Deepground…

[X-SOLDIER]

Yup. I'm gonna go there.

Obviously it make zero sense for your party to be able to get there during the main game itself in any part of the story. I'm not gonna argue that for a second.

However it is the absolute PERFECT kind of thing that I think it'd be really cool to be able to unlock as the sort of New Game+ only, hard-as-fuck secret dungeon. First, New Game+ only makes it clear that it doesn't happen within the timeline of the main events of the game (especially if New Game+ unlocks things like Advent Children costumes for all of your characters). Second, that'll give you a way to binge your way into all of the Compilation whatnot, in addition to giving the remake a way to add in a little hint of, or just flat out address whatever the fuck is supposed to be happening with Genesis post-DoC as a sort of reward for making it to the end of the dungeon.

It'd also legitimize the idea that the Deepground program is supposed to be utterly psychotically brutal, and would also be a way to enhance the player's sense of all of the twisted & fucked up things that Hojo was into and Shinra was knowingly taking part of outside of the main SOLDIER program. On top of that, it only helps to reinforce the sense that Midgar was a really pretty coating over a lot of dark and horrible shit that was all killing the planet in one way or another.

From a gameplay perspective, having your New Game+ secret dungeon being back where everything started is a good way to bring everything back full circle to Midgar. This also gives a way that, if you ever wanted to introduce any DLC-content for extra bosses, it gives you a good arena to be able to fight them in (that isn't the one in Gold Saucer, since why the hell would you bring horribly world destructive things to an amusement park just for a fighting tournament).

For Example: Omega & Zirconiade fit the category of insanely difficult bosses that fit the idea of the sort of thing you'd only ever want to be able to fight as DLC or as a New Game+ boss since that never happens in the canon itself, and both of whom appear over Midgar, so having the dungeon to unlock them being centered at the same place only makes sense.


So yeah.

tl;dr - I want to see Deepground as a New Game+ only final dungeon.

Thoughts?




X

 

[Tetsujin]

I want to see Deepground ignored as it was a stupid idea and should not even be acknowledged as a non-canon optional thing.

Any optional dungeons I'd rather be related to the lore of FFVII (secret temple of the ancients or some shit).

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Ehhh, I don't think it'd really make sense to have Deepground make any kind of appearance in the game, but it could be doable. Maybe have Scarlet or Heidegger deploy some Deepground troops after the party?

 

[Jason Tandro]

To be honest I'm not crazy about any of the things that AC or DoC added to the Compilation, though that seems to be the consensus. Deepground was ludicrous. It was a secret Shinra ace-in-the-hole that we're supposed to believe was never considered as a counter-Sephiroth option, even with the weak "Rufus never knew about it" point.

How?

How did he not know about that? How did somebody in Shinra not blab that to the new President. You can't keep an entire Mako Reactor and underground vampire supersoldier cult secret Final Fantasy, you just can't!!!

 

[lithiumkatana17]

To be honest I'm not crazy about any of the things that AC or DoC added to the Compilation, though that seems to be the consensus. Deepground was ludicrous. It was a secret Shinra ace-in-the-hole that we're supposed to believe was never considered as a counter-Sephiroth option, even with the weak "Rufus never knew about it" point.

How?

How did he not know about that? How did somebody in Shinra not blab that to the new President. You can't keep an entire Mako Reactor and underground vampire supersoldier cult secret Final Fantasy, you just can't!!!

Well, the BS excuse that Reeve gave Vincent is that the transfer of power was so sudden that he 'doubted Rufus was ever briefed on the project'.

I don't think Deepground was too ludicrous of a notion, but I think the enormity of it was. Like seriously, how many scientists did the Prez have on his payroll to experiment on the bajillion soldiers that come running at you throughout the entire game?? And that huge underground complex?? There was a whole damn city in there!

 

[Starling]

DoC is a continuity nightmare. However, considering only President Shinra, Hojo, Heidegger and Scarlet knew about it, all of which with agendas that would lead them to withhold information from Rufus, I guess it's not that absurd no one ever told him in the 1-2 months the OG lasted.

I agree that the scale was excessive.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

DoC is a continuity nightmare. However, considering only President Shinra, Hojo, Heidegger and Scarlet knew about it, all of which with agendas that would lead them to withhold information from Rufus, I guess it's not that absurd no one ever told him in the 1-2 months the OG lasted.

