Hopes for Remake & Rebirth (story/content)

[Tashasaurous]

I'm kind of looking forward the part when Reno steps into the flowers, and then ironically tells the lacks not to step into them which they half-heartedly accuse him for doing it, lol.

(Still hoping they keep his hair bright red).

 

[hian]

I mean, do we though? Or is that just what industry people *think* we think? I don't know a single person who is graphics-first, especially when it comes to RPGs.

Of course most people don't conceive of themselves as judging games on graphics first. Despite that though, I think a size-able portion of the current gaming population do whether they think they do or not.
It's just confused in a layer of rationalization going something along the line of "It's not like a judge games primarily on graphics because I play plenty of games that don't have current gen top-level graphics - it's just that this particular game looks exceptionally shit!"

Sometimes that might be a merited stance - I mean, we get a metric shit-ton of games each year, so if you're going to waste time playing one - why not waste it on one that has both good graphics, good game-play, good story and good music, instead of one that only has one or a few of these?

That being said - I'm not necessarily convinced that the overall quality of games except in terms of production value have changed that much, and I've seen tons of comments on youtube and gaming sites to the effect that the people posting "can't play" games earlier than the PS3, or the PS2 era because they look "too ugly".
I see people taking dumps on the original FFVII's graphics rutinely - which I think, despite the fact that they're dated, still has enormous aesthetic value.
I see people ragging on this and that, complaining about the nintendo system's outdated hardware, bla bla bla...

So, I do definitely get the impression that there's a large demographic of gaming troglodytes, who probably didn't start gaming until somewhere around 2005 or later, and are so shot in the head from all the "next gen OMFG AWESOME HD 4K CRYSIS ON CRACK LOOOK AT THE RES ON THAT SKY-BOX MUTHAFUCKAAAA"-marketing that they truly cannot loot at games predating the PS2(or PS3) without having juvenile and intellectually stunted reactions to it.

Now, I can honestly say for myself - I'd still play a game that looked like FFVII if it was released today.
In fact, I've routinely done so for almost all my time gaming since as a European there were tons of Jrpgs that never made it over from Japan, or the states, which I then had to play years later on emulators.
It didn't bother me in the slightest.

As far as I'm concerned, purely in terms of aesthetics, games like Suikoden 2 and FFIX, with their strong art-direction are still more pleasing to the eye to me than most current gen high fidelity games with their tired and boring attempts at"photo-realism", where most of the textures look like their made of plastic, and there's always a 10-20% lower value on the saturation than there ought to be, where all the colors are dreadfully boring and blending into each-other in such a way that it's nearly impossible to spot objects of importance unless they're given glowing fucking outlines.
Simply put - for example, I'd rather play an FF game that plays like a PSX era FF game and looks like a PSX era FF game, than play an FF game that has next-gen super graphics but plays like Assassin's Creed.


I get a distinct feeling that I'm in a minority in that though, because saying anything to the essence of the above immediately leads to a bunch of salty and butt-hurt FPS-counting douche-bags claiming that's just nostalgia or elitism speaking.

 

[Tashasaurous]

None of us will ever know the story of FFVII:R until the game gets released. I betcha it'll be just as confusing as the original story and the Compilation Titles. (Especially with Nomura directing. I mean, he left Kingdom Hearts X(Chi) PC in confusion before the game was shutdown to make way for Unchained X to have it's own season 2)

One thing I do wish though is that Nomura would've asked Team Ninja(the guys behind Dead or Alive series) to help develop the game instead of Avalanche Studios and just kept the designs like in Dissidia Arcade.

The Advent Children(Compilation of FFVII) designs of the FFVII will always be my favorite and most loved, but since the technology isn't used anymore, I'll go for Dissidia Arcade's designs of Cloud and the others my next best thing.

Far better than the Remake's designs, that's for sure.

If anyone can look at the differences between Cloud in Dissidia Arcade, and Cloud in FFVII Remake, I personally prefer his facial designs in Dissidia Arcade myself since one, it's much closer to the Compilation and more true to FFVII itself, two, Team Ninja's grapchis are stunning in my opinion, and three, while yes I know that Lightning was based on Cloud via facial features and ect., in FFVII Remake, Cloud looks more like Lightning since his face has been thinned to make him look like a woman.

 

[Ite]

I actually really like the look of the remake. It will be a tall order for this style to land some of the OG's cartoonish comedy, but the aesthetic is absolutely ideal for the story's more dramatic moments.

I wonder if they'll keep Advent Children's gravity-defying "crouching tiger" style fights -- the movie took the physics of Cloud's limit breaks, turned it up to 11, and applied generously to all characters at all times. It's one of the things I hated about the movie, so I'm interested to see how the remake approaches it. So far, the characters in the trailers have all stayed on the ground, so that's a good sign.

