Final Fantasy VII (PC)

degrassinoel

I tried searching but couldnt find the right thread, sorry. There are a lot of FF7 threads oddly enough..

Anyways, here
https://store.eu.square-enix.com/emea_europe/pc-windows-download/FINAL-FANTASY-VII.php

it's on sale again for the pc with some new features, dont get too excited, it just means it'll work properly on new hardware and os's

Still, cant go wrong with a game of it's calibre for a tenner!

Retr0gamer

Any word on whether it still has the awful midi music from the PC version?

SeantheMan

Yeah we had a thread recently

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056692926

And it came out on PC years ago anyways, and was an awful port :P , I found anyways.
They could at least touch up the music


I wonder could someone mod it to play the actual MP3s or FLACs that were released by Distant Worlds etc and the other FF scores, the orchestral ones too

degrassinoel

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Any word on whether it still has the awful midi music from the PC version?

no idea i'll let ye know once i've downloaded it. yep i'm a sucker.. i bought it

RedXIV

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Any word on whether it still has the awful midi music from the PC version?

yup it is


On the more remarkable side, the Game accidentally went live yesterday for a few hours and a couple of people bought it and Square Enix have offered the a Refund AND a copy of the game for free. First time I eve heard of SE doing something like that?!

NeoSlicerZ

SeantheMan wrote: »

Yeah we had a thread recently

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056692926

And it came out on PC years ago anyways, and was an awful port :P , I found anyways.
They could at least touch up the music


I wonder could someone mod it to play the actual MP3s or FLACs that were released by Distant Worlds etc and the other FF scores, the orchestral ones too

There are complete mods for FF7... including FLAC music, better character models and overall graphics improvements. There are multiple options such as the Rebirth mod, the Remix compilation and/or the hardcore version (in which you will die, a lot). It's amazing how ****ing hard the game can be when you Big Guard doesn't cast on your entire party.

SeantheMan

NeoSlicerZ wrote: »

There are complete mods for FF7... including FLAC music, better character models and overall graphics improvements. There are multiple options such as the Rebirth mod, the Remix compilation and/or the hardcore version (in which you will die, a lot). It's amazing how ****ing hard the game can be when you Big Guard doesn't cast on your entire party.

Gotta any vids of the game in action with said music ?

NeoSlicerZ

A quick search on youtube gives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEUxf1O_ijU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcFw-hKHGrQ

There's multiple sets of remixed/ripped iirc. Some of it ripped from Crisis Core/Advent Children or Black Mages' album.

Retr0gamer

Music sounds pretty terrible in most of them. I'd much prefer rips on the PS1's soundtrack even if the sound engineering was a bit crap in them. there might be a way to use a midi sound font to get better sounding midi, it's worth looking up. I used one for System Shock recently and it sounded excellent.

NeoSlicerZ

I quite like the black mages sound track myself but each to their own.

snausages

I've done the soundfont midi mod myself before and it definitely works. I can't remember exactly how but if you google it on the Qhimm forums you'll find a way. I'm guessing it will work with this version as well. Personally it's my favourite out of all the soundtrack options, I hate heavy metal remixes of old video game OSTs.

degrassinoel

yeah, just been playing it there, not much has changed tbh.

The character sprites look a little more clear in fights, it supports various different resolutions rather just 640x420 & 1024x768.
The controls on the keyboard are a fcking joke, but can be easily reconfigured, joypad&stick support is there, the sound is alright, i'm not noticing anything majorly different which tbfh.. i'm glad of.

I loved the game back in the 90's and i'm sure it'll be just as fun getting to know it all over again now

Andy!!

Well I live abroad now, so I tried creating an american account, european account, neither will let me live, cause they have been to busy tracking IP's to make a system that works as well as Steam, instead of creating THAT COMPLETE CLUSTER**** I JUST HAD TO WADE THROUGH SQUARE ENIX WHAT THE ****! Jesus. Guaranteed once it hits the asian store there isn't an English version. Kinda missing out on a bit of the bloody obvious market there eh Square??

SeantheMan

degrassinoel wrote: »

yeah, just been playing it there, not much has changed tbh.

The character sprites look a little more clear in fights, it supports various different resolutions rather just 640x420 & 1024x768.
The controls on the keyboard are a fcking joke, but can be easily reconfigured, joypad&stick support is there, the sound is alright, i'm not noticing anything majorly different which tbfh.. i'm glad of.

