Hopes for Remake & Rebirth (story/content)

[LicoriceAllsorts]

It shows that Cloud isn't any closer than any of those others. He's not Zack's BFF. The closest Zack comes to confiding in him is at the Nibelheim inn during Crisis Core, when he tells Cloud that SOLDIER is a nest of monsters - but he might have said as much to anyone he happened to be rooming with at such a moment, when he had all these thoughts on his mind, and if that person was expressing an eager desire to join SOLDIER. Zack's venting his own disillusionment, but he very quickly thinks better of it.

In fact, Tseng is probably a closer friend to Zack than Cloud is, considering he knows more about Zack's private life than Cloud does, and puts himself out on a limb, personally and professionally, to try to save Zack's life.

 

[Starling]

If Zack and Cloud weren't close friends, then why would he continue to reassure Cloud from beyond the grave? When Zack invited Cloud to dinner, he wasn't intending to invite anyone else. They kinda just invited themselves and Zack was to nice to say no. Just because Zack makes a lot of friends doesn't mean he wasn't close with Cloud. When they see each-other again before Nibelheim, they do a gesture of camaraderie that generally equates to a fist bump, which isn't something not so close friends would do without a second thought. Also, we can't say for sure what Zack would or wouldn't say to someone else if they were in Cloud's situation.

The case in which Zack confides to Cloud was about how Zack brought up some of the issues going on in SOLDIER ti Cloud, warning him it wasn't a good time to join and showing that it's starting to get to him. Zack didn't really talk to anyone about Aertih, which makes sense considering she's under Turk surveillance and their relationship didn't seem like the kind of thing Zack would go out of his way to talk about.

 

[Roger]

It shows that Cloud isn't any closer than any of those others. He's not Zack's BFF. The closest Zack comes to confiding in him is at the Nibelheim inn during Crisis Core, when he tells Cloud that SOLDIER is a nest of monsters - but he might have said as much to anyone he happened to be rooming with at such a moment, when he had all these thoughts on his mind, and if that person was expressing an eager desire to join SOLDIER. Zack's venting his own disillusionment, but he very quickly thinks better of it.

In fact, Tseng is probably a closer friend to Zack than Cloud is, considering he knows more about Zack's private life than Cloud does, and puts himself out on a limb, personally and professionally, to try to save Zack's life.

So this is how the rank thing is a problem. Cloud can't truly be Zack's friend, he even hasn't cultivated the information network to call up detauils about his personal life yet. And no. Tseng was the one that gave Zack to Hojo in the first place. He may have been a friend before that but I feel after that it's more of a one-way street.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

My students do fist bumps with me. I'm not their friend (except in the more old-fashioned sense of a friend being someone who has your best interests at heart, but that's not really what we mean nowadays when we call someone a friend). But you're right, it is a gesture of camaraderie. Being comrades in a military situation is not the same as being friends.

Zack didn't invite Cloud to dinner because they were close friends but because he could see Cloud was in need of a bit of a boost. If it had been one of the other troopers puking, he'd have stopped to give them a few kind words. What about that nameless SOLDIER who keeps threatening to drop out if Zack doesn't do his missions for him? Are we meant to assume they are also close friends? No, I'd say Zack is just the kind of person who will go the extra mile for anyone who looks like they need it.

How do you know Zack is actually reassuring Cloud from beyond the grave and that it isn't just Cloud's imagination working overtime? ACC is deliberately vague on this point.It is a known fact that when someone important to you dies, you often imagine that you see them. Zack is obviously very important to Cloud, and Cloud was important to Zack. But I dispute whether one can call their relationship a close friendship.

Eli, why do you think Tseng gave Zack to Hojo?

 

[Starling]

I may be wrong but I don't recall fictional characters fist bumping just for the hell of it, as ever action and dialog is meaningful when telling a story.

To be honest, I wouldn't really consider a dinner invitation as the ideal boost after motion sickness. In any case, trying to cheer Cloud up and wanting to spend time with him now that there's an opportunity to do so don't have to be mutually exclusive reasons.

