PRE-EDIT: Wow this turned out to be a wall of text, that was not my intention xP. Sorry in advance, I don't wanna ruin the experience for anyone...
Take all this with a grain of salt. Haven't tried the demo myself.
Saw a few playthroughs on YT out of curiosity. Not gonna lie, I cringed a lot. Not only from the game; the fanboy levels are through the roof.
FF7R: Hack and slash - style over substance edition.
No, seriously, it LOOKS like a hack and slash game with some tweaks (probably feels different if you play yourself, I dunno...). Nothing wrong with hack and slash games, but isn't this supposed to feign realism?
Yes, I know that you have to have some suspension of disbelief in a fantasy setting, and that the action can't be 1-to-1 realistic in certain styles of games to make it fun/interesting or whatever, but the slicing and dicing here is WAY over the top for a realistic setting. IF you are supposed to get this realism impression from the overall design I have no idea what they were thinking. To me it just looks dumb, and I would rather prefer it be 110% balls-to-the-walls DBZ. You know, if the game didn't take itself too seriously. If you're trying to look cool like this why not go all out?
(lol who are we kidding, we know why, sales, mainstream, all that. The term "realism" here is a term used to make it seem more appealing to the mainstream.)
Also, you need Barret to shot things up on ledges, but why, Cloud can jump like a ¤/¤%#&8.
Classic mode is NOT the same as original FF7. Not that anyone expected that, but the devs pointed out that this mode was for those who would prefer the original gameplay. It's basically a super easy mod as far as I can tell.
The banter from Biggs, Wedge and Jessie was well made if you ignore the setting. Jessie seems like a total player. But the attitude and tone they create is off from what their mission is.
They are blowing up a reactor, killing people, doing eco-terrorism, but they act like sunday morning cartoon characters about it.
I mean, the comments they give to Cloud when they leave the guards to him, the nonchalant attitude, the carefree banter, etc.
Example: First they are hiding from the guards, and when the guards notice Cloud they sneak behind the guards to move on. Only... They don't sneak. Before leaving they make sure to chant: "You got this Cloud!". It's so $%&£ dang stupid, and disregards almost the entire situation. Why even hide in the 1st place?
I dunno, maybe they smoked some greens before they started the mission. That could explain their behavior. They do resemble hippies at some level. I mean, their behavior CAN be explained, but I can hardly imagine there will be some super awesome logical explanation.
Barret acts like a brat sometimes, which seems out of character to me (or perhaps that's what they aim for?). For example when they enter the reactor, he goes on a tantrum because Cloud doesn't answer him right away. I know he doesn't trust Cloud, but, geez, his patience is in negative space at that scene.
Also, the battle banter really made me cringe for the most part. This has plagued soooo many games, please make it stop!
Cringe reactions from the top of my head:
"Omg, there is a map!!??!!?"
"Omg, you interact with stuff??!!?!?!"
"Omg, there can be stuff in the way that prevent bullets from hitting me??!?11?!1!?"
After killing 3 enemies: "Omg this is the best battle system ever!!!!11!!1"
(yes, there are people who mash square on the controller, kills the 1st couple of enemies, and all of a sudden it's the best battle-system ever.)
"This is a deeper look at a story we thought we knew, with new scenes."
...lol
Things that have been normal in games for over 40 years is now super impressive for some reason *cough*fanboying*cough*.