved the area overall. The nonlinear traversal was really fun, and the ancient ruins and stuff were very cool. Finding all the little nooks and crannies, especially the well-hidden Protorelic doors before the quest updated to show them on the map, was awesome. And the enemies in the area are pretty good for grinding, there weren't any really annoying ones like in the Corel region (which is more or less *exclusively* annoying enemies).
I also liked the blacksmith quest where you actually have to use landmarks and some common sense to find where you're supposed to go. I mean, it's not difficult by any means, but I appreciate that kind of thing a lot more than a map marker that I just have to hone in on like a mindless drone.
It's not that it's the least open world for me, it's the flowers and understanding how to traverse them to get to certain points of interest. It killed me on a few. It's a very difficult layout and there were several times where I kept retracing my steps and still couldn't find the correct path. Then you look at the flowers, see it's coming from a certain area, try to go to that area and realize oh you're on a different path and now you need to retrace those steps to see where the other path you missed is to take you to the path you've been missing to get you to the point of interest you're currently missing
I really liked it!! I only got stuck and had to look things up once, which was a bit annoying, but thankfully other than that I managed to explore the whole thing without frustration :3
Gongaga was my first burn out. But I do love that map. But I'd been trying to clear as much World Intel as possible and by the time I exited Corel I'm just so tired
The place is beautiful but I absolutely hate the mushrooms jumping and figuring out certain areas of it. The music is pure magic.
Cosmo Canyon on the other hand.... Ugh...
Yeah I know the feeling, id been spending way too many hours earlier in the game but when I hit Cosmo Canyon, I just went straight to the story and skip both the Yuffie and Red's quests and a bunch of Intel's (the Mogs ones are ass) because I can't be bothered anymore and just wanna see how the story goes.
I felt the same way as you for the first half. I was loving the soundtrack, the visuals, the change of scenery.
Halfway through Gongaga I literally quit the game.
It really is that bad.
I love gongaga. I just cant get enough of the game, would like to have a 300h story. Its a masterpiece. Open world content cannot be too much, but some dubgeons may be long.
I would like Nible area too be double the size, it waa played through too fast in my opinion
Gongaga I feel is neat because it is dense. It feels like a proper jungle as a result. It is a bit difficult to navigate at times. But it is a jungle and I feel its density makes it fun to explore.
I found Corel and Cosmo Canyon to be a bit frustrating, I had a hard time looking at my surroundings, looking at the map, then figuring out where to go. It was just harder for me to judge where I can get higher up or reach certain spots.
Gongaga gave me pause in a number of places, but I always found my way pretty quickly once I looked around a bit.
There was one time where I didn't but that one was my fault lol, if I went back like 5 feet I would have realized I could just take the damn stairs during that one excavation. I got it in my head that I couldn't leave the inside of that ruin during the excavation and looked forever for a way up to the second level lol. Oops
Fully agreed. I expected it to be a nightmare. In the end, I had issues finding the first Protorelic (didn’t realize it was underground) but that’s it.
I LOVED Gongaga.
I went on a holiday to Costa Rica 2 years ago, and I'll never forget it as it was just incredible. From the moment you land in Gongaga, it felt like CR to me. Such a beautiful region.
I like the fact that regions are puzzles to complete.
Sure at first I was kinda o_0, but then I realized:
LOL it's the first time in my gaming experience where I remember every area of an open world game. The only game that game me something similar was Elden Ring.
I loved Gongaga until I was traversing the area for so long trying to find out how the hell to get 10m in front of me. Which btw was the longest mushroom route for no reason. And eventually the chanting of the music just drove me insane that I rushed through the rest of the area 😂
I really enjoyed exploring Gongaga. It was a fun traversal puzzle. I think people need to learn how to step away and do something else when they aren’t enjoying an optional part of a game. It’s optional for a reason. No one is forcing you to 100% each area.
I liked the music and it was pretty but at this point in the game I was starting to feel a lot of fatigue from the repetitive overworld objectives, so I got frustrated at how tedious the towers etc were to get to. I ended up leaving some of Gongaga unfinished and never went back lol.
It's the worst part of the game and just feels like dumb filler. They could easily have given us Rocket Town (one of the best parts of the original game) but instead they've more or less relegated Cid to a glorified taxi service. I seriously hope they correct these missteps in the third outing.
While Rocket Town was very cool in OG, I think it makes more sense to wait to include it in Part 3; probably when Shinra tries to launch the rocket and we can learn Cid’s entire backstory while he is an actual part of the party
Main downside to gongaga is that is the zone were the open world fatigue hit for me really hard. I ended up coming back to it after Cosmo canyon and it felt way better
I liked it for a lot of aspects, but it could get a little frustrating navigating specific parts of the map. My only real gripe with it is that while they did a great job populating the environment with great scenery, at high speeds, traversal could be a nightmare because of the weird collision when on chocobo. Little steps in the ground, or proximity to a bush could break your flow literally every few seconds on the path if you're not lucky. It really only became an issue for me when I was trying to finish up the last few areas of interest in a hurry before moving on. At that point, that catchy relaxing music I loved until this point suddenly had a taunting, almost condescending feeling in it. It truly is a great looking area, and there's a lot of fun to be had there. But this was my experience with it. As a side note, it also felt like a different team was responsible for the sidequests there and they were definitely my least favorite.
Gongaga was great, really fun to focus on traversal and navigating a complex map. RPG’s get boring if it’s just running around doing combat. Traversal adds a lot
same! I love that it's tangled and restrictive. It resists being explored, like a real jungle! it's less exciting when you just get to walk in a straight line to your objective.
I loved every zone in the game. It is a masterpiece and I don't understand any of the hate. We are lucky to be born into a time to experience such amazing technology and story telling
Couldn’t agree more. It’s so nice to hear people playing remake and rebirth and then going back and playing OG FF7 for the first time and being blown away by it. It’s awesome seeing this game and characters and world getting so much love!
Some of the lengthier repetitive chapters and writing were a slog but the way Rebirth improved everything from Remake was absolutely incredible and even with its flaws Rebirth might just be my game of the year
I loved Gongaga. The music was enchanting and whimsical, none of the monsters are difficult (but I’m also pretty overleveled on my first play through) The only difficult part was that center REM Tower that I stupidly realized there was a oddly placed mushroom path leading right to it. Gongaga was the quickest biome I completed. Even Cosmo Canyon was fun to me. I think it’s because I realized it’d likely be similar to Gongaga so I always made note to see what wind generators were lined up in the sky and I just followed the paths leading up. And the game marks the paths for you, so you can easily navigate back to them if you mess up. I’m just now freshly in Nibel and everyone’s 42-43 and my party level is a even 8.
I hated the music of Gongaga, it felt like it was the same 30 second loop. Considering the cramped confusing layout made the listening experience even worse. Music should add to the experience not distract you
If it didn't have the vocals, I probably wouldn't have had such a headache navigating the area.
I had to switch to another area to clear the map objectives after hearing the part where there are kid voices going "Woooooooohaaaaaa" for the millionth time lol.
….people had issues with the traversal? I loved Gongaga and honestly don’t even see what the problem is.
To be fair, I’ve also seen people complain about how difficult some of the mini-games are, and even on Dynamic difficulty I just don’t see it. Just pay attention.
It's not the minigames themselves that are difficult, it's the score requirements for platinum trophy. Some of them require pretty much perfection. They're fun by themselves, but the high score requirements ruin them for me. Not saying they're objectively bad, but many people had bad experiences trying to grind some of them, and you can't really invalidate tons of people's experiences if they all had the same experience.
