SPOILERS FFVII Remake Open Spoiler Discussion Thread

[KindOfBlue]

Damnit.

Heh I guess what I’m trying to ask is if there’s really any other way to achieve the same effect that the Remake ending has without doing something this drastic. How else would we be able to feel this much uncertainty about the future if they just retold the OG without major deviations?

 

[Ite]

Okay, in all seriousness, I would made whispers proto-projections of Sephiroth, something that Jenova is able to do between sleep and wakefulness -- her captivity in the Shinra building prevents her from doing anything else. I would expand the roles of the numbered guys, and the whispers would be introduced as somehow connected with them - helping them in some way, or perhaps rumored to be conjured by the strange sick people. The whispers would first appear terrifying to the party but ultimately prove helpful, unable to interact with the world but through their presence they help Cloud out of a few sticky situations. By the time you get to Shinra HQ, Cloud and the player should trust them implicitly. In Shinra HQ, the whispers gesture at something and you follow the direction unthinkingly -- this begins a chain reaction that leads to Jenova's escape. When the door to Cloud's cell opens, he can wonder if the whispers did it, then remembers that no, they can't actually interact with the world (an assumption that is no longer correct!) At the end of the highway chase, Sephiroth appears, surrounded by whispers - you've been helping Sephiroth return all along!! He summons corporeal whispers as a final boss, then vanishes.

 

[KindOfBlue]

Funny because I think defeating the whispers actually allowed Jenova to take control of them, so it’s not too far off from what you wrote. Maybe Sephiroth absorbing the whispers helps Jenova either rewrite history or create this powerful illusion strong enough to affect the entire planet and bind the world to her control.

Maybe Zack’s survival is an illusion! I can see it now: part 2 teases Zack several times but you never actually meet him until the end of the game and rather than a happy reunion, he just turns into Jenova for a crazy final boss fight.

 

[Ite]

(sorry for the hiccup, lots of posts all at once)

Heh I guess what I’m trying to ask is if there’s really any other way to achieve the same effect that the Remake ending has without doing something this drastic. How else would we be able to feel this much uncertainty about the future if they just retold the OG without major deviations?

My issue I guess is that us feeling "uncertain about the future" is something that is only relevant between releases of FF7 Remake parts. My issue is that "new" is only new once. Maybe it's my bias as an actor and musician who literally made most of his pre-covid living doing the same thing over and over, night after night -- a lot of the time, reciting scripts that are centuries old. I take the longview when it comes to storytelling, it's not that I don't love being surprised - quite the opposite. But my top priority is not freshness and newness, and I'm coming to realize that a lot of people's top priority was freshness and newness, which begs the question: why not just a new story altogether? Because this freshness and newness comes at the expense of the emotional fulcrum of Final Fantasy VII: life in the universe is precious, it's gone suddenly, and too soon, and no amount of magic will bring it back. That idea was summarily thrown away in Part 1, and Barret's revival was the point where I went from somewhat let-down to actively hostile towards the game.

While I go on about how I want the classic story to endure, I'm aware that nothing exists in a vacuum. I think that's why a 21st Century retelling of Final Fantasy VII presented a great opportunity in my point of view. We now live in a world in which "the 1%" is a common household term, a world in which anthropogenic climate change actively devastates the world instead of just being a dire warning, a world that creeps ever closer to transhumanism, late-stage capitalism, and a real reckoning with our own complacency in systemic oppression. I was really excited to see how these things would land anew in a story that has moustache-twirling villains making monsters for fun. I got time travelling ghosts instead.

Edit: If the whispers/timeline stuff represents a new thread of plot to keep interest in the game going between parts, to spark theories and to have old and new fans share in the unknown, and to have content creators on YouTube give Remake lots of free advertising, I'll concede that, from a marketing standpoint, there's something to it. This is one of the ways in which my thinking is definitely archaic, because I can't think of a way to do that that doesn't seem like an unnatural, shoehorned, very bad idea in the context of the story itself, which is where my interest lies. If that was the motivation behind the whispers and timeline stuff, I'm even less impressed than I was before. Allowing capitalist concerns to drive the writing isn't very in-the-spirit of FF7. I suppose something similar could be done with the larger Avalanche stuff (another great addition imo... so far <.<) but that's kind of abstract and wouldn't drum up the kind of "Comm-yoo-nee-tee engage-ment" they're going for. In short, I don't think I can answer your question.

