Hopes for Remake & Rebirth (story/content)

[Clement Rage]

Expecting clothing to make sense in a Final Fantasy game may be a tall order.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

All the clothing in FFVII made sense, more or less, except for Yuffie's arm thing. When they were just blocky sprites Scarlet had to be dressed the way she did to get her character across, but they could go for something a leetle more realistic now.

 

[Lestat]

All the clothing in FFVII made sense, more or less, except for Yuffie's arm thing. When they were just blocky sprites Scarlet had to be dressed the way she did to get her character across, but they could go for something a leetle more realistic now.

Explain the need for the random piece of shoulder armour on cloud?
Or why we have a wolf type character who's weapon is a hairpin.........

 

[ChipNoir]

It's called a pauldron, and they're historically meant for jousting, as both a target, and a place to rest your lance. Not really useful for Cloud as a sword user who is right handed.

Basically it's the best that Cloud could probably scrape together. He's missing other keyparts of the original uniform, like the breast plate and two matching arm gauntlets. Somewhere on his way Cloud either lost or discarded them, and then replaced them with whatever he could find, or whatever Avalanche could provide him.

It's interesting that in the Compilation, Avalanche members in BC also sport single pauldrons rather than matching sets.

They're ALSO used as a disignation of rank in a lot of fiction, like star wars. So aesthetically it could be a metaphor for Cloud being a false Soldier, since he doesn't have official armor pieces of a real ranked Soldier.

Or y'know, Nomura just really likes Asymetry.

Red XIII does a spinning headbutt move, so having anything sharp attached to your head could qualify as a valid weapon of sorts.

Harder to get around is the armor potential of bangles. They're much smaller and too ornate to be of any use as real armor. Even X's outlandish armor is at least a little more realistic.

 

[Roger]

Spoiler

Seems to me that he didn't so much replace it, as he retained one shoulder pauldron and bolted another plate on it, with big ass bolts. Same with his excessive gauntlet. He's identifying himself as SOLDIER but he's distinquishing himself from his opponents.

 

[robotwarui]

I'd bet anything those things exist expressly for the purpose of him taking them off in an emotional moment of self affirmation.

seeing Barret's shades I immediately thought they were hiding temporary eyes that the designers hadn't gotten right just yet.

but I like your explanation much better.

I wanna see Barret cry.

I'm really looking forward to see all the characters faces make expressions in close-up and hi-def

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

All the clothing in FFVII made sense, more or less, except for Yuffie's arm thing.

What's nonsensical about it? Nomura apparently considered Yuffie's design one of the more sensible ones, reflecting a ninja heritage and sensibilities with her equipment (like the armguard) all on her left side to allow more range of movement for her right side.

 

[micknutson9]

Regarding Barret's shades? I thought it was to protect his eyes from the blinding muzzle flashes from his gun arm in dark areas or something.

 

[ChipNoir]

Regarding Barret's shades? I thought it was to protect his eyes from the blinding muzzle flashes from his gun arm in dark areas or something.

That's really too on the nose for a game franchise that in no way uses logic for armor and equipment. A world where people make choices like that also wouldn't have people carrying around swords in the same combat scenario as people with guns in the first place.

 

[hleV]

In a world where it's possible to block/dodge/tank bullets, sword can be a better choice as its damage depends on user's own strength.

 

[Vyzzuvazzadth]

Regarding Barret's shades, there's a paragraph in my first PSX trailer analysis video:

"Maybe he wants to hide his emotions, detaching himself from his morals. Eyes are the door to one’s soul they say. Hiding the eyes behind sunglasses is like putting on a mask. My hypothesis is that Barret only wears them during missions and gets rid of them completely after the sector 7 plate fall. In their hideout, he doesn’t have to shield himself from reality and hide his emotions. He’s in his safe haven. Especially around Marlene. The plate fall is a traumatic event for Barret. He loses Jessie, Biggs and Wedge, his home and Avalanche. All he did prior to that incident led to destruction and despair. He has to leave his previous life behind and is also most likely sick of hiding behind a façade."

Well, this is basically an elaborated take on Chip's idea.

Or maybe Nomura binge watched all Blade movies before designing Barret

 

[ForceStealer]

Regarding Barret's shades? I thought it was to protect his eyes from the blinding muzzle flashes from his gun arm in dark areas or something.

That's really too on the nose for a game franchise that in no way uses logic for armor and equipment. A world where people make choices like that also wouldn't have people carrying around swords in the same combat scenario as people with guns in the first place.

They don't completely ignore it, they just are inconsistent with it. Sometimes they pay attention to it, sometimes they don't.

I'm just amazed how much it affected people. I barely noticed them.