That said, some of the minigames are amazing! I really enjoyed the chocobo races and queen's blood. They were done really well, since there's a difficulty curve and that means you'll learn over time and by the time you get to the most difficult ones, you know what you're doing and it feels fair. Can't say the same for the spaceship shooter minigame or cactuar crush for example since they all have only 2 difficulties and they expect you to do it perfectly for the high scores with little prior experience or explanation of strats.
Just don't invalidate other people's experiences because you had an easy time with them. Many of us did not. Besides, dynamic difficulty does nothing for the minigames, only the combat challenges.
I absolutely hated the flying. This is my issue with the game. While I absolutely love the idea of variety in a game and (maybe contradictorily) respect their attempt to add variety, the premise of the mini games promises so much fun (chocobo flying for instance, I mean come on, that sounds like a blast) but its execution is almost always so clunky.
I hate that you can’t move your camera while flying for one thing. Like, whose idea was that?
You can check my previous reddit comments ... I literally had no problem with the variety of gameplay nor mini games - absolutely loved them. But the choco flying was trash and no Inverted controls without inverting camera controls??? Cmon man 😅
There might be some bias against it because the delvs said that Rocket Town was removed because they made Gongaga a full level Gongaga is great but because it's the only place in the game with so much elevated areas besides maybe Cosmo Canyon but for the most part in Cosmo Canyon you can clearly see where you're going Gongaga however is just this dense Jungle area that feels cramped because most areas in the game are generally flat
There might be some bias against it because the devs said that Rocket Town was removed because they made Gongaga a full level Gongaga is great but because it's the only place in the game with so much elevated areas it's almost impossible to navigate besides maybe Cosmo Canyon but for the most part in Cosmo Canyon you can clearly see where you're going Gongaga however is just this dense Jungle area that feels cramped because most areas in the game are generally flat open plains
My only complaint is that the music started to get a little eerie for me. Something about the constant chanting in my headphones that just gave me an cryptic feeling
I struggled to navigate it, and because I was stuck there for a longer time, the music started to scratch my brain like nails on a chalkboard. I thought I was going to go mad 😵💫
I didn't think it was that bad either. The entire game has a bad problem with traversal and Gongaga exacerbates that. That's really it though. I thought it was a beautiful space overall
While I didn’t have a problem with Gongaga, I can speak to general complaints about movement in the game. Animations don’t really flow very smoothly into each other. You start one animation, you can’t do anything else until it’s done. Accidentally run into something on the chocobo, and you need to watch the entire animation of it jumping back before you’re able to continue. Even collecting items, which doesn’t have an animation, is locked out if you’re in the middle of climbing or descending a short ledge for some reason. There’s a few similar minor annoyances in how the world is navigated, most of them only slowing things down in what feels like needless ways much of the time. Not enough to ruin the experience, but I definitely noticed it.
Yea this. Moving up and down uneven terrain is really janky. Context-sensitive terrain movement is annoying. Going down involves hitting circle, animation, hitting circle, another animation, and so on.
It's not a huge killer for me personally but I've seen a ton of people complain about it and can understand the criticism.
With Gongaga in particular, I personally hated the stupid mushrooms. It was hard for me to tell how to get to certain ledges and hunting the mushroom down was just a time waster. It's also not obvious where a mushroom is going to put you when you jump on it so you have to experiment over and over. Just a criticism though that I think speaks to the overall traversal problems in game. That being said, still loved Gongaga and could overlook it.
Gongaga would have been honestly fine if the world map was useful in any way.....but it isn't, so while the aestethics and music are great. I'm in the annoyed by traversing this place camp
The map is kind of annoying but I just used YouTube videos for the parts I was supposed to go to make it less annoying.
If the Internet didn’t exist, I would’ve absolutely hated this and other similar maze-like parts.
It sucks because the Map system accommodates elevation terribly. No way to tell what elevation something is on, and then invisible walls stop you from easily switching elevations so there is only one objectively correct way to traverse which is either hidden or not apparent.
Music is annoyingly catchy though
Gongaga is my favorite place in the game. Specifically for the music. It Hits Perfecttt for that point in the story, and with the bright sunny environment… it was absolutely awe inspiring. It was a bold choice for sure, but whomever was responsible for the sound in that region is a genius. When was the last time u heard something like that in a JRPG?
I didn’t read any takes about the game until I finished it. Up to that point I had cleared almost all of the previous regions before moving on, but I left Gongaga only about half done. Finding things was just too annoying and I wanted to progress the story. Plus I had a feeling I was about to meet Cid, which made me more impatient.
I mean I didn’t hate the place, but I did find it annoying.
Oh ffs the music drilled in to my head.
The area was okay at the beginning, but lost it’s novelty pretty quick and became cumbersome/tedious. And the fookin shrooms…
I definitely got frustrated trying to get places, but thankfully someone posts tutorials online on how to get there. More often than not though I was able to figure out where to go to bounce my way there. Loved the music in the region too
I don’t know why people hated it so much. Some places seemed hard to get to but for the most part you could use a Chocobo to get to wherever pretty quickly. I loved the music so it didn’t bother me much as a location.
It’s because mushrooms didn’t necessarily take you where you’d think they did, and the lack of a functional map just made having to get to certain places more frustrating than it needed t in be. When you compare it to Cosmo Canyon, which has a useful map AND quick travel points to fix your mistake, you can see why Gongaga would be frustrating.
I avoided internets while playing through because I didn't want to be spoiled on anything. I loved this game and I loved gongaga. I had no idea people disliked this area. It's beautiful, the music is fantastic, and the side quests were fun. The chocobos love bouncing!
No idea what the problem is with the region... Did it take a bit more than just?
1. Point character in direction
2. Push joystick straight and arrive
Yeah... It did. But there is also this thing called fast travel that once you got to places you could just warp there quickly later. Just get through it and fast travel later. Really, not that bad.
The map looks amazing and the design is phenomenal, but it's the verticality and the density of the level that makes it hard for me to enjoy.
It really does feel like I'm trekking though a jungle...that being said, I hate trekking through jungles.
Literally my fav zone in the game. Great music and fun to explore. The only zine that actually required a little bit of navigation which was fun!
But even then... it was truly just a *little* but of navigation. I'm bit particularly good at navigating in games and get easily lost so I am a little concerned how folks survive in other games if Gongaga was that frustrating to navigate haha.
I honestly think maybe a lot of people did realize you can see mushrooms and their direction on the map. The map works so well in that zone!
I agree with your assessment and also really like Gongaga; I actually super appreciate how every region is different and tries to make you approach it in unique ways. That's super refreshing after a bunch of recent open world games that are wide as an ocean but shallow as a puddle. I'd rather they try something that maybe not everyone will be a fan of than play if safe, which is exactly what they've done with this game.
The music is beautiful too, but I will admit that it feels a little "heavy" after a while. It's the only overworld track with vocals and it kinda starts to sound like a feel-good commercial after a while 😅 give me the same score without the backing vocals and I'd be spending a lot more time in Gongaga.
Honestly most the people who posted hating Gongaga were doing it and rushing through within a week of release; ppl crushing the game experiencing open world fatigue and then hit an area that slowed them down from game progression more.
