SPOILERS FFVII:R Chapter 12 Spoiler Discussion

[looneymoon]

I finished this chapter after a long session today. I am tired and have a lot of thoughts that I dont know how to Express just now.

A lot of what's said in this thread pretty much sum a lot of what I feel. I thought maybe it was just my level of exhaustion, but I definitely didnt... feel the way I should be feeling.

A lot of Tets' points on the first page highlight why. I think this remake in general has a lot of odd directorial choices. In some ways, the direction is hyper focusing on a lot of detailed things that they can do, rather than what maybe best for a scene. What I mean by that is, I sometimes feel like I am way up in the characters faces more than I really need to be. Kind of like the film version of the Les Miserables musical (which, funnily enough, is a film Nomura is reportedly a fan of ). I get that we can do a lot of fancy stuff with facial animations, but I could do with a few more wide shots and maybe less cutting around in some places.

I know I've complained about the wraith things before, but they honestly take me way out of every sequence they are part of. For example, the way they were circling Wedge, seemingly in attempt to prevent him from escaping - it makes it feel like there's this aspect of fatalism that wasn't present in the original. I think the reason FF7 is so beloved is because, even though it's not a polished game by any means, its narrative is very strong in its themes. Adding this meta-element where a future-knowing force seems to be ensuring things are happening as they are supposed to... It changes things on a thematic level. IMO, this thematic change weakens impact of the violence that occurs in Sector 7. Having a supernatural force guiding the story adds a sense of inevitability, which I feel is at odds with the desperation of trying to stop it. In turn, that then dominoes into the event losing part of its feeling of senselessness, and the idea that this occurred as a direct result of AVALANCHE's mistakes.

I am tired and that's all I got for now. To end on a positive note, I am very grateful for the remakes treatment of Jessie/Biggs/Wedge. Also Aerith and Marlene's relationship. Thank you for fleshing out this entire cast so faithfully, while still making it feel fresh. I think the remake is killing it in that department.

 

[Ite]

I couldn't have put it better myself. Well said.

 

[Strangelove]

in yet another page of my continuing saga of 'reading about the english version is confusing me', when people talk about the guardians of fate is that the weird cloak ghost things? i wasn't really getting the vibe some people have that these things are somehow guiding events towards a certain outcome or anything. maybe this is just me being dense and unobservant, also in japanese they are just called 'unknown monsters' (未知なる魔物) so they don't have the whole 'fate' or 'guardian' connection in the name

- i struggled a lot with the little propeller guys, i didn't have aero on so i couldn't hit their weakness (also i couldn't be bothered to change my set up) and i hope they don't appear again. they probably will in the coliseum but at least then they won't be able to fly away from the areas i can actually walk on
- when you're talking to biggs and cloud is gripping his hand and biggs starts caressing cloud's head, ngl i thought they were going to kiss. my new interpretation is that all three avalanche members just wanted to kiss cloud
- i knew it was coming but it was still a bit sad
- then wedge goes and starts walking around
- i liked the scene with aerith and marlene, why is marlene so cute in this
- i'm agreeing with point about music during the scene of the plate falling, i think silence would have been more dramatic. or at least a different song
- but i'm glad the entire plate didn't fall in one piece because then they showed wedge and his cats and honestly, the most emotionally painful moment of the game. i hope those cats are safe, i'm tearing up thinking about these cats

 

[Strangelove]

This is even more bizarre than Kefka poisoning an entire city's water and it somehow exterminating every man, woman, and child all at once, with no one surviving. Because apparently everyone drank water at the exact same time, at the exact same place.

a wizard did it

do they call kefka a wizard

because i'm tired and feeling a bit sick these past few days, i forgot points in my last post that i will now add here

