Hopes for Remake & Rebirth (story/content)

[micknutson9]

Slightly off topic, but they might get away w/ saying Bastard, Dumbass, and SOB. After all... Headmaster Cid of FFVIII fame said SOB to Garden Master NORG 3-4 times IIRC. Even in PG-13 Rated movies. The F-Bomb is dropped 1-2 times throughout the entire film. 3-4 if they can get away w/ it. Also... Some PG-13 films can get pretty racy nowadays by showing lots of skin. No where near R-rated, but a Hard PG-13 film could nonetheless. So I think it COULD be plausible to push the envelope as much as possible and get away w/ it and still come out w/ a T for Teen game. But, it's my opinion is all.

 

[Starling]

I'm pretty sure Cid actually says SOB in DoC as well. I mean, this isn't like the Sonic games where people freaked out when Shadow said damn.

 

[Mayo Master]

IMO, language wouldn't be the only element that would be constrained if the remake were aiming for a Teen rating. A lot of things would have to be watered-down (blood, drug and alcohol references, "suggestive themes"...). I really hope it doesn't take this path. Else I'd be angry enough to shout "gosh dang it to heck!"

 

[Octo]

I suppose they're stuck between a rock and a hard place, the game has dark elements but it's not like this is Silent Hill or, Heavy Rain or Amnesia or [insert other violent/gory decidedly adult games]

Other than those of us who played FFVII first time round I don't think the remake is going to hold that much appeal to adult gamers, so it's not like they could rely soley on that market. They need a teen rating I think.

Which is going to suck probably Midgar isn't going to be Midgar without it's seedy and dangerous elements which you can't achieve with low lighting and a bit of graffiti alone.

 

[ForceStealer]

Not to state the obvious...But all this stuff was already in the game and it's rated Teen. Obviously you can't use the &#%$?@s, but the other stuff shouldn't be that hard. Crisis Core was Teen and Zack is COVERED in blood at the end.

 

[Mayo Master]

Not to state the obvious...But all this stuff was already in the game and it's rated Teen. Obviously you can't use the &#%$?@s, but the other stuff shouldn't be that hard. Crisis Core was Teen and Zack is COVERED in blood at the end.

IMO one of the main factors behind the Teen rating of the OG is that the OG was rated back in 1997. Values have shifted quite a bit since then, and things are not rated the same way they used to. Just keep in mind that, for example, political correctness was not a concern back then. With similar content, the rating is likely to change because we (or, rather, the organizations in charge of rating) have changed.

EDIT: Original ESRB rating noted Comic Mischief, Mild Animated Violence, Mild Language.

 

[hian]

The swearing in FFVII is mostly a matter of localization anyway - it's ambiguous.

By Japanese standards, Barret's dialogue is pretty out there, because he says stuff like "baka yarou", "somethingsomething-yarou", and other such things pretty often (while ending every second sentence with particles like "ze" and "zo" and the long "ee" instead of "-i" ending at the end of adjectives etc.) and that term does not have a clear English equivalence.
Similar with the various levels of speech politeness in Japanese.
[and note that if you actually said "baka yarou" to something in Japanese the same way Barret does, the social implication and reaction you'd get for that is more equatable to being called a "f***ing idiot" than anything else, although the technical and more literal translation would read something like "bastard idiot" or something like that, which is not a composite insult used frequently in the English language, nor something that would carry the same weight if said to an English speaker]

Barret speaks in a way that I would consider "yankii" or "chinpira", Japanese terms for delinquents and thugs respectively, and so I'm one of those who actually think the English localization is pretty good concerning Barret because it's probably consistent with the western equivalence of the archetype that was intended when writing the character.
That being said, since "m***er-f***er" etc. are not terms that exist in Japanese, there is no need to add that sort of stuff to the dialogue to begin with.

English is a very rich language, and there are many ways to stylistically get the point of Cid and Barret's characters across without resorting to blatant derogatives.

That being said, I am getting a distinct darker vibe based on the trailer comparatively to the original game though, so regardless of the rating and whether the game will feature swearing, I think it's quite likely that we're looking at a "FFVII - Dark Knight Edition" more so than what is normal for most FF titles.

 

[Octo]

Not just values, but it's a very different matter when graphics have improved.

Eg: If something like South Park was done with realistic CG and/or real actors, playing about with aborted fetuses etc, they wouldn't get away with it.

Zack was bloody, but sort of intact IIRC it wasn't like his gut's were hanging out or half his face was missing, compared with the OG when he was essentially machine gunned to death face down in the mud, he's have been shredded to ribbons.

 

[hian]

Eg: If something like South Park was done with realistic CG and/or real actors, playing about with aborted fetuses etc, they wouldn't get away with it.

I remember seeing a movie that starts with the main character shooting a crying baby in the face with a shot-gun and the baby just exploding into blood and chunks of flesh...

I think they could "get away" with their stuff legally speaking. It would just have faced a bigger back-lash and probably failed to gain any sort of traction.

 

[Starling]

Isn't there some kind of grandfather clause for remakes? I always found the way ratings work to be restrictive and at times poorly thought out. The thing is, blood, death, a bit of sexual content and a bunch other stuff around those lines have always been fine in Teen rated games so I don't really think the OG's content should be enough to bump up the rating just because of better graphics.