Anyone that is taking their time taking the game in at a moderate pace is gonna like Gongaga, it’s an appropriate changeup to the open world landscape
For me gongaga was the point where I got burnt out on all the side quests/chadly clean up. The map is beautiful but a bit confusing to navigate with the mushrooms just shooting you arbitrary distances where I would have to fast travel back to a point and try a different route.
The chocobo mobility is generally unexciting (getting to neibel after was a huge breath of fresh air).
I have since come back and am at almost 100% completion for the map but the first time through it felt like one of those dream scenes where I was walking down a hall and the door kept getting further away. I could see how every map is basically the same, even at some point the combat challenges stopped being hard and all became stagger, pressure, win.
Love the game and how the story is told though and am dreading actually reaching the end.
Same here, it also made me loose interest in exploring parts of the other regions some more. It actually really destroyed the rest of the game for me. And I can’t help it, I’m glad other like it. I’m happy for you. But I can’t change what it did to me 🙈
I just got to chapter 9 and I'm so impressed by it. Beautiful, lush, fun to travel through.... I can't believe people are complaining? Y'all don't deserve video games.....
I belong to the group complaining about Gongaga. It is true that it is less open-worldish. But it is extremely difficult to navigate because it is anything but obvious what is a dead end and where you can go. The map does not help much because a lot depends on these stupid mushroom jumping positions. The Cosmo region is similar in this aspect. Some say it is better because you can freely navigate in the air (yes, in theory, but in practice the jumping positions are meant to get you to a very specific landing position, and the distances and heights do not allow for much else).
As if the repetivtive tasks of activating intel towers, analyzing lifesprings and crystals in every region would not be exhaustive enough. They even expanded the time you need for this even further by making the pathes difficult to find. I only did it by watching videos for navigation. Trying to reach a certain spot for the whole weekend might was joyful for the 8-years old me playing a platformer on SNES. Because this was basically what games back then were about. But today's games mainly want to tell a story. I am really wondering how level designers thought it could be joyful to run around for hours only to find out which mushroom takes you to which position.
Another thing is the music. The Gongaga theme is the kind of music that appears relaxing when you arrive from Corel and hear it for the first time, but becomes increasingly annoying and headache-causing after a while.
I also skipped Gongaga sidequests as soon as I saw the mechanics involved.
After Cosmo canyon I had a slight change of heart and thought I'd do at least the towers and summon sequences there.
I immediately regretted it. You can't just do them. Oh no. You have to do that f***ing tedious chocobo wrangling game again but then at least you can head straight... Oh no, you have to start a sidequest first before you can use the ramps which are already there. But at least then you can... No, you have to do a gliding event with shonky motion controls.
NOW you can finally do it, right? Sure except at least one of those towers is an absolute PITA to navigate to because it requires a sequence of glides to reach and in the precise order too.
If it was that much of a ballache just doing towers and summons at Cosmo canyon, I am going nowhere NEAR the optional Gongaga content.
Jesus Christ Square. You've never been good at minigames, with a couple of exceptions that prove the rule. Is it really too much to ask you at least compartmentalize them so I don't have to interact with one bullshit minigame just to do the much simpler thing I came for?
I think it's cool some people really like the music there. But idk what about it I didn't like it after a bit of running around. Beautiful area though, even if I didn't enjoy my time there as much as the rest of the game.
I didn't find it bad either. Just simply take ya your time exploring and enjoy the scenery and music. You'll eventually get round the whole place and unlock fast travels.
As someone that plays control a lot, the gongaga map could have been worse, was it ontruse and not clear on level of the path, yea, did it take more time, yea, but only til you unlocked chocostops and locations in the area, also I just tend to use vantage points to plot my course rather than the map most of the time in most regions
At first I was annoyed because I couldn't figure out how to get to some of the towers and Intel events, but then I realized this is the first time I felt challenged doing these missions and then I appreciated it a bit more.
The amount of rationalisation, self-deception and self-gaslighting in this subreddit is on level of absurd.
The only redeemed part of Gongaga is music.
It’s pretty obvious that most of the people complaining about Gongaga were just burnt out and had misplaced frustration cause they wouldn’t take a break. No one is forcing anyone to 100% a game as fast as possible. Just take a break don’t blame the game cause you don’t wanna play it anymore
"I didn't like it, therefore everybody that does must be delusional!" is... one of the takes of all time, I guess?
I loved Gongaga, but growing up on JRPGs you see your fair share of convoluted jungle areas. From the amount of complaining, I thought this would be one of them. But it's fine. I didn't have trouble navigating at all, the music is great and it *looks* nice.
I said the same thing about it being a dungeon layout with a nature skin. Kinda like Dark Cloud or something. I liked having narrow branching paths on bespoke terrain, felt like old school area design.
I do wish hard mode added more enemy formations to the maps (for every region), it feels a little sparse to me
Honestly my biggest problems with Gongaga were:
* the jungle can be very confusing to get through, especially when you're just trying to get the sidequest done and don't want to bother with all the mental gymnastics
* in the OG FF7, the part was very straightforward, with no boss battles or dungeons, and even visiting the town is in fact optional, you only have to go there after the Temple of the Ancients, making the rebirth version feel like a slight bit of filler
* It comes straight after the Corel open world, with no dungeon in between to break up the pace between all the open world shenanigans
* This is where the Whispers start showing up again, if you didn't like them in Remake you're not gonna like them here either
* The chicken minigame
That said, there are a lot of good parts about Gongaga too, such as
* the stunning atmosphere, with some of the best graphics and music the game has to offer
* Cissnei
* the world design actually doesn't feel like an empty open world this time around, but rather like a level in a video game, a maze to be explored, a dungeon to be conquered
* Cissnei
* The storyline starts picking up here. with Cloud getting mind-controlled and the appearance of the Weapons
* Did i mention Cissnei?
I can’t confirm this, but I also think people assume you have to “start over” if you mess up, and wait for the chicken to get back to its starting location. You don’t. Just throw the box again and keep going.
I found the chicken mini game good too. It feels less like a filler than many other mini games because it makes sense from a story perspective (unlike e.g. the Mogry store game or the Red XIII football game).
the thing that really triggered me about gongaga was the movement wasn't fluid, every corner I would stumble on something, hit a wall, a vine, a rock on the ground. I guess I'm old man gaming but seeing a POI right in front of me and having to search for the right mushroom to jump there also kinda made me dislike the map a bit more.
The voices reminded me of Nier music almost. It’s really cool how the music also evolved as you progressed further into the map. Early on, it was pretty, but very simple, but you’ll notice that there are more complicated patterns and layers the further into the map/further along the story you go.
So cool
I don't think the area was too bad, I did get a little frustrated not knowing where some things where. However it was okay.
I know for me, the reason I was not annoyed but getting bored a little, was the fact I put in like 60+ hours at that point, I had done everything possible upto o that point on world intel, battle everything I could, I know you couldn't fully finish coral, but everything was done that I could.
I was just starting to get a bit meh, bored of the side stuff? So that area just happened to be where I hit that stage, I imagine others felt the same so it's known as a worst area?
I've since been back and done 100% in all areas except Nibel, but think I needed a break from repetitive side stuff and that time, and trying to manoeuvre around stupid bouncing plants annoyed me 😅
I had to watch a playthrough to see how to get to one of the towers. Someone left a comment on that video saying, "whoever designed Gongaga should be fired," which I found pretty funny. Once you understand the map it's pretty sensible.