FF7 is a world where dead people can stick around for a while. Angeal guided his copies after his death in order to help Zack. Zack may or may not be one of the voices in Cloud's head and there's that last part of his death that seems to indicate Angeal welcomed Zack into the lifestream and Zack hoped Cloud would say hi to Aerith for him. I highly doubt they put Zack there to imply anything other than Zack actually keeping tabs on Cloud rather than just a hallucination. By that logic, Aerith would be one too and she most definitely isn't.

Likewise, I don't think they had all those moments of camaraderie between Zack and Cloud to imply anything less than good friends. I mean, we barely see Kunsel with Zack but we still know he's one of Zack's closer friends.

 

[Roger]

Zack didn't invite Cloud to dinner because they were close friends but because he could see Cloud was in need of a bit of a boost.

Cloud was the one who invited Zack to dinner. Not the other way around.

If it had been one of the other troopers puking, he'd have stopped to give them a few kind words. What about that nameless SOLDIER who keeps threatening to drop out if Zack doesn't do his missions for him? Are we meant to assume they are also close friends? No, I'd say Zack is just the kind of person who will go the extra mile for anyone who looks like they need it.

I don't assume Zack is Cloud's friend because he saved him, I assume this because Cloud tells us Zack was his friend in the original game.
Also his placement on the DMV. And because Zack does bother to learn his name, unlike many of those other examples. And because he wanted to start of business with him.

And I disagree that he would just tell anyone who happened to be walking by that a part of him considers SOLDIER monsters.

How do you know Zack is actually reassuring Cloud from beyond the grave and that it isn't just Cloud's imagination working overtime? ACC is deliberately vague on this point. It is a known fact that when someone important to you dies, you often imagine that you see them. Zack is obviously very important to Cloud, and Cloud was important to Zack. But I dispute whether one can call their relationship a close friendship.

Because their interaction takes identical characterisitics to his meetings with Aerith, who would go on to save Cloud from Geostigma from beyond the grave and communicate with Marlene and Tifa as well.

Eli, why do you think Tseng gave Zack to Hojo?

Because we see this happen in Before Crisis. And Crisis Core, told from the perspective of someone unconcious at the time hasn't had a chance to retcon it yet. I imagine it would've, but it as yet hasn't.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I know Before Crisis pretty well, and I don't remember Tseng giving Zack to Hojo. I do remember him, and the other Turks, objecting to Hojo's plans.

Aside from that, there probably isn't any point in pursuing this discussion. Cloud's memories are notoriously unreliable, we have no firm proof that the Zack he sees in ACC is anything more than a hallucination, and you will never convince me that it was the intention of the game designers to present Zack and Cloud as special, close friends. Friends, yes, but as we've already established, Zack is friends with everybody.

 

[Roger]

and you will never convince me that it was the intention of the game designers to present Zack and Cloud as special, close friends. Friends, yes, but as we've already established, Zack is friends with everybody.

Nobody here's arguing for them to be "special" friends or lovers. But Cloud does consider Zack and him to have been friends, and there's no reason to assume that Cloud subscribes to the same definition of "everything is my friend" that your idea of Zack does. And every reason to assume he's not confident and carefree to call any vague acquaintance friend.

 

[Clement Rage]

It shows that Cloud isn't any closer than any of those others. He's not Zack's BFF. The closest Zack comes to confiding in him is at the Nibelheim inn during Crisis Core, when he tells Cloud that SOLDIER is a nest of monsters - but he might have said as much to anyone he happened to be rooming with at such a moment, when he had all these thoughts on his mind, and if that person was expressing an eager desire to join SOLDIER. Zack's venting his own disillusionment, but he very quickly thinks better of it.

In fact, Tseng is probably a closer friend to Zack than Cloud is, considering he knows more about Zack's private life than Cloud does, and puts himself out on a limb, personally and professionally, to try to save Zack's life.

