Is Final Fantasy VII Remake GOTY-worthy? (*Open Spoilers*)

[Eerie]

I agree, I'd even say that you can compare Case of Tifa and The Kids are alright and see how much Nojima has progressed, as a writer, between the two.

I wanted to add what Mako said, but got beat by a few seconds so there, get my like @Makoeyes987

 

[looneymoon]

I don't agree with Obsidian's position, but I see the point that FF series games might benefit from being smaller-scale. The level design is really a big thing that holds FF7R back imo. I don't think SE has gotten a grasp in reflecting the scale of the story/characters, to a breadth of level progression that isn't largely similarly looking environments.

It doesn't have to take itself super seriously to not completely reuse the same dramatic scenarios ad nauseum. I've mentioned it before, but remake does a lot to completely desaturate the gravitas of a character falling/holding themselves off a ledge off a building. Granted, the compilation does this too, but Remake was the entry where it seems like that motif was particularly uncreative. That's just an example of how the writers use shorthand for drama that is very pedestrian. The Plot Dementors are the obvious big examples of how pivotal moments are completely nullifiedof dramatic impetus by their inclusion. Whatever the "answer" is to their existence doesn't really excuses that.

I'm not saying Remake is terrible by any means. It's a good game, definitely not a great game, definitely not a bad game. It's kind of cool to see a video game that is reflective of manga-battles. As much as I enjoy that stuff (specifically of the shounen/seinen variety), it isn't an example of the highs of any genre it falls into (video game and/or anime narrative), whereas I think the original was moreso, for its time. Mostly, it's aggressively "fine" if you bare in mind what these creators are wont to do.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Obsidian, you hit the nail on the head there.

 

[KindOfBlue]

I think a lot of people wanted FF7R to see how the writers have matured as story tellers since FF7.

Is remaking an old story truly the best way to display maturity though? I think to some extent, you’re still going to be tied to certain elements from before, so they’re not exactly operating within the same boundless freedom they had when they made the OG in the first place

And I think that kind of writing was what people were hoping to see more of in Remake.

With my above point in mind, I’d argue this is the best portrayal of the characters since the OG (and it even surpasses the OG in some ways) so I think that’s an accomplishment in maturity itself ESPECIALLY compared to the rest of the compilation aside from the novellas

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Thinking it over... I think the thing about the Remake that rubs me the wrong way is that it feels... flippant... in places that the OG did not feel flippant in. The scenes of the Pillar falling in Remake is probably the best example of it, but it shows up in other events to. It just feels like.... the Remake doesn't want to let the scenes that could be serious stay serious; it has to make them feel emotionally lighter somehow. And the OG... rarely did that once the tone of a scene had been established.

It should be noted that "humor" isn't the same thing as not being mature or having serious writing. The OG had a lot of of humor in it. But I have a hard time recalling scenes that were serious being... interrupted, by something to make them feel emotionally lighter. I think the only one I can think of is outside the Temple of the Ancients when Cait Sith shows up after "dying", and that's because he legitimately had no idea what had just gone down with Cloud and Seprhioth before he got there. And then he ditches the humor immediately once he realizes what is going on.

In case it matters to anyone... I didn't play FF7 until... over ten years after the game had already been out, and I was in my late teens or early twenties. I had had all the big plot twists spoiled via cultural osmosis by then too. That the plot still worked as well as it did even when I knew what was more or less going to happen was one of the game's (and the story the game told) selling points to me. I really hope Remake's story will work like that...

 

[ForceStealer]

While I've agreed that Cait Sith's appearance during platefall was probably a bad idea because it would confuse newcomers, I wouldn't say it constituted inserting levity into a serious moment. As an experienced fan, I know that Cait Sith is Reeve, and that his reaction was a reflection of Reeve's own agony over what was happening. It's not like he did something goofy. He fell to his knees, which I bet is exactly what Reeve felt like doing, if it wasn't exactly what he was doing.

 

[Clement Rage]

I do remember Barret comically falling over while infiltrating Shinra HQ nearly killing the whole chapter for me.

 

[KindOfBlue]

The slapfight between Tifa and Scarlet (though I did find it funny) was pretty...weirdly placed. I wonder how the remake would handle it though since it might be in poor taste by today’s standards. Maybe a cutscene of them slapping each other that leads into a full-on boss fight?