 

[Shademp]

Yes, just what we need, Zack having a hand on everything again.
Did you think that Aerith's ribbon was her idea? Surprise! It was Zack's!
Did you believed that 7th Heaven was Tifa's idea? Surprise! It was Zack's!

And more pointless shit was Zack's idea too, he was the Forrest Gump of FFVII.

The true actor behind it all though, FFVII's equivalent to the Star Wars Sith lord Jar Jar Binks, is Cait Sith. He was even there in Lucrecia's picnic basket, 30 years before the main game.

Cait Sith transcends the rules of both the Lifestream and Jenova, able to live without a spirit or even without its own cells. Cait Sith's existence is one of madness, an undead who can never truly die, and he wants nothing more than for all life to join his fate.

This is why Cait Sith has shattered the foundations of time. When the time comes for both Jenova's Reunion and for the Planet's time shards to be reunited, Cait Sith will be in the centre of it all. No longer a shell forced to walk the aeons, Cait Sith will transcend time and space and have full control of all living, dead and undead. All shall join his glory. Sephiroth is just Cait Sith's pawn in the larger scheme.

Or in other words: The cat did it.

 

[Erotic Materia]

I, for one, look forward to welcoming our new cat overlord.

 

[KindOfBlue]

That idea was summarily thrown away in Part 1, and Barret's revival was the point where I went from somewhat let-down to actively hostile towards the game.

Don’t you think Barret actually being dead would anger the fans though? Even without the whispers, I feel like our awareness of the OG’s events is a form of plot armor in itself since we already know who’s supposed to die and when. I guess I’m just convinced that the way death is treated in the ending of Remake is to build up a false sense of security that you-know-who might have a chance at surviving later. I could be wrong, of course, but I’m not expecting anybody who originally died in the OG to make it out of Remake alive by the time it’s all over.

 

[ForceStealer]

Just out of curiosity, did you all even want a remake?

Yes. I'm not as salty as Ite, and I'm also not coming from his exact position, we just overlap. No part of what I was after had to do with definitive versions or ease in getting other people to play it. I wanted this for me, I don't give a shit about about other people playing it, lol. Most of my friends that play video games have played the original, and those that don't won't play a remake any more readily than they would the old one.

Graphics aside the original holds up just fine, all I would want is a new English localization so the plot is more comprehensible. That's all the new FFVII that was ever necessary, but so many people wanted so much more.

For old fans who don't like the remake, I'm not just going to say "why do you even care if the remake is weird when the original still exists." Ultimately more FFVII discourse than not is going to surround the remake from now on, so that'll unavoidably impact you regardless. I guess I'm wondering, is that really all that concerns you though? That the conversation will be inevitably altered the more the Remake drifts from the original? Is there some fear of getting left behind in a sea of new discussion? I dunno, maybe I'm small-minded, but that's the only reason I can think of.

The way I see it, if it was just going to be the same story with prettier visuals they should have done an OOT 3D and just updated the graphics while mostly leaving everything else alone. That'd be cheap, I think most people would be happy with it, and that's the treatment other FF games have gotten. However, that wouldn't live up to the expectations people have had for the past decade+ about what a "Final Fantasy VII" remake would be like.

Really, you've all been fucked from the day that that scummy PS3 demo got shown off. That put the image of AAA fully realized FFVII in peoples heads. If it was gonna be the same plot Square would have just done a remaster like I mentioned above, but if they're gonna go all out things have to be different. There's no way they could justify it otherwise. Not for how many games it's gonna take, not for how much money they're dumping into it. You should know that, you're all familiar with these people at this point, you know they're a bunch of weirdos with weird ideas who would definitely be unsatisfied with just retreading old ground just because you all don't want change. The "not specifically you guys in this thread but a more generalized 'you' refering to the larger FFVII community" dug this hole for yourselves inch by inch with every FFVII REMAKE rumor and wishlist, every time you asked the developers if they'd do it, every time you showed how much interest there was for it, every time square enix couldn't escape the shadow of a decades old PS1 game.

