Pauline Ragny

so square enix released the "another chance of a remake" this morning: ever crisis!! it's the 'E' in the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7! you know, [A]dvent children, [B]efore crisis, [C]risis core, [D]irge of cerberus....... now we have [E]ver crisis.

except it's releasing in 2023. except it's after square enix has gotten a taste of whatever their evil mobage marketers have been testing out in all their various gacha hell experiences over the years.

we open on our tutorial: cloud approaches sephiroth in a mako reactor.... ONE WINGED ANGEL begins to play. we have now hooked all the gamers who are like YEAH I DO WANNA FIGHT SEPHIROTH. too bad losers, it's tutorial time. tap the lightning button when your ATB has filled up 3 segments. wait now cloud is zack (this is the tutorial of a 'remake') and you need to heal up. good job, basics learned.

now it's the actual intro of FF7. you know, the exact same one from FF7 Remake, the good one of these.

anyway i won't narrate the entire experience, but needless to say: the first 'mission' of the game is like.... the bombing run intro of FF7, but its cliff notes. the classic music is remade! it sounds great, good arrangements! the chibi 3D style of the original PS1 game looks great! this could've been a really cute actual remake of FF7!

things begin to become unsettling once you start opening chests and all you get is 'blue crystals'. where's the loot? why am i stockpiling--

after the tutorial mission, you are bounced to the hub menu, which is a series of "tales" from the ff7 expanded universe, each of which is split into "missions". you just beat the first one, good job. now please download 2 more gigabytes of data while we begin to scare you with loading screen tutorial messages about leveling up your weapons....

and then the most terrifying progression of screens to any mobile game player begin playing out in rapid succession. we have unlocked the 'full game'. here it is everyone.

RELEASE CELEBRATION LOGIN BONUS

JUMPSTART LOGIN BONUS

GUARANTEED 5 STAR WEAPON DRAWS

SEASON PASS

GUARANTEED CLOUD EXCLUSIVE 5 STAR WEAPON DRAW TICKET (??)

if you survived that onslaught, yes you read right:

a chance at a loving remake of the classic FF7 & other compilation of FF7 entries was squandered for this shit: turning all in-game loot into gacha tokens so you can gamble on weapons & upgrade them by pouring them into the giant molten cauldron that is capitalist profit & infinite growth potential

not only do they do this, the 'gacha pull' mechanic is literally a pantomime boss battle where a character clashes with a big enemy, wins, and loot comes out. you are PAYING TO LOOT ENEMIES. want to beat a hard boss? no, you can't level up like a normal rpg, you just need to funnel more currency into the slot machine.

anyway. good job square enix, i guess.

#Final fantasy vii #ever crisis #ff7 ever crisis #Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis #final fantasy vii ever crisis #gacha hell #jesus fucking christ

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in reply to @kuraine's post:

@davin9/7/2023, 5:26 PM

SIRI BOMB DIAGRAM NOW

Kate @antumbral9/7/2023, 5:27 PM

"pay to claim the loot from enemies" would have been parody 5-10 years ago and now it's just how it works. dire

as a gacha game veteran i also find "we only sell signature weapons for characters instead of characters" gives me intensely bad vibes because it usually means the game tuning is going to be aggressively exploitative

kuraine @kuraine9/7/2023, 5:35 PM

yeah any time there's weapon rolls that's when i know i'm 100% out. i can never play granblue because of how weird and awful the 'weapon grid' is. arknights is still the only gacha i can stand because each character is so expressive & unique & strategically interesting, and that's all there is, just characters

Kate @antumbral9/7/2023, 5:42 PM

granblue is a fantastic example of how bad this can be since very often the weapons you need to pull to unlock stuff are objectively bad weapons you'll never use, and the "rate up" is like 0.5%

meanwhile the only game w/weapon pulls I like has rate-ups that are Literally 100% and they're doing fine. devs don't have to do this shit to make money

slimeybear @slimerybear6669/7/2023, 8:04 PM

Not really a gacha game although waa free to play online game before being shut down and made into a single player game but Dandy dungeon 1 and 2 are weird as fuck cool puzzle games with grindy elements and a huge love for Dragon Quest.

slimeybear @slimerybear6669/7/2023, 8:05 PM

https://youtu.be/JrYOa6iM26M?si=gUr0mwDAcXLvlLpO

Laurent DS @LaurentDS9/7/2023, 5:33 PM

i won't say i'm surprised, but when i saw those blue crystals in chests i was like "uh huh we're not doing a gacha light game here square lmao"

like they said that the gacha would mainly be for costumes and stuff, but that's a lie.
i just hope they get to at least make some fun story in that hell thing. if it becomes impossible to play in f2p i'll drop it soon though.

