I think I must be coming up on the end of this now, if only because I just got the "once you start the next mission, there's no going back" message. So I'm going to wander as far and as wide as the thing will let me before I move on.
It's kind of funny; because of the way the areas are all connected, I kept waiting for it to just sort of them me loose and let me wander around a bit, but it's very linear the whole way through (until now).
One question for those who know the original better than me:
Spoiler - click to showDid Cait Sith always appear during the destruction of Sector 7? I can imagine that being incredibly jarring for anyone who has no idea what's coming up in this series - it's the middle of a dramatic, terrible moment of chaos and destruction, and suddenly a cartoon cat in a crown and cape shows up for one shot, then is never seen or mentioned again. 
That character enters the story during the Golden Saucer. I highly recommend people who are or enjoyed Remake to play the PS1 version at some point honestly, for a number of reasons.
I'm second-guessing what my progress might be. I read someone say they took 45 hours to finish it, and I'm only on 26 yet. There are a lot of side quests I still have to do, but I wouldn't have thought it would be anything like 20 hours' worth.
Another question: how do I increase Stagger amount? It seems to be fixed at 160%, but I have a quest for the materia boy to get it to 200%, and there's a trophy for 300%.
Tifa is your stagger queen, her various Triangle skills increase it. I think there are others but hers are the best afaik.
Okay, I'll give that a go, then - thanks!
Tifa is sooooo fun to use even if she takes damage like wet tissue paper. One of her main skills is 'unbridled strength' which updates her moves and triangle finisher which I probably should have said earlier. If Cloud is good at initiating stagger she's good at increasing it, yet to find an enemy that will stagger long enough to 300% though.
Speaking of Tifa, you're in CH14, enjoy pull-ups. 
Aaaaaand I beat the original FF7 last night, game is a LOT shorter than I thought, considering I bought and started it not too long after beating Remake.
I have to say that Midgar is almost better than everything that comes after that section and I wanna' say most people's fond memories are mostly of that. Not that everything after is bad or anything, but Midgar is such a tightly designed experience compared to the semi-open search for the 'man in the black cloak' in the overworld after that. That said the moment where the planet sends the robot death squad after mankind because they were fucking the place up is by far my favourite part of the game.
And while it never goes FF8 levels of bad plotting, there are some things that are kinda ehhh, like how the Desert Prison meeting with Dyne is contrived as fuck, or how Cait Sith at times makes no fucking sense.
Combat is obviously nowhere near as fun, neither are bosses and the game as a whole is a complete cakewalk. Materia system is great though, and you can make your own setups, something the Remake thankfully brought over faithfully.
I honestly don't know what they're gonna' do for Part 2 now, now I'm sure what parts lay ahead.
Final Fantasy 6 is still better, possibly the best non MMO one besides 10 don't @ me.
I've recognised a few things that have showed up in this so far, but the goddamnSpoiler - click to showTonberryprompted an actual, out-loud, "oh, fuck…" when it showed up.
They're extremely cute! (and deadly as ever :^)).
We have very different criteria for cuteness.
I've wanted to stroke that waxy bald head for years.
Chapter 17 done. I keep running into a thing where a fight will absolutely kick my ass the first time round, then I'll reload and annihilate it.
The most recent example was Spoiler - click to showRufus,who I couldn't make a dent in last night, but I booted the game up this morning and battered him in about two minutes.
Chapter 17 as a whole - and the Drum in particular - felt very padded, and there were a lot of changes that even I remember weren't in the original, though I'm not sure yet how I feel about them; I can't guess how much sense some of this stuff would make to someone with no knowledge of the original game.
Yeah, at that point I just wanted the story to move on and then bam, you get slapped with Hojo's (extremely annoying) experiments. This is also kinda' the point where the changes started to bother me honestly, maybe I am just a purist since no one else seems to care as much.
Holy heck that ending has some… implications, huh?
I mean, I probably could have done with a smidge less ITT anime sword bullshit on the cutscenes, but…
Spoiler - click to show…they seem to suggest that anything could change, but surely they're not going to mess with the major beats, right? But there even seems to be a suggestion that Aerith might not die, which I can only imagine would be close to fucking sacrilegious to some folks.
Spoiler - click to showI can't quite get the Zack timeline straight in my head, though; all guy his stuff was flashbacks, right? But then how was he there when the whispers exploded into light, which seemed to be the present? But if it was, how come Cloud has his sword? Because the tooltip for the Buster Sword certainly suggests it's Zack's.
Anyway, definitely even more interested than I was to see what they do with part 2.