The scenes of the Pillar falling in Remake is probably the best example of it, but it shows up in other events to. It just feels like.... the Remake doesn't want to let the scenes that could be serious stay serious; it has to make them feel emotionally lighter somehow.

Other than Cait Sith randomly appearing during the plate fall, I didn’t really feel this. As far as seriousness, I thought the game was at about the same level as the OG at least for where we currently are in the story.

I really hope Remake's story will work like that...

It’s hard to say whether this will be the case, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the game’s fault. I’m fascinated by how differently somebody like me who experienced the OG and the remake in close proximity to one another feels compared to others in which a considerable amount of time may have passed between experiencing both games.

I pretty much binged the OG, remake, and the rest of the compilation so it all kind of gels together as one experience for me. Whereas somebody who may have played the OG when it came out will likely be at a much different place in life mentally 20+ years later so it’s more like revisiting old territory but in a new way.

I dunno how the number of OG fans who like the remake compares to the number of OG fans who don’t like it, but in any case, I think recreating the exact conditions that allowed for one to feel those same feelings they felt when they played the OG is no easy task when even the people creating the game are likely at very different points in life, just as the world is a very different place from where it was in 1997.

Maybe that’s why people take solace in what they know already works but for some creators, there’s hardly a thing satisfying about just repeating the past. It’s just redundant creatively speaking, or at least the devs (and people like me) seem to think so. That said, I don’t have much reason to believe they don’t have the OG fans in mind when crafting this story even if it does end up taking some bizzare turns.

 

[Eerie]

Thinking it over... I think the thing about the Remake that rubs me the wrong way is that it feels... flippant... in places that the OG did not feel flippant in. The scenes of the Pillar falling in Remake is probably the best example of it, but it shows up in other events to. It just feels like.... the Remake doesn't want to let the scenes that could be serious stay serious; it has to make them feel emotionally lighter somehow. And the OG... rarely did that once the tone of a scene had been established.

Ehh, the plate fall in the OG did not touch me at all; Avalanche guys? I didn't even talk to them. And it went down really fast. Here in Remake, the way it's handled, the talk with Biggs and Jessie, and the ending after the Rude and Reno fight, the way Tifa reacts after the platefall, everything hits much harder IMHO.

@KindOfBlue I think Scarlet will be a boss fight this time around!

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Is remaking an old story truly the best way to display maturity though? I think to some extent, you’re still going to be tied to certain elements from before, so they’re not exactly operating within the same boundless freedom they had when they made the OG in the first place

The devs have way more freedom now then they had back when making the OG. Particularly when it comes to what the technology can actually do. Reading up on how the OG was created shows a dev team that was bursting with ideas that would never have worked on the technology of the day. And so a lot of their ideas had to be changing to fit the limitations of late 1990's era gaming.

I pretty much binged the OG, remake, and the rest of the compilation so it all kind of gels together as one experience for me. Whereas somebody who may have played the OG when it came out will likely be at a much different place in life mentally 20+ years later so it’s more like revisiting old territory but in a new way.

I think I can speak for everyone when I say many of us have thought more about the OG this year than we have thought about it in the last five years. And there are many different ways that kind of hyper-focus can go. For several people on this site, it has indeed gone in the direction of liking what the Remake is doing and thinking that it fits in with the OG very well. For other people on this site (many of whom I have noticed post more on Discord and less on the Forums) this kind of hyper-focus has done the opposite. Of showing that what we liked about the OG was still there in the OG, but for some reason isn't therein the Remake. At least not yet.

And, let's not patronize people in the "i've played the OG more recently than you have, so my opinion about the OG is more valid than yours is" way. It's an insult to the people who have played the OG recently and still disagree with you about it. And a lot of people on this site in particular didn't last play the OG 20 years ago and that isn't where they are coming from in regards to the OG. Even if they had, people have been making the same argument you are making about the OG not being that great since it first came out.

Maybe that’s why people take solace in what they know already works but for some creators, there’s hardly a thing satisfying about just repeating the past. It’s just redundant creatively speaking, or at least the devs (and people like me) seem to think so. That said, I don’t have much reason to believe they don’t have the OG fans in mind when crafting this story even if it does end up taking some bizzare turns.

The dev team has been... very contradictory about what they think they're doing with the game. On the one hand, they've told us all the "important events" will be in Remake and the games following it. On other, they've told us nothing is sacred and they don't have a problem changing things. It is interesting to note that the devs who seem the most reluctant to change things are the new devs who did not work on the OG. The devs are the most prone to changing things are the devs who worked on the OG. Probably because to them, it really isn't anything sacred and they know they can do anything they want with it.


