Remake Interviews: Catch-all Thread

[ForceStealer]

I still can't deal with the fact that we have to specify "first" Ultimania for just part one of a remake that itself is barely a year old.

 

[Makoeyes987]

The Ultimanias are not all the same.

One is the game/story Ultimania that is essentially a glorified strategy guide.

Another is the in-depth art book and game design Ultimania.

And then the art and design one is getting a re-release that covers the DLC that was included.

This isn't the first FF to get multiple Ultimanias either.

 

[ForceStealer]

This isn't the first FF to get multiple Ultimanias either.

Within 13 months?

And still, other FFs aren't part of one story. Just how many Ultimanias do we think the entire Remake project is going to have when all is said and done? To say nothing of soundtracks.

 

[JBedford]

Within 13 months?

VII Remake is actually a little odd. Major FF games usually launch with two Ultimanias. Typically one for Scenario and one for Battle. Ultimania Omegas (which the Material Ultimania has some things in common with) usually come out less than a year later.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I can safely say to expect at least 2 per Remake entry because they'll be full-length games that will have all of the accompanying artwork and content that goes along with it.

These are all separate games, so they will be treated as separate games, even in regards to merchandise.

 

[LNK]

And then the art and design one is getting a re-release that covers the DLC that was included.

This is the stuff that I hate though. It makes square enix seem really greedy. It's only been a year. I can see a collector's bundle when all the parts have been completed, but geez.

 

[JBedford]

Material Plus isn't a re-release of Material, it's all new content.

And I'm glad they're making a new Ultimania for the DLC. FFXV never got its Ultimania Omega so nowhere covers anything added in patches or the DLC, which is annoying and disappointing.

Material Plus also contains stuff like a voice guide presumably listing the voice actor for every character (likely for Japanese only) like they usually put in Ultimania Omegas. Though I do wonder why they're calling this "Material Plus" and not "Intergrade Ultimania" or just "Ultimania Omega". I hope they don't skimp on the Intergrade/Intermission coverage.

 

[LNK]

Material Plus isn't a re-release of Material, it's all new content.

If it's all new content, then ok, I get that

 

[cold_spirit]

I like how Nomura doesn't even mention Cait Sith as an option even though he's right there already. Poor little lion man.

Wish they weren't so stingy with Nomura's concept drawings

Just thinking about this yesterday. The only two games we've received full color, full body artwork for each character from Nomura is the original FFVII and Dissidia. I really wish they had given Advent Children and some other titles the same treatment.

 

[cold_spirit]

I would trade the second half of my 30s to go ahead and know the full context of the coy game Nomura, et. al. is playing.

I feel this and am always trying to change my mentality around it. "Enjoy the journey" kind of thing. There's a decade long wait in front of us, gotta learn to put some positive spin on it. Not to mention the possibility that... maybe I'll never learn what happens next. Life happens.

I like to remind myself that this is one of the best times in the FFVII fandom. There's something to look forward to. New members are jumping on board. We have questions, but we also have excitement. Someday it’ll end and we'll know everything. In the grand scheme of things, we'll know the answers a lot longer than the time we waited for them.

 

[Theozilla]

I like how Nomura doesn't even mention Cait Sith as an option even though he's right there already. Poor little lion man.



Just thinking about this yesterday. The only two games we've received full color, full body artwork for each character from Nomura is the original FFVII and Dissidia. I really wish they had given Advent Children and some other titles the same treatment.

Didn't Nomura make color full body art of the FFVIII and FFX casts?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Also FFXIII, Before Crisis, Dirge of Cerberus, Type-O, and the other non-FFs he's done.

Actually, it's more rare for their not to be full color artworks for Nomura's character designs.

 

[Odysseus]

I was mostly just referring to the remake. We've seen Barret, a sketch of Tifa, and this Yuffie drawing. Everything else has been Roberto Ferrari.

 

[Eerie]

You know they're hiding them to give them bit by bit, slowly, in different Ultimanias and interviews. It's ridiculous.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

It's interesting how past experiences influence what people take a way from comments.

I see "the overarching story follows the original" and see... 95% of all Time-Travel Fan-Fics in there. Particularly the trope The Stations of Canon. Which is... essentially the idea that even with changes to the source material happening, the vast bulk of the story events do happen in some size, shape or form. The story *has* to have certain events happen so that it can be recognized as that story. Of course... how the events *happen* can end up wildly different. But it's still following the overarching story of the derivative work.

It's honestly really funny looking at the FFVII Fan-Fic "Stations of Canon" entry, because the Midgar Section of it sounds so much like what we got in Remake.

