FFVII
I missed the Elemental Materia in the Shinra building and it made me realize I have never managed to get Master Materia for any type in any playthrough lol
Like, I think I mastered a couple materia, and I normally get at least some of the huge materia, & I def managed to get gold chocobos
But...Master Materia & the Weapons are just an enormous grind
Like, that kinda grinding has just never interested me
FFVII
Also like, I think I had a lot more comfort with weird pacing and transitions in games and movies as a kid
It's frustrating now tho. Like, we get taunted w/exploring the rest of the lower ring bc you can go "outside" from Aerith's place, but really we only get to see small parts of 3 sectors
Also that you just...climb the wire and are at Shinra HQ instead of getting to trek through the upper ring is...bad pacing/world building
Also as an adult I'm horrified by the terrible city planning
FFVII
There's corkscrewing train around their double layer plate city, but there's no...means of following that path otherwise? That's so much wasted real estate, that would also make it easier to repair the plate as needed
Also lower slums used to be villages, but were clearly demolished and rebuilt in abandoned construction materials etc...but a lotta those folks work for Midgar/the upper ring. It's shocking none of that was planned in a way to at least extract wealth and utilities from them?
FFVII
All of this is of course ignoring that this is a completely planned city (at least the upper level) is a perfect circle, but...the neighborhoods are divvied up like a fucking pizza
I assume this is a result of their TERRIBLE construction design where the ring was built in these town-size pizza-slice shapes, slapped together so they don't support each other at all, and then just...each section rested on top of one (1) fucking pillar
Like, take a sec and imagine this
FFVII
You're a wealthy Midgardian, who lives on the upper ring. You work in Sector 2, but your friends & favorite restaurants are in Sector 3 so you decide to live walking distance from both
You pay in EXCESS bc you live near the ONE TRAIN & like to RP w/your wife in the lower bars ;)
It turns out, you're on a high rise apartment building kinnnda equidistant from two pillars
...and everytime the train goes by your building fucking WOBBLES as the seams on the fucking plate world are stressed
FFVII
@yeenbean holy fucking shit I never even thought about this holy balls...
...I wonder if the remake addresses this at all? c_c;;
FFVII
@Nine I feel like they must have just to make the city impressive in HD right? Cause like, these are images from the old game
The obvious answer is the game designers didn't really think about city layout since it's supposed to be a sprawling city with high rises and shit, but the tower in the center is like...60some stories and towers far above anything else?
Not to mention it'd be just as ugly living bn those giant section dividers as in the slums
FFVII
@yeenbean Oh SO friggin ugly. Imagine all the shit that would just fall down between the plates??
FFVII
@Nine it *bothered* me as a kid, but at the time I assumed I just lacked the spatial imagination to picture what was going on
As an adult w/a masters in urban planning I'm much more willing to go no....this really just does not make any sense at all
And is perhaps the worst layout imaginable for this kind of city
FFVII
@yeenbean ff7 had a lot of handwaved stuff like that, and a lot of other problems, but god, I had never even thought that hard about the fuckin' main city that is such a key part of the entire plot even though you basically only spend disc 1 in there, and MAYBE zip back there in Disc 3 optionally, or for a small endgame event.
It's kinda blowing my mind just how damn ridiculous it is and how so much is just "Rule of Cool"ed. lol
FFVII
@Nine it honestly bothers me a whole lot that more of the game isn't in Midgar
I think the concept of Midgar was more interesting than most of the rest of the world the game is set in :/