I hope this isn't too forward of me.....but can I marry you please?
Heck, if you turn Octo down, I'm next in line, as that was pretty much spot on.
Thanks for the offers. I'm already married though, so unless polygamy is an option you're out of luck =P
On a half-way more serious note though -
I really really don't hate the compilation titles in their own right, and I don't enjoy "bashing" them, since I know there are people (probably even on this forum) with a vested emotional connection to them, who'll feel as if I'm bashing them by proxy. That's not my intent.
When I was in my teens and watched AC for the first time, I friggin' loved that movie. I was starved for more FFVII, which was (and still is) my favorite FF game, and I was in that period of my life where I did watch a lot of anime and had just come off my Matrix binge.
It was perfect in that sense, due to the timing.
However, like when you get really drunk and what seemed awesome at first glance seems trite and dumb on later and more sober consideration, when I had more time to consider the title it became a much more sour experience for me.
In light of that I can see the movie as having great entertainment value - however, I cannot, looking back at the original, say that it did anything that needed to be done, or that it provided an experience that built on the foundations of the original in a way that would satisfy my standards for what I consider to be good sequel material.
Mostly I blame that on the "KEWL" factor of the compilation, and of the times where the compilation was first conceived.
The original FFVII, like almost all pre-FFVII titles, and FFIX (though I loved VIII and X, they really did mark the true shift in style for the franchise), had a very strong element of camp, and of childish slap-stick charm in its presentation (despite also dealing with more serious and adult issues).
These titles were, to my mind, self-aware - much in the same way as Terry Pratchett books.
The danger in just trying to write "seriously" is that it always borders close to the lands of cringe. It requires a natural gravitas and life-experience to be able to write a thorough serious tone without becoming pretentious and cringeworthy, and because this level of skill is usually leaps and bounds beyond writers involved in video-games, I find that the more effective and natural writing for video-games is found when camp and charm is used to mask the rough edges of the writing.
This is what makes games like FFVII, or Metal Gear Solid so good to my mind. The heavy layer of camp lets the players know that everything is up for grabs - that the game and the world might serve as a device for themes and philosophy, but that at its heart, it's still a game and where not meant to sit there and analyze every toe-nail and drop of sweat, and on top of that expect consistency.
It's cool exactly because it's silly over the top, and knows it.
The compilation however, does not embrace its roots, or that kind of mentality. It tries so hard to make FFVII's world into something that it never was to begin with, and the result is an utter lack of congruence, bucket-loads of cringe, and a real blow to the audiences ability to suspend disbelief.
In other words, it isn't cool - because it's silly and over the top but doesn't realize it, and tries to pretend it's still serious fiction.
When nobody on the Shinra ship noticed Nanaki in the sailor uniform in the original game, I would think most people never batted an eye, and just laughed and rolled with it.
It was a joke - a joke that continued a long line of other absurdities that were all presented with equal and casual levels matter-of-factness since Cloud decided it would make more sense to dress up as a woman to sneak into a Mafia hide-out than say, just bust the place up using his super-human strength.
These ironic absurdities are largely absent in the compilation, replaced by un-ironic "absurdities" such characters modeled after J-pop stars reciting poetry...
]I never thought the OG ending was an open ending. It felt more like a cliff-hanging gap kind of thing. With Advent Children, it answered on how humanity survived and began to rebuild their lives while Midgar was obviously abandoned due to the damage Meteor caused. If that never happened, then I never would liked FFVII in the first place.
How so? The entire plot had been resolved at that point. Sephiroth is dead, and the world moved on - as is apparent by the last FMV after the credits.
The only thing that remains unanswered is what happened with the cast and the rest of humanity, however neither of those questions are directly related to the primary story-line which has to do with A.) defeating Sephiroth and B.) Cloud's identity, both issues which were resolved.
A cliff-hanger ending in the context of FFVII would be something like ending the game just as Cloud descends into life stream and faces Sephiroth. That's a cliff hanger.