Brisken @Brisken9/7/2023, 5:44 PM

And you just know it's gonna make gangbusters, because if I learned anything about gaccha, it's that people will still love and defend them "because they're fun".

slimeybear @slimerybear6669/7/2023, 8:07 PM

But isn't the whole point of them to pay the game to play itself so pay the game to have fun for you.

Tom @iiotenki9/7/2023, 5:57 PM

The only good thing I will say about these kinds of projects is that the constant deluge of update messages and system announcements makes for some of the easiest money you'll ever come across in freelance localization. You figure out your base template once, you let your translation program tell you what's actually different in any subsequent messages, plug the English in, and be on your way. None of the actual fulfillment that keeps me coming back to this work eight years in, but it's definitely a way to make some spare change a couple of times a month, ahaha.

In any case, yeah, with gameplay """""balance""""" like that, I'll be extremely surprised if this somehow doesn't fizzle out within a year and a half tops. It is amazing how these sorts of publishers even still attempt to bother with these sorts of efforts today when the vast majority just don't have the IP base to adapt to that sort of framework, strong retail sales or not. Yet by god, they'll still burn the money time and time again because of low initial R&D, even if you think after a while somebody would realize maybe one game that costs of five of these projects, but has a chance to make some sort of return is better than all five of those projects crashing and burning, but hey. 🤷

slimeybear @slimerybear6669/7/2023, 8:08 PM

They just made a mobile free to play battle royale FF7 game that didn't even last a year before shutting down lol.

Boy If You Dont Get @Dauragon9/7/2023, 6:13 PM

It's been fascinating to see games from studios/publishers who have been making these for a super long time ditch the kitchen sink approach for much more streamlined gachas that arent just total pump and dump schemes, just to have other ones show up and basically make real versions of what people who dont play gacha think they are lol.

My last few gachas were blue archive and d4dj and the systems for those games are not nearly as insane up front. This one def seems like they just want to get a giant burst of money real fast and then it's gonna be gone in less than a year.

kuraine @kuraine9/7/2023, 6:16 PM

yeah totally lol, there are games that can actually do gacha responsibly! and then there's square enix

Kyle Labriola @kylelabriola9/7/2023, 6:45 PM

This is so sad because "FF7 spinoff with gacha elements" wasn't necessarily a dealbreaker for me....................but if it's executed poorly, I can't touch that tbh

kuraine @kuraine9/7/2023, 6:46 PM

yeah! i preloaded it with some degree of hope........ alas

A Jeb With No Name @namelessWrench9/7/2023, 7:45 PM

So they killed off Record Keeper to make an even more predatory version with less content

Echo Cian @EchoCian9/8/2023, 5:01 PM

Record Keeper was the least predatory gacha I've seen and it was legit really fun to play, it gave out free currency like candy and added ways to get decent enough soul breaks to clear most of the stuff except for the super hard things that were meant to be a real challenge. (And even then it was possible; WanderingNewbie used to stream the game and his whole Thing was demonstrating that you didn't need The Best Stuff to clear 95% of the content, though he did also occasionally do "let's nuke this in 10 seconds" demos for fun. Also doable without spending money, since the free currency was really easy to get.)

Which is probably why they shuttered it: it wasn't making enough money because it was too respectful of its players.

Autumn @LunaNosCustodit9/7/2023, 9:04 PM

I've recently come to terms with the fact that I just don't think I like final fantasy beyond XIII and square enix as a whole anymore... This is definitely a large part of why. The whiplash of those gacha ass "here's 7 screens of login rewards to keep you coming back please give us money" lmao.

Hard pass, square lol. Recently cut the majority of "GaaS"/gacha titles out of my life and it's been nice.

Cozmic Caztaway @cozmicaztaway9/8/2023, 4:35 AM

The games where "gameplay" consists of claiming log-in bonuses... I just can't anymore.

firemtn @firemtn9/8/2023, 5:08 AM

there is a small sliver of hope i cling on to that this thing will at least be able to have its script mined and ported the original psx ff7 so you could actually play it with a better translation... but like, i dont know how much is there now and how much it'll Get To before it inevitably shut downs, you know. otherwise... hell industry.

✨ Rudje ✨ (e is not silent)@ClyncyeRudje9/8/2023, 7:45 PM

I wish I could be shocked, but I used to play Opera Omnia aka a game with cool ideas totally ruined by being shackled to a gacha and it's only gotten worse since I quit. :/ Squeenix gacha are just... so fucking evil about it.

It's sad that the "best" out of an innately extremely predatory genre is a game I can no longer recommend because the ProjMoon CEO has a spine made of wet tissue, and Limbus Company still has a pretty notable grind problem if you don't pay for the season pass.