- it was kind of fun to see cait sith just because i wasn't expecting to see him so soon, although in the context of someone new to the game i can see it being weird. if it had been a human character running out and looking sad i'd just think it must be some character we'll be introduced to later. and i'd probably think the same here, but also 'wait is that cat wearing little gloves and a crown'
- will there be a little cutscene in the shinra building where cloud looks through a locker and finds a megaphone
- i kind of feel like, as with the sewer level, they could have cut a floor or two on the pillar
- this has been a general gripe of mine and it's not specific to this game, but if you're going to put stuff in treasure chests pls make it special like weapons or accessories. it's super disappointing to find a chest but you open it and it's an ether or something. maybe if it's the first time you're getting those items or they give you like 5 or something, but when it's 1 hi potion i'm just. i can't keep getting betrayed by this
- i don't know how i feel about having a new cast. not that it matters personally since i'm not playing it in english and i'm not really familiar enough with the english cast to notice everyone, but it still feels like a shame. tbh i wasn't sure if barret's japanese voice had been changed but apparently not, he just didn't get many voiced lines before this to form a stronger impression for me i guess. but most of the cast (except actors who have passed away like hojo's and marlene's child actor) are the same. i thought they might have changed tseng's at first since on the video call thing it's distorted but that's the same. and good, because that's a nice voice
- on the subject of tseng, when watching a playthrough (which had english subs but japanese audio) to check something i decided to look at tseng's appearance at the end and in english he starts talking about 'the sector you're in has been condemned'? in the japanese dialogue he's saying "as for the location [of aerith]" then holds his finger to his lips as if to say it's a secret/he won't tell, and i feel like that action fits better than with the english dialogue
- i was checking that 'fascist pricks' line since i didn't remember after playing, and that's because the japanese line doesn't say that and instead is just like, 'damn you, shinra [dogs? pigs? 'shinra' but it's got a disparaging nuance]'

i was forming another thought but i'm tired and ill so i'm going to go lie down now instead
- i was checking

 

[Teioh]

- on the subject of tseng, when watching a playthrough (which had english subs but japanese audio) to check something i decided to look at tseng's appearance at the end and in english he starts talking about 'the sector you're in has been condemned'? in the japanese dialogue he's saying "as for the location [of aerith]" then holds his finger to his lips as if to say it's a secret/he won't tell, and i feel like that action fits better than with the english dialogue

I did wonder about Tseng's finger to his lips in that scene but had put it down to being a Japanese gesture I didn't quite understand. At least this makes sense to me now.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Yes, Tseng's Japanese VA is wonderful. His new English VA isn't nearly as good as the old one.
You're a wonderful resource Hito, and a treasure for our community.

 

[Theozilla]

I did wonder about Tseng's finger to his lips in that scene but had put it down to being a Japanese gesture I didn't quite understand. At least this makes sense to me now.

Yeah, ironically its seems like the English dialogue is far contextual in meshing with Tseng's "it's a secret" finger gesture compared to the Japanese.

[English lines of the conversation]
Cloud (to Aerith): Where are you!?
Aerith: I'm at the-
Security Officer: Sir. C'mon
Tseng: Your activities unwittingly brought you into contact with the Ancient, who is now back in our custody where she belongs.
Tseng: For this, you have my sincerest gratitude.
Tseng: Alas, the sector in which you stand has been condemned.
*********
So, it kinda still fits with the gesture, in the sense he is indirectly mocking their chances to get to Aerith, but it's less about the "mystery" and more about the helplessness, I guess?

 

[Gazzdw]

Oh wow, this chapter was along with chapters 1 and 9 has been my favourite so far. Two specific bits of dialogue in the sad scenes that had me holding back the tear ducts was when Biggs reaches out and holds Clouds hand in a manly manner and Cloud then adds his other hand on top of Biggs'; so perfectly depicts his progression of caring for Biggs/Avalanche. The second was when Jesse said "my hero, and always so gentle" or words to that effect.


The only thing I didn't like (and in the game as a whole) is the inclusion of the dementors, could really do without those.