However, it's important to compare what the devs have said with the game we got. And it's... revealing to me that they link up things like having three different dates in Remake with the Gold Saucer Dates, or Sephiroth showing up at the end of Remake with the Sephrioth boss fight at the end of the OG. If those events are "similar" between the Remake and the OG, how "similar" do events have to be for them to think they've included an event from the OG in the Remake? We also as an audience, don't have too many indications of what the devs think are the "important events" that have to happen to make Remake FFVII and what are not "important events". I do think it says something that they always seem to be talking about scenarios rather than the reasons the scenarios happen. Which gives me the impression the devs have a list of events they feel like they need to put in the story from the OG rather than... a narrative flow they are considering; that list of events they want to included is driving the plot rather than the plot driving what events will happen.

Long story short, I look at Remake and what the devs told us they wanted to do with it before and after it was released, and it very much feels like they are picking their words to be the technical truth but not the whole truth. It's hard to think they aren't trying to reveal things rather then conceal them. Normua's lines about us not knowing what the term "Remake" will actually be referring to for a few years yet is exactly what I am talking about.

 

[Odysseus]

The devs have way more freedom now then they had back when making the OG. Particularly when it comes to what the technology can actually do. Reading up on how the OG was created shows a dev team that was bursting with ideas that would never have worked on the technology of the day. And so a lot of their ideas had to be changing to fit the limitations of late 1990's era gaming.

They have the freedoms allowed by advanced technology, sure, it they're still bound to a story they wrote 24 years ago. Look at how badly some of you are reacting to the changes they did make, and imagine if they had instead completely reworked everything to suit what they're capable of now. FF7 was written with the limitations of the PS1 in mind, I have to imagine. It's fundamental to making FF7 what it is.

The way 24 years worth of hindsight HAS worked its way into the game is more subtle. I don't know if other people feel this way about the OG, but for me it always felt as though things were kind of "disconnected" from each other. Things happening in one place were rarely influenced by things happening in another. The world of the remake feels much more organic in comparison, just the way things are written makes the world feel more cohesive.

 

[ultima786]

They have the freedoms allowed by advanced technology, sure, it they're still bound to a story they wrote 24 years ago. Look at how badly some of you are reacting to the changes they did make, and imagine if they had instead completely reworked everything to suit what they're capable of now. FF7 was written with the limitations of the PS1 in mind, I have to imagine. It's fundamental to making FF7 what it is.

The way 24 years worth of hindsight HAS worked its way into the game is more subtle. I don't know if other people feel this way about the OG, but for me it always felt as though things were kind of "disconnected" from each other. Things happening in one place were rarely influenced by things happening in another. The world of the remake feels much more organic in comparison, just the way things are written makes the world feel more cohesive.

When I played it again recently, I 100% noticed the exact same disconnectedness. I still loved it. But I fully realized the narrative and character limitations. Remake did those issues significantly better. It just introduced some elements that many of us thought weren’t needed and weren’t connected to the original lore, but that’s still up in the air.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

And, let's not patronize people in the "i've played the OG more recently than you have, so my opinion about the OG is more valid than yours is" way.

That's definitely not what @KindOfBlue was doing there. Not sure how you interpreted it that way.

 

[cold_spirit]

Reading up on how the OG was created shows a dev team that was bursting with ideas that would never have worked on the technology of the day. And so a lot of their ideas had to be changing to fit the limitations of late 1990's era gaming.

Was it like that though? From what I've read on FF7, especially from the developer accounts featured in Polygon's oral history of the game, is that their ideas were allowed to flourish with the jump to 3D and compact discs. They didn't start the generation already held back by the technology, the technology empowered them to build the FF7 they wanted. It's why they ditched the N64.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Most likely a little of column A, a little of column B.

Of course they could do more with the PlayStation, but there are design goals they had (e.g. a seamless match between the battle models and field exploration models, for instance) that wouldn't happen just yet.

 

[KindOfBlue]

And so a lot of their ideas had to be changing to fit the limitations of late 1990's era gaming.

I think for them, they’ve broken past that barrier of being limited by the technology but were still tasked with working within the barriers of what a “remake” is. They’ve got all the technological reach in the world, but it was still not enough to grasp the freedom they once had when creating this story from scratch, that is, until they rewrote the rules of what a remake can be. I think being able to do that with a remake of such a beloved game and still receive largely positive reception is a feat in itself.

