Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier

[Wol]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1365076915371995136

Dah

 

[Shademp]

Transcribed some Japanese text from the trailer yes I know Odysseus I'm not supposed to be transcribing stuff don't at me bruh

一般兵を撃破​

General Soldier defeated​

Shows up whenever the player character defeats an opponent.

一般兵​

General Soldier​

Combatants are shown to have this rank/class title. The trailer does say that you will rise through the ranks, so clearly other ranks/classes/titles will be awarded. In the Dirge online multiplayer, the rank progression was Drone -> Scout -> Trooper -> Commander -> General -> Tsviet.

伍番街スラム​

地下下水道​

ウォールマーケット​

？？？オの館​

​

Corporal Street Slum​

Underground Sewers​

Wall Market​

House of ?????o​

The minimap in the upper right corner will sometimes display the name of an area. It might not be the name of the full map area but rather a certain region within it. Notably none of the footage actually shows the player inside an Underground Sewer, so perhaps you'll be able to descend into the sewers at some point. Notably this area is the only one we see both in daylight and nighttime in the trailer. Maybe this was the point behind the trailer declaring the time as "16:00 PM"? Maybe the same maps will be playable at different times of day and have their lighting change accordingly.

Spoiler: 16:00 PM

The area name I've written as "？？オの館" is mostly obscured, though I fear the full name is probably "コルネオの館": House of Corneo. See time stamp 00:31 in the trailer. Hopefully they'll change the name by the time the game is released. Is it conceivable that Corneo had a presence in Wall Market as early as 30 years prior? Possibly, but it screams lazy worldbuilding. Let the era have unique characters and lore and make the areas feel like they weren't simply ported from the point in time when FFVIIR takes place. To their credit they've added more greenery to some battle maps, showing a more luscious snapshot of Midgar before the mako reactors had been active for any extended period of time.

The melee attack used by the chocobo-hoodie soldier at 00:32 is called "正拳突き", auto-translated as "Positive fist thrust", "Fist-pumping" or "Fist-bump". That is one violent fist-bump. I do not know if this precise attack exists in FFVIIR.

The staff attack used by the chocobo-hoodie soldier at 01:13 is called "ドレインスフィア": Drain Sphere. This place also sports a jukebox with a brown-white-blue design.

Spoiler: Church jukebox

I wonder if they will mimic Dirge of Cerberus and have the jukebox act as a shop, rather than following FFVIIR's logic and actually having it for *gasp* music.

My headcanon had always been that it was Aerith who ripped up the floor boards in the church and tended to the flower bed, so I'm not fond of seeing this flower bed present.


The shot from the upper part of the church is neat. The horizon shows a huge amount of greenery and there is none of the scrapyards present that we know from 30 years later. A sign of hope for the design of these maps.

Spoiler

Willing to bet that the red barrels are explosives. Every shooter has got to have explosive drum cans or barrels.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Work was started on Midgar 30 years before the OG even back in the OG days It's part of the timeline in one of the earliest Ultimanias. So yeah, Reeve would have inherited the plans from someone.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Corneo is a "Don," reminiscent of the mafia.

Mafia gangs are highly familial. Their gangs are derived from influential families, going back several generations from before they immigrated to the United States. That's how they accumulate power, standing, etc.

We know Corneo has extended family in the slums so, it actually makes perfect sense that there would be other Corneos who lived in Midgar in the past and were influential. How else would he have that much power, influence and property? It's not the same Don Corneo of FFVII but the family? No, that's... Actually perfect. He's a fixture in the underworld for a reason.

 

[Sephiroth Crescent]

My headcanon had always been that it was Aerith who ripped up the floor boards in the church

That's weird and I can't unsee it now. Thanks for ruining my Aerith!

it actually makes perfect sense that there would be other Corneos who lived in Midgar in the past and were influential

Each of them with different hairstyles! Afro Corneo is best Corneo.

 

[Shademp]

Oh right, this is the 1970s after all. This is the perfect opportunity to go crazy with importing the real-life seventies into FF7 lore!

Afro-disco-man in the 3D battler minigame was not enough, I dare say.





Assuming that the Compilation timeline is still relevant (I don't know the Remake Ultimania content).

[ μ ] – εуλ 1976
6/24
· Construction begins on the city of Midgar. The Shin-Ra Company headquarters is relocated to the new city.

...

[ ν ] – εуλ 0007
(December)
· FFVII Begins

So The First SOLDIER begins in [ μ ] – εуλ 1977.


EDIT: Give me this but with President Shinra joining the dance floor and showing why his dance skills are to be feared

 

[Obsidian Fire]

That is still accurate as of the World Preview book. Which has an excellent timeline of everything that happened before Remake. It has everything on our timeline on it at all the same dates!

 

[waw]

I get that we want to see a different Midgar 30 years ago. But the "fun" of making it a FF7 game would be visiting and battling in familiar locales with our own sort of FF7 characters.... It's a tough balance and why Last Soldier probably doesn't need to be real lore heavy.

I really hope, however, that Ever Crisis touches on that era with a deeper lore dive. Personally, I'd like to see a few things come out of this:

1. A new version of the "three saints" from the earlier drafts of FF7, probably being the first three soldiers.
2. Seeing whoever mentors Sephiroth and that interaction.
3. Seeing a process of decaying nation states in favor of Shinra, maybe even rival corporations that don't survive to BC times. I've always imagined (maybe read?) that Heidegger was the lead general of the Big Nation and through a coup and delievered *that* standing army to Shinra. I'm probably wrong, and happy to be, but I'd like to see this whole process. Taking us 30 years earlier is the perfect opportunity to show the world before Shinra dominates.
4. Please give us other sectors of Midgar.
5. Female SOLDIERs.