This chapter the more I think about it upon reflection, the more amazing and impressive I think it is with all the small moments and foreshadowing such as:


Rude diverting the helicopter, Cait Sith (LOVED THE INCLUSION) made me excited for meeting future characters and his true identity, Aerith and Marlene scenes, the tension building to the phenomenal boss fight at the top was just perfect, the new Shinra recruit doing the right thing and Wedge finally showing strength to then save thousands of people but die himself. I could go on and on...


The plate falling cut scene could of been better (perhaps showing Jesse's parents) but even so easily a 10/10 chapter for me.

I really didn't notice the common criticism about the music whilst I was playing. In the moment I remember thinking it was good but the plate fall cutscene I felt should be longer and include other views (as I mentioned above). When I replay though I will much more sensitive to it.

I will say (and it worries me with the next instalment with what will likely happen) that with all the years gone by and so many people so desperately wanting a remake, with that comes lofty expectations of how to feel and how scenes SHOULD look 23 years later in HD. In that way I don't think time works in our favour because it has caused us all to overthink and over expect these big moments we know will come (e.g. end of OG Disc 1).

The only part of this game I have not enjoyed has been Chapter 8 with the cranes and awful choice of music. There have been quite a few tracks where I have thought "why would you sacrifice an amazing piece of original ff7 music for this electronic sci fi cack!?"

 

[Maidenofwar]

Aerith is all

Spoiler

serious business

Chapter 12. Glad she was able to

Spoiler

encourage Wedge, help him and the other residents and save Betty and Marlene

 

[Russell]

Best Chapter so far. Wall Market dragged for me, but this chapter really hooked me in.

Poor Wedge was herding Cats as he died, seemed perfect for his character somehow.
Biggs was a big damn hero. And Jessie? Tifa crying. Oh god the feels....

The aftermath was well done with Barret (glad he's back in the party).

The Rude/Reno fight was tough, I spent most of the time healing or stunned. What was I doing wrong?
Also I was so busy healing that I couldn't steal any items, I think I missed out again.

 

[jeronimus]

It's oddly comforting to see others who aren't as crazy about the way things were done here. And it's been pretty well said. The pacing in the past few chapters has just been kinda miserable. The sewers are padded out, but there's nothing meaningful to add so Tifa just said "I don't think they could actually be doing this!" over and over again. The train graveyard actually introduces some stakes within the level, but the party finds out halfway through that they need to actually hurry up, but there's still time for this (admittedly decent) anime ghost filler episode. Would have been a great way to punch up any other mediocre dungeon - the Mithril Mines in part two for example have nothing going on, so I'm sure they'll see a little miniplot. I like that.

But overall, it doesn't necessarily feel fleshed out or meaningfully expanded in scope, it just feels longer.

It's an inconsequential nitpick, but the level design at the start just took me out of the story entirely. In this tower that multiple people have been climbing, the first part of the level... features yet another narrow space of stakes crates that Cloud has to shimmy past. Are you telling me the dozens of Avalanche members frantically climbing the pillar all had to do this too?

I know I've complained about the wraith things before, but they honestly take me way out of every sequence they are part of. For example, the way they were circling Wedge, seemingly in attempt to prevent him from escaping - it makes it feel like there's this aspect of fatalism that wasn't present in the original. I think the reason FF7 is so beloved is because, even though it's not a polished game by any means, its narrative is very strong in its themes. Adding this meta-element where a future-knowing force seems to be ensuring things are happening as they are supposed to... It changes things on a thematic level. IMO, this thematic change weakens impact of the violence that occurs in Sector 7. Having a supernatural force guiding the story adds a sense of inevitability, which I feel is at odds with the desperation of trying to stop it. In turn, that then dominoes into the event losing part of its feeling of senselessness, and the idea that this occurred as a direct result of AVALANCHE's mistakes.

Absolutely. Trying to linger on moments of loss while simultaneously trying to convey a sense of urgency doesn't work. The idea of fate monsters just goes against showing Shinra's ruthless cruelty and the pointless nature of everyone's deaths. No, instead it all has to happen! I'm not against a different approach of themes, but none of it is landing as the original story beats at all. This is a core story moment and it's own efficacy is just cheapened by waffling about with the metanarrative. This happens over and over again.