So I'll say again, did you all even want a remake? Because you got a fucking "REMAKE," built from the ground up as if it were a new game with a new plot and a whole load of new things to worry about, and you should have know it wouldn't be any other way.

"The promise has been made" mother fuckers.

*mic drop*

POTATO OUT!

This is what I don't understand. What's wrong with the game how it was that you even wanted a "replacement?"

I don't understand your rigid adherence to this idea that the only reason a remake could exist is because there's something wrong with the original. Stuff is remade all the time without a statement on the original. This is a weird position to insist on.

This is my favorite fictional world and I relish any opportunity to spend more time in it. This is why I want a remake, I wanted to be able experience being in Midgar, rather than just looking down at it. Feeling excited when I came to a sequence that I had forgotten would be there (such as Elmyra's flashback) because I was engrossed in the story and hte new perspective. This is why I spent so much of my time with the Remake looking up (like that lady in Sector 5)! That was incredible for me. To be enveloped by the world and the story of my favorite work of fiction. The meta narrative shit is at total opposition to this, I'm back outside of it again.

looney and Ite have covered the strawman that says people that didn't like it were just afraid of change, or I guess this permutation: that we fundamentally don't understand what a remake is. Like, how could you not see the difference between the first 90% of the game and the ending? Are you seriously suggesting that the additions made to that point - the Jessie chapter, the alterations to the Wall Market sequence, the world-building in the sidequests and the expanded Sectors 5 and 7 - WOULDN'T have constituted a remake, and would have just been them going through the motions to do something they've already done? That the remake sans time ghosts would have been on par with Ocarina of Time 3D on 3DS? I find that completely absurd. As Ite said, I was 1000% down with all of those changes. They bolstered my feeling of being in the world, of being able to see it from a new perspective and, yes, in fantastic graphical fidelity.

But again, the time ghost metanarrative is different. It works to actively push you out of the story, out of the world. "REMEMBER HOW THIS WENT BEFORE?!" they scream.

I’m really interested to know how you would have handled the Whispers (and not just getting rid of them altogether).

After the ending, yes I want to get rid of them altogether. While I was actually playing through the game, I actually thought they were a fun a little nod to the fact that this is a remake. That the game was playfully, and winkingly acknowledging that you've done this before, and even that interpretation that the ghosts were us. So I didn't mind them for most of it. The more they materially interfered in events, the less I liked the idea. And by the end, any semblance of playful winking was gone. They're not a nod to this being a remake, they're saboteurs to the whole project.

Heh I guess what I’m trying to ask is if there’s really any other way to achieve the same effect that the Remake ending has without doing something this drastic. How else would we be able to feel this much uncertainty about the future if they just retold the OG without major deviations?

Why is this amount of "uncertainty" necessary, though? What advantage does this afford the game? With the way most of the Remake went, I would have been out-of-my-mind excited for part 2. The splitting into parts feeling wholly justified. Given the degree to which they nailed so many scenes in Midgar, and the substantive additions they made, I'd be beside myself with eagerness to see how they would represent other events. What elements might they add to Junon or the originally afterthought Fort Condor? Being inside Midgar was nearly a religious experience, imagine being inside the Temple of the Ancients, or the Cave of the Gi, or looking up in Junon to see all the terraced levels above you.
Now? Smeh, I guess I'll see it when it comes out. Most of that stuff will probably still be there, but who knows what other bullshit is coming with it. Who knows how many party members we'll pointlessly kill and bring back. Who knows how many times we'll have to fight a damn Sephiroth boss. And now the ending of every part is going to have to have some "What the fuck?" moment just so that we"re ~uncertain~ about the next part.

As I say I'm not as salty (or hostile, as he says) as Ite. Too much of the Remake was too good for that, I enjoyed the hell out of it. But without all that nonsense at the end, I would have been unspeakably excited and hyped. Now I'm only worried. So, thanks for that.

Don’t you think Barret actually being dead would anger the fans though?

So why pretend to kill him at all? This is a remake. Surprise me in the ways most of hte game already surprised me! By seeing how events are represented in this new perspective and engine. Don't just change shit at random to surprise me for it's own sake. That's lazy and dumb.
Seeing the way they utilized Hell House was a surprise. The whole fighting ring was a surprise that nonetheless fit PERFECTLY in the context of the Wall Market. I never would have come up with it and yet it was perfect. THAT is an enjoyable surprise. Stabbing Barret was just, "Okay. Well he's coming back." The former adds to the fabric of the world. The latter is purely the devs looking over their shoulder at you and desperately saying "Eh? Eh?! Bet you didn't see that coming did you, asshole!"

