Author Topic: [FF7PC/PSX] Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (Midgar Demo)  (Read 103624 times)

Bosola

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Latest news: Disc One demo released. See here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/final-fantasy-7-rebirth/downloads/rebirth-v1-disc-one


I've released a Midgar demo! Find out more here and download the latest version at http://www.mediafire.com/?rpja1qrb7iy7soo


For the last four months, I've been working on a comprehensive rebalance of Final Fantasy Seven.

From the ModDB page:

Final Fantasy 7. The perfect game?

Proving popular with countless generations of gamers, despite its age, inspiring fanart, fiction, a series of spinoff games and even a full-budget movie, it's tempting to fit Final Fantasy VII with the title 'Greatest. Game. Ever'.

And I'll agree, it's an awesome game - but, as much as I love FF7, as much I enjoy playing through it over, and over, there's always been a nagging suspicion: could it be... better?


Let's be honest. The battles can get a little too samey, there's little incentive to experiment with materia, and the game can all to easily be bested by simply attacking and spamming Cure-All. We've all heard horror stories about players who have managed to push themselves to the Northern Crater without even grasping the basics of the materia system.

This mod - this rebalance - seeks to address these issues, altering enemy statistics and AI, nerfing overpowered skills whilst promoting others that have been neglected, introducing new tactics, creating cunning and entertaining creatures, and overall making battles far more exciting and engaging.

So, what exactly will the rebirth mod feature? Work is still in progress, and I intent to keep certain features secret until release, so as not to spoil matters, but the mod has the following broad aim in mind: to promote a more strategic mode of gameplay. You won't be able to mash attack to get through REBIRTH. You'll have to keep your wits as sharp as your sword, and think carefully about every choice you make through the entire game.

I think you'll love it.

-------------------

I am currently working towards a demo version without many AI changes, that relates to disc one, for the purposes of garnering feedback on balance, difficulty levels and the proficiency of the enemy class system.

What will REBIRTH have?

* A new elemental system. Enemies can now be intuitively divided into classes, each with their own elemental affinities. It should be intuitive when a creature is weak to a certain spell. Who looks at a Wolfmeister and guesses it will be weak to water?
* A new status system. Enemies can now have their status vulnerabilities guessed from their appearance and bearing. Status spells now no longer take note of accuracy, and enemies now *all* have some status vulnerabilities, but *none* are subject to gamebreaking combinations. You should be able to see an enemy, use your brain, and change tactics to confound an enemy - in vanilla FF7, it's a matter of randomly trying out spells, hoping they'll hit, and occasionally finding a gamebreaking combo (like an enemy weak to both mini and berserk). This makes for dull trial and error followed by dull single-spell spamming.
* Enemy skills rebalanced: some are altered completely. Consider Lullaby, that acts like FF9's Night. Or Purge Flame, that heals statuses at the cost of fire damage.
* Holy, Air and Wind spells are now available to the player, and these elements now play a real part.
* Enemy stats boosted; steal rates tweaked to make stealing genuinely useful.
* Weapons completely changed. Vincent now has a range of pistols - including an MP sapping Silver Rifle and the Sleep inducing Tranq Rifle. Cloud now has a Blood Sword; Cid now has a range of elemental spears; and Barret has a collection of multi-targeting machineguns.
* Stat curves completely altered to differentiate characters. Materia stat changes are now non-trivial, and can make a radical difference to how characters play.
* Vincent no longer makes spacktastic Limit Break choices, like using Beast Flare on the Materia Keeper
* Sephiroth controllable
* Completely rejigged accessories. Status protection carefully portioned out to promote a more tactical style of play. Will you use Headbands with Lullaby to put enemies to bed? Will you try the Zombie Ring for massive power at the cost of being able to heal? Use Star Pendants to make Bad Breath a multi-hitting, MP cheap Esuna? With enemy stats boosted, and overpowered spells preened, there's now a real incentive to experiment with these strategies.
* A new Defence Break mechanic that works with a spell named 'Shatter'. Like Meltdown, Shatter reduces enemy defences, *but* multiple castings *don't* stack (it doesn't work like an inverted Dragon Force).