And, let's not patronize people in the "i've played the OG more recently than you have, so my opinion about the OG is more valid than yours is" way.

I had hoped to avoid coming off this way as it’s by far not my intention so I do apologize if I seem like that. Really, I don’t think there is a right or wrong opinion here, I’m just fascinated by how much we as human beings underestimate the factors that color our perceptions of art, such as time.

Even if they had, people have been making the same argument you are making about the OG not being that great since it first came out.

I definitely don’t mean to downplay the OG’s greatness. Although I’m a new fan, I do consider it my favorite game of all time after many years of not really having a “favorite game”. What I mean is, because my experiences with both the OG and the remake are so closely tied to one another, there just tends to be a lot of things the remake catches flak for that I would say the OG is similarly guilty of. I don’t think that absolves the remake of any criticism or makes the OG any less great, but I thought it was an interesting observation.

If those events are "similar" between the Remake and the OG, how "similar" do events have to be for them to think they've included an event from the OG in the Remake? We also as an audience, don't have too many indications of what the devs think are the "important events" that have to happen to make Remake FFVII and what are not "important events".

The best we could do is use the first part of the remake as a reference, and so far they seem to have done what they said they would: they remade the Midgar portion of FF7. I don’t particularly find the words from the devs to be contradictory because I think you can retell a story but also recontextualize it enough to do some new things at the same time.

The Gold Saucer date and Sephiroth boss are both events that do not take place at this point in the story, so it makes sense to me that they’d recontextualize those elements as heavily as they did. But as for the actual Midgar section of the OG, I’d say they nailed and even surpassed most of the equivalent scenes in the OG.

 

[FFShinra]

You know, something I'm going to be interested in seeing is how the BD1 team deals with BD3 running FF16. Until now, they had sole purview on the mainline series and most spinoffs. Having to deal with competition may also make them more ambitious with further sections of the remake.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

BD1 has had to deal with that for over ten years by this point. BD3 is in charge of FF11 and FF14. The latter of which has been doing phenomenally well in the last... seven to five years. Heck, Emet-Selch, the main villain of FF14's last expansion, was ranked higher than... every other FF villain (including Sephrioth!) in the last major FF character popularity poll that was done in Japan. So I think BD1 is... more than aware... that people like how BD3 does stuff.

That said, the philosophy of how BD3 approach their stories and gameplay (and most importantly game development!) is... very, very different than how BD1 does. And we do know a lot about how BD3 develops FF14 given all the interviews and development streams they've done at game conferences with members of their development team. The team at BD3 also constantly brings up Yasumi Matsuno as being the reason many of them wanted to go into game development in the first place, let alone wanted to work at Square Enix. And a good portion of them worked on FF12 before working in BD3. As much as I can see BD1 looking at BD3 for ideas... I don't see them using a lot of them because the two divisions are so... different... when it comes to what they want their games to do in the end.

BD3 likes complicated geo-political stories with vast interconnected narrative arcs backed up by a mind-boggling amount of world-building. They're not as great at writing memorable character interactions (although it has been getting better at that in recent expansions; FF14's game engine doesn't help them either for that matter...). BD1 writes really solid character interactions (regardless of game engine!), but it doesn't focus as much on world-building or plot cohesion that really holds together at close scrutiny. They're just... two very different divisions that excel at very different areas of story-telling.

 

[Fiz]

Seeing stuff like this is why I don't take most gamers serious at all. You got some fucking nerve to tell the developers, most of whom worked on the original game, what to do with THEIR STORY.

Far as I'm concerned they can do whatever the hell they want with their intellectual property, if you don't like it you are perfectly entitled to not like it and not play it, but talking about show you respect as a fan screams entitlement to me bruh. You and a large portion of the gaming community needs to get this through your thick skulls: these developers don't owe you shit. FOH bruh lmao.

They also didn't understand the meta commentary at all. There is a film maker on YT who did a cinematic analysis, he had some good videos. He did a video about Nomura and parts of the fan base, he was getting really angry. Not that some people don't like the game, but at the attitudes some of the fanbase have towards creators and intellectual property.

It takes a really high level of arrogance to tell the creators of a work that they are disrespecting their work, and that they are wrong to revisit their own work or change it. Creators are typically deeply critical of their own works and have a deeper emotional connection to their work than their fans will ever have. If they're changing things its because they want to, they have something they want to create, things they want to change. As the owners of that work, they have the right to do so.