Final Fantasy VII: Given the rather linear progression of the canon story, there are quite a few stations that fanfic authors tend to check in at. If the story starts in Midgar, we will have the first job to destroy the reactor, and then the next, falling into the church to meet the flower girl, interrogating Don Corneo, the destruction of Sector 7, and finally the storming of Shinra tower.

In some cases, the entire Midgar section can be skipped, but even if it is, there are still stations from later parts of the game that seemingly must be hit; at some point they will go to the Temple of the Ancients to retrieve the Black Materia, followed by Aerith going to the Forgotten Capital to summon Holy (roll of the dice as to whether or not she survives in this instance).

This will be followed by Meteor appearing and the WEAPONS being released and needing to be dealt with before a final confrontation, usually at the Northern Crater, and ending with the Lifestream being summoned to destroy Meteor before it can destroy the planet.

Like... that's the story of... 90% of rewrites of FFVII. Time-Travel, Zack Survies, Cloud doesn't loose his memory, Vincent wakes up early, Cloud gets into SOLDIER, the list goes on... Most of them will hit all the main story beats of FFVII and tweak the events a tad, but the events still happen (you should see how many variants of Nibelheim Incident people can come up with in CC era fics!).

What *does* change is the tone and theme of the work a lot of the time. Sure, the *events* are still happening, but the story does end up feeling different if Zack is around, or Cloud gets his head in order early or half a dozen other things. Or you know... when we've killed Fate and have an Unknown Journey ahead of us...

I've just seen so many ways of still having canon events happen for very different reasons by this point that... the overall events of FFVII kinda... I wouldn't say they've lost their meaning. But they're definetly more like set-pieces. The event itseslf isn't the important thing I pay attention to. It's all the ways that event is different than how it happened in canon that I notice. That's what most fan-fics want to show off: how a few changes can snowball across all the events we're familiar with.

 

[KindOfBlue]

It's interesting how past experiences influence what people take a way from comments.

I see "the overarching story follows the original" and see... 95% of all Time-Travel Fan-Fics in there. Particularly the trope The Stations of Canon. Which is... essentially the idea that even with changes to the source material happening, the vast bulk of the story events do happen in some size, shape or form. The story *has* to have certain events happen so that it can be recognized as that story. Of course... how the events *happen* can end up wildly different. But it's still following the overarching story of the derivative work.

It's honestly really funny looking at the FFVII Fan-Fic "Stations of Canon" entry, because the Midgar Section of it sounds so much like what we got in Remake.Like... that's the story of... 90% of rewrites of FFVII. Time-Travel, Zack Survies, Cloud doesn't loose his memory, Vincent wakes up early, Cloud gets into SOLDIER, the list goes on... Most of them will hit all the main story beats of FFVII and tweak the events a tad, but the events still happen (you should see how many variants of Nibelheim Incident people can come up with in CC era fics!).

What *does* change is the tone and theme of the work a lot of the time. Sure, the *events* are still happening, but the story does end up feeling different if Zack is around, or Cloud gets his head in order early or half a dozen other things. Or you know... when we've killed Fate and have an Unknown Journey ahead of us...

I've just seen so many ways of still having canon events happen for very different reasons by this point that... the overall events of FFVII kinda... I wouldn't say they've lost their meaning. But they're definetly more like set-pieces. The event itseslf isn't the important thing I pay attention to. It's all the ways that event is different than how it happened in canon that I notice. That's what most fan-fics want to show off: how a few changes can snowball across all the events we're familiar with.

This is pretty much why I avoid a lot of fan fiction generally, though I’m a lot more open to when creators reinterpret their own works

 

[Eerie]

I usually don't like to read fanfiction (I used to read a lot some years back) because I feel that it distorts the image of the characters the authors try to portray. Sometimes fandom likes an OOC idea and runs with it, but I don't like to look at those characters that way.

I know it's weird since I sometimes write some fics myself, but it's more writing thirst than reading thirst that makes me do it. The past fic and the next one are gifts too, so I'm putting extra effort towards characterisation.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

This is pretty much why I avoid a lot of fan fiction generally, though I’m a lot more open to when creators reinterpret their own works

I usually don't like to read fanfiction (I used to read a lot some years back) because I feel that it distorts the image of the characters the authors try to portray. Sometimes fandom likes an OOC idea and runs with it, but I don't like to look at those characters that way.

I wish I could say Nojima ignores fan-fiction... but I know he doesn't. He has mentioned looking at FFVII fan-ficiton before...

So I'm... kinda taking Remake as Nojima also reacting to how many other ways his stuff has been re-told as the creator of the original work. 'Cause he's probably seen the most common variations of it by now...

 

[Eerie]

Given he's bad with English - or has been, he was taking English classes at some point recently? - I would not be surprised if that was only JP fanfiction though. I have no clue how they tell stories... Japanese writing style is very different - or at least feels very different - than western writing style (especially English).