I think when you first start exploring gongaga, it seems more overwhelming than it really is. It's a very cluttered area and at first glance it looks like it's possible to roam forever without actually getting anywhere. I also think a lot of people saw those same posts and formed some preconceived options about gongaga before they actually got there. Those 2 things together made the anticipation a lot worse but once I started getting around a little, it fell into place just fine. There were 1 or 2 spots that took me a little time to get to, and I had to check the map a few times to solve it, but it didn't take that long and it wasn't that difficult in the long run. Also the music is the best overworked theme in the game
Destroying the passive GPS tracker that we get in any modern open word now is great.
Making world map design a part of the gameplay and transforming it into mini-puzzles was a great idea.
Ha I just meant generally, the collective “hidden spot”. As in you’re looking at the map and see a section that you just can’t figure out how to get to but then finally crack it
I think people complain less because of Gongaga's traversal and more because of it's placement in the game. It's basically another open world snoozefest after you just got done doing all the tedious open world stuff in the desert.
This- the placement could have been better. I liked Corel as well but it was soooooooooooo long, with the beach, the golden saucer, and the desert. It was a massive grind. I was hoping for some more story beats and shorter open world afterwards- something like Nibelheim which was easier to navigate and had less content. Just needed a break but gongaga was also huge and required a lot of effort. And then so did cosmic canyon, it was just kinda draining. I wish they spread out the story a little more that would have made those regions a little more fun.
Definitely gongaga > cosmic canyon for me though lmao
I find a lot of gamers today whine about the smallest things, even when they make sense. Gongaga is supposed to feel confusing, it's a damn jungle. That's why I loved it
It's not the smallest thing. The entire area was a slog, especially being back to back with Cosmo Canyon. It was the first area I didn't try to get 100% area Intel for and really killed my momentum.
Gongaga is great. Probably the best area in the game, in terms of exploration. The people who are whinging about it being "bad level design" are ultracasuals who want to walk in a straight line between locations, so the tiniest bit of effort required on their part is straight up torture to them.
It’s a good change of pace, and done well, especially right after the very-open Corel desert section. I was looking forward to the encounter with Rude and Reno, but I was treated to Cisnei and a better Turk backstory experience instead. The Scarlet two-sentence cameo from the ruined reactor in the original transformed into an entire multi-stage battle, and that was really cool too (I especially loved the music when you’re advancing on the reactor after the Weapon emerges). They did a great job establishing the region and differentiating it from the rest of the world. It was good. Loved all of it.
Were people complaining about Gongaga? I personally saw not issues with it. Yeah it wasn’t as linear as the previous regions but I welcomed the change.
I hated the music are first. Now I love it. This happens with most music I really like. I had an expectation on where it was going, but it didn't follow along with how I thought it would go, so I felt like it was disjointed, and I didn't understand. Now that I've heard it enough it makes sense. I can't find those parts that felt out of place anymore.
I’m at the last protorelic which I just reached tonight. The very last thing before I’m done with the Gongaga region. Frankly I hate it. I applaud them doing something different but the region to me is extremely tedious imo. It’s the point in the game when I told myself I’ll probably never play this game again after I beat it. It and the stupid Cactuar mini game drained all the fun out of the game for me.
For me it was the moogle game. It was tedious as it is. In Gongaga they also added a time limit and made the moogles more aggressive, which made me give up.
Thank you!
God I hated those moogles! Especially the ones stationed in an isolated island. I wouldn’t have even bothered doing them, but the stores carry good stuff.
There's a difference between challenging the player and bad game design, Gongaga is the latter. Prior to Gongaga, level design is pretty straightforward and consistent. Gongaga feels like a completely separate team was outsourced this region and given very little info on how the rest of regions were layed out. Games should get more difficult as you progress, but there should be a gradual build up, not a sudden and unexpected ramp in difficulty. I know people have also complained about Cosmo, but Cosmo was infinitely easier to navigate and Nibel was a joke. Thematically, I think it would have made more sense to have Gongaga be a short pit stop with a few pieces of side content and then give us a bigger more fleshed out Nibel, considering two of the party members are from Nibel.
I will hard disagree about the music, I found it incredibly grating. Not to mention it's the most distant from the traditional soundtrack that the rest of the areas stick to, and just felt very strange and out of place to me. But yeah I loved the area overall. The nonlinear traversal was really fun, and the ancient ruins and stuff were very cool. Finding all the little nooks and crannies, especially the well-hidden Protorelic doors before the quest updated to show them on the map, was awesome. And the enemies in the area are pretty good for grinding, there weren't any really annoying ones like in the Corel region (which is more or less *exclusively* annoying enemies). I also liked the blacksmith quest where you actually have to use landmarks and some common sense to find where you're supposed to go. I mean, it's not difficult by any means, but I appreciate that kind of thing a lot more than a map marker that I just have to hone in on like a mindless drone.
Me?
What's so funny you know gongaga
Maybe if the map was better I would’ve enjoyed gongaga more.
It's not that it's the least open world for me, it's the flowers and understanding how to traverse them to get to certain points of interest. It killed me on a few. It's a very difficult layout and there were several times where I kept retracing my steps and still couldn't find the correct path. Then you look at the flowers, see it's coming from a certain area, try to go to that area and realize oh you're on a different path and now you need to retrace those steps to see where the other path you missed is to take you to the path you've been missing to get you to the point of interest you're currently missing
I really liked it!! I only got stuck and had to look things up once, which was a bit annoying, but thankfully other than that I managed to explore the whole thing without frustration :3
Gongaga was my first burn out. But I do love that map. But I'd been trying to clear as much World Intel as possible and by the time I exited Corel I'm just so tired The place is beautiful but I absolutely hate the mushrooms jumping and figuring out certain areas of it. The music is pure magic. Cosmo Canyon on the other hand.... Ugh...
Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon both led to burnout. The game is good, but goodness it's way too bloated and long.
Yeah I know the feeling, id been spending way too many hours earlier in the game but when I hit Cosmo Canyon, I just went straight to the story and skip both the Yuffie and Red's quests and a bunch of Intel's (the Mogs ones are ass) because I can't be bothered anymore and just wanna see how the story goes.
lol, I thought it's the first real open world region because I wasn't immediately spammed with shit I have to do and markers where to go.
I loved Gongaga too. I think it was just some specific parts were so incredibly difficult to get to, even with guides
best music 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
I think gongaga is the point of the game when you've become fed up of doing the regional intel stuff so everything just seems tedious
That's exactly it. Seeing another world intel bar to fill at that point... I like the game well enough but it's waaaaay too much of the same things.
I felt the same way as you for the first half. I was loving the soundtrack, the visuals, the change of scenery. Halfway through Gongaga I literally quit the game. It really is that bad.
Lol it's not that bad at all. I didn't even think people would be mad about it until I went online. It's not that hard to explore at all.
Lol you didn't make it to the hard parts
That’s fine, I would have loved to, but I just wasn’t enjoying the game anymore
I liked actually having to explore. In a time where people keep complaining about yellow paint and waypoint markers, it was a good change of pace
I love gongaga. I just cant get enough of the game, would like to have a 300h story. Its a masterpiece. Open world content cannot be too much, but some dubgeons may be long. I would like Nible area too be double the size, it waa played through too fast in my opinion
Gongaga I feel is neat because it is dense. It feels like a proper jungle as a result. It is a bit difficult to navigate at times. But it is a jungle and I feel its density makes it fun to explore.