 

[KindOfBlue]

Why is this amount of "uncertainty" necessary, though? What advantage does this afford the game?

I think from a creator’s perspective, it can be pretty unsatisfying when your audience already knows exactly what’s going to happen in the story so doing this forces us back into a place where we don’t know what to expect. The handling of the ending could have definitely been much better, but for some, the very idea of going somewhere new is fundamentally wrong. Hence why some critics get accused of being against change, since a lot of criticism boils down to “I don’t like this idea, it shouldn’t be here” rather than “how could this idea have been executed better”?

The latter is purely the devs looking over their shoulder at you and desperately saying "Eh? Eh?! Bet you didn't see that coming did you, asshole!"

Whether we realize it or not, our knowledge of the OG inherently limits just how much they can surprise us. Sure, they can expand things just as they did for most of the Remake but it’s all within the safe and comfortable framework of the OG which might be good enough for fans but as a writer, you lose the boundless freedom you once had 20 years ago. They’ve given themselves the power to go anywhere with an in-universe explanation and it levels the playing field back in their favor. Now, HOW exactly they wield this power is left to be determined...

 

[ForceStealer]

Whether we realize it or not, our knowledge of the OG inherently limits just how much they can surprise us. Sure, they can expand things just as they did for most of the Remake but it’s all within the safe and comfortable framework of the OG which might be good enough for fans but as a writer, you lose the boundless freedom you once had 20 years ago. They’ve given themselves the power to go anywhere with an in-universe explanation and it levels the playing field back in their favor. Now, HOW exactly they wield this power is left to be determined...

If the opportunity to expand and explore the world you created doesn't carry enough motivation for you as a creator/writer, don't make a remake. If your only motivation is to make something new, just make something new, then.

 

[KindOfBlue]

If the opportunity to expand and explore the world you created doesn't carry enough motivation for you as a creator/writer, don't make a remake. If your only motivation is to make something new, just make something new, then.

They did both, though. They remade something AND they did something new. The remake aspect still exists and I’m sure we’ll still see our favorite scenes being remade in the future. It’s their story, I think they’re free to play by their own rules.

 

[ForceStealer]

They did both, though. They remade something AND they did something new. The remake aspect still exists and I’m sure we’ll still see our favorite scenes being remade in the future.

Most likely. And every time we do, I'll feel relieved that whatever it was was played straight, instead of whatever emotion I'm supposed to be feeling. Again, separating me from being in the world. When Nanaki's howl reverberates through Cosmo Canyon, with tears falling from Seto's stone face and Seto doesn't start talking or come back to life, I'll feel relieved instead of covered with goosebumps with a lump in my throat.

It’s their story, I think they’re free to play by their own rules.

Of course they are. And I'm free to say when they've done something stupid

 

[KindOfBlue]

And I'm free to say when they've done something stupid

But is it stupid because of how it’s executed, or is there no redeemable way that this idea can even exist and be done well? I think that’s what separates critique based on not wanting change from critique based on whether or not it’s good. I mean, you yourself point to things that you already know you’ll enjoy if they play it straight, which is already based on something familiar to you.

Edit: for the record, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with not wanting the story to change, I just think we should be honest with ourselves when we say we’re open to new ideas when really, what we enjoyed were old ideas expanded. Maybe because I’m a new fan, I don’t really consider the time stuff to be undercutting everything established beforehand but rather expanding it further, though the jury’s still out in my book. We’ll see what happens.

 

[Odysseus]

I don't understand your rigid adherence to this idea that the only reason a remake could exist is because there's something wrong with the original. Stuff is remade all the time without a statement on the original. This is a weird position to insist on.