I loved the game back in the 90's and i'm sure it'll be just as fun getting to know it all over again now

I dunno, I think I'll keep my good memories through rose tinted glasses
I know for a fact that if I go back and play it now, that Cloud, one of my fave characters ever ..will drive me mental because he is as emo as Squall, and I don't want that.

degrassinoel

SeantheMan wrote: »

I dunno, I think I'll keep my good memories through rose tinted glasses
I know for a fact that if I go back and play it now, that Cloud, one of my fave characters ever ..will drive me mental because he is as emo as Squall, and I don't want that.

lol was thinking that too, but squall is a lot worse

MitchKoobski

Running in 1920x1080.
Character models are a lot more colourful and appear more detailed.
Background still look bad but that was expected.
The MIDI music is just plain awful. I'm already trying to find a way to swap it out for the PS versions.
It does run really fast though, pretty much no loading times.

snausages

The music is the 'proper' MIDI soundtrack that you had to mod into it before. If you compare some of the original PS1 stuff a lot of the PC stuff actually sounds way better and clearer. The PS1 version is way harsher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVBM3bX7xdw

Andy!!

Uh, which is the better version according to you, and the one featured in the re-release? Cause that second video sounds horrific...

Kiith

2nd one is the pc version. And i think it's the same in the re-release.

MitchKoobski

What are you on about? The PC version, in no way at all, sounds better right now.

snausages

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. The motorcycle theme is way better imo as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrwQPtxR36M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0jNF7_kKOE

edit: as is this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UARM4q7hHU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5VNWgFzsFo

snausages

Actually, hold on a minute here. When I played earlier I only had the most briefest of hand-ons but it seems like the soundtrack is not the same as the Yamaha soundcard version posted above. If you look through the .ogg files in the game install folder you can listen to them yourself. One-Winged Angel (lb2.ogg) has no lyrics. The motorcycle theme doesn't sound right either (chase.ogg). Looks like I'm going to have to look for that soundfont mod again and see if it still works, although I'm guessing not seeing as it's just the original MIDI turned into ogg files for some reason.

noodler

I still don't understand why the PC version doesn't use the same music files the PS1 did.

Retr0gamer

Those PC versions of the music use a yamaha synthesiser program that you got with the original release. Edit: actually it's using a rather rare yamaha soundcard, good luck finding one of those and getting it working on a modern OS. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't come with this re-release so you'll have to use plain midi.

noodler wrote: »

I still don't understand why the PC version doesn't use the same music files the PS1 did.

It's just a lazy port. The PS1 uses it's own sound system which works like midi but you can add your own sampled instruments. The PC version just uses plain midi files and when these are played on sound blaster and clones of these cards they sound terrible because of how bad they are at handling midi. Anyway the music has to loop and the only way to loop music back then was to use midi. MP3 quality music would have been one way but wasn't really around then, might not have been invented and it would have been a major strain on the CPU's back then to decode it.

A way around it is to add your own midi sampled instruments using a soundfont that are close to the FFVII samples but I'm not sure if it's possible yet with this release and it was a bit of a pain in the arse to get it working on System Shock (but totally worth it).

Retr0gamer

snausages wrote: »

Actually, hold on a minute here. When I played earlier I only had the most briefest of hand-ons but it seems like the soundtrack is not the same as the Yamaha soundcard version posted above. If you look through the .ogg files in the game install folder you can listen to them yourself. One-Winged Angel (lb2.ogg) has no lyrics. The motorcycle theme doesn't sound right either (chase.ogg). Looks like I'm going to have to look for that soundfont mod again and see if it still works, although I'm guessing not seeing as it's just the original MIDI turned into ogg files for some reason.

I'm pretty sure the original PC version was missing the lyrics from one winged angel.

blaa85

snausages wrote: »

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. The motorcycle theme is way better imo as well.

Yes, we will all disagree

SirLemonhead

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Those PC versions of the music use a yamaha synthesiser program that you got with the original release. Edit: actually it's using a rather rare yamaha soundcard, good luck finding one of those and getting it working on a modern OS. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't come with this re-release so you'll have to use plain midi.
.

Was it a Yamaha XG? those are really easy to get

edit:
Oh I see what you mean.. a daughterboard addon?

snausages

Well regardless of soundtrack preferences, I was fooling around with it last night and all you need to do is put your preferred .ogg files in the music_ogg folder. Just make sure they're named right and they'll play fine. You can use this for the original PS1 soundtrack or the yamaha one if you want (as there are recorded files of the latter online, OWA vocals and all.)

Kiith

So you could, if you wanted, rip the audio from the soundtrack, convert it to .ogg, and replace the in-game music?

snausages

I think. I just grabbed the original PS1 oggs off Gamefront to try and they work fine.

http://www.gamefront.com/files/22130809/Fixed+FF7+Fixed+Music.zip (I take it this is legal? If not and a mod needs to delete, the link can be found on neogaf and gamefaqs)


Just renaming the yahama ones now as well. Some people have reported looping issues, but it works ok for me so far.