 

[Fiz]

I don't think the developers showed no respect for the fans. I think they did quite the opposite. Sure, I don't like the whispers and the ending makes me anxious about what they're gonna pull next, but ever since Aerith handed Cloud that flower and mentioned its symbol of a reunion, I felt like the devs had the fans in mind. Maybe I'm just being dramatic/sentimental and have a terribly soft spot for that waifu in pink, but moving on into sector 7 and walking around it with the main theme on the background... I don't know how to describe that feeling, but I don't think a dev team that disrespects their fans could have produced something like that.

If anything, the remake had me questioning my personal choice of not pursuing a career in the games industry, something I haven't regretted in years. But nah, still don't regret it. It just gave me a few moments where I seriouslu thought "If only I could produce something like this".

They poured a huge amount of love into this game. I'm an artist, I don't work in games, but I wanted to & spent some time chasing the dream. I have a similar feeling as you, its made me wish I'd pushed harder to work in games.

 

[Fiz]

Thinking it over... I think the thing about the Remake that rubs me the wrong way is that it feels... flippant... in places that the OG did not feel flippant in. The scenes of the Pillar falling in Remake is probably the best example of it, but it shows up in other events to. It just feels like.... the Remake doesn't want to let the scenes that could be serious stay serious; it has to make them feel emotionally lighter somehow. And the OG... rarely did that once the tone of a scene had been established.

It should be noted that "humor" isn't the same thing as not being mature or having serious writing. The OG had a lot of of humor in it. But I have a hard time recalling scenes that were serious being... interrupted, by something to make them feel emotionally lighter. I think the only one I can think of is outside the Temple of the Ancients when Cait Sith shows up after "dying", and that's because he legitimately had no idea what had just gone down with Cloud and Seprhioth before he got there. And then he ditches the humor immediately once he realizes what is going on.

Part of this is going to be age ratings. In OG we were dealing with characters who looked like legos, and fairly basic CGI. Final Fantasy is aimed at a fairly young demographic and they have to deal with the ratings authority. Remake has been given PEGI 16 for violence in the UK, yet the OG is PEGI 12 and has more violence - including blood and dead bodies scattered around, a girl getting beaten the shit out of, rape threat and a girl having a sword thrust through her. People can forget just how much modern graphics affect how a game is age rated. Final Fantasy is not GTA or TLOU. So, many acts of violence and peril will be reduced in intensity.

Like Shinra HQ, its obvious why its not got blood and dead bodies everywhere, and we can't really expect it to. That will affect the way stuff feels.

I've seen people get angry because Cloud beating Aerith might get censored, of course it will. It's unlikely that particular event will happen in remake because violence against women is a current topic that might not go down well and age ratings. While they might be able to get away with it, they're treading a fine line. Therefore, assume no. Then, certain fans are going to go apeshit about it and say its reduced the maturity of it.

Long story short, I look at Remake and what the devs told us they wanted to do with it before and after it was released, and it very much feels like they are picking their words to be the technical truth but not the whole truth. It's hard to think they aren't trying to reveal things rather then conceal them. Normua's lines about us not knowing what the term "Remake" will actually be referring to for a few years yet is exactly what I am talking about.

Thats teasing, and its fine. I wouldn't call it dishonest, I think its fairly easy to get a feel for what that might mean. More broadly, while you havent said it, do you mean with stuff like this:

We’re not drastically changing the story and making it into something completely different than the original. Even though it’s a Remake, please assume the story of FF7 will continue as FF7 always has.

Because if you are, I think thats more nerves on the fans part. A lot of people interpret this to mean things it doesn't say or interpret it as dishonest. I think there is a lot of personal bias being projected onto what they're saying. As someone who is overall cool with whatever they do as long as its done well, I see that as a fairly honest, clear statement of intents as long as you don't try to read something else into it other than what it literally says. This mostly translates across everything they're saying.

Its saying "there will be changes, possibly some big ones, but don't worry, it won't go completely off the rails into something unrecognisable". Which makes sense, when taken into context, at the time some people were freaking out that the whole entire story was going to go completely off the rails. He's just settling their minds, if you don't try to read "its going to be exactly the same" into their statements then they make sense and are clear.

When people start thinking comments like this are dishonest and questioning "what does drastically mean?" or "what does something completely different mean?". Thats clearly something they can't answer to the fans, it's not like they can say "ok guys, well, here are our storyboards, this is what you're going to get".