MODDB PAGE HERE: http://www.moddb.com/mods/final-fantasy-7-rebirth

SCREENSHOTS:






VIDEOS:

Spells and Blue Magic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrIv8ANmJQk

Older, experimental video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5UU6lupK3g
« Last Edit: 2014-07-17 21:50:06 by Covarr »

Covarr

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #1 on: 2010-03-29 16:46:23 »
This is the first rebalance I've seen that I'm genuinely interested in. I've grown tired of the number of mods that simply make the game harder, and little else, whereas this one seems more focused on balance than sheer difficulty. Also, I'm really curious about the new weapons.

Are you going to modify any of the text in the game, other than weapon and spell names, and the like?

Bosola

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #2 on: 2010-03-29 17:03:06 »
Text changes will be limited to:
- Talking about new mechanics in beginners / intermediate's halls
- Changing field descriptions of obtained items

Maybe later I *could* have NPCs talk about local enemies. Maybe.

Perhaps.

I'm glad you're interested. I suppose my intention was less to make a 'hard mode' of the game than to try and make it more enjoyable. I do like VII, but I think there are issues with its mechanics and the ways that spells and statuses actually end up being used. I don't want to make a game hard for the sake of hardness, but to make it a bit more engaging, especially to players who have already gone through the original several times.
« Last Edit: 2010-03-29 17:05:43 by Bosola »

Covarr

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #3 on: 2010-03-30 02:38:45 »
Text changes will be limited to:
- Talking about new mechanics in beginners / intermediate's halls
- Changing field descriptions of obtained items
- Fixing the battle dialog against the Guard Scorpion

Maybe later I *could* have NPCs talk about local enemies. Maybe.

Perhaps.

I'm glad you're interested. I suppose my intention was less to make a 'hard mode' of the game than to try and make it more enjoyable. I do like VII, but I think there are issues with its mechanics and the ways that spells and statuses actually end up being used. I don't want to make a game hard for the sake of hardness, but to make it a bit more engaging, especially to players who have already gone through the original several times.
Fixed, because I'm obsessed with that one detail. I think I've brought it up in more threads than anybody else ever.

Auraplatonic

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #4 on: 2010-03-30 02:56:10 »
I like the stuff you have going on with this mod Bosola.  I had actually seen this article on ModDB before but I don't remember how I came across it, lol. 


What is your opinion on Shield materia?  I found it pretty useless in my playing experience mostly because you got it so late in the game.  I was thinking in my mod of changing Shield to giving you the peerless effect.  At first that might seem a little too powerful but I guess it would require some testing.  Also it would make it more useful overall.  Its a matter of trying to balance it out I guess.

drfeelgud88

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #5 on: 2010-03-30 04:18:14 »
I remember reading this a while back and I was so interested. This looks like it could make the game A LOT more fun than what it already is!  ;D

Timber

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #6 on: 2010-03-30 05:56:33 »
Wow sounds great, I thought this was just for PSX.

Cupcake

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #7 on: 2010-03-30 07:37:41 »
I am quite interested.  Usually I hate mods like this

Bosola

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #8 on: 2010-03-30 23:00:09 »
Quote
Fixed, because I'm obsessed with that one detail. I think I've brought it up in more threads than anybody else ever.

That was actually one the first things I did to experiment with AI editing!

Quote
What is your opinion on Shield materia?  I found it pretty useless in my playing experience mostly because you got it so late in the game.  I was thinking in my mod of changing Shield to giving you the peerless effect.  At first that might seem a little too powerful but I guess it would require some testing.  Also it would make it more useful overall.  Its a matter of trying to balance it out I guess.