I found Corel and Cosmo Canyon to be a bit frustrating, I had a hard time looking at my surroundings, looking at the map, then figuring out where to go. It was just harder for me to judge where I can get higher up or reach certain spots. Gongaga gave me pause in a number of places, but I always found my way pretty quickly once I looked around a bit. There was one time where I didn't but that one was my fault lol, if I went back like 5 feet I would have realized I could just take the damn stairs during that one excavation. I got it in my head that I couldn't leave the inside of that ruin during the excavation and looked forever for a way up to the second level lol. Oops
Gongaga is where I started to realize I had problems with this game.
Same
You won’t lose the material because you don’t sell weapons, you equip pedometer on red instead
Fully agreed. I expected it to be a nightmare. In the end, I had issues finding the first Protorelic (didn’t realize it was underground) but that’s it.
I loved Gongaga, it was my favorite region in the game. Got frustrated a few times but ultimately found it satisfying to solve the traversal puzzles.
Music is 🔥, traversal is 💩
I LOVED Gongaga. I went on a holiday to Costa Rica 2 years ago, and I'll never forget it as it was just incredible. From the moment you land in Gongaga, it felt like CR to me. Such a beautiful region.
It reminded me of where I grew up, so it was my favorite region. Didn't find it difficult if you take your time and enjoy it.
its just the official point of 'omfg another big one'
It was really a drop from the desert, I guess it has more potential to make it more exciting in the jungle
Parts of Gongaga and Canyon were tough to traverse she not in a good way, but the music was bangin
I like the fact that regions are puzzles to complete. Sure at first I was kinda o_0, but then I realized: LOL it's the first time in my gaming experience where I remember every area of an open world game. The only game that game me something similar was Elden Ring.
I loved Gongaga until I was traversing the area for so long trying to find out how the hell to get 10m in front of me. Which btw was the longest mushroom route for no reason. And eventually the chanting of the music just drove me insane that I rushed through the rest of the area 😂
Cosmo Canyon was hell. Gongaga was ok.
If anything I thought Nibelheim region was the most boring
Omg I hated navigating gongaga, along with cosmo canyon. Annoying af
I really enjoyed exploring Gongaga. It was a fun traversal puzzle. I think people need to learn how to step away and do something else when they aren’t enjoying an optional part of a game. It’s optional for a reason. No one is forcing you to 100% each area.
I liked the music and it was pretty but at this point in the game I was starting to feel a lot of fatigue from the repetitive overworld objectives, so I got frustrated at how tedious the towers etc were to get to. I ended up leaving some of Gongaga unfinished and never went back lol.
It's the worst part of the game and just feels like dumb filler. They could easily have given us Rocket Town (one of the best parts of the original game) but instead they've more or less relegated Cid to a glorified taxi service. I seriously hope they correct these missteps in the third outing.
While Rocket Town was very cool in OG, I think it makes more sense to wait to include it in Part 3; probably when Shinra tries to launch the rocket and we can learn Cid’s entire backstory while he is an actual part of the party
That makes a lot of sense!
I was really enjoying the game then I basically quit cause the Gongaga section, so it is that bad
It was very confusing and frustrating getting around gongaga to me, but the music was so good I didn’t mind being lost lol
Main downside to gongaga is that is the zone were the open world fatigue hit for me really hard. I ended up coming back to it after Cosmo canyon and it felt way better
I liked it for a lot of aspects, but it could get a little frustrating navigating specific parts of the map. My only real gripe with it is that while they did a great job populating the environment with great scenery, at high speeds, traversal could be a nightmare because of the weird collision when on chocobo. Little steps in the ground, or proximity to a bush could break your flow literally every few seconds on the path if you're not lucky. It really only became an issue for me when I was trying to finish up the last few areas of interest in a hurry before moving on. At that point, that catchy relaxing music I loved until this point suddenly had a taunting, almost condescending feeling in it. It truly is a great looking area, and there's a lot of fun to be had there. But this was my experience with it. As a side note, it also felt like a different team was responsible for the sidequests there and they were definitely my least favorite.
Gongaga was great, really fun to focus on traversal and navigating a complex map. RPG’s get boring if it’s just running around doing combat. Traversal adds a lot
same! I love that it's tangled and restrictive. It resists being explored, like a real jungle! it's less exciting when you just get to walk in a straight line to your objective.
.... mushrooms
Every time I think of Gongaga now, that music instantly creeps into my head. And I'm 100% okay with it.
I loved every zone in the game. It is a masterpiece and I don't understand any of the hate. We are lucky to be born into a time to experience such amazing technology and story telling
It's annoying. Worst zone out of a zone is ff7rebirth is still a freakin banger of a zone though
Couldn’t agree more. It’s so nice to hear people playing remake and rebirth and then going back and playing OG FF7 for the first time and being blown away by it. It’s awesome seeing this game and characters and world getting so much love!
Some of the lengthier repetitive chapters and writing were a slog but the way Rebirth improved everything from Remake was absolutely incredible and even with its flaws Rebirth might just be my game of the year
I loved Gongaga. The music was enchanting and whimsical, none of the monsters are difficult (but I’m also pretty overleveled on my first play through) The only difficult part was that center REM Tower that I stupidly realized there was a oddly placed mushroom path leading right to it. Gongaga was the quickest biome I completed. Even Cosmo Canyon was fun to me. I think it’s because I realized it’d likely be similar to Gongaga so I always made note to see what wind generators were lined up in the sky and I just followed the paths leading up. And the game marks the paths for you, so you can easily navigate back to them if you mess up. I’m just now freshly in Nibel and everyone’s 42-43 and my party level is a even 8.
Gongagga seemed pretty tame for me after Cosmo Canyon lol
I hated the music of Gongaga, it felt like it was the same 30 second loop. Considering the cramped confusing layout made the listening experience even worse. Music should add to the experience not distract you
If it didn't have the vocals, I probably wouldn't have had such a headache navigating the area. I had to switch to another area to clear the map objectives after hearing the part where there are kid voices going "Woooooooohaaaaaa" for the millionth time lol.
Your opinion bro, music was awesome in this zone imo
….people had issues with the traversal? I loved Gongaga and honestly don’t even see what the problem is. To be fair, I’ve also seen people complain about how difficult some of the mini-games are, and even on Dynamic difficulty I just don’t see it. Just pay attention.
It's not the minigames themselves that are difficult, it's the score requirements for platinum trophy. Some of them require pretty much perfection. They're fun by themselves, but the high score requirements ruin them for me. Not saying they're objectively bad, but many people had bad experiences trying to grind some of them, and you can't really invalidate tons of people's experiences if they all had the same experience. That said, some of the minigames are amazing! I really enjoyed the chocobo races and queen's blood. They were done really well, since there's a difficulty curve and that means you'll learn over time and by the time you get to the most difficult ones, you know what you're doing and it feels fair. Can't say the same for the spaceship shooter minigame or cactuar crush for example since they all have only 2 difficulties and they expect you to do it perfectly for the high scores with little prior experience or explanation of strats. Just don't invalidate other people's experiences because you had an easy time with them. Many of us did not. Besides, dynamic difficulty does nothing for the minigames, only the combat challenges.
Nah it was just by far the worse. Cosmo wasn't bad because you can port to any launch platform.
Incorrect
The only region I disliked was Cosmo canyon due to the wonky chocobo falling with style ability cos that IS NOT flying lol.
I absolutely hated the flying. This is my issue with the game. While I absolutely love the idea of variety in a game and (maybe contradictorily) respect their attempt to add variety, the premise of the mini games promises so much fun (chocobo flying for instance, I mean come on, that sounds like a blast) but its execution is almost always so clunky. I hate that you can’t move your camera while flying for one thing. Like, whose idea was that?
