I haven't been into a sprawling RPG like this in a long time, which is funny, as FFVIIR is not actually all that sprawling. It's the first chapter (or, more like "Book One" in those books that are technically divided into separate books) of a much larger narrative.
The thing is, it's really fun to play.
I figured out which chapter to go to in order to do the VR challenges and finish up with Chadley's various research projects (it's the penultimate one - you can find Chadley, a VR room, and a bench with a vending machine all a little past Aerith's old room in the lab, with just a very quick fight and cutscene to go through).
The VR challenges very much seem to me like the Omega Dungeon from FFX - this is the super-hard stuff that is actually harder than the final challenges of the game. In X, I actually ground in there for a long time, to the point where I was one-shotting the enemies in the Omega Dungeon, which allowed me to two-shot the final boss of the game (hilariously, Yuna was actually hitting harder than Auron, to the point where I purposely started leaving her out of the party so I could get the other characters caught up).
I've been playing around with the various characters. One ability I'm growing to love is Counterstance, which is the one you get off the Twin Stinger for Cloud. While you can parry already while blocking in Punisher mode, this costs an ATB charge but then does an absolutely massive attack, and it can parry any attack or spell. The catch, though, is that there's a short window in which Cloud will take the stance, and then he'll unleash a pretty uninspiring attack in whatever direction he was facing unless he gets hit with an attack.
If he does, however, you can blast enemies for a massive amount of damage, and I think if you time his strikes while he's making his counterattack, it'll do even more damage.
However, even as I work on mastering this technique, the first of the "hard" VR challenges has been stumping me. I can get through the first four encounters pretty easily most times, but the final fight is a huge pain. The boss can do massive amounts of lightning damage and will shred you with rotating saws if you try to get into melee - which Cloud sort of has to.
My strategy will be to use Lightning and Elemental materia linked - which both grants you some lightning damage to your melee attacks (good, given that most of the fights here, including the final one, are mechs that are weak to lightning) and also reduces lightning damage taken. The first stage of Elemental materia halves the lightning (or whatever linked element you have) damage you take. Upgrading it will make you immune, and the final stage causes you to absorb it as healing. That latter part would be amazing for this fight, given that the abilities it uses late in the fight are massive bursts of lightning damage.
What's frustrating is that I've actually killed the thing twice, but died in doing so, which does not count as a success.
Anyway, until we get a part two to this thing, your options for additional gameplay are to either do these VR challenges or play through it on your New Game+. If you truly just want to play through the game again, select chapter one and enjoy - you'll have all your unlocked weapons, items, and abilities, and upgraded Materia. You can also go on Hard Mode, which prevents you from using items as well as upping the difficulty of the fights. I managed to die on the first boss this way, which I didn't the first time.
As far as I can tell, level 50 is the cap in this game (which I just hit,) but if you want to keep upgrading your weapons, you can find additional manuals, some of which are only in hard mode. (I think I only got them from the Moogle Merchant, and thus I think only the first ones. Meanwhile, the reward for this first hard-mode VR challenge is volume XIII, which suggests to me that there are many more of these to find.)
It's pretty rare that I play a game these days that makes me want to keep playing after the credits roll.
I have no idea if they plan to carry over save data between games - on one hand, that would make sense, but on the other hand, should we have spells like Firaga after just the first chapter of the game? There's not a ton of room to grow.
So I suspect there will be a power reset, and they might just treat it as more of a sequel than the next chapter in a single game.
Still, we have no idea what timeline to expect, and certainly current circumstances throw that much farther up in the air.
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