And didn't Rufus make an attempt on his father's life in Before Crisis? (Sorry, my knowledge on BC is a tad rusty atm). I think it's entirely believable that there would be secrets kept from him, and a super soldier army with no conscience would definitely be one of them.

 

[Tetsujin]

I don't think Deepground was too ludicrous of a notion, but I think the enormity of it was.

This basically. Deepground itself could have worked as a concept if it wasn't for the absurd scale of the whole thing.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

This basically. Deepground itself could have worked as a concept if it wasn't for the absurd scale of the whole thing.

I think that's what really kept me from investing in it, to be honest. Now, I liked Dirge of Cerberus. A lot of things could have been improved, but overall, I liked it. I just found the scale of Deepground and the underground complex too unbelievable, and the fact that they're able to make their way around Gaia in all of these air crafts that I guess I'm just supposed to believe that they were programmed at birth to know how to fly. But that complex was so unbelievably big that I guess they had plenty of room to practice their maneuvers while being holed up for three years. And how would they even know where all of these locations are in Gaia anyway? Auto pilot? Selecting the destination off a list? A lot of the Deepground soldiers seem to have been too brainwashed to remember anything before they were sent down straight into hell.

Minor bitching, I know, but still.

We know where President Shin-Ra put the majority of company funds, that's for sure.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I think that with a remake though, if they DID include Deepground, you could get a better sense of what the scale should be like -- which is all the more reason to include it.




X

 

[Ghost X]

I don't mind any extra dungeons as an extra-canon thing, for those not a fan of the compilation. My brain can separate things out into their respective categories .

 

[Starling]

I think that's what really kept me from investing in it, to be honest. Now, I liked Dirge of Cerberus. A lot of things could have been improved, but overall, I liked it. I just found the scale of Deepground and the underground complex too unbelievable, and the fact that they're able to make their way around Gaia in all of these air crafts that I guess I'm just supposed to believe that they were programmed at birth to know how to fly. But that complex was so unbelievably big that I guess they had plenty of room to practice their maneuvers while being holed up for three years. And how would they even know where all of these locations are in Gaia anyway? Auto pilot? Selecting the destination off a list? A lot of the Deepground soldiers seem to have been too brainwashed to remember anything before they were sent down straight into hell.

Minor bitching, I know, but still.

We know where President Shin-Ra put the majority of company funds, that's for sure.

Weren't most of their troops kidnapped from Wutai? I guess if they had military experience before ending up there, that could be why they know the regions and how to fly aircrafts. They were also too fast and efficient with their plan considering how long they were stuck down there though.

 

[Tetsujin]

I think that with a remake though, if they DID include Deepground, you could get a better sense of what the scale should be like -- which is all the more reason to include it.

I'm not sure what you mean or why you would assume that?

 

[Clement Rage]

Hojo's been floating around on the internet for years, he probably did the planning.

Deepground was stupid, but no more stupid than some of the other stuff Shinra does (giant cannon pointing nowhere? Rebuilding Kalm rather than admitting to a mistake? Crushing 1/8 of their capital city to fail to destroy a terrorist cell of six people? I reckon they just found this giant cavern when they were building Midgar and figured it could be useful for something later.

If it existed, Rufus knew, you can't hide a project that large (especially as he's supposed to be good at rooting out information). Reeve's probably just covering for his sponsor.

As per the OP, I'd say don't mention Deepground in game. One of the things that annoyed me about BC was how Turks were always popping up places they should be nowhere near just to reference details that come up in a later game. DLC...maybe.

 

[Roger]

I'm cool with Deepground as a secret dungeon, or for them too feature in optional missions as long as they get a serious design update like those AVALANCHE members in the trailers. In addition to what has been said about the scale, I don't like the excessive mako lines either.

Omega and Zirconiade I'd rather stayed away.

 

[55-]

The problem with deepground, and the enormous scale of it, is that we all have an unbelievably hard time buying that they were so good at keeping it secret that we never caught a whiff of it in FFVII. The idea of this massive complex and massive project completely hidden from the world.
It destroys our suspension of disbelief because we can look at the two games next to each other and it's like, no. These make no sense, that they could both be existing in the world. It's exceedingly obvious, the order they were written in.
But yeah, now they have a chance to remake the main game with everything else in mind. Now they have the chance to drop lil allusions to deepground that will make it not seem so absurd. Someone could play the remake as their first FFVII ever, and once they get to dirge, if done right, they wouldn't even be aware of the frustration we all experienced.

