Fiz
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Eh?
Lemon snaffle a window carping, jump cart around the pillow conglomerate.
I don't think anyone could argue with that
Nope, can't argue with that. Wise words if ever there were any
FFVII from a newcomers perspective
- Thread starter Stiggie
- Start date
Nope, can't argue with that. Wise words if ever there were any
KindOfBlue
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Blue
In this case though, is awareness of an outcome the same thing as willing it? Perhaps this hypothetical being is aware of my choices, but does not want them to happen. But because they know the outcome already, any effort to prevent it is useless.
If only one outcome is possible, if the choice that you will make in the future is already known and cannot be altered, then that is fate and you have no free will. As I said before, you have only the appearance of free will. You, with your limited knowledge of your world, may go to your grave believing you acted out of free will, and the limited evidence you have may seem to justified this belief. But it won't be a true belief.
KindOfBlue
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Blue
I see, that’s interesting. Then in that case, would you consider the characters of FF7R to fundamentally be at a different place than they were in the OG?
I don't know what you mean by "at a different place".
KindOfBlue
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Blue
Well, given the circumstances regarding fate in the remake compared to the OG, would you say the characters were bound to the will of the planet previously but are now no longer? Or is whatever the characters choose inherently the “will of the planet”?
- AKA
- TresDias
I'm a writer and I do like words to mean the same thing consistently, yes.
I would contend that "fate" is most consistently used (constantly even) in its colloquial senses: i.e. for any seemingly inevitable course of events or outcome that participants do not consciously, deliberately choose. This can be anything from a supernatural entity exerting its will over situations; to a prophecy or premonition; to simple genetic predisposition (e.g. chemical dependencies) -- some of which will seem to fall in line with genuinely altogether unavoidable circumstances, some of which won't.
That notion never made a lick of sense, though. We had a "500 years later" scene and zero indication of any sort of temporal shenanigans at work.
Fiz
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Eh?
I didn't exactly agree with it at the time either, because of the end credits scene. I just thought it was an interesting theory at the time, like, we've finished the story thats now ended, and now go back to the beginning to replay.
However, now that we have Remake, it's uncanny isn't it? Aerith appears in her OG end pose (eyes open), OG is being presented as some kind of prophecy and some kind of temporal shenanigans are at work. I think its a bit... mmm... "stubborn"?... to not give that theory quite a bit of weight, and as people who try to figure shit out, for us to figure out how that post credit scene fits in?
AerithLives
Pro Adventurer
I have had several really good friend who have had to listen to me obsess over final fantasy 7 for decades. When the remake came out they asked me if they should try it to see what the fuss was about.
I thought the remake did a fantastic job with so much. They really went beyond expectations with so much. Though that ending was so utterly ridiculous and uncalled for. That, and those morinic fate ghosts were unforgivable, I couldn't bring myself to encourage them to play it in the end.
I mean, most people who played the original are fully grown men now. What on earth are they going to think with this teeny nonsence? Fate ghosts and time daemons flying around with multiverse time travel fan service in?
It's like they did a marvelous job remaking a wedding cake then taking a huge crap right on top at the end.
KindOfBlue
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Blue
Is this really that much different than all the craziness of the OG though?
KindOfBlue
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Blue
I do recall many a winter’s eve spent sipping hot cocoa by the fireplace with my fellow book club members as we discussed the sophisticated narrative of the antagonist believing his mother to be a 2000-year-old alien who wants him to take over the world
- AKA
- TresDias
In audacity, perhaps not. But it is much different craziness in the same way an earthquake is drastically different nonsense than a hurricane.
- AKA
- Smooth Criminal
I just can't wait til Cloud finds the door to Kingdom Hearts in Mideel.
- AKA
- TresDias
Banora, actually. Right part of the world, though.
Littlewing
Pro Adventurer
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- human
So I take it your a Friedrich Nietzsche kind of person? Because, it’s mostly just philosophy. I Medan it’s a widely successful successful and well known dog franchise of course there’s going to be weird tangents on quantum mechanics and the space time continuum.
I am not surprised at all, it felt for anime, comic book-y, with sephiroth almost being like Thanos at the end of Avengers end game.