I reluctantly ditched the spell, because I hadn't enough slots for the new elemental magic (Water-3, Aero-3, Pearl-2), although if I had an opportunity, I'd consider reinstating it somehow.

In the end, I think I cut out:

- Resist (ported to E.Skill as Azoth)
- Exit (ported to Chocobuckle)
- Remove
- Life2 (OP, wanted greater penalty for KO, cannibalized animation for Pearl2)
- Shield
- Frog
- Death (became Darkside)
- Poisona (became Stona)
- Fullcure (by the time you obtained it, it was pointless)
- Tornado (animation turned to Aero2)

I have instituted peerless by offering a VERY limited-drop 'Holy War' item, which is dropped by a couple of bosses. This seemed the best way of keeping it in the game without unbalancing matters. The idea of shield for invincible could be a good idea, but I'd also be worried: MP<>HP swap + Shield + MegaAll could really cause a lot of problems. Remember that peerless will block status change, so you really are untouchable.

Quote
Wow sounds great, I thought this was just for PSX.

I will port to PC and PAL. Both will be fairly trivial, not least the PC.

zonic321

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #9 on: 2010-08-22 18:12:32 »
hey, i was wondering if this mod is still in the making or has it been dropped?

Armorvil

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #10 on: 2010-08-22 19:34:37 »
I think Bosola is doing the same as me : talk less, work more. So yeah, I'm sure Rebirth is still in the works.

zonic321

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #11 on: 2010-08-22 22:18:02 »
oh kk

Bosola

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #12 on: 2010-08-23 00:59:34 »
Because I'm seeking work right now, I haven't done that much recently, but it's certainly not dead!

Timber

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #13 on: 2010-08-23 14:28:03 »
Nice to know! :D

Do you still plan to release a beta-version demo?
You seemed close to releasing at one stage, but I assume it is delayed to add awesome new features :)

Bosola

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #14 on: 2010-12-18 16:32:46 »
I will be releasing an alpha demo for the Midgar chapter before the end of the year.

This will showcase:
  • Entirely new AI and encounters for the Midgar chapter
  • New materia, spells, limits and enemy skills
  • Updated shops
  • Updated disc one enemies (vanilla opponents with boosted stats and the new enemy skills

I'm planning to release this as a PPF patch. You can either:

1. Use an emulator with PPF support (pSX), or
2. Use PPF-o-matic to prepare an NTSC ISO and emulate, or
3. Burn a PPF-patched ISO and play on original Playstation hardware.

I may also consider releasing for UK-PAL.
« Last Edit: 2010-12-18 20:11:23 by Bosola »

Timber

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #15 on: 2010-12-19 09:10:22 »
Does this mean the alpha demo is only for PSX? :(

Bosola

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #16 on: 2010-12-19 14:30:46 »
A PC port is doable, but unfortunately, it probably wouldn't fit into my timescale. Maybe a January schedule.

Besides, there are other ways for PC players to enjoy PSX games, without Sony hardware. I will say no more...

xLostWingx

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #17 on: 2010-12-20 01:49:44 »
Hey Bosola.  Saw your post on the other thread.  You should talk to ff7rules if you wanted to combine projects or just needed some help.  He knows about AI and whatnot; I just play with the Kernel and Scenes I really don't have the technical background or the time/desire to learn the finer workings of the game.  I wouldn't be opposed to testing and providing input for your mod though.  Learning about your comprehensive rebalance is what prompted me to revisit Qhimm and make my mod (although mine is littered with bugs, errors, and isnt quite as 'comprehensive' as your mod looks to be).

Mako

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #18 on: 2010-12-20 15:21:17 »
This sounds like a great project Bosola my inner fan looks forward to it! I will have to give this one a go.

Giullio

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #19 on: 2010-12-20 16:12:12 »
Great mod you're planning man I'll definitely use it, but i have some doubts...