Oh, also, Spoiler - click to showhow come Aerith can open a portal to the fucking plane of Destiny? Or redirect Sephiroth's portal, or whatever. Why is that a thing she can do? Where was Sephiroth's portal originally going, even, and of it was already to the plane of Destiny, why did Aerith have to change it? What does Sephiroth mean by "seven seconds to the end"?
If I didn't already kind of know what was happening, would I be more confused, or less?
I wish I had the answers for any of that, lol.
Spoiler - click to showThis is why I'm worried for Part 2 now. Zack seems to be alive, but in a different timeline? His survival obviously didn't erase Cloud which it should…or at least affected him in anyway. I won't mind if they deviate a bit as long as it stays on the main overall track…but it's debatable how that's even possible if Aerith can see the future? (and open portals in space time as you say) Oh I can answer one question, I believe there's a screen in game that explains the seven seconds is the time it takes for Meteor to destroy the planet. (and not Aeris dying, thank god)
Spoiler - click to showAnd if the new stuff in this is indicative of the quality of original content we're going to see…I dunno man, the time ghosts were kinda' bad enough, we absolutely do not need to see another Kingdom Hearts style monster boss fight ever again IMO. I know the Sephiroth we beat was the Whispers in his image(I think?) but why are we fighting fate in the first place…we saved the world in the original timeline right? Also, imagine playing this and seeing that ending if you hadn't played FF7? Hmm
100% people should play FF7 at least after this if not before it imo. (it's really short :^))
I read somewhere that the Whispers were basically Spoiler - click to showa stand-in for hardcore fans who didn't want them to change anything; and that whether they help or hinder, they usually try to keep things on-track for the original. As someone who didn't know the original very well, I just found them frustrating; I couldn't tell what they wanted, and how they acted seemed completely arbitrary.
My biggest problem with that interpretation isSpoiler - click to showit just makes the whole thing too meta; we fight the Arbiter of Destiny because the devs want to deviate from the original story and felt they needed an in-universe narrative justification?
Spoiler - click to showI know the Sephiroth we beat was the Whispers in his image(I think?) but why are we fighting fate in the first place…we saved the world in the original timeline right?
I guess you could argue that the characters don't know that…
Yoooooo, that's freaking adorable! Not to expensive either,
Playing this again on hard, and I'm basically struggling with the same bits to the same degree as first time through.
I did have a weird bug on the scorpion tank boss, though; when I got to the tail laser phase, it did the tail laser twice back to back with no pause, which insta-killed Barret; with no items and no Raise materia (Barret had it), I had to do the final third of the fight solo with Cloud, who eventually ran out of MP, leaving me with Chakra as my only healing. Astonished I made it through.
Don't forget that after beating the game you get double EXP and triple AP to level up any materia you might need, get those high HP values and whatnot. I'm yet to try HM but I magine you abuse the fuck out of Aeris doing Limit Break damage on her spells. If there's no Aeris you probably need tok now your weaknesses, sounds kinda' fun but Normal Mode slapped me pretty hard at points, also…I've heard what that boss in the tournament fight is like and…errrrr, sounds fun
Don't forget that after beating the game you get double EXP and triple AP
Yeah, it's crazy how fast everyone's leveling up.
Do you use Tifa much? She's so fucking fun. I gave her the Parry materia since it actually lets you dodge (general tip I guess) and had a blast doing her post game Shinra challenges. There's one with a Sahagin and I saw it use Jump, waited a second then used her dodge attack move (I forget which) itl ands just as Tifa jumps back then runs into some mega dropkick type move.
This combat system is so sick imo.
Tifa is so goddamn good. She's my party leader any time she's in the party.
Tifa with Haste and the appropiate Elemental materia and the skill that lets her start with at level 2/3 of Unbridled Power is a machine. Starshower is the coolest attack in the game!!!!!
Hard Mode run: Just got back to the bit in chapter 3 where you can play darts and decided to find it a go, even though I'm terrible and I hate it.
So of course, I top the leaderboard on the first attempt.
Also, there's no reliable way to recover MP on Hard, which suddenly makes things much, much more difficult. Especially when you only realise this after blowing all your MP annihilating trash mobs…
MP absorption linked to any attack materia. On same weapon magnify linked to same attack material.
I forgot that MP absorption was a thing. I had Magnify on Healing materia for Aerith for the endgame.
Just wanna' say I found Barret really good for Elemental Attack materia, like, wind is good on those aerial enemies if it hits…if it hits. But his bullets are hitscan (I think, apparently in slow motion you can see them come out?) and he doesn't have to deal with the…unique aerial combat that Cloud and Tifa do.
Won't stop people running Cloud/Tifa/Aerith though lol.
I really like Barret, he adds some decent range to the party. I don't know why on Gaia they bothered giving him melee weapon options.
