Crisis Core Research Thread

[Clement Rage]

Actually, yes, if you don't mind. If it's available, I'd like to see Hollander.

 

[ultima espio]

Hollander is 1.824 Meters tall.

 

[Clement Rage]

Huh. He's actually pretty tall. Thanks very much.

 

[Torrie]

PC Gamer has just posted an article about Crisis Core fan remaster.

Here's the discussion on Qhimm.
The textures, as well as the instruction, can be downloaded from GitHub.

Dashing David sums it all up in his recent video as well:

Looks like it's worth giving it a shot, isn't it?

Edit: Finally got access to Qhimm, had to whitelist it in my antivirus settings.

 

[Tetsujin]

I need to give this a go sometime. Just...can't rip my own games so I need to get a rom from somewhere

 

[Strangelove]

does it only work with the english version

because i'm not down for that

edit:

Please note: This modification requires the US Version of the game ONLY (GameID ULUS10336).

boo

edit 2;

I'll release a shirtless Zack outfit with multiple fun color variations and optional nips

this is the problem with square's official remasters. no optional nips

 

[Shademp]

*sees video thumbnail*

"Gaia Interactive Map"

Gaia

The Crisis Core upscale project is awesome but now all I'll be able to think about is this text-graphical liberty they took that goes against one of my biggest FF7 hang-ups.

 

[Makoeyes987]

One day it's gonna happen.

The creators will call the planet Gaia in the narrative just from the constant repeated habit of others in their orbit, making it canon.

And it will be glorious. It almost happened before. It was in the first draft of the Remake script. Just a little bit longer.... We just need to press them a little more... And the dark deed will be complete

 

[Tetsujin]

I still to this day wonder how "Gaia" came about. The first instance was that Advent Children pamphlet...but who put it there and why? It clearly didn't come from the creators as they never used it anywhere in canon or related materials.
Who was that marketing person that wrote that pamphlet and what were they thinking? Where are they now and do they realize they're giving me a headache?

 

[Torrie]

The Crisis Core upscale project is awesome but now all I'll be able to think about is this text-graphical liberty they took that goes against one of my biggest FF7 hang-ups.

This whole thing reminds me of how someone may call their cat, well... "Cat" just because they couldn't have come up with a proper name. Same shit here, just a planet called "Planet", okay. As for the fan upscale project, the thread on Qhimm says they're trying not to deviate too much, sooo... I'd love to check it out, but my current playthrough has left me exhausted (even if I'll most probably end up beating Minerva, but it's yet to be seen).

I still to this day wonder how "Gaia" came about.

My only suggestion would be that the popularity of FFIX helped the FF fanbase pick up the name and apply it to the FFVII planet just because why not.

 

[Makoeyes987]

FFVII's planet will be called Gaia by the Northern Cave in the Remake and the Knights of the Round will become the Cetrans who first sealed Jenova! It's meant to be!

...So help me.. I will dedicate my whole life to make sure that these memes implant themselves within the writers' minds, which will then become the truth within the fiction itself! In fact, I think an internship just opened up at S-E USA...

My first agent couldn't get the job done... So I'll just do it myself this time

The Planet's been unnamed for FAR TOO LONG!

 

[Strangelove]

This whole thing reminds me of how someone may call their cat, well... "Cat"

i am being called out here

 

[ForceStealer]

MOST of the worlds in FF games are unnamed.

My only suggestion would be that the popularity of FFIX helped the FF fanbase pick up the name and apply it to the FFVII planet just because why not.

This is specifically why I'm against calling VII's planet "Gaia." If I have to specify that I mean VII's world and not IX's, what is the point of naming it at all?

 

[Torrie]

i am being called out here

Whoops! Sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone.

I will dedicate my whole life to make sure that these memes implant themselves within the writers' minds, which will then become the truth within the fiction itself!

... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. [John 1:1]

MOST of the worlds in FF games are unnamed.

I've just done a quick search to see which FF worlds do have names, and I'm amazed there are so few.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

If SE want to call the planet Gaia, or Gaea, I'm fine with that. I never disliked it as a name for a planet; it's actually a pretty good name for a planet. What irked me was people claiming Gaia was the planet's canon name when it has never been used like that.

As far as I know, our own planet doesn't have a name per se, in any human language. It's just called "world" or "soil", "earth", or variants thereof. It took us quite a long time to realise it was a planet!

 

[Shademp]

I still to this day wonder how "Gaia" came about. The first instance was that Advent Children pamphlet...but who put it there and why? It clearly didn't come from the creators as they never used it anywhere in canon or related materials.
Who was that marketing person that wrote that pamphlet and what were they thinking?