It's not that that's the only reason a remake could exist (let's be real, the main reason things get remade is strict profitability,) but that's why I kept seeing so many people want one to begin with even before it was confirmed. The original is old, dated, the graphics are bad, game play is unapproachable for modern audiences... etc. Those are all the justifications I would see for why a remake was necessary, so I figured there must be some consensus among fans that the original was a flawed game now. As someone who only got into it long after it's prime, I don't see that as the case at all, it's still a very approachable game. I'm sure the switch port sold a ton just based on people who wanted to know me about Cloud because of smash bros. People still get in to this game like they always have so those arguments I have seen seem to fall flat under such circumstances, FF7 holds up to this day.

looney and Ite have covered the strawman that says people that didn't like it were just afraid of change, or I guess this permutation: that we fundamentally don't understand what a remake is. Like, how could you not see the difference between the first 90% of the game and the ending? Are you seriously suggesting that the additions made to that point - the Jessie chapter, the alterations to the Wall Market sequence, the world-building in the sidequests and the expanded Sectors 5 and 7 - WOULDN'T have constituted a remake, and would have just been them going through the motions to do something they've already done?

I never meant to imply that the only reason people would be upset is because of change, but that seemed to be a driving factor here. You guys wanted a faithful remake that was exactly the same (plus a few welcome additions like chapter 4) without anything else weird about it, but that's not what you got. You got Square going full ham into some out there plot ideas and bizarre new concepts like the whispers. From my perspective, you never should have expected it any other way, because Square isn't going to spend millions of dollars to make the same story again with a few new additions. I'm saying you never would have gotten it with the high production values we got if it were like that. It would have been

on par with Ocarina of Time 3D on 3DS

because that's all a faithful remake would warrant from square. Maybe a better example would have been Trials of Mana since that's actually them, or those crash remasters. It would have been fundamentally the same but with a few tweaks because that's all they'd want to budget for. If they don't have something radically new to show for their effort, they're just not going to do it. they'll make a new game instead (which is what I would have preferred.)

But again, the time ghost metanarrative is different. It works to actively push you out of the story, out of the world. "REMEMBER HOW THIS WENT BEFORE?!" they scream.

I'm not the biggest fan of it either really, I probably would have preferred the remake you and Ite want too, but that's never what Square would have made, because

I think from a creator’s perspective, it can be pretty unsatisfying when your audience already knows exactly what’s going to happen in the story so doing this forces us back into a place where we don’t know what to expect

and

the creators are actively against the idea of Remake being some kind of definitive replacement to the original, hence why the Remake even exists in the first place.

(@KindOfBlue sorry for stealing your words but they're so on-point lol.)
My viewpoint is that if we wanted FFVII with these levels of production values, it had to be like this. The creative staff would never do it otherwise.

 

[ForceStealer]

It's not that that's the only reason a remake could exist (let's be real, the main reason things get remade is strict profitability,) but that's why I kept seeing so many people want one to begin with even before it was confirmed. The original is old, dated, the graphics are bad, game play is unapproachable for modern audiences... etc. Those are all the justifications I would see for why a remake was necessary, so I figured there must be some consensus among fans that the original was a flawed game now.

Not a single one of those reflects in any way my desires for a remake.

You guys wanted a faithful remake that was exactly the same (plus a few welcome additions like chapter 4)

Plus a few welcome additions? This is what gets at me. How the hell is everything in the Remake that isn't time ghosts "exactly" the same?! Did we play the same game? Almost nothing about the experience was even close to an exact match to the original from even the most basic level due to the changes to perspective and gameplay. To say nothing of voice acting, character animation, a new script, new areas, new characters, new questlines, new materia, new limit breaks, etc, etc, etc

Even the freakin interviewer does it:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1285956785296207872

"there's a surprising development at the end of the game. With remakes, there's always a faction of people who don't want anything changed"

How the shit are these the only two options presented? Everything is EXACTLY the same, OR we fight the personification of fate at the end of a highway and Zack is alive now.

 

[Odysseus]

Maybe it'd be better to say "no radical departures" rather than "no changes."

 

[ForceStealer]

But is it stupid because of how it’s executed, or is there no redeemable way that this idea can even exist and be done well?

Are you making a change because it serves the world and plot, or because it satisfies your *dons beret* needs as an artiste? Or, even more cynically, because you want people to argue about shit on twitter?

