Hopes for Remake & Rebirth (story/content)

[Claymore]

I don't wanna get started grindin' ma Turks axe once more (at least not until more RM info trickles through), but when contemplating their original game portrayal...Reno personally, and GLEEFULLY drops the Sector 7 plate, which is more or less the largest scale act of violence we witness in the entire game. The Nibelheim incident sees the slaughter of a whole town, but it's the one-by-one massacre (with people fleeing, etc) of a small mountain village, not the almost Hiroshima/Nagasaki-esque destruction of an entire city sector in one fateful blast. The site of the massive piece blocking out the sky as it drops, unstoppable, and knowing that all those lives were wiped out in an instant, like whacking a fly with a flyswatter, always got under my skin (in a good way). Now, admittedly, they are supposed to be far more bumbling than their self-image, but thats more an issue of competence than personality type. I feel their general characterization in the OG is characterized by that "Because it's our job" moment from Wutai. Considering their reputation, what we've seen them do in the game so far, and then that small but perfectly evocative bit of a dialogue, it sums them up as, essentially, akin to hitmen...devoid of moral inquiry, ideals, or self-reflection...simply the agents of a tyrannical corporation, 'doing a job'. Now, hitmen can goof around, otherwise Tarantino wouldn't have a career. But the Reno we see in Advent Children does NOT seem like a man who could've EVER vaporized a bunch of civilians...or even 'bad guys', really. That's my beef. Just as people don't want to see Cloud reduced to a mopey sourpuss and then robbed of his original character shading, I wouldn't want the Turk's 'crushes', their inflated sense of ego (Reno, again, is like an assassin whose read books about assassins...he seems himself as a mythical badass, so when he retreats, he's gotta do some quick mental re-writes of what's going down), or any of that to get cut...I just think it's important that we see them as overall vile figures who can bring a smile to our lips DESPITE that. Like, you laugh, think "well they're not so b....wait, these motherfuckers KILLED Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, and the entirety of Sector 7!!", because that pull-and-tug is what makes things interesting, and especially makes that late-game choice in the tunnels far more meaningful (assuming...they're going to maintain that??)

Well said.

 

[Clement Rage]

Could they be playing up the harmlessness so Cloud doesn't kill them?

In universe, their job is something like 'stuff that everyone else has too many ethical objections to'

 

[Nandemoyasan]

Could they be playing up the harmlessness so Cloud doesn't kill them?

In universe, their job is something like 'stuff that everyone else has too many ethical objections to'

Are you trying to suggest that they made the Turks 'goofy' in AC/FF7 because they want the viewer/player to not want Cloud to kill them? Like, to take away the 'deserved punishment' thinking in the viewer/player's mind.

 

[Theozilla]

I do wonder how much cultural context/differences might have played into audiences perceptions of the Turks. Like to use Kefka as a comparison, while the character commits the exact same villainy in the both the Japanese and English versions, IIRC I've heard that Kefka is viewed as a much more silly character in Japan compared to the English speaking audience. Perhaps its a similar case with the Turks? In that the comedic elements /tone from the OG are considered the more remembered/"essential" aspects, relative to the West's perception of them? So when they appear in the later entries that have higher visual/audio fidelity, the capacity for greater ambiguity/variance in how they are perceived is reduced?

 

[ChipNoir]

I think part of it is that the Turks are a creature of their employment. They were still a bit goofy, but they were working for a totalitarian industrial company that makes Saudi Arabia look ethical.

Meanwhile in Advent Children they're basically just glorified PA's. Neither Rufus nor the Turks by proxy have the might of ShinRa's dominance behind them. So once that's stripped away, their core personality is just emphasized. They're comedic try hards who are capable, but personality-wise are kind of morons that are deeply outclassed by the heroes.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Well, just because the Turks are random in personality doesn't mean they're not human. Even characters change over the years...well, except for certain bad guys who don't change continuously or change at all. Sephiroth changed from a respected general into a permanent crazy guy who wants to destroy the World and become a God.

Hojo on the other hand is a full time maniac who has no regards for any life at all. My question to that is what drove him into throwing away HIS humanity and sanity in the first place.

Yes the Turks are meant to be assassins, but that doesn't mean they can't have feelings, right? Plus with things that happened, they (and Rufus) are secretive but try to set things right with the knowledge of still wanting domination but not to the point of hunting down people. They went out of their way to STOP Sephiroth, not wanting to control him once they realized that he was too dangerous to roam free. Hell, Rufus was concerned about Huge Materia in stopping Meteor(which was an Epic fail should the Players collect them or they're installed in Cid's Rocket) and he certainly had the brains to tell Heidegger to quit the 'Stupid Horse Laugh' when his father never did.

The Turks can be smart as well and know when to back down when fights get too much or(via Player's choices in the final confrontion before taking on Hojo) not worth it. As Reno once said, "A pro isn't someone who sacrifices himself for his job. That's just a fool."

Plus, can't some bad guys who turn over a bit of a new leaf deserve a second chance?

 

[Clement Rage]

Are you trying to suggest that they made the Turks 'goofy' in AC/FF7 because they want the viewer/player to not want Cloud to kill them? Like, to take away the 'deserved punishment' thinking in the viewer/player's mind.

I meant in universe, Meteorfall has left the Turks without the power to enforce their wills and a lot of enemies, so they're deliberately trying to appear harmless. As in 'if these people register for a second that we're a threat, they will effortlessly slaughter us, so let's not look dangerous until we get the explosive in place.'

Like Rufus staying in a wheelchair even though he can stand, trying to appear more frail than he is.

But your suggestion is probably correct.