As, I've already covered in an earlier thread - there is good reason based on the games themes, and dialogue to suggest that humanity survived and that the only reason you don't see any humans in Midgar at the end of the game, is because they abandoned the city - which is reasonable.
Edge from AC is completely nonsensical since Midgar after the meteor-fall and the disuse of Mako reactors would have not have any means of supporting its infrastructure, much less a new city at its edge.
And, since there is no way to grow enough food on the land surrounding Midgar (in AC the surrounding lands is obviously still largely infertile), and no sources of clean water with electricity to pump it, people would have no way of building a new civilization on top of, or near the ruins of Midgar.
The obvious choice for a lot of the former denims of Midgar would be to move to Kalm and the surrounding area, which is fertile and close to water, and if they'd simply set AC in Kalm, it would make that much more sense. Again, bad writing.
The same with the FFX(and it's sequel) and the FFXIII trilogy's director(and I just know, if there'll be a FFX-3, which is very unlikely, that game will suck just as bad as FFX-2.).
You seriously putting FFX in the same FFX-2 and FFXIII in the same camp?
They weren't even directed by the same person.
FFX was directed and produced by Kitase, the very same person who directed the original FFVII.
FFX-2 and FFXIII was directed by Toriyama Motomu, and co-written by a person known as Watanabe Daisuke, so if anything the common factors in the games you dislike here aren't as much Nomura, or Kitase, as much as they are Toriyama and Watanabe - non of which have had any meaningful impact on the rest of the compilation or the original FFVII.
If Tabata were the director in all of the Compilation titles, then maybe things would've been better off. He has the potiental directing material.
This is Tabata's history in directing apart from CC -
Kingdom Hearts Coded
The 3rd Birthday
Final Fantasy Type-0
Final Fantasy Agito
All relatively mediocre titles. We have yet to see how FFXV will turn out, but even in making that title shine, he has less on his record than Kitase and Nomura, even with all the stuff they've made that have been mediocre and/or bad, so I'm not sure it's reasonable to put too much store in his abilities, or think that the rest of the compilation would be better if he had his hands on it.
As for the Cloud, Aerith and Tifa love triangle thing, I think Cloud held feelings for both of them, but still felt too shy, which was why Aerith could(in her scene) found it easy to go on a date with him. I think he had a crush on Tifa since childhood, but for some stupid reason, his mother never allowed him to play with other kids in Nibelhiem(which that's a mystery in and on itself for some stupid reason).
In what world did the plot of FFVII ever state that Cloud wasn't allowed to play with other kids? He explicitly stated he didn't play with them because he thought they were dumb.
And again - the plot of FFVII is ambiguous. Whatever Cloud shows of romantic interest is entirely shaped by player choices through dialogue, and if I remember correctly, the battle mechanics.
Plus, there are good American and Japanese media in two different ways, and then there's the bad media in both said countries. Actually, it's like that in any other country in the world.
And I think the Japanese do just fine with good endings in their media, but that's just me being a good ending kind of fan, so I've never been that much of a gruesome and evil ending kind of thing.
I never implied the opposite. There are good and bad media in all countries. It's still a relatively well known fact that there are difference in trends and story-telling conventions informed by culture, and once such difference is preference in regards to how plots are resolved. Japanese tend to favor open endings. Western European and U.S story-telling tend to be skewed towards closed/resolved endings.
I have hoped that the Remake was both a new story of the original game as well as keeping the legacy of the Compilation alive at the same time(in other words, connecting both of them in a new way to make more sense in the franchise).
Vague. There are many ways to keep the "legacy of the compilation" alive, and I think a lot of debate can be had on what that legacy actually is, and how much of it would pertain to the plot of a remake of the original.
And, as multiple people here have already said - how can anyone reasonably expect the included compilation tie-ins to remain unchanged, when the the very original material is not.
It sounds like you're literally granting the possibility of change to the original to fit with the compilation, but not to the compilation to fit the original, or the new vision of the original.
Do you think that is a reasonable expectation to have for the remake?
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