-What did you mean by Sephiroth playable? He will be in the party? i didn't quite understand that xD
- The new spells do you actually add them or just replace with old ones?
- The weapons changes, i didn't quite undersand it either :S

I'm very excited with this mod, looking forward to it :D

Bosola

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #20 on: 2010-12-20 17:06:47 »
Hey Bosola.  Saw your post on the other thread.  You should talk to ff7rules if you wanted to combine projects or just needed some help.

Yes. There was some talk about getting together and merging some content in FF7: Ultimate Edition and Rebirth.

We might be able to do some work on Welder together. I see that as the most obvious way to go forward.

Quote
I wouldn't be opposed to testing and providing input for your mod though.  Learning about your comprehensive rebalance is what prompted me to revisit Qhimm and make my mod (although mine is littered with bugs, errors, and isnt quite as 'comprehensive' as your mod looks to be).

Great stuff! Testing is exactly what this demo is about - it's difficult for me, knowing the ins and outs of the new mechanics and element systems, to understand how the new player will feel. Am I pushing too much, too soon? Am I being patronizing? I just can't know until I've player feedback.

Great mod you're planning man I'll definitely use it, but i have some doubts...

-What did you mean by Sephiroth playable? He will be in the party? i didn't quite understand that xD

In the Kalm flashback, you will be able to control Sephiroth. It's just one of those things people keep on requesting.

Quote
- The new spells do you actually add them or just replace with old ones?

There are a limited number of spells that can be offered in the interface, so I've had to cut and merge some existing spells, yes. I can provide a changelog, but it might be a bit spoilerific...

Quote
- The weapons changes, i didn't quite undersand it either

In short: a few more 'interesting' weapons with remarkable mechanics; a tendency to offer 'sidegrades' rather than straight upgrades; more elemental, status inflicting, healing and MP damaging weaponry.

ff7rules

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #21 on: 2010-12-20 17:42:57 »
Yeah, at one point we were gonna merge out projects into one huge one. However i have an idea and I don't know what you guys will think of it but what about merging all 3? Theres good ideas in all 3 and I think if we were to merge them all together into one massive project it would become "The" mod to play for all FFVII fans even those who have played it to death. Thats all I want from the final product for it to be the ultimate mod of an already fantasic game, sure its outdated with the graphics (and theres nothing we can do about that on the PSX version) But if we can throw in so many surprises and extras it would definetly be worth playing again. Welder is a fantastic idea and i will admit i have used it alot in my project. I will be sure to try your demo out asap. Also the sephiroth been controlable thing is prob the easiest thing to do..."ever"

Bosola

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #22 on: 2010-12-20 19:18:20 »
I'd really like to push Welder. I know there are a few bugs in it - I haven't had an awful lot of chance to debug the scripts it produces. But I really do think it's a great way to make some quite complex AI routines easily. Want a monster that compounds sleep with deathblow? Simple. Need a creature to cast Fire2 on its Fire-absorbing pals, target weakened party members and kamikaze in critical? Done.

Remember, I can always write more plugins - all I need is the request.

Giullio

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Re: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (PSX and PC)
« Reply #23 on: 2010-12-20 19:18:46 »
Ah I see... I didn't remember the Kalm part, controling him... COOL!
Well, some materias are really useless... like underwater AFTER you beat emerald weapon, you don't use it for anything else I guess...
And the weapons mechanics... I guess the whole thing is to make you use more strategy in battles, that's great I'm pretty sure I'll use it once It's ready ;D

Ah one more question you're going to mod the summons elements and status inflicting too?
EDIT: After seeing the summon materia list, I've concluded that there are no need to modify those, they already have, each materia, the respective elemental or status inflict damage.
« Last Edit: 2010-12-20 19:58:14 by Giullio »

Jenova's Witness

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« Reply #24 on: 2010-12-21 18:41:51 »
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« Last Edit: 2015-11-16 11:31:35 by Jenova's Witness »