Here is how I think it happened

Chad had liked Final Fantasy on the SNES but never cared about anything that came after. His friend John was a much more hardcore Squaresoft fan and the only reason Chad watched Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is because John essentially dragged him to the cinema. It was a terrible movie experience and John would never bombard Chad with nerd rants about Final Fantasy the same amount ever again. The sheer boredom of the feature was enough that Chad blocked most of the movie from his memory.

Two years later Chad was desperately searching for office work and that's when he got in contact with John who was now working at Square Enix USA. A spot was open in the office and if Chad got the job he would be trained under John. Thanks to John's recommendation and reference, Chad aced the interview and got the job.

Chad was a good sport in the workplace but he had probably exaggerated at the interview how much he liked Square's products. It didn't help that John had projected his own nerdiness onto Chad and fooled himself into believing that Chad cared deeply about Final Fantasy lore.

When E3 2004 was around the corner and Chad was still under John's tutelage, John caught a nasty flu and a pamphlet design assignment that had originally belonged to John now fell in Chad's lap. He took a look at the reference material and thought to himself "Wow, they are making a seventh Final Fantasy movie? It's only been three years since that Spirits Within flick but I guess they got really good at making these movies. What was the world called in that movie again? Was it Gaia? Yeah, that was probably it."

While misremembering The Spirits Within and then doing a five-second google search to fill in the blanks when writing the pamphlet text, Chad completed the assignment and sent it away for printing. Chad was proud of having taken charge of this assignment without John's help and felt himself getting more comfy in this new job. Not for a single second did Chad consider the ramifications that this pamphlet would have on the Final Fantasy VII fandom and how it would continue echoing down the road for decades to come.

Where are they now

Wherever they are, they are flapping their wings and causing tornadoes on the other side of the world, most definitely.

 

[Torrie]

Now, that's been an evening worth of reading, and I'm enjoying this thread more and more. @Shademp, I swear you are one of the most valuable assets of this community. Here's my infinite respect for the amount of time you spent researching and the thoroughness of your findings.

I couldn't help commenting on some particular things.

...Hojo, is that you? Are you disguised as a boy? Unless it's common knowledge among the villagers that terrible experiments were performed in Shinra Manor, this boy has no reason to say "test sample for an experiment" other than to hint to the player what is already obvious. Yet again this kid exists to talk to the player and not to Zack. Except he is TOTALLY Hojo in disguise.

Yeah, that's a good observation that the boy is basically the game talking to the player, not a character talking to another character. Or perhaps we can assume that the boy was a Chadley prototype, hence the knowledge.

...Why is this random NPC here? Why, as presumably a Gongaga guy, is he a re-used NPC model? His only role is as a trigger so that Zack can start cutting rubble. This NPC is perfectly pointless though. The player doesn't need to be told anything here! The rubble and the treasures stand out enough as is! The player will understand to approach the rubble and then figure out what to do!

I remember how confused I was when I first came across that dude. Like, who is he?! If he were Gongagian (gosh, it sounds so weirdly hilarious), he and Zack would recognize each other immediately. Is he a repairman sent in from Midgar to look at the post-blow reactor? A visitor? A travelling salesman? In the end, I don't have the capslock big enough to say: L A Z Y W R I T I N G

Separated from the story, the waterfall minigame where you catch treasure chests is "acceptable". It's silly, but you could potentially find an amusing separation here between story and the gameplay.

Up until this post, I was unaware there's a waterfall minigame! I was always in a hurry to go save my dear zombie SOLDIER boy Cloud, so I didn't even bother expecting additional quests on the way.

In Lake of Oblivion there are five mako springs, showing a very interesting phenomenon.

Lake of Oblivion is imho one of the most beautiful locations in the game, together with the ruins of Banora. All these shades of turquoise and teal, swirling Lifestream streaks, a different soundtrack-- I leave most of the missions up until this point because I just enjoy standing there and looking at all that glow and flow.

In the prison laboratory there are two research documents.

I understand now that the idea was to connect the dots between the escaped makonoids in Lake of Oblivion and the existence of the laboratory itself, but I have to admit, the contents of the documents were extremely underwhelming.

Each of these five broken cages include a message on the wall, presumably written in blood.

OMG, another thing I didn't know was there! Crisis Core still has a lot to surprise me during my next playthrough.

Spoiler: NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN!

I'm laughing so hard at this send help xDDDDDD

DUMBAPPLES!!

Another laughter attack, thanks a lot xDDD

I somehow managed to place Zack exactly in such a way and with such timing that all NPCs gathered around him and stay this way indefinitely.