 

[Mayo Master]

I wonder if they'll keep Advent Children's gravity-defying "crouching tiger" style fights -- the movie took the physics of Cloud's limit breaks, turned it up to 11, and applied generously to all characters at all times. It's one of the things I hated about the movie, so I'm interested to see how the remake approaches it. So far, the characters in the trailers have all stayed on the ground, so that's a good sign.

When it comes to the visualization of combat, I would tend to think along the lines that "less is more". I have been more impressed by more "sober" styles where you feel the weight of the hits, rather than a flurry of "slashes through butter" and flying numbers. Besides:
- If a regular move looks like an extraordinary feat, then extraordinary feats fail to convey that they're... well, extraordinary.
- For laws-of-physics-defying visuals, magic is already there for that.

 

[Ite]

 

[ForceStealer]

In-universe, I really didn't terribly mind the characters' feats because of how crazy high level all the characters are. Nomura said off-handedly that they're all basically max level, and Cloud even beyond that. Think of it in D&D terms, at level 1 you'd be lucky to hit a goblin that's tied to the ground. By level 20 you can decide to just fall off the wizard tower because it's faster than the stairs and you can just eat the damage.
Also, the movie was not trying to tell some hard-hitting story about combat and the misery of war. It was to be a visual spectacle. I think they succeeded at that, and even though it started with extraordinary, I definitely think they still managed to ratchet up the extraodinariness as the movie went. The Tifa/Loz fight is downright tame.

But don't take this as me telling you you're not allowed to dislike it. This is just why it never really bothered me.

But yes, the Dissidia combat was clearly designed to translate Advent Children-style combat in gameplay, and the remake does not appear to be doing that. Both from the trailer and Nomura saying that the combat would not be to Dissidia's degree of "action."

 

[Obsidian Fire]

While I don't mind having more realistic looking combat at the beginning of the game, I have to admit I'd be pretty disappointed if it stayed that way throughout the entire game. I mean, the first couple of bosses can be made to work pretty well with "realistic" combat, but once the Jenova bosses show up I have a pretty hard time seeing how that would work. Never mind once you get to the Weapons which are the size of small skyscrapers, or any of Sephiroth's forms. The only way I can imagine those happening is with moves taken right out of a shounen series which is pretty much what ACC is. And then there's the magic...

To be honest, combat realism has never been on my list for things I want out of a FF game.

 

[Dashell]

A decrease in quality on the whole doesn't point to spin-offs as the problem. If you take the team from one sucky game and divert them to working on another sucky game, you'll have fewer sucky games I suppose, but it won't fix the jerry-rigged central mechanic or the lazy/ inane story and art design of a Priority title. Those aspects sadly are in the hands of a few folks at the top.

Yeah, good point. People these days go to focus more on the quality of the graphics on how games should look they hardly pay attention to how the stories and gameplays should go.

I mean, do we though? Or is that just what industry people *think* we think? I don't know a single person who is graphics-first, especially when it comes to RPGs.

Do we? no but I've known people to do this. I remember years ago when Sonic Heroes came out, I read a lot of reviews from people that praised the graphics, hated the story, thought the game play was so so and then gave the game a 9 or 8 out of 10.... that makes no sense.



But that was years ago, hopefully people are more realistic and reasonable these days.

 

[Turlast]

What I'm most interested in is how they're going to go about releasing these in episode form. Knowing VII like I do, it's hard to imagine the game ending at a certain point without a conclusion. I know it was said that the episodes would be the equivalent of a complete game, but that's both interesting and hard to imagine.

Like, we know the game would begin in Midgar, but how far would it go before the episode ends? I also can't imagine these episodes being released on disc one at a time. Seems more likely that it'd receive a digital release, and then the inevitable GOTY or "Complete" disc would have all of the content on it. Something similar to Resident Evil Revelations 2, basically.

Just some early speculation. I'm looking forward to it either way.

 

[Ite]

@Force: Absolutely, and the fights were all very visually rich. I can't take my eyes off of them. It comes down to personal preference, I guess. For me, in FF7, things like Climhazzard felt like a logical progression, the fantastical stuff felt earned. Even the sheer gratuity of KotR was my reward for a gratuitous amount of bird husbandry. It's clear in AC that levels are represented literally (Cloud takes a bullet square in the face three minutes in!) I agree with you there, and Cloud and Tifa's battle mastery fits with their styles and powers in the OG.

Where the movie lost me was in all the bodies flinging about, the Turks particularly. It's been a while since I've seen it, so I could be remembering wrong but most of the action I remember is opponents leaping at each other from 20 yards away (aka flying towards the camera while screaming, perhaps a name, or some variant of "That does it!"). People crash-land or land upside down on a metal girder before leaping again. I guess I'm trying to say that it didn't feel like a series of maneuvers? Cloud uses all of his limit breaks in the movie, but he's mostly airborne otherwise.