Then there's the fact that the music genuinely seems to be getting worse as the game continues, with strange choices to remove effective and iconic musical cues from the original.

I really want to praise the things they're getting right - Reno and Rude are actual characters this time around, which is way better. Wedge getting the chance to save people is actually a smart move. I just wish they knew how to exercise restraint at parts.

Here's the dialogue I can remember from Jessie's death scene: "You're the one who gets to hear my last words", "Like hell they'll be your last words. [...] You still owe me a pizza." Those stood out. Called back to their flirty relationship, and Cloud remembers and tries to comfort her. And that's really all the scene needed. Brief, heartbreaking. Less could be so much more.

 

[Eerie]

To be honest, the sense of urgency of FFVII OG in general just sucks. You're supposed to be in a hurry, to chase Sephiroth through the whole map, but you spend your time levelling, defeating weapons, breeding chocobos... So I'd say it's not worse than the OG in that sense

 

[youffie]

^ But that’s more entirely optional gameplay content…? When shit happens in FFVII, it happens fast. You can choose to leave Cloud staring at the wall for hours instead of moving the plot forward, but that's on you rather than the game.

 

[Eerie]

It's still part of the gameplay and the whole FFVII experience. My friend grinded in his normal play mode because he loves it. Shit goes fast but there is PLENTY you can do to temporise. Oh also you go and have fun with that mini game ski and other stuff. Seriously, in a game where you can level your heart out, I think that the sense of urgency is never truly there. It's like MMOs in that sense "oh go there we need you ASAP to do this quest" which you put on your backburner and do it several days later. Sorry, NPC who were kidnapped, you'll just have to wait a little longer, cause my quest log is nearly full and I have other stuff to tackle down.

 

[youffie]

But the point is, if you don't want to do that and you want to focus solely or mostly on the story, the sense of urgency is pretty well-done in the OG; some would even argue certain things happen too fast. I think a better analogy to what you're saying are all the added side-quests with Tifa and Aerith, or even the minigames: almost entirely skippable and they give you a breather if you need it, so that part of the pacing is up to you. This is different from greatly expanding two non-optional dungeons that went by pretty fast in the OG.

I'm not saying that I found this particular expansion useless, just that I can see the criticism that the OG conveyed better the sense of urgency through level design.

 

[Eerie]

Ah but I think these are pacing issues more than sense of urgency issues. If the zones were better done, we probably wouldn’t hear this.

 

[jeronimus]

It's not that the zones aren't well done; I've liked quite a few of the levels. But they do all take zones that were one or two screens and turn them into an entire chapter, and not every part necessarily needs that much time spent on it. Plus a lot of them begin to show the same structure after a while; there's a narrow part you have to slowly move through! Something blocks your path so you go back to press a button. You slowly open a door. Suddenly the game makes you walk and fixes the camera even though there's literally nothing to see. Someone speaks in front of a hideous texture. Oh, another narrow part you have to slowly move through.

These parts in the original game where you have the time to roam around are also parts that come much later in the game; where the world is open for you to explore because you don't necessarily know exactly where to go. You're following a trail, there's not literally an army threatening the next town over but you're deciding to farm a chocobo. Roaming the world map and fighting random enemies is an abstraction of the concept of travelling from one place to the next. Moreso, if you choose to fuck around, these moments are your choice at open moments, it's not the game itself slowing down and saying "but instead of chasing after Aerith, have you considered beating your high scores at the Gold Saucer right now?"

 

[oty]

It's funny, because to me, the Midgar portion of the OG has amazing pacing. It is a short burst of a very narrative driven action. Things start to go haywire inside Shinra HQ, when a lot of plot points are introduced, and then it becomes very inconsistent. Kinda like how Remake is from the start of Chapter 3 to the beyond. You have specific story segments, that have their own good pacing. The overall plot is made of these segments, so you have an inconsistent pacing that you dont really mind, since the game is constantly introducing these story segments for your mind to focus.That goes for both games.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I have started replaying the OG and spent an hour grinding and farming potions and gil in that little bit of train graveyard accessible from the Sector 7 train station. That sure slowed down my pace. But then, that was my choice.