Update on this btw.
We've just finished temple of the ancients.
He's absolutely loving the game, especially the atmosphere it is setting, the grandeur of the story, and the way the mysteries and questions are handled and presented. He feels thoroughly lost about what is going on, but in a good way, not as if the story is disjointed, but as if answers exist that he just doesn't have yet.
Especially Jenova is a mystery to him I think, he used to think she was an ancient, but now it's discovered that she's not, he thought she was Sephiroths mother, but then it's revealed that Lucretia might be his mother. Plus both of those apparently aren't ancients so Sephiroth is probably not an ancient. But he says he's superior to the ancients. And sometimes he seems to actually be there, but sometimes he seems to be like a "glitch" in the fabric of the world.
He's predictably not a fan of Cait sith, but well, who is. He didn't like the way he interrupted the serious moments at the temple and didn't understand why we were expected to feel sad for what is apparently a remote controlled robot. Also, while he generally likes the random encounters, they annoy him at places that are seemingly story heavy, like the temple, because it takes him out of the moment.
Interestingly, Aerith asking Cait Sith for her fortune came out of the blue for him, making him wonder why the game was suddenly trying to portray them in a romantic light when there hadn't been anything of the sort before that point.
This is something that stood out to me on replaying as well, the sheer lack of interaction between Cloud and either girl after you leave Midgar. We got the Tifa date, which is basically the only romantically charged moment between any of them post-midgar. Which is kind of weird considering the sheer volume of content between then and now.
That's something that blows his mind btw, that we're still on disc 1. He can't imagine that happening in a modern game. Again, the sheer scale is insane if you think about it, I have no idea how people expected them to do remake in one game.
For me personally I noticed (and noted this to him as well), that this journey in between Midgar and the temple of the ancients, really seems to be the "we're going on an adventure!" part of the game. Where our group of friends travel together, get to know each other, and just generally develop those rose tinted memories before the storm gathers you know.
We left Wutai for after the Temple, but aside from that, it really feels like the past 20 or so hours have been a break from the bleak story, only seeing Sephiroth once, going to exotic locales, riding dolphins, with only the occasional reminder that there is actually an extremely dark story that we have to move through with stuff like the black cloaked figures in Nibleheim.
My favorite part is seeing him try to figure stuff out, like what the promised land is, where it is, why Sephiroth wants it, etc.
We've just finished temple of the ancients.
He's absolutely loving the game, especially the atmosphere it is setting, the grandeur of the story, and the way the mysteries and questions are handled and presented. He feels thoroughly lost about what is going on, but in a good way, not as if the story is disjointed, but as if answers exist that he just doesn't have yet.
Especially Jenova is a mystery to him I think, he used to think she was an ancient, but now it's discovered that she's not, he thought she was Sephiroths mother, but then it's revealed that Lucretia might be his mother. Plus both of those apparently aren't ancients so Sephiroth is probably not an ancient. But he says he's superior to the ancients. And sometimes he seems to actually be there, but sometimes he seems to be like a "glitch" in the fabric of the world.
He's predictably not a fan of Cait sith, but well, who is. He didn't like the way he interrupted the serious moments at the temple and didn't understand why we were expected to feel sad for what is apparently a remote controlled robot. Also, while he generally likes the random encounters, they annoy him at places that are seemingly story heavy, like the temple, because it takes him out of the moment.
Interestingly, Aerith asking Cait Sith for her fortune came out of the blue for him, making him wonder why the game was suddenly trying to portray them in a romantic light when there hadn't been anything of the sort before that point.
This is something that stood out to me on replaying as well, the sheer lack of interaction between Cloud and either girl after you leave Midgar. We got the Tifa date, which is basically the only romantically charged moment between any of them post-midgar. Which is kind of weird considering the sheer volume of content between then and now.
That's something that blows his mind btw, that we're still on disc 1. He can't imagine that happening in a modern game. Again, the sheer scale is insane if you think about it, I have no idea how people expected them to do remake in one game.