 

[Random Nobody]

To be honest, combat realism has never been on my list for things I want out of a FF game.

I don't think they've ever remotely approached it, either. In terms of pure spectacle (and pure variety of the same), FFX's CGI scenes probably take the cake (remember when they footsurfed down the docking cables of a moving airship whilst dodging a hail of laser fire?), but AC/C's wuxia-esque shounen fighting is right in line with FF tradition.

Personally, I would love it if there were some realistic scenes--say, Tifa fighting like Iko Uwais instead of throwing Hollywood haymakers--but a lot of that is down to direction and choreography, and the nature of a lot of VII's enemies means it's not reasonable for the most part anyway. Imagine trying to apply a coherent style to Cloud or Sephiroth's scenes based on real-world swordplay. Dunno how that would work being that their weapons are already ridiculous to begin with.

 

[Octo]

I'd like to see Barrets wife Myrna in the Corel/Dyne flashback.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Taking out wave after wave of Shin-Ra soldiers with her feet and fists whilst somersaulting about.

 

[Octo]

XD

Oh god, don't even joke about it...

 

[Clement Rage]

What I'm most interested in is how they're going to go about releasing these in episode form. Knowing VII like I do, it's hard to imagine the game ending at a certain point without a conclusion. I know it was said that the episodes would be the equivalent of a complete game, but that's both interesting and hard to imagine.

Like, we know the game would begin in Midgar, but how far would it go before the episode ends? I also can't imagine these episodes being released on disc one at a time. Seems more likely that it'd receive a digital release, and then the inevitable GOTY or "Complete" disc would have all of the content on it. Something similar to Resident Evil Revelations 2, basically.

Just some early speculation. I'm looking forward to it either way.

I expect, nay, demand, that at least one episode ends on the line "Because... you are... a puppet."

 

[RedFFWolf]

"Beacause... you are... a puppet."

Fixed. Don't scare me like that

 

[Cthulhu]

I should install a word filter that automatically fixes "because", "this guy is", and "no way",

 

[Ite]

Don't forget "Off course!" And "They're getting along better!"

 

[Strangelove]

Taking out wave after wave of Shin-Ra soldiers with her feet and fists whilst somersaulting about.

stick some guns to her limbs and she can be like barret

 

[Lulcielid]

What I'm most interested in is how they're going to go about releasing these in episode form. Knowing VII like I do, it's hard to imagine the game ending at a certain point without a conclusion. I know it was said that the episodes would be the equivalent of a complete game, but that's both interesting and hard to imagine.

I think the problem here is that we all assume that they will follow VII original structure to a T (or closer to 90% or something), which IMO would be the wrong way to handle the remake if they plan to develop it on parts, we might have still not processed it in our minds but we have to remember, this is not VII modded with prettier graphics, this is a reinterpretation, a remake, an adaptation.
There´ll changes in pacing, order of events and any other pragmatic change that it might be needed.

 

[Turlast]

That's a great point. I suppose I'm looking at it in a similar way to Resident Evil Remake where most of the story was relatively intact even though there were some different things. I just want to see more footage already.

 

[Lex]

The Resident Evil remake was able to more faithfully reproduce the original on the Gamecube (the version that recently got a HD remaster). This is a different situation I think. Most fans wanted them to do something similar with VII but they've shown already that it's gone in a completely different direction gameplay-wise. Which will already affect story.

It doesn't necessarily have to, but if you think of the gameplay like a "set", where in the original you had backgrounds that told you where you were and you moved between them - similar to the first Resident Evil - that's gone in the VII remake, whereas for Resi these were recreated/ added to for the gamecube port (and subsequent HD remaster of that). They're already not thinking along the lines of "you move from this screen to this screen, and this happens in this screen", so while I think they'll be relatively faithful to the bare-bones plot and characters, I don't think we'll be seeing a blow-by-blow reimagining.

 

[Turlast]

If we don't at least see Don Corneo's dance in the remake, I'm gonna cry....

Been waiting too long for that one.

 

[Random Nobody]

Confirmed, it WAS Jenova you were following for most of the game. They completely butchered the english translation because they believed the story to be too complex/mature for western audiences at the time. This why there are so many disconnects between FF7 and Crisis Core. There was no cloning going on or any of that nonsense. The only time you actually see Sephiroth other than the flash back is at Northern Crater and at the very end of the game. Also, this is the reason every time you engage "Sephiroth" you fight a more and more evolved version of Jenova. Of course this wasn't explained till later in the story, and it was a big plot twist and reveal. We just never got the twist.

Basically, what was actually going on in the story was that Hojo wanted to to test his Reunion Theory. Jenova is a creature like Lavos, she travels to planets and consumes their energy then moves on. She is a complex being capable reorganizing her DNA and shapeshifting. The Ancients stopped her, greatly injuring her, but not before she created a large wound aka crater on the planets surface, where it bleeds Mako.(The Holy Land as she has people refer to it.) Hojo's predecessor collected the core piece of Jenova.