Hard playthrough progress: slow. Haven't had any time with it on several days, and was stuck on theSpoiler - click to showWall Market hoodlum fight in chapter 3for ages, until I basically completely retooled Cloud. The lack of MP is killing me.
If I’m at the end of the game, and there is nowhere to grind tediously and repetitively until the final boss is a disappointing cinch, it’s not a Final Fantasy game.
I got to the bit I was dreading in my hard mode playthrough this morning: Airbuster.
It completely annihilated me five times in a row, then crashed the PS4, but I eventually beat it thanks to Barret - that Lifesaver/Stoneskin combo is double-bonkers if you put a Barrier on him, and I basically walked through the fight after that clicked.
Then Reno wiped the fucking floor with me.
Yeah Barret is actually really good, it seems like a lot of damage (like the PS1 version tbf)is unavoidable, so he's like a walking insurance policy. Also, he had melee weapons in the original, I'm sure there's a good setup for them but I can't find it for the life of me.
Have you seen what you apparently get for doing all of Chadley or whatever his name is reports? Spoiler - click to show You fight Bahamut apparently, I dunno if you get to summon him yourself after but that sounds sickkkkkk.
I've just finished the 19th quest for Chadley (but not handed it in yet);Spoiler - click to showBahamut is apparently the 20th.
I beat Reno on the third attempt, playing much more defensively.
Also, while he's resistant to Slow, he's susceptible to Stop.
Not looking forward to Rude, he kicked my ass in his first fight.
I remember Rude being tough, but not crushingly so. I look forward to being re-educated.
The one I'd be dreading is Spoiler - click to showTonberry, of boy for the fact that it's possible to completely trivialize its insta-kill abilities, and in any case I thick it's optional.
It'd something of an achievement for the game that every boss I get to in this hard mode run is The Worst Thing Ever. The current source and target of my ire is Spoiler - click to showHell House
The whole fight is just a big bundle of frustrating, shifting resistances and nigh-undodgeable attacks. Hate it.
Also, I'm sure that on Normal mode it didn't Spoiler - click to showsummon Tonberry three at a time.
It didn't, lol. I know it's annoying you but I'm glad the combat system was so unexpectedly demanding. They could have made it very button mashy but they didn't.
Well, it only took a complete retooling of my party's gear and materia, but, after about eleven total attempts, I beat the fucking Hell House.
The final phase was… not heroic.
Then I went and thrashed Jules at squats.
I'm very much looking forward to playing this chapter again on Easy for the alternate plot/dresses (what even is this game?) and just fucking annihilating all the frustrating bastard enemies. It's gonna be great.
That's chapter 9 done, and with it, 4 trophies - all the Johnny shit, all quests, squats, and Dancing Queen, which I honestly thought would be more brutal; I was expecting to have to do the whole stupid thing perfectly, but I got 3 Bad and 4 or 5 Good, but still got it. So hooray for not having to worry about that next time.
Still managed to miss three manuscripts, though; I know where two are, but can't think where the third could be… I did all the optional stuff bar the colosseum (I forgot Aerith's solo challenges… 
)
What's your plan for Eligor? :^)
If you find a method to not let the AI die to the Javelin rain, let me know. ^_^
Still slamming my head repeatedly into the brick wall that is Abzu. Can't think that far ahead.
I'm sure you're aware of his fire weakness but did you know it knocks him off the sewer pipes? I didn't until I saw a streamer doing it, if that helps.Again, like Javelin Rain I dunno how guarantee the AI doesn't drink up the sewer pipe flush thing tho.
They seem to stick pretty close to be when it happens, I just keep forgetting to move to that end of the arena and everyone just fucking eats it.
I planted Aerith's Arcane Ward at the top between the spouts to remind me, and managed to avoid the torrent this time. Summoned Ifrit when he enraged, and used his Summon abilities a couple of times, which did a decent chunk, especially Inferno. Then, I managed to stagger
Abzu at about 1/3 health, cast Stop on him to pause the gauge, and fucking battered him with all Tifa's +Stagger abilities.
Still not at Eligor yet, but getting close now - just past the Ghoul. Didn't do so well the first time, but remembered/figured out the physical/magic phases on attempt #2, and beat it fairly handily.
I've set everyone up with ice materia, and Cloud has Enemy Skill for Algid Aura, which will hopefully help; not looking forward to it, though.
When you need to hit it with Blizzaga but it's a moving enemy. :^)
Yeah, I hate the ice spells; it seems like a terrible bit of design that everything weak to ice just won't. sit. still. 
That's why I think Barret is underrated (tbf, there's only 3 possible slots and everyone is really good). His weapon with elemental works on all fliers from long range, none of that janky air combat or timing aero/blizzard.