For me personally I noticed (and noted this to him as well), that this journey in between Midgar and the temple of the ancients, really seems to be the "we're going on an adventure!" part of the game. Where our group of friends travel together, get to know each other, and just generally develop those rose tinted memories before the storm gathers you know.
We left Wutai for after the Temple, but aside from that, it really feels like the past 20 or so hours have been a break from the bleak story, only seeing Sephiroth once, going to exotic locales, riding dolphins, with only the occasional reminder that there is actually an extremely dark story that we have to move through with stuff like the black cloaked figures in Nibleheim.
My favorite part is seeing him try to figure stuff out, like what the promised land is, where it is, why Sephiroth wants it, etc.
Almost forgot, but I suppose I should give a final update on this as we finished the game last week.
Overal he just loved it, to the point where he's actively raving about how he's never seen a game with such a storyline, which is incredibly to me since he basically never talks about the storylines in games.
I sent him a video with Aeriths voice actress and he replied with "for the old one or the new?".
He'd been so engrossed in the game that he honestly hadn't noticed that the old game didn't have voice acting, instead just hearing the voices of the remake while playing.
He was absolutely shocked that Aerith died, even though I KNOW that's something he should know, it's just that he probably forgot about it at some point, and was even more shocked that the LTD is an actual discussion. He thought this was weird after playing remake, figured there'd be more to it i the OG, basically had a "wait, that's it?" reaction when she died, then had a "but...if this is the story, then why is there a debate on this" moment during the lifestream sequence, and re-iterated that incredulity during the highwind scene.
I personally felt, and I've felt this before, that the story kind of drops off a bit near the end with the huge materia quests. Those quests still seem a bit too tacked on for my tastes, like we should be working towards the final act but suddenly have this weird additional stuff to do. I think I feel like most of that would have been better placed before Clouds return, when he returns, it just feels like busywork. While I love the idea of returning to midgar, this "end of shinra" part of the story felt simultaneously rushed, and a bit out of place. So I hope the remake will perhaps pace this a bit better, make it seem to flow more organically somehow.
We ended up raising a gold chocobo in order to get the last limit break, and then accidentally forgot to loot ultimate weapon, which was a bit of a bummer but oh well.
He also expressed amazement over the complexity of the materia system, and spent ages in general making sure he'd have the best possible set-up, which I expected he'd just see as busywork so that was a pleasant surprise.
All in all I think I made a convert since he's now also speculating on stuff and waiting for the next part in the remake ^^
As for what's next, I just installed FFIX with Moguri mod on my laptop, and got my ps4 controller to work, so we'll be starting that tonight, after playing VII he's now finally curious after hearing me rave about IX for over a decade XD
Overal he just loved it, to the point where he's actively raving about how he's never seen a game with such a storyline, which is incredibly to me since he basically never talks about the storylines in games.
I sent him a video with Aeriths voice actress and he replied with "for the old one or the new?".
He'd been so engrossed in the game that he honestly hadn't noticed that the old game didn't have voice acting, instead just hearing the voices of the remake while playing.
He was absolutely shocked that Aerith died, even though I KNOW that's something he should know, it's just that he probably forgot about it at some point, and was even more shocked that the LTD is an actual discussion. He thought this was weird after playing remake, figured there'd be more to it i the OG, basically had a "wait, that's it?" reaction when she died, then had a "but...if this is the story, then why is there a debate on this" moment during the lifestream sequence, and re-iterated that incredulity during the highwind scene.
I personally felt, and I've felt this before, that the story kind of drops off a bit near the end with the huge materia quests. Those quests still seem a bit too tacked on for my tastes, like we should be working towards the final act but suddenly have this weird additional stuff to do. I think I feel like most of that would have been better placed before Clouds return, when he returns, it just feels like busywork. While I love the idea of returning to midgar, this "end of shinra" part of the story felt simultaneously rushed, and a bit out of place. So I hope the remake will perhaps pace this a bit better, make it seem to flow more organically somehow.
We ended up raising a gold chocobo in order to get the last limit break, and then accidentally forgot to loot ultimate weapon, which was a bit of a bummer but oh well.