I find it incredibly amusing that the debug room basically placed Zack around the most prominent female figures in the game. We could only add the lovely receptionist from Shinra HQ that ended up running his fanclub.

He loved women, a real lady’s man.

Would you like anyone else measured?

I should have asked for Cissnei. I feel some sort of affinity for her, and judging by how tiny she looks next to Zack, I assume her height isn't that different from mine.

 

[Shademp]

Thank you so much for the love, Torrie

One of these days I should do what I did with my Dirge of Cerberus thread and edit the opening post to include links to key posts and discoveries. Without easy links to the highlights so much content becomes hidden and forgotten.

 

[Makoeyes987]

..Hojo, is that you? Are you disguised as a boy? Unless it's common knowledge among the villagers that terrible experiments were performed in Shinra Manor, this boy has no reason to say "test sample for an experiment" other than to hint to the player what is already obvious. Yet again this kid exists to talk to the player and not to Zack. Except he is TOTALLY Hojo in disguise. That would explain the whole cactuar-inside-the-safe scenario. Hojo redesigned the sidequest!

I missed this post of yours.

That kid is a ghost. He's dead.

He's the child that asks Zack to save his mother from the burning building, which Zack goes inside and it's a minigame to get her out without actually seeing inside the house.

If you speak to the mother again after accepting her thanks and the conclusion of the minigame, the mother will ask how he knew she was there and he'll say her son told him.

And she will then tell you her son's been dead.

Zack then figures that maybe it was another kid... But then who's kid was he? Yeah, that child is a spirit.

So that's how he knows everything. He's simply not alive. He's dead. Notice how that kid doesn't interact with anyone else but Zack.

 

[Tetsujin]

I missed this post of yours.

That kid is a ghost. He's dead.

He's the child that asks Zack to save his mother from the burning building, which Zack goes inside and it's a minigame to get her out without actually seeing inside the house.

If you speak to the mother again after accepting her thanks and the conclusion of the minigame, the mother will ask how he knew she was there and he'll say her son told him.

And she will then tell you her son's been dead.

Zack then figures that maybe it was another kid... But then who's kid was he? Yeah, that child is a spirit.

So that's how he knows everything. He's simply not alive. He's dead. Notice how that kid doesn't interact with anyone else but Zack.

This is like an episode of...

 

[Makoeyes987]

I actually went back and played it on my PSP and you can't talk to the mother after saving her. Which confused the fuck out of me because I could have sworn there was dialogue where the mother says the child is dead. I know I saw dialogue that stated this.

... Then I remembered this wonderful video in my favorites.

They dummied it out and I just remembered it because it made so much sense. I think the concept is still there within the game but now just subtly alluded to because remember. This child does not talk to anyone but Zack. The child knows things he clearly shouldn't know. And he somehow instantly gets Zack's phone number/email to send him a message 4 years after he's been missing to give him a present for saving his Mom.

We know ghosts in FFVII's world can manipulate electronics and know things from beyond the grave. That kid is a ghost and Crisis Core chose to hint at it Sixth Sense style than answering the question outright.

 

[Odysseus]

I remembered that actually being in the game too. Huh.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Because it makes so much sense.

I don't know if it's a good thing they excluded it to leave to the player to figure out, of if it only creates confusion.

I sorta prefer it being left out, just like how the game doesn't explicitly say Lazard is a bastard Shinra son. I remember thinking the kid had to be a ghost or something before seeing the dummied dialogue specifically because of the email that was sent to Zack was just so creepy.

It totally brought to mind Aerith and J-Horror where ghosts are capable of utilizing technology to haunt or interact with the living. The dummied text just seals the deal.

 

[cold_spirit]

I have a request. Something in another topic reminded me of the first ever Crisis Core trailer. The trailer, which used scenes from Last Order since the game was so early in development, was included in all 2-disc DVD versions of Advent Children in the west.

I found a YouTube version of the trailer. However, and this is where the request comes in, I remember the trailer featuring additional text after the Crisis Core logo is shown. The trailer I've linked is 57 seconds long, but a listing I found states the trailer should be 1 minute and 12 seconds. Can anyone with access to a 2-disc DVD version of Advent Children check this trailer out for me?

I really hope I'm not making this up. The text said something like "the story of three men, a young woman, and the core of the crisis that binds them together." It's basically the origin of the game name. Would love to check this myself, but all my physical FFVII media is on the other side of the planet lol. Thanks everyone!

 

[Makoeyes987]

Here's the trailer you're thinking of.

This was certainly quite nostalgic, seeing it again.