 

[FFShinra]

I know BD3 already had a good rep from 11 and 14, but they haven't had to handle a non-MMO before. And in terms of perception, there was always that divide between online and not online. BD1 didn't have really pay attention to what they were doing and vice versa. At least until 16 started development.

There will be at least some learning curve BD3 will have had to experience to do this. I have full faith in them doing so, but if the finished product succeeds (and to what degree) might sort of put BD1 on notice, at the very least from a dev cycle perspective.

 

[AerithLives]

Seeing stuff like this is why I don't take most gamers serious at all. You got some fucking nerve to tell the developers, most of whom worked on the original game, what to do with THEIR STORY.

Far as I'm concerned they can do whatever the hell they want with their intellectual property, if you don't like it you are perfectly entitled to not like it and not play it, but talking about show you respect as a fan screams entitlement to me bruh. You and a large portion of the gaming community needs to get this through your thick skulls: these developers don't owe you shit. FOH bruh lmao.

It's up there with the Dallas cop out "it's all a dream" ending. It's the same as the star war remakes too.

I mean, think about it. If you ignore the fate ghosts flying around half the game ruining beautiful moments between Aerith and Cloud meeting for the first time (for example) the game was remade pretty well. All of a sudden in the last chapter they must have all sat around a table and gone "let's turn this into an LSD trip". How on earth did this nonsense get through a meeting?

Of course we can criticise it. It's their property naturally but I can still burn down my own house and make the thing gastly to look at. If you create something brilliant and fantastic which people have grown up loving then it belongs to everyone and they have a right to be pissed off when Sephiroth is blah blah blahing from start to finish destroying any mystic or character build up or going to the edge of the universe to have s conversation about 7 second till...the end?


It's all so shallow. It's all so....Square Enix. They haven't made a good story in decades and they thought they could improve one of the greatest stories ever told in gaming? What arrogance.

 

[KindOfBlue]

For the Whispers to have such a presence early in the story, I wasn’t particularly caught off-guard with how strong they get in the ending. Whereas Sephiroth gets like one quick mention during the Cloud and Tifa flashback in the OG and then completely interrupts the Shinra storyline and takes over for the rest of the game (which I don’t mind since I think Sephiroth’s far more interesting). Probably less jarring because it’s only a few hours into a larger game in the OG but for people who wanted Sephiroth to be more mysterious, what’s the point if you played the OG and already know everything about him?

“Belongs to everyone” is always an interesting take to me when it comes to art, because what happens when what you thought was yours turns out to not be what you thought it was? (not that I think the devs planned this from ‘97, also it reminds me of a similar argument being used by a certain somebody to justify why Cloud and Jessie is a valid romance option, but we’ll leave that alone...)

I think the audience is still at the mercy of the creators in a creative sense, just as the creators are at the mercy of the audience financially and as long as reception continues to be positive, they’ve got all the fuel they need to proceed forward in this direction. Does anybody have any insight into how Japanese fans responded to the story changes?

they have a right to be pissed off when Sephiroth is blah blah blahing from start to finish destroying any mystic or character build up or going to the edge of the universe to have s conversation about 7 second till...the end?

So, in other words...Sephiroth being Sephiroth?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Sephiroth is blah blah blahing from start to finish destroying any mystic or character build up

It's all so shallow. It's all so....Square Enix. They haven't made a good story in decades and

Keep going, I almost got Bingo here, baby!

Does anybody have any insight into how Japanese fans responded to the story changes?

Yeah they loved it.

Surveyees were polled about how satisfied they were with the game. 2196 (75%) were very satisfied, 511 (17.6%) were quite satisfied, 78 (2.7%) were neither satisfied nor unsatisfied, 67 (2.3%) were quite unsatisfied, and 59 (2%) were unsatisfied.

Some of the comments on how satisfied they were with the game are as below:

“It was great how it was not just a remake, and respected the flow of the original while changing things” (20s/Male)
“The graphics and voice acting made it easier to understand the characters’ expressions and thus the story. You can read into more than what is just in the dialogue, and I was moved by the quality. The battles were difficult, but it was fun how the characters’ individuality is put to good use.” (30s/Female)
“Before I played it I did not want them to change anything. But when I actually played it I found myself engrossed in the story. I had not been into something this much since playing FF7 as an elementary schooler.” (30s/M)

How in the world did this get greenlit?!?!