Hopes for Remake & Rebirth (story/content)

[ChipNoir]

Those aren't "isolated moments" anymore than they are in any FF game, they are literally everywhere throughout the entire games.

If Zack taking a vacation in Costa del Sol in his swim trunks and fighting with a beach umbrella, playing tag with Yuffie throughout the world, joining SOLDIER fanclubs that poke good fun at the fangirls of the bishounen characters, doing missions at the fucking Chocobo Ranch, building a flower cart with Aerith in the slums with everyone helping out, seeing Wall Market references again, making friends with FF mascots as summons, seeing the old school enemies of the franchise again in FFVII's style, not to mention the myriad of other callbacks like in BC with the callbacks to every memorable location and OG character, DC with Cait Sith and Yuffie hamming it up, AND the other games easter eggs that exist in AC which reference the OG, are somehow just "isolated moments" then you're essentially blinded by the cloudiest of nostalgia goggles at this point. Nothing is going to be good enough for you unless its like...a 1:1 recreation of FFVII down to the lego polygon models.

All just feel poorly done, and off-hand in my eyes. The attempt is there, but they don't feel well executed, and there's a lot of padded grind time between those moments. They just don't work for me. I didn't need silly one-line fangirl jokes in the original, why do I need them in a prequel?

None of it feels connected to the irreverent, earthy, and oddball tone of the original. It just feels...bleh.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Because the games exist in the present where at least 15 years of fandom, history, and experience with the OG beyond it being a PSone game exists. Just like the original FFVII made reference and jokes relevant to its time, so did the games that came after it. You wanting all of FFVII to exist in a hermetically sealed jar which absconds all manner of evolution and relevance is not how this works. That's how something stays dead.

It doesn't need to just be 1:1 copy to keep the spirit of the original. Nor should it.

 

[ChipNoir]

Mako, calm the heck down. I'm critiquing a game based on subjective emotional reaction. I am not stabbing your first born child.

And stop assuming what I want. You haven't a clue what I want, and it's starting to be a bit irritating.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I'm perfectly calm, I'm just criticizing you're bizarre originalist tone and view that the Compilation is apparently some grimdark post apocalyptic dystopian hellscape that makes no room for moogle dolls, chocobos and makes Akira look like Disneyworld

 

[Claymore]

Maybe take a step back for a sec? Your posts certainly do read as hyper-aggressive, and it feels like you are taking opinions not aligning with your own rather personally.

 

[Makoeyes987]

...If "hyper-aggressive" is pointing out a non-issue with evidence of said non-issue-ness given the stuffed moogle doll is literally side-by-side with every other anchored FF mascots in all subsequent FFVII Compilation titles..

I guess I'm a Super Saiyan. Go me

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

What Clay said. Also, your ellipses privileges are suspensed for 24 hours.

 

[ForceStealer]

I do agree with him though that a view of Crisis Core as lacking in silliness or whimsy is inaccurate.

Hell it might have more than the original.

 

[Roger]

Chocobos are mounts, you can race them and get to other inaccessible areas, Tonberries and Cactuars are special combat encounters, and yeah you need both the talking animal and the man to fully represent the character of Reeve/Cait Sith. The fat Moogle robot does not fulfill any function, but does need to be in basically every cutscene from The Golden Saucer onwards.

Even if you believe the only reason the Moogle bot was not given a similar meaty role to Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Cid, Vincent, Yuffie, Marlene, Reno, Rude, Rufus or Sephiroth in Advent Children is because of difficulty animating fur, the fact of the matter is that like Cloud's hair, they now already know Cait Sith works just fine without it's mute lower half. They were willing to adjust Barret's cartoony dimensions for the Remake, why would this be a hill they wanna die on. What added value did the Moogle bot ever have? Disguising Cait Sith during the execution scene is the only moment that would need changing by it's exclusions. Which is fine given that Yuffie won't be an optional character in the sequence.

I'm sure the FFVII Remake will have moogles of some variety, I just don't think they are any happier about having to include this one even if from a technical perspective, they now can.

 

[ChipNoir]

Being a very large tank. That's more useful than ever in an action game.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Because the only reason Cait Sith "worked" without his moogle half is because said animation limitations of the time and the cat was a stealth character meant to squeeze in tight spaces in a wannabe shooting game.

It'd be a hill to die on because they want to stay true to the original. So there's no reason at all for him to be without it. It's memorable for a reason.

 

[Roger]

Because the only reason Cait Sith "worked" without his moogle half is because said animation limitations of the time and the cat was a stealth character meant to squeeze in tight spaces in a wannabe shooting game.

It'd be a hill to die on because they want to stay true to the original. So there's no reason at all for him to be without it. It's memorable for a reason.

It was never anywhere near as memorable as Cloud's hair, that the thing everyone mention when talking about FFVII, yet though it was virtually synonymous with FFVII, SE was willing to experiment on that front. I do not think they are looking at Cait Sith and going "well, clearly perfection was already achieved in that corner, let's translate him verbatim and move on."

 

[ChipNoir]

Well I for one deeply hope the moogle survives. The "Stealth" should be reserved for the actual ninja in the party. The moogle on the otherhand provides wonderful tanking possibilities. Just walloping through enemy ranks and interrupting abilities by virtue of just standing in the way while being immune to stagger/knockdowns.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Cloud's hair doesn't need to be exactly as it was from his 2D 1997 artwork to be close and in line with his depiction. They have stayed true to it's original look, and only updated it in terms of what the technology and graphical style of 3D animation is capable of of. If anything it looks better. If you don't think they want to keep the moogle, then please offer some evidence of the team revealing how they wish to ditch said moogle for whatever reason you're saying aside from AC and DC which has been explained. There's a difference between "experimenting" and "excising."