Kiith

Wow...they put a lot of effort into making the achievements interesting :rolleyes:

• End of Part I: Complete the first part of the game
• End of Part II: Complete the second part of the game
• End of Game: Complete Final Fantasy VII
• Master Materia: Reach the maximum level of any Materia
• Master of Gil: 99,999,999 Gil
• Top Level: Reach level 99 with any character
• Knights of the Round: Get materia Knights of the Round
• Omnislash: Get Cloud's last Limit Break
• Catastrophe: Get Barret's last Limit Break
• Chaos: Get Vincent's last Limit Break
• Great Gospel: Get Aeris's last Limit Break
• Highwind: Get Cid's last Limit Break
• Final Heaven: Get Tifa's last Limit Break
• All Creation: Get Yuffie's last Limit Break
• Cosmo Memory: Get Red XIII's last Limit Break
• Slots: Get Cait Sith's last Limit Break
• Bahamut Zero: Get materia Bahamut Zero
• Ultimate Weapon: Defeat the Ultimate Weapon
• Diamond Weapon: Defeat the Diamond Weapon
• Ruby Weapon: Defeat the Ruby Weapon
• Emerald Weapon: Defeat the Emerald Weapon
• Vincent: Get Vincent on your team
• Yuffie: Get Yuffie on your team
• Materia Overlord: Master all Materias
• Battle Square: Start a battle in Battle Square
• Golden Feather: Get a Gold Chocobo
• Won First Battle: Win your first battle
• Braver: Use Cloud's first Limit Break
• Big Shot: Use Barrett's first Limit Break
• Galian Beast: Use Vincent's first Limit Break
• Healing Wind: Use Aeris's first Limit Break
• Boost Jump: Use Cid's first Limit Break
• Beat Rush: Use Tifa's first Limit Break
• Greased Lightning: Use Yuffie's first Limit Break
• Sled Fang: Use Red XIII's first Limit Break
• Dice: Use Cait Sith's first Limit Break

snausages

Why is 'Bahamut Zero' even an achievement? I never used that guy.

MitchKoobski

Because back in those days you had to guess the code or find out about it in a magazine. Now the code for it is readily available online, but I guess they still saw it as an achievement.

Retr0gamer

You don't have to guess the code, you can work it out quite easily if you think about it.

SeantheMan

You had to get it within a certain time on the mine cart no ?
I didn't get it :P , did manage to kill the Weapons in the end though, had to grind and extra load though.
Also , the Gold Chocobo you got was worse than the ones I bred myself

Newaglish

Was there another way to get it? I don't remember a code or a mine cart... but I'm sure I had it

Grimebox

This mod sounds like its better than this version. Its a bunch of mods packed together in a easy-ish installer. It includes looping mp3 files for the music. I doubt it would work with this newest release though

Retr0gamer

Convert the mp3's to looping .ogg files and rename them. Might work.

AlmightyCushion

^^^ Linkey no workey.

Andy!!

'this%20mod' is not a valid link grimes, they usually start with http

snausages

I think I might have used whatever that mod is before. One thing they do is replace the opening sequence with the PS3 tech demo and some of the music is from Crisis Core. The characters are all lifelike but the NPCs are awful. It gives the game a weird feel tbh.

Retr0gamer

The only thing I'd mod would be the music. Just play it with the original creators artistic vision.

Kiith

Same as myself. The graphics aren't that bad, and adding the Advent Children style characters looks stupid imo.

Grimebox

Apoligies, I added the link above and here too.

http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8915.0

The best things about it:

• Mp3 music
• Revamp of most of those awful blocky character models
• Higher resolution backgrounds
• OpenGL support

Polar101

I played the PC version 'back in the day' and own the PS1 version - umm, how does this new PC version compare with the PS1 version?

Retr0gamer

Polar101 wrote: »

I played the PC version 'back in the day' and own the PS1 version - umm, how does this new PC version compare with the PS1 version?

They fixed some typos but the translation is still dirt and the music is crap. However you can play it in higher resolution and with texture filtering.

snausages

The link I posted back with the original soundtrack is dead, so if anyone wants to get it you can get a torrent right here on Qhimm forums: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=12787.msg187399#msg187399

It's just the original psf files converted to ogg, not a torrent for the game or anything.

snausages

Cloud saving is a ****. My saves keep getting corrupted on the cloud and when I try to resume my game on another machine the cloud ends up deleting them. Thankfully I've made about 10 different saves but it's such a stupid feature. I could do a better job with my own cloud on dropbox if it would let me, but there's no option to turn the cloud off or edit your saves locally from what I can see.

ancapailldorcha

Have you tried trying to find where the saves are stored and simply copying them to your dropbox/USB drive?

snausages

I've tried that but the cloud automatically changes what is in the save directory as soon as you start it up. If you copy paste a save into the save directory the cloud will automatically delete it. Even with wifi off it doesn't seem to let you do anything on your end. I found this out when I downloaded a late game save just to try it out. I've made about 3 or 4 different versions of my current save now just to be sure. I'm only at Wall Market so it's only an hour of progress, but I'm not replaying this game if it means starting from scratch constantly.

ancapailldorcha

Oh wow, I knew it would be a lackluster release but I never thought Square would mess it up this badly.