Brandon Deveraux

I should like this game but I don't. I don't even really know why. I've liked nearly every Total War game I've played, Shogun 2, Empire, Rome 2, Attila, Warhammer 1+2. It looks really good, and the design for everything is great. Plus ancient Greece is one of my favorite time periods. I've tried really hard to get into Troy, but I always get bored and stop playing it. Maybe it's just hard to go from Warhammer back to a historical title. Maybe it's because breaking the economy up into a more realistic system with wood, stone and food per turn doesn't generate the same kind of dopamine in my monkey brain as gold per turn. (Even though I don't disagree with the decision to make it the way it is.) Maybe it's because the game followed warhammer in removing unit abilities like Shield Wall that existed in previous historical titles and added a fun strategy element to infantry battles, but doesn't have all the other stuff warhammer has to make the battles fun. Maybe it's because I feel like I spend 99% of the game waiting for end turn timers and canceling a constant stream of diplomacy requests from every AI faction in the game instead of having fun. Maybe it's because all my units get stuck on the wall instead of going through the gatehouse right next to them, or get stuck on buildings instead of fighting the enemies right next to them, or just randomly sprint in the other direction from where I tell them to go. (even with skirmish mode disabled) Maybe it's because hero vs hero combat takes the entire battle, and even then the enemy hero usually runs off before dying. My feeling after a battle is never "that was fun", it's always "well that was annoying". It's probably a mixture of all these things and more that lead me to not enjoy what otherwise should be a fun game.

(Spoiler free) As a longtime fan of the original (easily my favorite game ever) I thoroughly enjoyed FF7 Remake part 1. I would say it's on course to exceed the original, which is an achievement I don't think anyone expected. I was skeptical when I first learned there were relatively large changes from the original and feared they might screw it up by adding unnecessary convolution to the story which was already solid and plenty deep, but after playing it through I don't feel like any of the changes lessened my experience. Some story changes were good, some were neither good nor bad, some feel like they were made to make the end of the part 1 of the remake feel fulfilling instead of walking out of Midgar and seeing "To be continued" and probably wouldn't exist at all if it wasn't broken up into parts. I can understand the need for these kinds of changes. However, I can see where someone who never played the original + Crisis Core might be completely overwhelmed trying to make sense of the already complex original plot with the new even more convoluted story changes shoehorned in along side it. It also seems obvious to me that the developers have laid the foundation for them to be able to deviate from the original story more in future releases. Possibly deviate a lot more. I know a lot of people aren't going to be happy about that. I'm in a weird position where on the one hand I wish they wouldn't have made the main change from the original, but on the other hand I'm more interested in playing part 2 because I don't already know what is going to happen. What I wish they would have done differently? I realize this would add work to something that already took ages... but if they just HAD to make changes to the plot they could have come closer to pleasing everyone by doing the following: 1: Make the first play-through as close to the original as possible. 2: Have a new-game-plus option with the new changes in the story, leading to a happier ending. (Which could mostly have been done by having alternate versions of a handful cut-scenes.) In a perfect world that would have been ideal, but in the end I'm just glad it turned out as good as it did. In fact there were several times I found myself saying "Damn this game is good." out loud in a room by myself. Granted it's not amazing the whole time, but when it's good it's REALLY good. I got part 1 on the day it came out and I will likely do the same with part 2.