If the creators of the game are willing to keep the type of creatures one finds in locations of FFVII consistent to the locations of CC and go as far as try to remain consistent regarding how moogles looks between CC and FFVII (their lackage of pom poms being a deliberate design choice) then yeah. I think they do care about the minutiae, including Cait Sith and how he moves around and what he rides on.

 

[pxp]

I also wanna hear the cat shout battle orders to it in a Scottish accent on a megaphone

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Being a very large tank. That's more useful than ever in an action game.

This more than anything should be their consideration. And I imagine it will be.

 

[ChipNoir]

This more than anything should be their consideration. And I imagine it will be.

Seriously. Knockdown/stagger has been a mechanism that they've been experimenting with since X, and increasingly more involved. So after dealing with a first game where anyone except maybe Barret is vulnerable to this, and having something as solid as Cait just eat attacks and even possibly bounce enemies away would be IMMENSELY satisfying.

 

[Kain424]

It also would make his fake-out sacrifice scene more effective for that brief moment in the plot.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Now we're talking sense. Have to remember that first and foremost, this is a game, and it needs well-balanced gameplay that also offers variety.

 

[ForceStealer]

The moogle is how he, y'know, attacks. And appears to be how he produces his fortunes.

I dunno, this is a weird discussion. You can say Square doesn't like silly things anymore, which I'd say is demonstrably false, but even if it isn't, I see no evidence that they would fundamentally change the design of a character for the REMAKE.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Another thing they really need to nail is the mini-games. It was really the entry in the series that popularized mini-games in the first place. There were so many of them, I completely loved it. I'd never seen a game actually do that before. Even if looking back on it now, none of them are especially good.

 

[ChipNoir]

I have mixed expectations from Nomura in terms of mini games. On the one hand KH3 has some pretty cool ideas.

But then it has some really stupid ones like making the entirety of 100 Acre Woods just a Bust a Move clone like the 1,000 other ones on any mobile game store's front page. That was unforgivably lazy.

 

[ForceStealer]

Another thing they really need to nail is the mini-games. It was really the entry in the series that popularized mini-games in the first place. There were so many of them, I completely loved it. I'd never seen a game actually do that before.

And none of the others ever really did it again, which I always found odd/interesting. VIII, IX, and X all created a single major minigame that featured prominently, and X-2 had a host of (mostly shitty) ones, but only VII had such a variety that played as directly into the main plot.

 

[ChipNoir]

And none of the others ever really did it again, which I always found odd/interesting. VIII, IX, and X all created a single major minigame that featured prominently, and X-2 had a host of (mostly shitty) ones, but only VII had such a variety that played as directly into the main plot.

Nah. They all had a handful, though some less than others. Mind you I consider a mini-game to be any game segment where a new gameplay aspect is introduced that is limited to a set piece, and isn't just a "Press the switch" puzzle

VII: Reactor door unlock, barrel drop, vent exploration, g-bike, Fort Condor, Recruit Yuffie, CPR, Mr.Dolphin, Parade March, Rufus Send Off, Falling off Corel Tracks, Mog House, RaN Sham Bo Fighter, Arm Wrestling, Super Dunk, Coaster Shooter, Battle Arena, Chocobo Racing, Dodge the Rolling U Stones, Snowboarding, Escape the Gas Chamber, Rocket Materia Safe,

VIII: Train stealth mission, Escape the sinking prison, Triple Triad, Chocobo Forest, Balamb vs Galabadia raid, Save Rinoa (Multiple times)

IX: Theater performance, Terra Master, Frog catching, Mining, Chocobo Hot/Cold, Cid vs Hedgehog Pie puzzle, and I could argue the Festival of the Hunt might count because of the timer and point system.

X: Chocobo racing/catching, Lightning Dodge, Gagazet Mysteries. I dunno if I'd count the cloyster of trials though.

X-2:...Everything almost is a mini game.

XI/XIV: I could be wrong but these never introduce any unique gameplay for the sake of a set piece. Just fetch quests, escort missions and different battle targets that need priority.

XII: Nothing that I know of.

XIII: Pulse Mech Bowling.

XIII-2: Don't know.

LR: *Shrug*

FFXV: Fishing.

So the list has kinda dwindled over time.

 

[Makoeyes987]

All the online Final Fantasies have a plethora of mini-games. There's a lot more than just questing. FFXIV has its own Gold Saucer, and FFXI had Chocobo Racing, Chocobo Hot and Cold, and other unique event tied mini-games.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 also had a ton of mini-games, seeing as how it had it's own Gold Saucer equivalent, Serendipity. It had Chocobo Racing, slots, blackjack, poker, and chronobind. The entire manner of obtaining artifacts were made into a temporal rift mini-games with the chrono puzzles, clock puzzles, and constellation drawing puzzles, And then there were others in Academia like Brainblast, and Captain Cryptic's Confounding Quizzes. It had quite a few.

And Final Fantasy XV had way more to do than fishing. There's Chocobo Racing in FFXV, as well. Then there's Justice Monster 5, cross country racing in the off-road version of the Regalia, monster fight betting in Altissia, and of course recipe collecting for Ignis cooking.

And I don't know how you could forget X's Blitzball

Mini-games are for the most part alive and well.