FF7 Remake is a solid game but....

Final Fantasy 7 probably will always be my favorite of the series. The graphics were shit, but the game was phenomenal. The story line, the battle mechanics, the puzzles, and even the side quests with those impossible to beat mega bosses were fun and kept us playing for hours. 

Naturally when news of them Square Enix doing a remake broke myself and all the other fanatics were excited. Admittedly, I was late to the Final Fantasy party, but when it finished downloading I couldn't wait to see if it would stack up to the original. 

So far I am at the part where the sector 7 plate has fallen and Cloud and company are chasing down these side quests to help out the people in the aftermath-- specifically I am at the battle with Behemoth Type-0, if that means anything to you. If not just know it's a big boss that's incredibly challenging to beat. 

Anyway, so far that game has started off really well as pertains to the graphics and the story, but where my biggest issue lies with the game is it's battle system. I would say this remake makes me feel kind of like I am play Xcom again. Really great game idea, but complicated mechanics make for stupid little error and increased tediousness. 

To break that down a little bit, the original FF7 had a turn based battle system coupled with the materia system which would give characters special abilities, attributes and magic; in this new one however, they have an ATB battle system with a materia system and weapon system. While the materia still does largely the same thing, the weapon system allows for players to increase weapon abilities which ultimately add to the character's attributes. 

Each part of the battle system for the remake on its own is fine, which is why most of it is comprised of parts of previous installments of the game like FF13 and the ATB system. You can tell that they wanted to make an old game feel new and more challenging, but in that pursuit they really messed it up by cobbling together the battle systems. 

Like I said, I don't mind ATB system-- I even enjoyed it when I was playing FF13, but the biggest difference is that in the FF7 remake the characters take very few actions to help progress the battle. I know some people will say that you can link the synergy materia and auto this and that, but in FF13 you could set your characters to help support and while they wouldn't carry out their entire list of moves, they would still be effective at helping you take down enemies and once you mastered creating paradigms battling was just as easy as in previous versions of the game without the ATB system. 

The next reason I don't really care for the battle system is because it forces you to switch between characters which isn't always an easy task. I have been in some tough boss battles that took significantly long simply because I had to switch to a character, wait for their ATB to fill and then carry out the command whereas in the turn based system you would select a command and it would automatically move to the next character ready to make a move and in FF13 you could chain together command depending on their attack cost relative to the ATB each character has. 

This system makes the player have to constantly move, dodge, block, and pay attention to the next ready character because if they player doesn't then the character may get overwhelmed which is how they force players to switch between characters. It also makes the battles longer as well because you have to rely heavily on items to heal and restore versus the magic you have. What gives that away is the fact that when you play it on hard mode you won't be able to use any items which tells me that me using a ton of items is pretty on par for the course.

I do realize there are some people out there who have figured out how to master the system and they enjoy it, but honestly it just feels like it was implemented with the sole intention of making the game seem harder and more challenging when it not; it's just a lot more tedious and super involved especially when it comes to some of the cut scene movements and areas where you can't exactly run but you can move slightly faster than slow. 

Overall, I think it's a solid game and it's what fans have been waiting years for minus the crappy battle system. I have been playing it for about a week now and the more I play it the more I want to start a new game on the original and go through that one more time because this one just isn't cutting it for me and the battle system is 100% to blame.