 

[Cereal for Dinner]

It's a pipe dream of mine that the original members of Team Silent help with the (re)creation of the Nibelheim scene, and with the game in general. I think that horror really suits FFVII.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

The stuff in Chapter 13 of XV was an attempt at exploring horror-type gameplay. Any input from folks with more experience to help dig in on that kind of presentation for the Remake's Nibelheim and the Shinra Manor would be really amazing. I'm hoping that the recent updates around map interactivity might open up those things.




X

 

[Kain424]

Absolutely. When they talked about basically having to start over "from zero" in each each area, I got kind of giddy just imagining such things. I hope they will be adding bits more to the lore you can find if you look. Maybe even little easter eggs. In the original, when you searched the library in the basement it was pretty scant. Something like "object X found in such stratum indicates an age of over 2000 years" could now be much more fleshed out. Possibly even have a book with photographs and notes, like your journal in Tomb Raider or the Uncharted games. I may be getting ahead of myself, but additional depth on such a scale would be amazing.

 

[Gary Caelum]

My big hopes for the remake are just that they don't mess with the core story points, but that they add a lot of new meat to the bones with new side-quests and subplots.
I also want them to recreate the world as faithfully as possible. By that I mean I really want Kalm to look exactly like it did in the original. I don't want it to have been replaced by just a generic medieval town, like they did in Dirge of Cerberus.
I really hope it's full to-scale open world like FFXV was. I love how open world games give you that sense of continuity with the world, in that you can see major landmarks from quite a distance. I'm imagining just chilling at the Chocobo Farm whilst being able to see the Shinra Building at the center of Midgar poking over the hills in the distance.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

"I really hope it's full to-scale open world like FFXV was. I love how open world games give you that sense of continuity with the world, in that you can see major landmarks from quite a distance."

I know what you mean.

 

[Gary Caelum]

The only potential problem with a to-scale open world, as several people have pointed out, is that the original game world would end up being like 50 miles across.

They have the problem of the fact that we have a vague sense of how big Midgar is and we also know it's fairly small compared to the continent as a whole. So they'd have to either make an insanely big open-world, or they'd have to adjust some of the relative sizes quite severely. e.g maybe instead of Midgar being about 1/50th the size of the eastern continent, it's now going to be 1/10th the size of it.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Yes, that's a challenge they've created for themselves. I personally feel that unless their world is flat, Midgar would be too far away to be visible from the Chocobo Farm, though it would be visible from Kalm. You can walk from Midgar to Kalm in a couple of hours, so they're maximum about 10-12 k apart.

 

[Ite]

It's all about what you find more immersive or realistic. I for one have a real easy time suspending my disbelief when I look at a "world map" in the style of FF1-9, far more so than a 1/1 scale map where the whole planet is the size of a small city. But I understand that people can feel more connected to the character's experience when they look at things as they would see them in real life. The studio can't have it both ways, and the majority of buyers tend to prefer the latter approach, so I imagine that we will see an open world outside of Midgar.

My hope is that they will do something like FF12, where leaving Rabanastre faded you to black and placed you far afield, with the city as a distant background. That helped immerse me in the scale of FF12's world while still giving me a realistic representation of what the characters would see. In the original FF7, you could run laps around Midgar but I really wouldn't mind if there was an invisible gate half-way between Kalm and Midgar. The trick, then, is figuring out what to do when you get control of the Highwind. Oh! What am I saying, you haven't been able to fly an airship since FF9.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

The Regalia becomes an airship in FFXV. But I prefered driving.

 

[Ite]

The Regalia becomes an airship in FFXV.

!!!!!!!!

 

[Gary Caelum]

The Regalia becomes an airship in FFXV. But I prefered driving.

Lol technically it doesn't. You can only get it after finishing the game, therefore it's not canon and doesn't officially exist.

I'm not even joking. This is how my brain works!

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I take your point... but finishing the game is easy. It has to be if I can do it. For my money the real game comes after the game, when me and my best buds can go back to racketing round the world killing bounties and catching frogs.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Yeah I just have a pedantic thing where I like it to be playable within the main storyline.
Most Final Fantasies allow you to do all of the "end-game" content just before you fight the final boss, rather than after. Wish XV had done the same.

 

[pxp]

Yes, that's a challenge they've created for themselves. I personally feel that unless their world is flat, Midgar would be too far away to be visible from the Chocobo Farm, though it would be visible from Kalm. You can walk from Midgar to Kalm in a couple of hours, so they're maximum about 10-12 k apart.

Didn’t the original teaser show that Kalm was 50 miles from Midgar? Possibly it’s 50km, but either way that’s a lot more than 10-12km, so I’m not even sure if it’d be possible to see Midgar from there (unlike in the OG obviously) unless the terrain is elevated substantially. All subject to change though obviously.

 

[Clement Rage]

I tend to assume post game content is non canon. Otherwise, we get stuff like this:

Snow: Hey guys, you you what will cheer us up after losing half our party to crystal and a random vortex? Let's go kill all the Adamantoises!

Sazh: That's super out of character for all of us, is of no benefit at all and is likely to kill us all, but sure, why not?

Re open world, only if it can be done without coming at the expense of the main story.

 

[Gary Caelum]

All the adamontoise stuff can be done before the final boss though (I think).

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Didn’t the original teaser show that Kalm was 50 miles from Midgar? Possibly it’s 50km, but either way that’s a lot more than 10-12km, so I’m not even sure if it’d be possible to see Midgar from there (unlike in the OG obviously) unless the terrain is elevated substantially. All subject to change though obviously.

With all that's changed in the development since that time, I wouldn't place too much stock in that original announcement trailer -- but even going off that, the sign only tells us Kalm is 51km from the sign. Half that distance or more could still be within Midgar.

 

[ChipNoir]

I kinda feel given how different the architecture is, the highway has to be on the plate edge, or it doesn't exist at all.