Also, I know this is a different team than XV, but with all the fun XV had with alternate outfits (and Dissidia as well), I wouldn't be surprised at all to find alternate outfits for the characters. AC ones, DC ones,super-faithful OG ones, Cloud's dress, Barret's sailor suit, etc.

 

[ChipNoir]

I feel like they'd almost have to, just as one of the many ways they'll need to keep the experience fresh across multiple games. At the very least they need some region specific costumes.

Otherwise we're gonna get no end of people complaining about Tifa traversing an area known for it's hypothermia causing weather in just a tank and mini skirt.

 

[looneymoon]

all I know is that Cloud's ultima weapon is ugly as shit

 

[Clement Rage]

All the clothing in FFVII made sense, more or less, except for Yuffie's arm thing. When they were just blocky sprites Scarlet had to be dressed the way she did to get her character across, but they could go for something a leetle more realistic now.

Fair point.

 

[Tashasaurous]

all I know is that Cloud's ultima weapon is ugly as shit

I like Cloud's Ultima Weapon. Looks really cool.

 

[hian]

Regarding Barret's shades? I thought it was to protect his eyes from the blinding muzzle flashes from his gun arm in dark areas or something.

That's really too on the nose for a game franchise that in no way uses logic for armor and equipment. A world where people make choices like that also wouldn't have people carrying around swords in the same combat scenario as people with guns in the first place.

I'd say that is a stretch. Bending logic in terms of equipment is not the same as throwing it entirely out the window, and I don't think FFVII is entirely dismissive of world logic.
In a world where people can shield/cloak/heal their bodies with magic, where you're just as likely to fight a giant dragon or robot with lasers as a human with a machinegun, and where some people are genetically enhanced super-people due to Mako treatment, I'd say there are plenty of reasons to forego conventional guns in favor of a melee weapon.

Melee weapons never run out of ammunition, nor do they have to reloaded. If I'm Cloud Strife, can throw icicles and lightining bolts, on top of wielding a monster sword the size of Buster Sword in the first place (a swing of which can probably cut a group of five people in half in a split second at virtually no effort to Cloud), why would I be using a gun? What additional advantage exactly does a gun offer a person like that?

No, the real flaky issue with FFVII's world is the existence of both materia and guns. Why would people be using guns with magic like the one with frequently see in that world easily accessible?

I could see how it would make sense in a world where magic was really limited, and/or perhaps only SOLDIER could use magic (hence why they also favor swords, whilst the rest of the military of the world, not being able to use magic, rely on firearms), but otherwise, it seems totally pointless.
Like, you can spend money on a fire-arm (and constantly buy ammunition whenever you run out) and still probably hardly make a dent in most of the weird crap that roams the country-side in that game, or you could buy a Lightning materia, electrocute the country-side, sleep, and do it again as much as you want.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Presumably some people are going to be more adept at using magic than others, making it less practical for many (most?). If you can fire off three or four reasonably effective lightning bolts, but also back that up with a more or less equally effective (for that particular individual) gun, why not?

 

[ChipNoir]

Regarding Barret's shades? I thought it was to protect his eyes from the blinding muzzle flashes from his gun arm in dark areas or something.

That's really too on the nose for a game franchise that in no way uses logic for armor and equipment. A world where people make choices like that also wouldn't have people carrying around swords in the same combat scenario as people with guns in the first place.

I'd say that is a stretch. Bending logic in terms of equipment is not the same as throwing it entirely out the window, and I don't think FFVII is entirely dismissive of world logic.
In a world where people can shield/cloak/heal their bodies with magic, where you're just as likely to fight a giant dragon or robot with lasers as a human with a machinegun, and where some people are genetically enhanced super-people due to Mako treatment, I'd say there are plenty of reasons to forego conventional guns in favor of a melee weapon.

Melee weapons never run out of ammunition, nor do they have to reloaded. If I'm Cloud Strife, can throw icicles and lightining bolts, on top of wielding a monster sword the size of Buster Sword in the first place (a swing of which can probably cut a group of five people in half in a split second at virtually no effort to Cloud), why would I be using a gun? What additional advantage exactly does a gun offer a person like that?

No, the real flaky issue with FFVII's world is the existence of both materia and guns. Why would people be using guns with magic like the one with frequently see in that world easily accessible?

I could see how it would make sense in a world where magic was really limited, and/or perhaps only SOLDIER could use magic (hence why they also favor swords, whilst the rest of the military of the world, not being able to use magic, rely on firearms), but otherwise, it seems totally pointless.
Like, you can spend money on a fire-arm (and constantly buy ammunition whenever you run out) and still probably hardly make a dent in most of the weird crap that roams the country-side in that game, or you could buy a Lightning materia, electrocute the country-side, sleep, and do it again as much as you want.

