Fuck Fort Condor

polygon.com:

Because I believe in transparency, I want to begin with saying that there is no bigger mark for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirththan I. I know the fans of Final Fantasy 7 are legion, and that each and every one of them believes they can lay claim to the title of Biggest FF7 Fan. They’re entitled to think that. They’re also wrong. I love Final Fantasy 7 the most, and I am enjoying Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth more than all of them, probably. However, there is one thing I am not enjoying: Fort Condor. Fuck that game.

A little recap: Fort Condor is a tower defense minigame that first appeared in Intermission, the bonus chapter added to the Final Fantasy 7 RemakeIntergrade re-release. Based on a segment from the original FF7,Fort Condor took the shape of a board game played by the characters in Intermission, where players customized a lineup of little troops (attackers, defenders, and long-range units) and sent them to destroy their opponent’s tower — as well as counter units their opponent has sent to do the same.

Intermission’s Fort Condor was bare-bones, but charming, fun. The sort of thing that can immediately stop you in your tracks to play as much as you can before being bothered with the so-called “main plot.” I was happy to see it come back in Rebirth — and then I actually played. Folks? I hate it.

New Fort Condor is not a little board game to tinker with but a series of goofy challenges with wildly escalating difficulty, and the difference between the two versions has me reeling. I do not think a single game has introduced this much additional challenge since professional football invented the forward pass.

That said, I do understand why the new version of Fort Condor is much harder, and why it’s even a good idea. See, despite a bunch of superficial changes — replacing materia spells with hero units, or having players choose from set lineups over building out teams — a given Fort Condor match is always a puzzle, with one ideal solution. In the previous version featured