Tseng is a professional spy who's in charge of full time surveillance of his girlfriend. I don't think knowing personal details of his life means anything, if anything, you can probably draw negative connotations from it.

I do remember him, and the other Turks, objecting to Hojo's plans.

But not actually doing anything to stop them. I kind of got the impression he was making an effort about Zack more for Aeris' sake than his, although Cissnei was more invested.

[QUOTE we have no firm proof that the Zack he sees in ACC is anything more than a hallucination,][/QUOTE]

Apart from the fact that he got a power up from it?

On the whole I have no stance on how good a friend Cloud and Zack are beyond that it's not necessary they were in love to show concern for each other's welfare.

 

[Wolf_]

sorry to derail the conversation a little but I'd really like to see Barret get his gun arm. A short cutscene of him depressed and hitting the drink before finally having the operation and deciding to form Avalanche.

 

[Flare]

Hey, what if we got more cutscenes of all the playable character's pasts? Even just glimpses would be fun to see.

 

[Mayo Master]

Hey, what if we got more cutscenes of all the playable character's pasts? Even just glimpses would be fun to see.

It's pretty safe to assume the remake will not be re-creating the same exact cutscenes describing the characters' backgrounds as the OG did, so they're likely to differ in terms of content too. I'm really curious about how these are gong to turn out.

I would personally like to have more character-specific side quests - some examples could be
- find a memento of Barret's wife
- help Cid to design a new airship (which would be the one shown in the sequels)
- help Tifa find Zangan
- find volumes of Lucrecia's research for Vincent
Etc...

 

[Starling]

Aside from that, there probably isn't any point in pursuing this discussion. Cloud's memories are notoriously unreliable, we have no firm proof that the Zack he sees in ACC is anything more than a hallucination, and you will never convince me that it was the intention of the game designers to present Zack and Cloud as special, close friends. Friends, yes, but as we've already established, Zack is friends with everybody.

I don't think the argument that Cloud's memories aren't reliable fly after the lifetream sequence, the whole point of which was to set them straight. There are enough parallels between the way Zack and Aerith are shown, as well as how they show up together to suggest he's not a hallucination. They both help support Cloud during his fight with Bahamut and Sephiroth respectively, as well as that part where it's unclear how close Cloud came to dying and they joked about not being able to adopt him and having to send him back to live his life. They're also together when they leave the church. I don't see why the default assumption should be that Zack is somehow a hallucination when Aerith most definitely isn't.

As has been established they were definitely friends and while they didn't necessarily know every little detail about each-other, not all close friends do. They sure ain't distant. Just because Zack is outgoing and talks to everyone doesn't mean that everyone Zack talks to is considered a mutual friend rather than an acquaintance. That said, it shouldn't devalue his relationship with Cloud, which is shown as closer and more meaningful than most interactions Zack has with other characters, who in those cases we aren't meant to consider Zack's friends.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Zack who witnessed the entire thing of Sephiroth destorying Nibelhiem(I fully 100% blame Hojo and President ShinRa*Rufus's father* for that.)

Cloud himself witnessed Sephiroth destroying Nibelheim. Zack missed nearly the whole thing, he was inside Shinra Manor, only came out just before Sephiroth left for the reactor. And of all things, I find it weird to blame that one 100% on President Shinra and Hojo. There's no reason to think they wanted Sephiroth to snap, nor was there any way to know that he'd decide to take it out on the villagers of Nibelheim of all people. I feel quite justifed with having Sephiroth bare like 1, maybe 2% of the blame for what was entirely his idea and initiative.

Well, when you think about it, Hojo created Sephiroth, President Shinra only cared about controlling the world and just killing anyone who even accidently find out and didn't want anyone to get in the way, not to mention that Hojo never told Sephiroth about Lucrecia, because that idiotic senile evil bastard wanted to prove his theory on Jenova, and when Sephiroth disappeared, that kinda back-fired, so he decided to use Cloud, Zack and eleven other people as vessels and clones...

Warning: SPOILERS-Kinda like what Xehanort's done in KH DDD.