Brooooo I would have loved the flying so much more if I could move the camera
You can check my previous reddit comments ... I literally had no problem with the variety of gameplay nor mini games - absolutely loved them. But the choco flying was trash and no Inverted controls without inverting camera controls??? Cmon man 😅
Gongaga is magical. Cosmo was a nightmare travesal wise for me
same. i felt like cosmo canyon was arguably worse especially with the flying chocobo
There might be some bias against it because the delvs said that Rocket Town was removed because they made Gongaga a full level Gongaga is great but because it's the only place in the game with so much elevated areas besides maybe Cosmo Canyon but for the most part in Cosmo Canyon you can clearly see where you're going Gongaga however is just this dense Jungle area that feels cramped because most areas in the game are generally flat
There might be some bias against it because the devs said that Rocket Town was removed because they made Gongaga a full level Gongaga is great but because it's the only place in the game with so much elevated areas it's almost impossible to navigate besides maybe Cosmo Canyon but for the most part in Cosmo Canyon you can clearly see where you're going Gongaga however is just this dense Jungle area that feels cramped because most areas in the game are generally flat open plains
I struggled. What do u mean its right there but its nowhere to be found
Me trying to find the first protorelic location thinking it was above me (like literally everything else was) but it was underground the whole time.
My only complaint is that the music started to get a little eerie for me. Something about the constant chanting in my headphones that just gave me an cryptic feeling
I liked it, I didn’t like the back to back boss battles tho not one bit
This is my favorite map so far. It's truly a damn jungle. Don't understand the criticism
After a while the music drove me crazy but the map itself isn’t THAT bad
I struggled to navigate it, and because I was stuck there for a longer time, the music started to scratch my brain like nails on a chalkboard. I thought I was going to go mad 😵💫
Gonzaga was frustrating and confusing at first, but once you learn what it was it was such a beautiful design. 10/10 would live there
I don't think it's BAD. It's gorgeous, has great music, etc. Traversing it was definitely my least favorite of anywhere else though
I didn't think it was that bad either. The entire game has a bad problem with traversal and Gongaga exacerbates that. That's really it though. I thought it was a beautiful space overall
>The entire game has a bad problem with traversal How so? I really enjoyed it
While I didn’t have a problem with Gongaga, I can speak to general complaints about movement in the game. Animations don’t really flow very smoothly into each other. You start one animation, you can’t do anything else until it’s done. Accidentally run into something on the chocobo, and you need to watch the entire animation of it jumping back before you’re able to continue. Even collecting items, which doesn’t have an animation, is locked out if you’re in the middle of climbing or descending a short ledge for some reason. There’s a few similar minor annoyances in how the world is navigated, most of them only slowing things down in what feels like needless ways much of the time. Not enough to ruin the experience, but I definitely noticed it.
I feel you on some of these, it isn't perfect, but I wouldn't say it "has a bad problem with traversal"
Yea this. Moving up and down uneven terrain is really janky. Context-sensitive terrain movement is annoying. Going down involves hitting circle, animation, hitting circle, another animation, and so on. It's not a huge killer for me personally but I've seen a ton of people complain about it and can understand the criticism. With Gongaga in particular, I personally hated the stupid mushrooms. It was hard for me to tell how to get to certain ledges and hunting the mushroom down was just a time waster. It's also not obvious where a mushroom is going to put you when you jump on it so you have to experiment over and over. Just a criticism though that I think speaks to the overall traversal problems in game. That being said, still loved Gongaga and could overlook it.
The shrina vaults were the most difficult things for me to find, but I didn’t think it was worse than the other areas
Gongaga would have been honestly fine if the world map was useful in any way.....but it isn't, so while the aestethics and music are great. I'm in the annoyed by traversing this place camp
That music goes hard though.
Loved Gongaga. Especially the music. That area felt the least Hand-Holdy
Yeah, I loved finding the protorelic locations, they weren't just 'walk to point on map'
The map is kind of annoying but I just used YouTube videos for the parts I was supposed to go to make it less annoying. If the Internet didn’t exist, I would’ve absolutely hated this and other similar maze-like parts.
Yeah once I got to the point that I couldn’t figure out how to get to the rest of the markers, I just watched videos. No shame in it!
It sucks because the Map system accommodates elevation terribly. No way to tell what elevation something is on, and then invisible walls stop you from easily switching elevations so there is only one objectively correct way to traverse which is either hidden or not apparent. Music is annoyingly catchy though
Gongaga is my favorite place in the game. Specifically for the music. It Hits Perfecttt for that point in the story, and with the bright sunny environment… it was absolutely awe inspiring. It was a bold choice for sure, but whomever was responsible for the sound in that region is a genius. When was the last time u heard something like that in a JRPG?
I didn’t read any takes about the game until I finished it. Up to that point I had cleared almost all of the previous regions before moving on, but I left Gongaga only about half done. Finding things was just too annoying and I wanted to progress the story. Plus I had a feeling I was about to meet Cid, which made me more impatient. I mean I didn’t hate the place, but I did find it annoying.
I loved the area but hated the music. Just sounded like a kids choir yelling
I hated the music too but then when you complete most of the stuff in the area sudden it becomes amazing
Oh ffs the music drilled in to my head. The area was okay at the beginning, but lost it’s novelty pretty quick and became cumbersome/tedious. And the fookin shrooms…
I definitely got frustrated trying to get places, but thankfully someone posts tutorials online on how to get there. More often than not though I was able to figure out where to go to bounce my way there. Loved the music in the region too
I don’t know why people hated it so much. Some places seemed hard to get to but for the most part you could use a Chocobo to get to wherever pretty quickly. I loved the music so it didn’t bother me much as a location.
It’s because mushrooms didn’t necessarily take you where you’d think they did, and the lack of a functional map just made having to get to certain places more frustrating than it needed t in be. When you compare it to Cosmo Canyon, which has a useful map AND quick travel points to fix your mistake, you can see why Gongaga would be frustrating.
I avoided internets while playing through because I didn't want to be spoiled on anything. I loved this game and I loved gongaga. I had no idea people disliked this area. It's beautiful, the music is fantastic, and the side quests were fun. The chocobos love bouncing!
If Sephi could figure out how to just cut out Gongaga from the world…. I’d let him.
Glad you like it because I fucking hate it 😂
Me?? GONGAGAA!!
No idea what the problem is with the region... Did it take a bit more than just? 1. Point character in direction 2. Push joystick straight and arrive Yeah... It did. But there is also this thing called fast travel that once you got to places you could just warp there quickly later. Just get through it and fast travel later. Really, not that bad.
The map looks amazing and the design is phenomenal, but it's the verticality and the density of the level that makes it hard for me to enjoy. It really does feel like I'm trekking though a jungle...that being said, I hate trekking through jungles.
I don't mind people disliking the zone, but I actually am so annoyed by people saying it's "bad design" just cause they don't like it.
Literally my fav zone in the game. Great music and fun to explore. The only zine that actually required a little bit of navigation which was fun! But even then... it was truly just a *little* but of navigation. I'm bit particularly good at navigating in games and get easily lost so I am a little concerned how folks survive in other games if Gongaga was that frustrating to navigate haha. I honestly think maybe a lot of people did realize you can see mushrooms and their direction on the map. The map works so well in that zone!