 

[Octo]

Eg: If something like South Park was done with realistic CG and/or real actors, playing about with aborted fetuses etc, they wouldn't get away with it.

I remember seeing a movie that starts with the main character shooting a crying baby in the face with a shot-gun and the baby just exploding into blood and chunks of flesh...

Was that God Bless America by any chance? Cos that movie was sort of in the same vein as South Park as a humour/satire and IIRC that scene was a dream sequence. I was still surprised to find that that only got a 15 rating in the UK though.

I think they could "get away" with their stuff legally speaking. It would just have faced a bigger back-lash and probably failed to gain any sort of traction.

Well yeah, thats what I meant, having cartoony little characters doing horrible things takes some of the sting out of it.

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah, but ratings are unpredictable. I mean, movie ratings have gotten way more lenient since then, not stricter. I feel like Teen should be the equivalent of PG-13, which have only gotten more violent and curse-y. But I know video game ratings can be a different animal.

Octo is right about the graphical fidelity, but nothing in FF7 would have been like guts spread all over the place. Maybe Zack should have been ribbons, but he's just gonna look like he did in Crisis Core. (And, his guts weren't out, but

Spoiler: he wasn't in a good way either

, he was definitely full of bullet holes.) Otherwise you have blood on the floor of the Shinra building, the Zolom impaled on the tree could be gory....

And as for the Wall Market stuff...well aren't we supposed to be more tolerant of that stuff now? I would more think it would have upped the rating then.

Dirge of Cerberus' ESRB rating specifically mentioned "Tobacco Use" because Cid lights up at the end, which I thought was very stupid, but it didn't appear to affect the rating otherwise.

And as I said above, Uncharted says "shit" constantly, as well as "ass" and "bitch," not to mention shooting countless people in the head, and that's rated Teen.

 

[hian]

Was that God Bless America by any chance? Cos that movie was sort of in the same vein as South Park as a humour/satire and IIRC that scene was a dream sequence. I was still surprised to find that that only got a 15 rating in the UK though.

It was. The reason I mention it, was specifically because it is in the same vein. After all, you did say "If South-Park was done with realistic CG/real actors-", not "If South-Park wasn't satire/humor-"

Well yeah, thats what I meant, having cartoony little characters doing horrible things takes some of the sting out of it.

Of course. There is no denying that. I'm was simply musing on the importance of context.
Two games can feature roughly the same graphical fidelity and graphic violence, but the one where the violence is framed in a non-controversial "justified" way, like your average army-shooter, then that will be received differently than one that is about shooting women and children for no good reason.

A good example of this is the outrage cased by that one Call of Duty game that opened with you being part in a terrorist operation going down at an air-port.

Y
And as for the Wall Market stuff...well aren't we supposed to be more tolerant of that stuff now? I would more think it would have upped the rating then.

This is very true, yet the very people who yell for tolerance and moving beyond bigotry are probably the ones who'll have the biggest issue with these scene for not "tackling the issues in a proper way".
I've already seen people say that Cloud's cross-dressing scene is transphobic as it "uses drag as a butt of a joke", and that the wall-mark scene denigrates gays by portraying them in a [negative] stereotypical way, and that it's anti-woman because of the Honey-Bee Inn, "which doesn't have any real reason to be there except fill the 'hero has to stop by seedy place where women are treated poorly'-trope."

I'm not joking, although I wish I was.

 

[Starling]

Let's not forget that Jenova's eye nipples didn't affect CC's rating either.

 

[Octo]

Yeah but eye nipples are less offensive than nipple nipples

 

[Starling]

Either way they're still naked boobs on an alien whose features look recognizably female, regardless of what the nipples look like.

 

[Tennyo]

imho

If a shirtless Sephiroth is okay why should Jenova be a problem?

 

[Mayo Master]

imho

If a shirtless Sephiroth is okay why should Jenova be a problem?

Double standards

 

[hian]

Obviously the answer is to cover up Sephiroth as well as censoring Jenova's Eyeball nipple boob!

#coverupsephi

 

[Tennyo]

@hian: The fangirls would riot.

@Ite: I never knew that about FFX Shiva.

 

[Tetsujin]

Edit: FFX in Japan had Shiva nipples

 

[Lex]

See new thread here for the discussion on Mukki's scene, which has been moved to the debate section (for obvious reasons).

 

[Still Unnamed]

One thing I hope they retain from the original is having Sephiroth as a temporary party member during Cloud's flashback at Kalm. I seriously enjoyed not only seeing him use high-level spells, but being able to see his stats and equipment. Playing through the game for the first time, I saw his setup as something to strive for. I hope that in the remake they add Sephiroth's Limit Breaks like Octaslash.

 

[Octo]

I hope we get to do stuff like see Elmyra and Marlene after they've left Midgar. I mean I know technically some of that stuff happened between the end of the game and AC, but still. I didn't like how Elmyra just disappeared from the story completely.

Actually, it would be quite good if you got to see what happens when everyone bar Cloud and Tifa go off before the final fight. Even if they're just optional or whatever.

 

[Tennyo]

^^^ THIS

The franchise spends so much time covering how Cloud (and to a lesser extend the rest of the party) feels about Aerith's death. But what about the woman who actually raised her? This is something we need.