 

[Odysseus]

I wouldn't have any real expectations for the story content of the game, and the locations will surely be mostly ripped from the remake.

 

[Torrie]

Female SOLDIERs

YASSSS

This topic has been extremely underdeveloped in the fandom and non-existent in the official lore, so it's about time the devs filled in the gaps. But we'll still be dissatisfied with the way they handle it, I'm telling ya

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

non-existent in the official lore

Well, Deepground had female SOLDIERs, including three named females in the Tsviets -- but yeah, still woefully under displayed otherwise.

Also, it occurs to me that Cloud and Aerith discussed the notion of her being a SOLDIER candidate without mentioning a possibility that it was unlikely because she was female.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Deepground is the most inclusive Shinra organization and let's *claps* women *claps* be *claps* leaders.

That's why more people should join and become part history! Break the glass ceiling with your face as you scream!

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

That's why more people should join and become part history! Break the glass ceiling with your face as you scream!

No, no -- bathe in the blood of your fellow applicants by breaking the glass ceiling with their faces. Then dismember the CEO and burn down the building.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Well, Deepground had female SOLDIERs, including three named females in the Tsviets -- but yeah, still woefully under displayed otherwise.

Also, it occurs to me that Cloud and Aerith discussed the notion of her being a SOLDIER candidate without mentioning a possibility that it was unlikely because she was female.

It is painfully obvious that all the trooper/soldier models in both the OG, CC and even Remake are designed with... maximum identity concealment in mind. They all have helmets that cover their entire face for exactly this reason.

In Remake, here doesn't seem to be some type of "NPC creation suite" with different body forms and face parts that can be swapped in/out as needed; instead all the NPCs are customized. Which means... making female models for the troopers would eat up asset creation resources for very little narrative pay-off. And possibly make programing enemy spawns more complicated to boot. This isn't like FFXIV where there's an entire character creation suite and tons of armor fitted to different body shapes already available to be used. So we instead get very generic enemies when it comes to anything that isn't a boss fight.

 

[Odysseus]

If FF7 Fortnite has a character creator, it stands to reason that you could make a Female SOLDIER.

In early drafts of FF7 Yuffie was an ex-SOLDIER herself, so I don't think they ever meant to imply women couldn't be in SOLDIER.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

It was one of the more disappointing aspects of the Remake that every single trooper looked exactly the same - by which I mean they had the same skin tone, mouth, chin, jaw, upper lip, height and build.

 

[Odysseus]

At the end of the day, video games take time and money to make. Without a pre-existing character builder to easily produce variations on the generic grunt model, they probably just didn't think it was worth the time, or more likely, never thought about doing it in the first place. Most of these guys will get cut down in mere moments by the player anyway. They could have made a couple variants, or a female version like Dirge did, but these things probably aren't a priority during development.

 

[Torrie]

Well, Deepground had female SOLDIERs, including three named females in the Tsviets -- but yeah, still woefully under displayed otherwise.

Oh. You're right. I tend to be most focused on the regular SOLDIER division and get oblivious of Deepground, namely the fact that they are considered SOLDIERs too.

Also, it occurs to me that Cloud and Aerith discussed the notion of her being a SOLDIER candidate without mentioning a possibility that it was unlikely because she was female.

Makes sense. Also, there was a character in a funny yellow hoodie in the First Soldier trailer; I reckon it's a female figure? That would be interesting to speculate about women joining SOLDIER but what if they proved unfit eventually due to various reasons from biology to unpredictable reactions to mako showers?

In early drafts of FF7 Yuffie was an ex-SOLDIER herself, so I don't think they ever meant to imply women couldn't be in SOLDIER.

Yeah, true. It's a pity though that this idea remained an idea and no further female SOLDIERs were added down the line.

 

[Odysseus]

Yeah, true. It's a pity though that this idea remained an idea and no further female SOLDIERs were added down the line.

In the original game SOLDIER was basically a non-entity beyond Zack and Sephiroth, just some fairly uncommon enemies that only appear three times in the game. Crisis Core really could have done it, though.

 

[Shademp]

Noticed now that the Chocobo [チョコボ] has not just a Stamina [スタミナ] bar but also an HP bar.




Guys. The Chocobo can DIE. We are going to witness the slaughter of Chocobos.

 

[Makoeyes987]

This definitely looks far more detailed and complex than some thought.

You'll need a tablet to play this optimally. A phone is possible but you better not have fat fingers.

 

[Shademp]

Hopefully BlueStacks can be used to emulate your purchased game on the computer.

 

[Keveh Kins]

I'm hoping for an object to appear in the sky at some point.

The entire player base gets hyped. They think it's Meteor, coming to hit Midgar and change the map.

It gets bigger and bigger over a number of weeks.

Then, one day, someone notices it looks sort of....feathered? It almost looks like it has a...beak?

And boom! Fat Chocobo crashes right into mid-construction Sector Six plate!

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I'm hoping for an object to appear in the sky at some point.

The entire player base gets hyped. They think it's Meteor, coming to hit Midgar and change the map.

It gets bigger and bigger over a number of weeks.

Then, one day, someone notices it looks sort of....feathered? It almost looks like it has a...beak?

And boom! Fat Chocobo crashes right into mid-construction Sector Six plate!

FFVII Online: A Sector Reborn

 

[Wol]

I'm hoping for an object to appear in the sky at some point.

The entire player base gets hyped. They think it's Meteor, coming to hit Midgar and change the map.

It gets bigger and bigger over a number of weeks.

Then, one day, someone notices it looks sort of....feathered? It almost looks like it has a...beak?

And boom! Fat Chocobo crashes right into mid-construction Sector Six plate!

Fatal Fantasy VII