Ammunition doesn't even exist as a game element in VII so that isn't really a valid justifacation for prefer a sword over a gun. You kinda just proved my actual point, which is that VII really glosses over realistic technicalities of combat. Nothing is fatal unless the plot dictates it, nothing runs out unless it's built into the gameplay. The strength of a gun shouldn't factor into Vincent or Barret's combat abilities either, never mind their unending ammo supplies.

And in obeying the game logic, not everyone can use magic effectively, just like not everyone can be a physical power house or a sharpshooter. So even then, magic is not an automatic preference to a weapon if you don't have the superior magical abilities. The game's own logic about materia being ancient knowledge, and the meta-lore that it requires a mental shock goes right out the window when an animatronic like Cait Sith can use magic just as easily as a being with a real biological mind and spirit.

It's all a pointless thought process. The game exists by RPG logic when it comes to anything combat oriented. So again, putting in an entirely new aesthetic element to a character for such an obscure reason that flies against RPG logic seems really...silly? Why put this particularly realistic, and mundane concept into the game over so many other glaringly unrealistic elements?

My money is still on it being a narrative tool. You could argue that every character is hiding something on or about themselves in the original game, and the remake may be running with that theme.

 

[hian]

Ammunition doesn't even exist as a game element in VII so that isn't really a valid justifacation for prefer a sword over a gun. You kinda just proved my actual point, which is that VII really glosses over realistic technicalities of combat. Nothing is fatal unless the plot dictates it, nothing runs out unless it's built into the gameplay. The strength of a gun shouldn't factor into Vincent or Barret's combat abilities either, never mind their unending ammo supplies. .

By that logic guns make even less sense, because they only do a set amount of damage in combat, as a game-play element. They hardly do damage at all for the most part.

Clearly, the guns in FFVII uses ammunition. You can see Barret throw casing around in his victory animation. Several prerendered backgrounds feature bullets.
(in terms of the remake this is made even more obvious by the fact that Biggs has actually ammo magazines strapped to his soldiers, and that every machinegun you see wielded by Shinra Grunts have the curved AK type magazines as well)

Point is, FFVII is a video-game. Most of what goes on in the game-play are abstractions and not meant to be used to derive any kind of firm idea of what actually is going on in the plot, or how the world actually work, or what is true for the lore. Gameplay sections of games are almost without except ambiguous.

My point is that from a lore perspective, it's completely reasonable to assume that guns A.) function using ammunition, and that B.) magic and make enhancements feature as counter-measures to conventional fire-arms based combat.

What is not reasonable to assume is that it totally doesn't make sense for people to use swords in a world due to conventional thinking about swords and firearms, in a fantasy setting with magic present.

The reason I brought up the second part about magic, was simply to illustrate the folly of pursuing the reasoning you did in the first place.
Because rules in these kind of games and stories are inconsistent to begin with. You can't expect consistency - however, neither does it make sense to think therefore everything is absurd and any appeal to logic within such a story is therefore null and void.

And in obeying the game logic, not everyone can use magic effectively, just like not everyone can be a physical power house or a sharpshooter. So even then, magic is not an automatic preference to a weapon if you don't have the superior magical abilities. The game's own logic about materia being ancient knowledge, and the meta-lore that it requires a mental shock goes right out the window when an animatronic like Cait Sith can use magic just as easily as a being with a real biological mind and spirit

It's all a pointless thought process. The game exists by RPG logic when it comes to anything combat oriented. So again, putting in an entirely new aesthetic element to a character for such an obscure reason that flies against RPG logic seems really...silly? Why put this particularly realistic, and mundane concept into the game over so many other glaringly unrealistic elements?.

The thing is that this charaterisation isn't fair to what the game is, or what any game is - or any fantasy story for that matter. By this logic a game might as well be completely absurd. Or rather, either they'd have to be fully on one side of the fence or the other, it would seem.
Most games are not. They skirt lines.
Just because a game isn't 100% realistic all the time, does not somehow invalidate the choice to have some level of realism in certain instances, nor make it unreasonable.

My money is still on it being a narrative tool. You could argue that every character is hiding something on or about themselves in the original game, and the remake may be running with that theme.

The one does not preclude the other.

I'd just remind people to remember the multiple times in interviews Kitase and Nomura have been stressing realism for this game.
Let's not forget that this is the project where they decided to go out of their way make Cloud look gaunt and sickly because of a plot-point that won't be revealed until past the half-way point of the game.