He also expressed amazement over the complexity of the materia system, and spent ages in general making sure he'd have the best possible set-up, which I expected he'd just see as busywork so that was a pleasant surprise.
All in all I think I made a convert since he's now also speculating on stuff and waiting for the next part in the remake ^^
As for what's next, I just installed FFIX with Moguri mod on my laptop, and got my ps4 controller to work, so we'll be starting that tonight, after playing VII he's now finally curious after hearing me rave about IX for over a decade XD
Eerie
Fire and Blood
I remember my first playthrough I absolutely loved the materia system, to such a point that when I saw that FFVIII didn't have it, I dropped it immediately lol.
Also I've been replaying the OG and it's quite incredible how the LTD is blown up. It's almost non-existant, and shippers (myself included) definitely fight over the smallest things. :') I try to correct that view though, but looking at the OG through the Remake eyes has really changed my perception - or maybe myself have changed my perception with a better understanding of the OG, Compilation, Remake.
Also I've been replaying the OG and it's quite incredible how the LTD is blown up. It's almost non-existant, and shippers (myself included) definitely fight over the smallest things. :') I try to correct that view though, but looking at the OG through the Remake eyes has really changed my perception - or maybe myself have changed my perception with a better understanding of the OG, Compilation, Remake.
- AKA
- Ody
Eh, I do think the original did more to set up Aerith and Tifa as rivals for Cloud's affection than the remake does. The remake doesn't have Aerith asking if Tifa is a girl, or saying she's "with" Cloud when they meet Tifa at Corneo's sex dungeon, and you don't have Tifa's "EXCUSE ME?" in the Shinra building.
The most similar moment I can remember from the remake is if you wake up Tifa first in the sewer, she asks how Cloud feels about Aerith. It's not touched on otherwise for the most part.
The most similar moment I can remember from the remake is if you wake up Tifa first in the sewer, she asks how Cloud feels about Aerith. It's not touched on otherwise for the most part.
Eerie
Fire and Blood
Oh no, I agree but what I mean is, the material for the LTD in the OG is really, really overblown. Also in Remake, in French it didn't sound like jealousy, more like worry - remember in the OG it was Cloud who was worried to have dragged Aerith into their terrorist group, in Remake this scene shows Tifa doing it instead. The French and English sound sometimes really different - like in French, Aerith sounds really childish sometimes, which does not really happen in English, or I'm missing it.
Yeah, apparently that doesn't even happen in the japanese version, Tifa's interest isn't so much in Aeriths interest in Cloud as to questioning whether they can trust Aerith, you know, since they're a terrorist organisation. Or at least that's what I've heard, I don't speak Japanese so I really can't say.
It definitely is, it was really weird going back to it now after a few years of being more engrossed with the whole discussion, I distinctly remember feeling like there was much more to it. But after Midgar, if you skip Gongaga, and don't get Aeriths date, then there's basically nothing except for the one cait sith scene at the temple.
And even Midgar itself, after playing through remake it also felt like you were through it in 5 minutes and like not that much happened LTD wise.
Felt kind or a recap of the remake this time XD "Previously, on FFVII".
Fiz
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Eh?
The thing with the LTD debate is that its a cookie cutter harem anime setup where shippers are picking up any crumbs for whatever they can to make an argument for whoever their favourite girl is. Any said crumbs they pick up on are laid for the benefit of keeping the shippers shipping.
The OG put it down to player decision, the compilation then ship teases who Cloud truly loves romantically - I'd say its both depending on whether Aerith of Tifa tickle your fancy that particular day.
If I were to take a narrative hot take on the whole thing, Cloud loved both of them (different types of love), Aerith was snatched away (romatic tragedy), so he gravitates towards Tifa but cannot give himself to her because he mourns Aerith (another romantic tragedy).
But functionally, they keep people invested in their ships by playing jeopardy over both girls, giving both sides an argument to be correct.
Japanese entertainment is renowned for doing this, its basically a harem anime dynamic and unless a story has an explicit romance with conclusion then anyone who invests in a ship is being played by the harem thing.
When I started Japanese reading practice I got a little into LN's and this crap is all over them, whether they are harem series or not. It's just... a thing in Japan.