I really like the way they've designed the chapter selection in the Remake. Once you've finished the game, you can start back with chapter one, at level 50, and just power through the story, ignoring all the sidequests if they're not your cup of tea. For me the Remake became more fun and more customisable on subsequent playthroughs. Also, I never have to fight Motorball again.

 

[Strangelove]

i forgot it said you could skip the bike games at the end, so when i paused replaying chapter 4 and saw that option to skip the bike part

i felt so blessed

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Me too

 

[Jairus]

I was wondering why the other Avalanche cell from Chapter 4 never showed up to help defend the pillar. We only see them in that one chapter and never hear from or about them again. Odd...

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

They were all killed in that facility. They only just managed to get Wedge out in time.

 

[crazyrabbits23]

It's not that the zones aren't well done; I've liked quite a few of the levels. But they do all take zones that were one or two screens and turn them into an entire chapter, and not every part necessarily needs that much time spent on it. Plus a lot of them begin to show the same structure after a while; there's a narrow part you have to slowly move through! Something blocks your path so you go back to press a button. You slowly open a door. Suddenly the game makes you walk and fixes the camera even though there's literally nothing to see. Someone speaks in front of a hideous texture. Oh, another narrow part you have to slowly move through.

This is basically what happened to the Mass Effect series. In the original game, loading screens were masked by elevator rides within the Citadel/Normandy. During these loading screens, characters would have funny conversations, but they were criticized by fans for taking too long, even though they were there out of necessity. (As an aside, the third game brings this "loading screen" back for one moment in the Citadel DLC, with characters reminiscing about how they liked the elevator rides and asking why the party doesn't talk anymore.)

In the second game, the loading screen changed to a "screensaver" of diagnostics of the Normandy and other areas running on-screen, and people complained that it was boring and brought the whole affair down in many sections.

Long story short - there's always going to be a compromise in terms of pacing, especially for larger plot/world-heavy RPGs and especially for a title that relies on dynamic loading and seamless in-engine cutscenes-to-gameplay to sell the experience. You notice it in little moments, too -- in the final chapter/Singularity, when you're running to reunite with Barret and Tifa just after the Harbinger reveals itself, there's a moment when you're running along the linear path where a beam falls down in front of you, forcing to stop for a few moments as Cloud recovers his bearings and you jump over it. That small moment is a loading screen.

These parts in the original game where you have the time to roam around are also parts that come much later in the game; where the world is open for you to explore because you don't necessarily know exactly where to go. You're following a trail, there's not literally an army threatening the next town over but you're deciding to farm a chocobo. Roaming the world map and fighting random enemies is an abstraction of the concept of travelling from one place to the next. Moreso, if you choose to fuck around, these moments are your choice at open moments, it's not the game itself slowing down and saying "but instead of chasing after Aerith, have you considered beating your high scores at the Gold Saucer right now?"

In some respects, I would agree with this position. With others, I much would have rather had some kind of in-game notification that additional content was available.

I did all 11 battles at Fort Condor in the OG legitimately. Using a walkthrough, yes, but that took a hell of a lot of time to backtrack through areas (even at points where the game is clearly expecting you to continue with the story i.e. Cosmo Canyon) for otherwise-menial rewards. On one hand, I love the fact that so much side content was put into an area most people still aren't fully aware of from a reward/gameplay standpoint. On the other, I much prefer the New Threat mod's notices that would pop up after key moments to remind me that, yes, I could go to that side content immediately if I wanted. I would never do the OG Condor battles blind again.

 

[Maidenofwar]

I had assumed it was them Wedge, Domino, etc were in contact with to arrange the flight escape for the party out of the Shinra Tower ?