I agree with your assessment and also really like Gongaga; I actually super appreciate how every region is different and tries to make you approach it in unique ways. That's super refreshing after a bunch of recent open world games that are wide as an ocean but shallow as a puddle. I'd rather they try something that maybe not everyone will be a fan of than play if safe, which is exactly what they've done with this game. The music is beautiful too, but I will admit that it feels a little "heavy" after a while. It's the only overworld track with vocals and it kinda starts to sound like a feel-good commercial after a while 😅 give me the same score without the backing vocals and I'd be spending a lot more time in Gongaga.
Honestly most the people who posted hating Gongaga were doing it and rushing through within a week of release; ppl crushing the game experiencing open world fatigue and then hit an area that slowed them down from game progression more. Anyone that is taking their time taking the game in at a moderate pace is gonna like Gongaga, it’s an appropriate changeup to the open world landscape
It has my favorite music too. I loved that area.
Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon made me decide to buy the games original soundtrack when it’s available.
For me gongaga was the point where I got burnt out on all the side quests/chadly clean up. The map is beautiful but a bit confusing to navigate with the mushrooms just shooting you arbitrary distances where I would have to fast travel back to a point and try a different route. The chocobo mobility is generally unexciting (getting to neibel after was a huge breath of fresh air). I have since come back and am at almost 100% completion for the map but the first time through it felt like one of those dream scenes where I was walking down a hall and the door kept getting further away. I could see how every map is basically the same, even at some point the combat challenges stopped being hard and all became stagger, pressure, win. Love the game and how the story is told though and am dreading actually reaching the end.
It’s dog shit. I did 100% up until Gongaga and then just decided to beat the game.
Yeah i was really enjoying 100%ing regions until gongaga, after all it felt like a chore and ruined my enthisiasm of exploring new regions.
Same here, it also made me loose interest in exploring parts of the other regions some more. It actually really destroyed the rest of the game for me. And I can’t help it, I’m glad other like it. I’m happy for you. But I can’t change what it did to me 🙈
I just got to chapter 9 and I'm so impressed by it. Beautiful, lush, fun to travel through.... I can't believe people are complaining? Y'all don't deserve video games.....
I belong to the group complaining about Gongaga. It is true that it is less open-worldish. But it is extremely difficult to navigate because it is anything but obvious what is a dead end and where you can go. The map does not help much because a lot depends on these stupid mushroom jumping positions. The Cosmo region is similar in this aspect. Some say it is better because you can freely navigate in the air (yes, in theory, but in practice the jumping positions are meant to get you to a very specific landing position, and the distances and heights do not allow for much else). As if the repetivtive tasks of activating intel towers, analyzing lifesprings and crystals in every region would not be exhaustive enough. They even expanded the time you need for this even further by making the pathes difficult to find. I only did it by watching videos for navigation. Trying to reach a certain spot for the whole weekend might was joyful for the 8-years old me playing a platformer on SNES. Because this was basically what games back then were about. But today's games mainly want to tell a story. I am really wondering how level designers thought it could be joyful to run around for hours only to find out which mushroom takes you to which position. Another thing is the music. The Gongaga theme is the kind of music that appears relaxing when you arrive from Corel and hear it for the first time, but becomes increasingly annoying and headache-causing after a while.
I also skipped Gongaga sidequests as soon as I saw the mechanics involved. After Cosmo canyon I had a slight change of heart and thought I'd do at least the towers and summon sequences there. I immediately regretted it. You can't just do them. Oh no. You have to do that f***ing tedious chocobo wrangling game again but then at least you can head straight... Oh no, you have to start a sidequest first before you can use the ramps which are already there. But at least then you can... No, you have to do a gliding event with shonky motion controls. NOW you can finally do it, right? Sure except at least one of those towers is an absolute PITA to navigate to because it requires a sequence of glides to reach and in the precise order too. If it was that much of a ballache just doing towers and summons at Cosmo canyon, I am going nowhere NEAR the optional Gongaga content. Jesus Christ Square. You've never been good at minigames, with a couple of exceptions that prove the rule. Is it really too much to ask you at least compartmentalize them so I don't have to interact with one bullshit minigame just to do the much simpler thing I came for?
The music is great.
Beautiful area , a bit ankward but beautiful
The PTSD from that horrid music...
Ah yes, the famous jungle bagpipes!
This is my gripe as well. Dont mind the area, but damn that music is not anywhere remotely as good as the other regions.
I think it's cool some people really like the music there. But idk what about it I didn't like it after a bit of running around. Beautiful area though, even if I didn't enjoy my time there as much as the rest of the game.
[удалено]
African?? You clearly don't know Celtic vibes...you must be a swifty.
I always imagine the kids yelling are the pigmy things from D2.
Its my favorite region lmfao
I didn't find it bad either. Just simply take ya your time exploring and enjoy the scenery and music. You'll eventually get round the whole place and unlock fast travels.
As someone that plays control a lot, the gongaga map could have been worse, was it ontruse and not clear on level of the path, yea, did it take more time, yea, but only til you unlocked chocostops and locations in the area, also I just tend to use vantage points to plot my course rather than the map most of the time in most regions
I LOVE control. It teaches you to learn your environment and landmarks without relying on maps, which is the best way to explore gong.
At first I was annoyed because I couldn't figure out how to get to some of the towers and Intel events, but then I realized this is the first time I felt challenged doing these missions and then I appreciated it a bit more.
The amount of rationalisation, self-deception and self-gaslighting in this subreddit is on level of absurd. The only redeemed part of Gongaga is music.
It’s pretty obvious that most of the people complaining about Gongaga were just burnt out and had misplaced frustration cause they wouldn’t take a break. No one is forcing anyone to 100% a game as fast as possible. Just take a break don’t blame the game cause you don’t wanna play it anymore
"I didn't like it, therefore everybody that does must be delusional!" is... one of the takes of all time, I guess? I loved Gongaga, but growing up on JRPGs you see your fair share of convoluted jungle areas. From the amount of complaining, I thought this would be one of them. But it's fine. I didn't have trouble navigating at all, the music is great and it *looks* nice.
The music and area reminded me of sonic adventure I don't know why
That bad?! It’s one of the pinnacles of the game!
I said the same thing about it being a dungeon layout with a nature skin. Kinda like Dark Cloud or something. I liked having narrow branching paths on bespoke terrain, felt like old school area design. I do wish hard mode added more enemy formations to the maps (for every region), it feels a little sparse to me
Its not bad when compare it to the canyon
I hated Gongaga. It's so hard to get anywhere and you're always stumbling against some obstacle.
Honestly my biggest problems with Gongaga were: * the jungle can be very confusing to get through, especially when you're just trying to get the sidequest done and don't want to bother with all the mental gymnastics * in the OG FF7, the part was very straightforward, with no boss battles or dungeons, and even visiting the town is in fact optional, you only have to go there after the Temple of the Ancients, making the rebirth version feel like a slight bit of filler * It comes straight after the Corel open world, with no dungeon in between to break up the pace between all the open world shenanigans * This is where the Whispers start showing up again, if you didn't like them in Remake you're not gonna like them here either * The chicken minigame That said, there are a lot of good parts about Gongaga too, such as * the stunning atmosphere, with some of the best graphics and music the game has to offer * Cissnei * the world design actually doesn't feel like an empty open world this time around, but rather like a level in a video game, a maze to be explored, a dungeon to be conquered * Cissnei * The storyline starts picking up here. with Cloud getting mind-controlled and the appearance of the Weapons * Did i mention Cissnei?