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Given that one of the oldest Japanese fan-comics I know of is a Zack Lives plot that managed to *nail* Zack's personality years before the Compilation ever came out (to the point you almost wonder if Nojima copied it...) there's at least some overlap in FFVII Stock Fan-fic Plots between JP and English for Nojima to reasonably have some idea of what they are.

 

[KindOfBlue]

Given that one of the oldest Japanese fan-comics I know of is a Zack Lives plot that managed to *nail* Zack's personality years before the Compilation ever came out (to the point you almost wonder if Nojima copied it...) there's at least some overlap in FFVII Stock Fan-fic Plots between JP and English for Nojima to reasonably have some idea of what they are.

I mean as limited as Zack’s characterization is in the OG, his personality seems pretty generic as far as stock anime upbeat male MCs go so I don’t imagine it would’ve been hard to assume what his personality might be...I’m curious as to where that fan comic went with the Zack lives plot though because it’s still anybody’s guess as to what the remake is going for at this point and it might be interesting to compare them

 

[Theozilla]

It's interesting how past experiences influence what people take a way from comments.

I see "the overarching story follows the original" and see... 95% of all Time-Travel Fan-Fics in there. Particularly the trope The Stations of Canon. Which is... essentially the idea that even with changes to the source material happening, the vast bulk of the story events do happen in some size, shape or form. The story *has* to have certain events happen so that it can be recognized as that story. Of course... how the events *happen* can end up wildly different. But it's still following the overarching story of the derivative work.

It's honestly really funny looking at the FFVII Fan-Fic "Stations of Canon" entry, because the Midgar Section of it sounds so much like what we got in Remake.Like... that's the story of... 90% of rewrites of FFVII. Time-Travel, Zack Survies, Cloud doesn't loose his memory, Vincent wakes up early, Cloud gets into SOLDIER, the list goes on... Most of them will hit all the main story beats of FFVII and tweak the events a tad, but the events still happen (you should see how many variants of Nibelheim Incident people can come up with in CC era fics!).

What *does* change is the tone and theme of the work a lot of the time. Sure, the *events* are still happening, but the story does end up feeling different if Zack is around, or Cloud gets his head in order early or half a dozen other things. Or you know... when we've killed Fate and have an Unknown Journey ahead of us...

I've just seen so many ways of still having canon events happen for very different reasons by this point that... the overall events of FFVII kinda... I wouldn't say they've lost their meaning. But they're definetly more like set-pieces. The event itseslf isn't the important thing I pay attention to. It's all the ways that event is different than how it happened in canon that I notice. That's what most fan-fics want to show off: how a few changes can snowball across all the events we're familiar with.

How events happen is still a significant part in determining how much the overarching story follows the original or not. Not all changes are equal, like both the 1970s King Kong and 2005 King Kong make changes compared to the original, but the average watcher can understand that the types of changes the 1970s King Kong made, makes it differ more from the original film than the 2005 film does.
A lot of those example changes that you gave from fan fiction, are changes that would make plot differ more from the OG than what the Remake has done so far. Though some of those examples aren’t, like Vincent waking up earlier, with how little Vincent affects the OG plot when he wakes up affects the narrative relatively little. If Nomura is saying he wouldn’t change elements like Vincent’s awakening, I think we can expect the changes and modifications in the Remake to only reach a certain degree of impact.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1407728557078585349

X

 

[KindOfBlue]

So how long until we see Cloud descending to the planet’s core on a stripper pole to give Sephiroth a lap dance?

 

[Makoeyes987]

An interesting new interview dropped today.

FFVII Intermission Points Directly to Part 2

Some interesting parts.

Toriyama said that any time a new character from outside the original 1997 release is introduced into the new story, the writers will always frame it as a first encounter with Cloud, the protagonist and audience surrogate.
“For unfamiliar enemies like Weiss or Nero, I think being able to convey that they have a kind of deep darkness about them is plenty,” Toriyama said. “At the same time, those who are familiar with them can make a stronger connection to the overarching ‘Final Fantasy VII’ world by having them appear in the narrative as they are in their respective source material.”

Also.

Yuffie was a perfect star for the additional chapter “Intermission” because she was also an optional character in the original game, but her backstory wasn’t as solidified as Vincent. Toriyama said reintroducing the gem thief as an integral part of the story wouldn’t be as jarring.

“If this were Vincent, another optional character, he would have been sleeping in a coffin in the Shinra mansion, so we wouldn’t be able to move him around,” Toriyama said. “But Yuffie was traveling the world as a materia hunter in the original. By having Yuffie infiltrate Midgar as part of her travels, she can experience the same incidents Cloud and company were experiencing, depicting the same incidents from a different perspective.”