Final Fantasy VII: 2D Remake - Demo inside!

[Vanit]

Hey Everyone! So I've been working on this for a bit and I'm happy to announce my first public demo, which is now available for download! For those that aren't aware of my project, I'm remaking FF7 to 100% accuracy in rm2k3. So far I've finished the menu and most of the battle system so I'm releasing this brief demo to get feedback on those.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5226139/FF72DR_R1.zip (8.5mb)

The main purpose of this release is to achieve 2 things:

1) Find out if I've successfully captured the feeling of FF7 in 2D
2) Find any bugs I've missed

Please, please, please tell me if you have any thoughts on what you see! Its a very small demo with only 2 areas, but it should be enough to achieve these small goals.

I should mention there are a few things missing, like announcements in battle for items and limits are currently NYI, and the Change and Defend functions currently do nothing so you need not report these issues. Additionally there are a few issues that people have identified already with how the menu, battle system and map teleporting interacts which I've since fixed, so you need not report those either. Also to clarify, this release is moleboxed as I only require black box testing at this time, so if you're keen to poke around inside this isn't the release you're after.

Screenshots:

 

[udivision]

Was wondering when this would show up here.
As I'm sure you've heard a thousand time, it looks amazing. I'll give it a download and tell you what I think.

EDIT: That was really cool. Only problem was that it ran a bit slow at some points, but that could be because I was running a scan at the same time. On slower computers, rotating screen-sized pictures can be laggy though.

 

[Jason]

Hey so I actually tried this and it was pretty good, it felt almost exactly like the beginning of the original, I mean, I swear there's some differences but I wasn't a big fan of the original anyway so I don't think I could point them out, but yeah, I think it was not being able to name Cloud or something, but that's just minor anyway, lol.

As for what udivision said about it running slow, it ran pretty slow in fullscreen, but only during battles, this is probably because I have a widescreen monitor though and RM* games tend to lag more when I play them in fullscreen (It loaded fullscreen by default but I switched back and forth between windowed to compare it), however, when running it in windowed mode it ran fine with no lag or slowdowns whatsoever, and I'm running an 11 year old PC right now so yeah...

Overall I'm impressed and would love to see you go through with this to the end, although I hope you realise just how long it's going to take you, lol.

 

[Celesinator]

FF7 is probably one of my least favorite FFs, but this remake is amazingly good. No really, the coding, it being on rpg maker 2k3... everything about it. I hope you do finish this and wish you the best of luck!

 

[Closedworlds]

Hey, not bad. Very good eventing skills. The only thing that bothers me is the RTP style sprites but the posing and animations they do is good.

 

[ShadowMainZERO]

This looks like it'd be cool (especially since it's probably the closest I'll ever get to playing FFVII) but I can't control a thing.The first time I loaded it, I couldn't get past the menu. The second time, I somehow managed to start the game by but couldn't get past the first dialog box. The third time, it took me straight to the continue screen without my input. I managed to get back to the main menu but couldn't do anything else.

 

[Ellie]

I am so happy you decided to post this here - I've seen it elsewhere - it is absolutely fantastic and is probably the one game I am really, really excited about. This is a great project to show that a fangame can be good.

Once finished, you also have a great platform to make a sequel, perhaps reimagining Advent Children, or even a prequel - but that's just something I'd do.


ETA: Played the demo.

1) Find out if I've successfully captured the feeling of FF7 in 2D

Yes, yes you have.

Please continue this!

 

[Zackwell]

Bug alert:
When you're being taken into a random battle, if you hammer esc, it takes you into the menu, then when you exit the menu, the battle doesn't happen.

 

[Ellie]

Oh god no, this can't be RM2k3! How did you even do that?

 

[Vanit]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

@Zackwell: Already been fixed, thanks for reporting it though.

@Amy Pond: Thanks for your kind words! Yes it is rm2k3! How did I do it? Well... there's over 300 common events, over 4000 pictures, and over 9000 variables (not a joke).

 

[benos]

Can't enter the next area, even if it shows the cursor, and pressing it off won't help either.

 

[Vanit]

I really should've put a sign there. There's only 2 areas in the game (which I said in the OP).

 

[ShadowMainZERO]

I'll post it again.

This looks like it'd be cool (especially since it's probably the closest I'll ever get to playing FFVII) but I can't control a thing.The first time I loaded it, I couldn't get past the menu. The second time, I somehow managed to start the game by but couldn't get past the first dialog box. The third time, it took me straight to the continue screen without my input. I managed to get back to the main menu but couldn't do anything else.

 

[Vanit]

I saw it, ShadowMainZERO, but I don't know what to tell you; its not an issue with the game, but with either how your computer is handling the rm2k3 runtime or molebox or both.

What are your system specs?

 

[ShadowMainZERO]

HP Mini 311-10337NR
CPU: 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor
RAM: 2 GB RAM
HDD: 160 GB
GPU: 894 MB NVIDIA ION
OS: Windows 7 32-bit

 

[Vanit]

Mmm, I don't know what the issue could be. I think you've lucked out.

 

[ShadowMainZERO]

Knowing my luck, I probably have. I'll try to redownload it and see if by some chance that fixes it.

EDIT: Whadya know, it worked. Really makes me wish I could play the original (not that yours isn't good, it's just a different experience). I get some serious lag during combat though.

 

[Vanit]

Thats good to hear. I don't suppose the slow downs were happening when the damage was being displayed or when enemies were moving around with the cursor on them? If so I can fix those through optimization.

 

[ShadowMainZERO]

No, it was lagging the whole time.

 

[Vanit]

Damn, I think your computer must just not be powerful enough. Thanks for getting back to me about this, it atleast helps me formulate some kind of minimum specs for the game.