Besides, it wasn't Sephiroth's fault. First he thought he figured out the truth, then turned to blame humanity, then slowly became under control of Jenova before he managed to use her powers but was far too late to be saved, because Hojo was extremely close in getting what he wanted, because as far as Hojo's concerned, the entire Planet and all things and people living in it are nothing but things, objects and subjects for him to experiment with because he thinks he's the only human being ever.

In the end, Sephiroth was a victum himself, even before his birth.

Zack had go through fights against Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth, and Sephiroth is the only one Zack was unable to defeat, but was at least able to protect Cloud after escaping the ShinRa Manor right to his death outside of Midgar. Cloud was innocent and didn't know until Nibelhiem and that he was rendered into Mako poisoning no thanks to Hojo until things got out of hand just before the beginning of the original game.

As a result, Hojo was just too evil to be considered human. At least Gast didn't have any intentions in experimenting on his own wife and child and even tried to protect them.

President ShinRa just wanted to have super-human warriors and make everyone else his slaves by putting up lies. I can cope with Rufus because he's not as crazy and has learned some lessons after the original game. I think Rufus's intentions was to prevent history from repeating itself by killing off scientests who plan on bad experiements and even wanted to hide(and probably later destroy) the remains of Jenova's head to prevent another calamity.

 

[Starling]

I suggest you spoiler tag the bit about KH 3D just to be safe. Even though Hojo and President Shinra have a large hand in everything that goes wrong in the OG, I wouldn't really consider Sephiroth entirely blameless. I mean, you can't absolve someone of a crime just because they're the victim of another. Also, Sephiroth was canonically in control of himself , so Jenova can't be blamed for what he did either. It's because of stuff like this that the often disliked Draco in Leather Pants trope exists.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Yeah, sorry about that. I completely forgot.

 

[Starling]

Spoiler tags are like wrapping quotes except with the word spoiler within the [][/], with the spoiler between the two.

 

[Roger]

Well, when you think about it, Hojo created Sephiroth, President Shinra only cared about controlling the world and just killing anyone who even accidently find out and didn't want anyone to get in the way, not to mention that Hojo never told Sephiroth about Lucrecia, because that idiotic senile evil bastard wanted to prove his theory on Jenova, and when Sephiroth disappeared, that kinda back-fired, so he decided to use Cloud, Zack and eleven other people as vessels and clones...

Warning: SPOILERS-Kinda like what Xehanort's done in KH DDD.

Besides, it wasn't Sephiroth's fault. First he thought he figured out the truth, then turned to blame humanity, then slowly became under control of Jenova before he managed to use her powers but was far too late to be saved, because Hojo was extremely close in getting what he wanted, because as far as Hojo's concerned, the entire Planet and all things and people living in it are nothing but things, objects and subjects for him to experiment with because he thinks he's the only human being ever.

In the end, Sephiroth was a victum himself, even before his birth.

Zack had go through fights against Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth, and Sephiroth is the only one Zack was unable to defeat, but was at least able to protect Cloud after escaping the ShinRa Manor right to his death outside of Midgar. Cloud was innocent and didn't know until Nibelhiem and that he was rendered into Mako poisoning no thanks to Hojo until things got out of hand just before the beginning of the original game.

As a result, Hojo was just too evil to be considered human. At least Gast didn't have any intentions in experimenting on his own wife and child and even tried to protect them.

President ShinRa just wanted to have super-human warriors and make everyone else his slaves by putting up lies. I can cope with Rufus because he's not as crazy and has learned some lessons after the original game. I think Rufus's intentions was to prevent history from repeating itself by killing off scientests who plan on bad experiements and even wanted to hide(and probably later destroy) the remains of Jenova's head to prevent another calamity.