One thing Hojo noticed was that all the "parts" of Jenova try to regather at origin to become complete again and restore her to her original form. He experimented on a few people by injecting them with her cells, but they went crazy(All of the black hooded people who just say UGAWAAA). So he did something different. He injected a TON of potent cells into the unborn Sephiroth and it took hold. He also noticed it made Sephiroth stupidly strong. He used Sephiroth as a way to determine a safe way of injecting the cells into people.

So he sold a "Super Soldier" program idea to Shrina, hence "Soldier" was born. He was going to test his Reunion Theory under the guise of said Super Soldier program. His new "safe" method of creating Soldiers would be placed into the most physically and mentally fit soldiers to make them super human.

Cloud grows up, wants to be a Soldier, gets turned down and becomes a simple member of the Military Police. He is incredibly depressed and ashamed over this. Zack who successfully joined and was injected Jenova Cells became friends with him. Cloud saw Zack as what he aspired to be and what he promised Tifa he would become. They go on a trip to Clouds hometown with Sephiroth. The "core piece" of Jenova is at the Mt Nibel Reactor. As Sephiroth approaches it, she feels a large amount of developed cells in his body, and starts to enact her influence over Sephiroth via her cells, slowly corrupting his mind. He is slowly driven insane as he dredges through the Doctor's works, eventually referring to her as Mother as he learns more about her and what he truly was. She did everything she needed to in order to motivate/create a tool to get back to the wound that she originally created where she could drink the essence of planet and cause another wound so she could finish her meal.

Well, Cloud stabs Sephiroth in the back and throws him(and Jenova's head) into an exposed part of the life stream. Sephiroth and Jenova drifts about, surfacing in a Crystal at the northern crater. While adrift in the life steam, Jenova attaches herself to Sephiroth in order to maintain herself. They fuse and become one entity. After Nibelheim's events in the past, Cloud and Zack are captured and put in tubes. They inject VERY VERY VERY large amounts of Jenova cells into Clouds body, but he is not a suitable subject and his mind cant take it, causing it to shatter. His mind doesn't even try to reform until he gets to Midgar where he sees Tifa. His mind is pieced back together badly as he takes the roll of Zack in his broken mental state... a combination of his childhood and his aspirations.

Remember at the beginning of the game when Cloud kept having headaches? That was the dormant parts of his mind trying to push back against Jenova's influence. Another thing never explained in the West. When he got close to her body piece in the Shinra Tower, remember how that headache came back and he collasped? That piece of her busted out of her pod then and killed all the Soldiers so Cloud could escape their prison and be her next tool. Remember how he gets forcibly turned into a puppet then handed the black materia over? Same influence. They bring this back with his headaches in Advent Children.

As stated earlier, the core/head piece of Jenova that fell with Sephiroth into the lifestream attached to him like a parasite(hence why sephiroth is massive and has tentacles at the northern crater.) The new Jenovaroth adopts a personality that is a mix between the post manipulation twisted version of Sephiroth and Jenova's ruthless, hungry, and manipulative mind. You kill him, er "them" at the end of the game but their essence is still floating in the lifestream. Hence why in advent children, when that kid takes those Jenova cells into his body, Sephiroth comes out.

At the northern crater, where Jenovaroth is killing all the "cloaked figures". Those were all the of failed soldier experiments who had cells injected into them. She was killing them off as they arrived to bring the cells back into her own body, causing her to restore her more evolved form. But all of this was considered too complex for an english release. Hopefully the remake will tell the real story, but if it does you can bet your ass people will complain they changed said story...which the original story was MUCH better than that barely understandable clone nonsense. There is a reason why it's considered unabashedly the best FF game over in japan while it's debated as having a terribly fractured story in the West. We got screwed on the translation. It's sad too, because so much was going on we completely missed.

Oh, and Aeris? Yeah, Sephiroth didn't kill her. It was a piece of a Jenova.

https://m.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/comments/5hgreh/should_they_go_with_the_real_original_story/

https://m.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasy/comments/3liftt/did_sephiroth_do_this_by_robin_tran/cv6ty4s/

Not that the story is a literary tour de force to start with, but is this not the plot already. I was always under the impression "clones" was just a shit translation trying to communicate they were people experimented on in the same way Sephiroth was.

I mean I do like the idea of Jenova receiving more emphasis as the Lovecraftian, Solaris-esque genjutsu monster she is, but we know that's not gonna happen.

ETA:

Who's to say this hasn't happened countless times and the woman who Jenova is portrayed as was just the last Sephiroth that the Jenova Parasite influenced into consuming worlds?

Now that is interesting. But humanoid aliens always gotta be a no from me, dogg