I've already said I didn't mind the Whispers for most of the game based on my original interpretation of them. Around the point of the pillar collapse they were starting to try my patience.
You can say I only want the "familiar," but that's only because the unfamiliarity at the end was objectionable enough that I don't trust future instances of it. I can't be in the moment when Sephiroth is descending on Aerith not because I can't deal with the unfamiliar, but because I'll be bracing for Zack to jump out of the water like a frickin Ninja Turtle and tackle Aerith out of the way. Because that's about how much grace with which I can expect future changes to be applied.

Maybe it'd be better to say "no radical departures" rather than "no changes."

Yes, it would. No one does though.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I think the reason the ending of the Remake feels so weird is because there are different kinds of ways a creator can surprise their audience and the kind of surprise the ending of Remake uses is the "i bet you didn't expect this happen!" kind of surprise. Which... is surprise, but it's a very shallow kind of surprise and one that doesn't age all that well. It also can cause a problem where the story doesn't feel like it interconnects to itself all that well. It can feel like the creators are making it up as they go without backtracking through their story to make the new stuff work.

I'd say there's a similar... ending sequence in FFXIV 2.0, in that it really dumped a bunch of new lore into the story (the Ascians think Hydaelyn (more or less the Planet's sentience) is a parasite?) and changed the player's perception of FFXIV metaphysics (Hydaelyn can injured? while taking a massive spell that was meant to kill us?). However, the story had already shown that (a) the Asicans hate Hydaelyn (and us for working with her) and (b) Hydaelyn thinks of us as her kid (or at least said she did). The new information about the Ascians and Hydaelyn we got at the end of 2.0 fit into the other information we already had about them even if we (and as we later found out, the story devs!) didn't understand why it was happening. We wouldn't find out the answers to some of those mysteries until literal years later. But since the information fit into the story as we knew it at the time, so no one really wondered if/how the devs were going to solve it at the time.

Surprises are kind of like mysteries in that they want to be "resolved". And some surprises are easier to resolve than others. In fact, some surprises resolve themselves at the same time as they "go off". FFXIV's surprises are more of the "oooh! I get it!!! that's how all these plot points come together!!" variety than the "i bet you didn't expect this to happen!" type. But that's because the FFXIV dev team loves it when people guess what is going to happen before it happens and make sure they include foreshadowing so people can make good guesses about what will happen next. The "surprise" is "how" a sequence of events the reader already anticipated happening will actually play out. Not "what" events were going to play out in the first place.

The "surprise" of the Remake is "what" happened in it at the end. But the devs don't ever answer the "why" of it. In fact, they purposely dangle the "why" in front of the player in other interviews and the Ultimania and hint that "it's super important! we promise!" all while saying nothing. It really begs the question of if the "why" is good or not, or if the devs are as clever as they think they are. That the devs think the "surprise" won't work if they give us the "why" of it that could easily solve the "does this new addition work or not" can easily be taken as evidence that the "surprise" wouldn't work with the "why" included.

 

[KindOfBlue]

Are you making a change because it serves the world and plot, or because it satisfies your *dons beret* needs as an artiste? Or, even more cynically, because you want people to argue about shit on twitter?

Is there an objective way to determine this though? Especially when you factor in bias and the fact that this is only part 1? And if so, who would be more equipped to determine what “serves the plot”? The multitude of fans each with their own vision of what this story could be, or the people actually creating this story? I think striking a balance of the two is favorable, but it’s inevitable that this balance leans one way or another sometimes. Sometimes you get exactly what you want, sometimes you don’t. I dunno, I think I’m more interested in analyzing the execution of ideas, even “bad” ones, rather than outright dismissing them.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I don't like the Whispers because I can't make any sense out of them. Who can see them? Who can't? Why? What are the principles on which they interfere/don't interfere? (Why catch Aerith the first time she nearly fell in the back of the church, but not the second time? why was she in danger the first time but not the second, when she'd have fallen just as far?). What is the mechanism by which they function?

I liked Ite's version because it made sense, was in keeping with the original, and was easy to understand.

FFVIIR was full of wonderful surprises, e.g. the updated, upgraded Wall Market, the Museum of Shinra, Mayor Domino's new role, etc... But the fact is, there is no need to keep "surprising" your audience in order to keep them interested. I regularly read the plot summary of new shows on wikipedia before I watch them on Netflix. I don't need surprises. I need good acting, good characters I care about, a good script, good pacing, humour and drama. Do you know how many times I've watched the Princess Bride? Even though it's exactly the same from one viewing to the next!