That Hojo and President Shinra are evil I agree, that's not what we are arguing about. That them being evil means they are then therefore completely and entirely to blame for every crime their employees commit, those employees themselves being wholly blameless in the matter I disagree with.
President Shinra didn't send Sephiroth to Nibelheim to break his mind, or to empower Jenova, or to destroy village. How much Hojo had to do with it from the getgo is ambigious, as far as we know, he only came in after the fact and saw an opportunity to test a theory. Whatever Sephiroth discovered at Shinra manor, that he felt this implicated all of humanity and then took this out of the villagers of Nibelheim was him own choice.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Aside from that, there probably isn't any point in pursuing this discussion. Cloud's memories are notoriously unreliable, we have no firm proof that the Zack he sees in ACC is anything more than a hallucination, and you will never convince me that it was the intention of the game designers to present Zack and Cloud as special, close friends. Friends, yes, but as we've already established, Zack is friends with everybody.

I don't think the argument that Cloud's memories aren't reliable fly after the lifetream sequence, the whole point of which was to set them straight. There are enough parallels between the way Zack and Aerith are shown, as well as how they show up together to suggest he's not a hallucination. They both help support Cloud during his fight with Bahamut and Sephiroth respectively, as well as that part where it's unclear how close Cloud came to dying and they joked about not being able to adopt him and having to send him back to live his life. They're also together when they leave the church. I don't see why the default assumption should be that Zack is somehow a hallucination when Aerith most definitely isn't.

As has been established they were definitely friends and while they didn't necessarily know every little detail about each-other, not all close friends do. They sure ain't distant. Just because Zack is outgoing and talks to everyone doesn't mean that everyone Zack talks to is considered a mutual friend rather than an acquaintance. That said, it shouldn't devalue his relationship with Cloud, which is shown as closer and more meaningful than most interactions Zack has with other characters, who in those cases we aren't meant to consider Zack's friends.

I disagree that these things are shown. I think one can interpret what's shown in a number of ways. That's all.

 

[Mayo Master]

I disagree that these things are shown. I think one can interpret what's shown in a number of ways. That's all.

I may disagree with your interpretation of how (not) close Zack and Cloud were; however I don't think there's any clear-cut objective argument against your interpretation either.

 

[Flare]

Not sure if this is best suited to the gameplay thread or the content thread here, but anyway, I'd like it if equipped 'arms' are shown on the characters too. The weapons change in the og, but I also like seeing equipment change a little depending on what's equipped. Like the iron bangle, it would be a nice touch to see it on someone's wrist.
I love little details like that.

 

[Starling]

You know, showing equipment in cutscenes cane have potentially ridiculous results, depending on the game. On one hand, it can be entertaining but on the other, it'd be nice to not have to make sure the equipment look decent whenever I want to avoid ruining the mood of the scene.

 

[Wimbly]

Not sure if this is best suited to the gameplay thread or the content thread here, but anyway, I'd like it if equipped 'arms' are shown on the characters too. The weapons change in the og, but I also like seeing equipment change a little depending on what's equipped. Like the iron bangle, it would be a nice touch to see it on someone's wrist.
I love little details like that.

Good shout there. This should definitely be in the remake, I love cosmetic stuff like that. It should be shown in cutscenes too.

 

[Starling]

If they do that, it means we'll be able to see stuff like Cloud almost killing Aerith with Nailbat and such.

 

[Mayo Master]

Not sure if this is best suited to the gameplay thread or the content thread here, but anyway, I'd like it if equipped 'arms' are shown on the characters too. The weapons change in the og, but I also like seeing equipment change a little depending on what's equipped. Like the iron bangle, it would be a nice touch to see it on someone's wrist.
I love little details like that.

Good call
Regarding the potential issue Starling mentioned, I think it can be avoided along two ways:
- Some games avoid the issue by reverting the characters to some kind of "default cutscene outfit". IMO that's not the best take on it because you would have a discontinuity in the characters' appearance.
- We still don't know how the remake is going to deal with characters' equipment and weaponry. Either weapons can be redesigned is such a way that they'd fit all cutscenes (example: Geralt's swords in Witcher 3 have varied designed, but their dimensions remain similar), or weapons could be solely based on upgrades of the initial equipment (meaning Cloud would wield the Buster Sword from start to finish).