Idk how I feel about the implications of working deepground into VII, though. Dirge's vision of the world seemed too. . . futuristic. The way it's depicted in VII, I always really liked at it's core. Midgar is a dingy, rusty city built on Gaia's first system of electricity. Cars are sparse. One of my favorite places in the game forever is the HIGH TECH battle room in Junon with all those very 90s, beige, CRT computer monitors. Dirge seemed to jump wayyy too far into the future of technology, and then it implies that all this existed all along. That bugs me. I am concerned that trying to make that even feel like it exists in the same space and time would mean altering the setting of FFVII in a very major way.

Anyway though, I wouldn't mind something lil like a door in the lobby of the Shinra Building that's crazy blocked off and guarded.

 

[Roger]

The problem with deepground, and the enormous scale of it, is that we all have an unbelievably hard time buying that they were so good at keeping it secret that we never caught a whiff of it in FFVII. The idea of this massive complex and massive project completely hidden from the world.

Doesn't help that Crisis Core portrayed SOLDIER itself as being an absolutely miniscule operation by comparison.

 

[55-]

Also I think it's funny that y'all are trying to figure out whether the whole bit about "Only Scarlet and Heidegger knew about Deepground and they're dead and Rufus became president too quickly to be briefed on the project" is a valid explanation for this massive continuity error.
The fact that we all noticed it, sort of rolled our eyes at it, and haven't stopped thinking about it, should be proof enough that it was a failure of an explanation. As far as I'm concerned, any explanation that doesn't just make you go "ah, that makes sense" and move on, is a fail explanation. You can't talk yourselves into thinking that it's not a bit ridiculous LOL

 

[55-]

Doesn't help that Crisis Core portrayed SOLDIER itself as being an absolutely miniscule operation by comparison.

Why dedicate resources to the people fighting your battles when you can invest everything in a bunch of people buried beneath the surface of the planet.

stockpiled for. . .

???

World domination??

Shinra already has that? What was deepground supposed to be for? Science?

 

[AerithLives]

Thats a great idea and ties in DoC to the storyline.

 

[Starling]

The whole thing with Hojo in DoC still bugs me. I also dislike the idea that Kalm got destroyed and rebuilt like Nibelheim.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I'm not sure what you mean or why you would assume that?

DoC has a very open world wandering in it, and the scale of Deepground is really large, but I think that if the remake gives Deepground in a game that has a properly massive and open world Midgar when it's still full of people, it'll give an opportunity to show a better sense of what that scale is than DoC did after Midgar was all but a wasteland. Sure it'll still be big, but I think that when compared to the fully functional Midgar, it will seem a lot more feasible. After all, how many people live ON just one Sector of the Plate alone? I don't think any game has ever really shown a scale of what a functional Midgar looks like in terms of sheer volume that gives a good comparison to Deepground, which is why it seems a lot more absurd -- and if anything, this would be a good way to correct that.

Also, while the technology there is WAY ahead of FFVII's world, I always thought of Deepground as beta testing a bunch of crazy ideas that weren't stable enough to be used anywhere outside of there. Sure it is rather annoying, but I like to think of it as if your R&D department was totally unethical, overly militarized, and absurdly secretive the sort of thing that you'd see.

 

[Starling]

You make an excellent point, though it's still hard to believe they hid that much technology from the rest of the world instead of making use of some of it to more efficiently deal with all the issues they had to deal with over the years. What do you think of the whole SND thing?

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Weren't most of their troops kidnapped from Wutai? I guess if they had military experience before ending up there, that could be why they know the regions and how to fly aircrafts. They were also too fast and efficient with their plan considering how long they were stuck down there though.

I thought most of the troops were originally wounded SOLDIERs from the Wutai War (although I'm sure some of them were born there, as evidenced with Nero and Rosso). Didn't Deepground originally start off as a medical facility and later turned into an experimental playground?

 

[Starling]

It did and that's what I meant. I wouldn't be surprised if they grabbed a few Wutai inhabitants along with the SOLDIERs though.