Surprises that are put in to confuddle and mislead the audience are a mistake, IMHO.

 

[ForceStealer]

Is there an objective way to determine this though? Especially when you factor in bias and the fact that this is only part 1? And if so, who would be more equipped to determine what “serves the plot”?

Who said anything about being "objective?" I'm specifically talking about what I liked and didn't, which is exclusively subjective. The fact that this is only part 1 is a big part of why it's a problem for me. Because when taken as the whole, I LIKE the game! But it has completely changed my expectations for the latter parts, and largely for the worse. And I don't like when that is presented as I DON'T WANT ANY CHANGES AT ALL, when the remake was FULL OF CHANGES and I loved a lot of them.

That said:

there are different kinds of ways a creator can surprise their audience and the kind of surprise the ending of Remake uses is the "i bet you didn't expect this happen!" kind of surprise. Which... is surprise, but it's a very shallow kind of surprise and one that doesn't age all that well. It also can cause a problem where the story doesn't feel like it interconnects to itself all that well. It can feel like the creators are making it up as they go without backtracking through their story to make the new stuff work.

This is pretty objectively true.

 

[Makoeyes987]

There's having an FFVII Remake that runs the same course of the original plot, plays it straight, and merely expands on the narrative while passing the known and expected highlights/moments of the story.

And then there's an FFVII Remake that passes the known and expected highlights/moments of the original story, but re-contextualizes them by placing said moments in front of a wider narrative that in-universe acknowledges that somehow this whole affair might have happened before, and/or the characters are somehow savvy of what they're experiencing.

We're getting the latter. That's the change people are excited or apprehensive over. The change is a difference in how the plot of FFVII plays out for the audience. This isn't just the plot of FFVII anymore. It's the plot of FFVII-Remake, a story about the original FFVII story playing out seemingly again within the world of FFVII.

How close the Remake's telling of the original game's events stays in line with the original before expanding on its own new narrative is going to be what makes or breaks it for some people. The difference is that. There's two stories at work here. The original story and the new story. The fact there's two completely different narratives at play here doesn't make me believe it's a gotcha surprise, it's going somewhere. Where, is the question. However I feel it's going to be something that's essentially a story within a story.

FFVII is the stage for the Remake's own story.

 

[Ite]

SEQUEL

 

[Makoeyes987]

I suppose it depends how one defines the term "sequel"

It could be! I dunno if it is, but I could see how it simultaneously occupies the space of a Remake and Sequel simultaneously. But if it simultaneously takes you through a retread of FFVII but simultaneously acknowledges the state of its own existence and even includes its own unique plot, there's certainly space for it to be a sequel.

 

[KindOfBlue]

Which... is surprise, but it's a very shallow kind of surprise and one that doesn't age all that well. It also can cause a problem where the story doesn't feel like it interconnects to itself all that well. It can feel like the creators are making it up as they go without backtracking through their story to make the new stuff work.

I’m definitely more in favor of this kind of analysis because it speaks a lot more to the execution of these ideas. As frustrating as it is though, we won’t know for sure until it’s all said and done.

The "surprise" of the Remake is "what" happened in it at the end. But the devs don't ever answer the "why" of it. In fact, they purposely dangle the "why" in front of the player in other interviews and the Ultimania and hint that "it's super important! we promise!" all while saying nothing.

Sadly, that’s the nature of the episodic approach they’re taking

But the fact is, there is no need to keep "surprising" your audience in order to keep them interested.

No, but it worked didn’t it? Ending was sloppy, sure, but it did what is was supposed to. We have no idea what to expect, and that’s what the creators wanted. They’d probably have no interest in remaking FF7 otherwise, no matter how heavy the demand. If the whispers aren’t properly explained by the end of this saga, I’ll definitely be unsatisfied but until then, I’m stuck in limbo.

This is pretty objectively true.

Is it though? I mean, with the staff being largely comprised of both OG staff and OG fans, I think at some point the conversation shifts from being less about quality of writing and more about differences in vision. Though I really won’t know how I feel until I see the rest of the story. And trust me, I hate waiting but it is what it is.