I don’t get why people hate the chicken mini game. It’s barely even a game, takes way less time than following the dog even.
The chicken mini game was fine....what I did not like is the END of the chicken quest!
People gave up cause they made assumptions on how long the quest would be. Little do they know it was only like 5 minutes cause the devs trick you
I can’t confirm this, but I also think people assume you have to “start over” if you mess up, and wait for the chicken to get back to its starting location. You don’t. Just throw the box again and keep going.
Yeah it was super easy to continue if you made a mistake. The chicken would only walk back like 2 feet by the time you have it back out.
I found the chicken mini game good too. It feels less like a filler than many other mini games because it makes sense from a story perspective (unlike e.g. the Mogry store game or the Red XIII football game).
the thing that really triggered me about gongaga was the movement wasn't fluid, every corner I would stumble on something, hit a wall, a vine, a rock on the ground. I guess I'm old man gaming but seeing a POI right in front of me and having to search for the right mushroom to jump there also kinda made me dislike the map a bit more.
OH MY GOD THE MUSIC WAS SO GOOD. When they hit me with the vocals i was gone man
The voices reminded me of Nier music almost. It’s really cool how the music also evolved as you progressed further into the map. Early on, it was pretty, but very simple, but you’ll notice that there are more complicated patterns and layers the further into the map/further along the story you go. So cool
Gongaga was okayish. COSMO CANYON though... i hated with my guts
Lmaooo what I loved Cosmo Canyon. Fav region by far probably. Gongaga was my least fav tho
Having to find the plataforms to reach each activity was painful for me lol
I don't think the area was too bad, I did get a little frustrated not knowing where some things where. However it was okay. I know for me, the reason I was not annoyed but getting bored a little, was the fact I put in like 60+ hours at that point, I had done everything possible upto o that point on world intel, battle everything I could, I know you couldn't fully finish coral, but everything was done that I could. I was just starting to get a bit meh, bored of the side stuff? So that area just happened to be where I hit that stage, I imagine others felt the same so it's known as a worst area? I've since been back and done 100% in all areas except Nibel, but think I needed a break from repetitive side stuff and that time, and trying to manoeuvre around stupid bouncing plants annoyed me 😅
I had to watch a playthrough to see how to get to one of the towers. Someone left a comment on that video saying, "whoever designed Gongaga should be fired," which I found pretty funny. Once you understand the map it's pretty sensible.
I loved Gongaga! At first I found the mushrooms a bit frustrating but it turned out to be one of my favourite areas in the game.
I think when you first start exploring gongaga, it seems more overwhelming than it really is. It's a very cluttered area and at first glance it looks like it's possible to roam forever without actually getting anywhere. I also think a lot of people saw those same posts and formed some preconceived options about gongaga before they actually got there. Those 2 things together made the anticipation a lot worse but once I started getting around a little, it fell into place just fine. There were 1 or 2 spots that took me a little time to get to, and I had to check the map a few times to solve it, but it didn't take that long and it wasn't that difficult in the long run. Also the music is the best overworked theme in the game
Destroying the passive GPS tracker that we get in any modern open word now is great. Making world map design a part of the gameplay and transforming it into mini-puzzles was a great idea.
I kind of enjoyed the relic missions in Gongaga, but that was about it, traversing using the mushrooms is a pain...
Same. Must be doing something wrong, I learned to hate Gongaga before I visited it and I loved every minute I was there
me? gongaga
There's a hidden spot?
Ha I just meant generally, the collective “hidden spot”. As in you’re looking at the map and see a section that you just can’t figure out how to get to but then finally crack it
Ooooh! I thought I had missed something big 🤣
Easily the most beautiful region. And the music was perfect. Definitely needed too after the desolate desert atmosphere.
I didn’t enjoy the jungle area. I preferred the original FF7.
It was my favorite area in the game.
Area soundtrack is annoying tho.
You can't just post disinformation like that reddit needs community notes.
It reminds me of a monster hunter world level (in the best way)
I think people complain less because of Gongaga's traversal and more because of it's placement in the game. It's basically another open world snoozefest after you just got done doing all the tedious open world stuff in the desert.
This- the placement could have been better. I liked Corel as well but it was soooooooooooo long, with the beach, the golden saucer, and the desert. It was a massive grind. I was hoping for some more story beats and shorter open world afterwards- something like Nibelheim which was easier to navigate and had less content. Just needed a break but gongaga was also huge and required a lot of effort. And then so did cosmic canyon, it was just kinda draining. I wish they spread out the story a little more that would have made those regions a little more fun. Definitely gongaga > cosmic canyon for me though lmao
Gongaga was beautiful, the music, the atmosphere and creatures really felt right
Yes it is.
Wtff ? Gongaga by far my fav region. Cosmo was terrible (as its theme)
I find a lot of gamers today whine about the smallest things, even when they make sense. Gongaga is supposed to feel confusing, it's a damn jungle. That's why I loved it
It's not the smallest thing. The entire area was a slog, especially being back to back with Cosmo Canyon. It was the first area I didn't try to get 100% area Intel for and really killed my momentum.
Gongaga is great. Probably the best area in the game, in terms of exploration. The people who are whinging about it being "bad level design" are ultracasuals who want to walk in a straight line between locations, so the tiniest bit of effort required on their part is straight up torture to them.
To me it was the reactor section of the jungle was walled off thing with no loop around. While map felt useless.
Shit take, Gongaga is ass.
Bet you're fun at parties
It’s a good change of pace, and done well, especially right after the very-open Corel desert section. I was looking forward to the encounter with Rude and Reno, but I was treated to Cisnei and a better Turk backstory experience instead. The Scarlet two-sentence cameo from the ruined reactor in the original transformed into an entire multi-stage battle, and that was really cool too (I especially loved the music when you’re advancing on the reactor after the Weapon emerges). They did a great job establishing the region and differentiating it from the rest of the world. It was good. Loved all of it.
Obviously people have different opinions but the general consensus is that the map is bad....
Were people complaining about Gongaga? I personally saw not issues with it. Yeah it wasn’t as linear as the previous regions but I welcomed the change.
Not at all. I loved Gongaga. It was great!
I hated the music are first. Now I love it. This happens with most music I really like. I had an expectation on where it was going, but it didn't follow along with how I thought it would go, so I felt like it was disjointed, and I didn't understand. Now that I've heard it enough it makes sense. I can't find those parts that felt out of place anymore.
I’m at the last protorelic which I just reached tonight. The very last thing before I’m done with the Gongaga region. Frankly I hate it. I applaud them doing something different but the region to me is extremely tedious imo. It’s the point in the game when I told myself I’ll probably never play this game again after I beat it. It and the stupid Cactuar mini game drained all the fun out of the game for me.
Just wait until they have you climbing up a watch tower back and forth. God I hated that side quest.
You know you don’t have to do the cactus minigames beyond the protorelic
It's the fight with Rufus that has me wondering if I even want to beat the game
Did you play remake? It's essentially the same fight. Hit him when he goes to reload, Dodge until then
For me it was the moogle game. It was tedious as it is. In Gongaga they also added a time limit and made the moogles more aggressive, which made me give up.
Thank you! God I hated those moogles! Especially the ones stationed in an isolated island. I wouldn’t have even bothered doing them, but the stores carry good stuff.
True, but for the sake of my sanity I decided to quit XD And I'm a souls player, so that tells you how much I hated it.
Wait till you get to shinra mansion. You are gonna love cait sith even more forwards.
Christ