Personally, I don't expect that the inclussion of glasses will be mentioned much at all.
I just imagine that during the design process, Nomura thought, "what makes a more realistic Barret?", did some research on fire-arms usage and decided to give Barret sun-glasses, but that this, of course, will never come up in the actual game.

When I posited, way back when, that it might be something he wears to decrease influence on night-time vision from the muzzle-flash of his gun-arm, I did not posit that to say that this was going to be some sort of facet of the in-game lore.
I posited that simply to say that this might have been a reason for deciding to give him the sun-glasses on the development end of things.

 

[Mage]

he rides on the back of a huge stuffed Mog he magically brought to life. Megaphone in hand, he's always shouting orders and creating dopey attacks

Cait Sith isn't animatronic, but the Mog is. Cait is a magical being so he could just poof away and sacrifice the Mog in the temple of the ancients and also utilise materia. Unless all this time I've gotten this wrong and you lot are gonna ruin my head-canons

 

[Shademp]

I'm just amazed how much it affected people. I barely noticed them.

The wearing of shades in dark areas has, to many, become equivalent with a movie or game "trying too hard to be cool". Ergo it's popular to criticize. To them, the shades ruin their immersion.

People have different tastes and hang-ups when it comes to what stylistic choices will ruin their immersion. For example there is a subset of people who won't stop commenting on how ridiculous the Buster Sword is and how it's penis compensation (cue Beavis & Butthead laughter). These people, out of the gate, are unlikely to even give FF7 a try.

Apart from the immersion aspect there is also the worry that Barret's eyes will be concealed for the whole game, solely for the sake of him looking cool. But I'm quite convinced that the shades won't stay on for long. If they do stay on, I will be disappointed.

I hope that the shades come off when Barret gets home to Marlene. Suddenly seeing the joyful eyes of a father would be a powerful contrast to all the preceding scenes with Barret. Then I visualize the shades going back on for the Mako Reactor #5 mission, then being discarded for the last time either during or after the deaths of Jessie, Biggs and Wedge.


What fascinates me that almost nobody, including myself, is bothered by the redesign of Barret's gun arm. His OG gun arm is so classic, yet the shades brought a ton of attention while we almost immediately accepted the remake version of his gatling gun.

The fact that original design continuity was ignored with Barret's gun is also a reason why I'm highly skeptical that Cloud's remake Buster Sword hides the golden hilt. The remake took the liberty of changing Barret's gatling gun, so why not change Cloud's sword (again) as well?

That said, I also wouldn't mind it if the winged-gold-hilt is re-introduced during the course of the FF7 remake, be it as a piece hiding beneath the bolted hilt or as a hilt resting at the site of an obscure swordsmith in the Midgar slums. Yes, I visualize the headcanon/speculation that Cloud visited a smith in the Midgar slums who made the bolted pauldron for Cloud and who also (may have) changed the hilt of the Buster Sword.

Time will tell...when and if these speculations get busterd.

 

[hleV]

I think it'd be cool if in the Corel flashback, Barret didn't appear as buff (obviously still huge, but not jacked as much), to imply the transformation once he started going against Shinra.

The fact that original design continuity was ignored with Barret's gun is also a reason why I'm highly skeptical that Cloud's remake Buster Sword hides the golden hilt. The remake took the liberty of changing Barret's gatling gun, so why not change Cloud's sword (again) as well?

That said, I also wouldn't mind it if the winged-gold-hilt is re-introduced during the course of the FF7 remake, be it as a piece hiding beneath the bolted hilt or as a hilt resting at the site of an obscure swordsmith in the Midgar slums. Yes, I visualize the headcanon/speculation that Cloud visited a smith in the Midgar slums who made the bolted pauldron for Cloud and who also (may have) changed the hilt of the Buster Sword.

Remake Buster Sword is IMHO the best version of Buster Sword so far, I wouldn't want it to become the Compilation Buster Sword later in the game. I totally wouldn't mind if it had a golden handguard before (they sold it for money and replaced with bolted one - canon), but I'm more worried about whether they'll provide an explanation for SOLDIER uniform modifications.

 

[Kain424]

The wearing of shades in dark areas has, to many, become equivalent with a movie or game "trying too hard to be cool". Ergo it's popular to criticize. To them, the shades ruin their immersion.

Just a personal preference for me. I want to see his eyes. I would be more than happy if they actually did have him remove them and put them back on, like you said.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

He's definitely taking them thangs off in the immediate aftermath of Platefall, during his "Biggs! Wedge! Jessieeee!" freakout. Whether or not he discards them, then, will be the question. If he keeps them, I wonder if they'll throw a pair on Dyne as well...seemed like part of the point there was that they were direct mirror images of each other