I played NT 1.4 through last year and after hearing 1.5 was out decided to run through it again recently.
Having beaten FFVII 30+ times and being a seasoned modder myself (albeit of a completely different video game franchise) I will try and give a list of feedback.
For reference, Ive just got to the bottom of the crater in 1.5, got a game over to Jenova and will try again soon, then I will of course move on to all the new content.
There are a TON of positives to this mod id like to point out:
- Very creative use of game mechanics in fights/bosses, I know the game inside and out but this mod was keeping me guessing the whole way through, never had so many game overs before this mod and I had to constantly rethink my strategy and approach to each boss, I couldnt just use the same setup and just upgrade weapons as I go ala vanilla VII
- Comet 2 hitting more times? Yes Please! Always bugged me about the original
- LOVE the script re-write, it does a much better job of explaining many events than the original, and even made me understand areas of the story I didnt before (Hojo using Nibelheim survivors for the Jenova Project being one). I elected to not skip any of the flashbacks/sequences just so I could see how the new script explains things.
A couple bits really made me laugh too, namely Yuffie at the first visit to battle square: Cloud - He's Dead... Yuffie - Bummer
- Loved the idea of X-ATM "chasing" you throughout the game, seeing him grow in strength as I grew was also fun, and his appearance as an Ally in the Temple was beautifully done
- The "Ally" battles in general were expertly done, although the allies appeared in multi target attacks attacking enemies, but I understand this is probably down to how they have to be coded in and couldnt be avoided
- The materia changes were extremely well done, Osmose saw a lot of use from me and elemental spells remained strong throughout the game whereas even level 2 spells drop off VERY quick in vanilla.
- Good balance between physical and magical attack power until the end game (I will discuss this later)
- Amazing selection of weapons that each had their niche, with some having very situational uses
- Mr Smile's Emporium was a great idea to handle stat growth, having each character being truly different and their stats sort of being representative of their story character was great, and their innates reinforced this
- Battle items were much more useful this time around, Morphing Aps into Dragon Scales to then one hit the Airhawk/Thunder Gunners was a sight to see. Also Chests now containing them was a nice addition, the only battle item in a chest in vanilla VII iirc was the Swift Bolt in Wutai.
- Mandatory Yuffie recruitment was handled well and the scene made perfect sense
- Great script/storyline workarounds for Aeris' survival
- Loved how Cait Sith's personality was sort of changed after it was revealed he was a spy, his dialogue was on point throughout all of Disc 2 and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
- Limit Breaks werent overly powerful, but retained their usefulness, I am yet to obtain any Lv4's so ill see how they go.
- Summons were done perfectly, had their use, 100% status affliction was great but not OP due to the MP cost/once per battle.
Now onto some things I noticed:
- Around level 87 my characters stopped gaining anything from level ups, stats were ofc gained through Mr Smile and HP/MP seemed to stop increasing, im level 97 now and HP hasnt moved a bit since 87 afaik, Ive fully read the documentation so I understand the changes made to levelling/power creep but it seems these last few levels are completely redundant? is this the case or am I missing something?
- XP Gain seemed to be massive towards the end of the game, I went from level 60-80 odd without breaking a sweat, Seemed to level every battle post Gaea's Cliff, Not sure if this needs to be looked at or if its what you were going for.
- Physical/Magical power balance fell off completely late game, Anything post Gaea's Cliff my Physicals capped out at around 1200 damage on my strongest attackers, whilst my magic could consistently hit for 5000+, I ofc read the documentation you wanted magic to be more of a longer time spent and MP use = more power but physicals became pretty much useless in the crater. This was amplified by the massive AP gain and Planet being extremely easy to master, With Added Cut my spell would hit for 4000+ and the physical for around 500 in the front row, it just seems off. Midgar Raid onwards the most efficient strategy was just to load Planet=MP Turbo on each character, Magic Counter=Comet 2 on one and just spam spells and Turbo Ethers. Physicals were next to useless, Im unsure how the endgame content and new weapons will amend this but for the storyline enemies magic is extremely unbalanced late game, in my opinion. Through Disc 1/Early Disc 2 though balancing was spot on, a level 2 spell hitting for 500 odd and a physical for 250 odd seemed perfect through the Gold Saucer-Nibelheim segment.
- A lot of status effects had no visual indication they were present, Dual only had the HP drain, then the battles where characters were rendered immune to barriers/healing had no indication this had happened until I tried to Wall my party and see it didnt land on one, although I understand visual effects for these would be extremely hard/if not impossible to code. Same for the status menu screen, Dual wasnt present there likely due to it being a non-stock status effect.
- Few minor bugs I noticed too:
Life only heals 25% of HP when casted out of battle, unsure if intentional or not
If a character ends a battle with Dual, their HP will drain to 0 and they will "die" during the victory animations, and be "dead" in the results screen but still gain XP, and after battle they will be alive with the HP they had when the finishing hit was dealt, this is a purely visual bug but thought id raise it.
Not sure if you're addressing typos in the script, but I noticed 2, When Scarlet is discussing the Sister Ray with Rufus, and he asks will it reach the northern border, she responds "off course!" Which should be "of course!". And when Aeris meets Zack's Parents in Gongaga on Disc 1, Zack is referred to as a "Lady's man", Should be "Ladies man"
Overall this mod was absolutely fantastic, kept me on my feet the whole way through always wondering what was going to come next, gave completely new life to FFVII and a whole new experience of it for me, Gonna run through the final bosses tomorrow and have a crack at all the new endgame content, which I thoroughly look forward to! Amazing job on NT1.5
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