Laughably bad article that does raise an interesting question

[hleV]

Redundant materia that enabled characters to perform actions that supposedly could be done without any materia.
Also certain other, ridiculous materia/monsters/attacks - because in OG's Lego graphics it didn't matter that much but in a photorealistic world, ridiculous things (Frog materia, Supernova, etc.) hit my suspension of disbelief way harder.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I understood Hell House to be a machine, not a creature. Some Shinra reject that got turned loose in the slums/sold to Corneo to secure his territory.

As for the hand screen thing, that's easy, it's a security system designed to warn intruders they're somewhere restricted and break out the gun turret if they don't comply.

Its kind of an interesting point that there are two different kinds of death animations. Machine enemies turn opaque and fly apart, while biological enemies turn pink/red and as just fade out.

With that said, it's not exactly consistent.

Yeah, Hojo's creepy experiments often explode into pieces as well. Do you know if there's anyone who actually has a list of which enemy types die with what animation? Now I'm properly curious how consistent that is. Maybe Shademp knows... I'm gonna go ask ask right now.

If you look at the world map, the areas around Junon, Midgar and Fort Condor are very grey and depleted. Changing the POV to be top-down makes this super apparent. My first playthrough, I didn't know you could change the POV. After the Mythril Mines, I knew I was approaching a large settlement a few (lol) seconds before I saw Fort Condor. There was a huge circle of land where the grass died and it was jut... dust.

Yeah, everywhere in the game that has/had a Mako Reactor has a depleted zone of dead landscape around it. It makes a pretty strong juxtaposition to wandering out in the wilderness. I never saw FFVII's ENTIRE WORLD as being a sick, barren landscape, but thought of it as a clear indicator that Mako energy was fucking things up, and that was spreading at a rate that was unsustainable for the Planet, and it was hitting a point where its ability to recover was approaching a threshold. (If you think of the Planet like a body, the whole thing doesn't need to be rotting to be an issue. Several wounds big enough and it'll still die – especially since North Crater's still unhealed after 2000 years).

Also certain other, ridiculous materia/monsters/attacks - because in OG's Lego graphics it didn't matter that much but in a photorealistic world, ridiculous things (Frog materia, Supernova, etc.) hit my suspension of disbelief way harder.

Frog is actually handled in FFXV in a realistic way. It's different than VII's humanoid frogs, but I think that so long as you establish them as enemies, there's no reason they can't be done well.

Supernova's one of those things that I think has to stick with however VII handles its summons and their destructive capabilities (Bahamut ZERO obliterating the landscape visible from space for example), and that's definitely gonna push suspension of disbelief, but I don't think it does so any more than the original, since those were shown in the much-less-LEGOy battle graphics as-is.





X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

FFXV handled the Frog status well in that it hung a lampshade on how ridiculous it is. That fact wasn't lost on the Chocobros.

It is possible for realistic and whimsical to exist side by side. That's pretty much FFVII in a nutshell.

 

[Clement Rage]

Funny what hits people's suspension of disbelief and what doesn't. Honestly, a world that is completely consistent and logical feels artificial to me. Weird stuff happens.

Edit: I like how everyone is casting 'Summon Shademp' now.

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah I don't agree with this "good graphics = NO GOOFY STUFF" outlook in the slightest.

 

[Shademp]

I do not have a list of death animations and there is no software out there that reads and edits said death animations. The creator of Proud Clod confirmed this for me. People have edited death animations before, but again, there's no software for the job.

Safer Sephiroth's death animation is in fact an attack. Here is a mod where somebody made Rufus Shinra use that "attack".

On the topic, bosses like Guard Scorpion and Carry Armor spring to mind. These machine bosses have the satisfying, prolonged turn-red-and-shake animation instead of falling apart like so many of the machine enemies do. Carry Armor's arms will fly about in the typical "machine death animation", but the core of Carry Armor does not.

Most non-boss machine enemies appear to fall apart, then there are exceptions like the Guardian in the Underwater Reactor.

One could argue that there might be a human inside this robot, but nevertheless there is no "machine parts flying about" death animation used here.

FFXV handled the Frog status well in that it hung a lampshade on how ridiculous it is. That fact wasn't lost on the Chocobros.

It is possible for realistic and whimsical to exist side by side. That's pretty much FFVII in a nutshell.

F*CKING. AMEN.

 

[ChipNoir]

Whats more interesting is the HM-whatever experiment from Hojo's lab? That flies apart like a machine. So that's a supposedly biological boss behaving like a machine mob.

 

[Shademp]

HM-whatever experiment from Hojo's lab? That flies apart like a machine. So that's a supposedly biological boss behaving like a machine mob.

Same is true for the Bottomswell boss in Under Junon.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

The other oft-heard complaint that I never understood is about the snowboarding being "inconsistent." Why? It's a fairly reasonable way to get down a mountain. You do it in silence. Just because it's fun? Exactly how long do you have to wait after Aerith's death that it would be "appropriate" to have fun in a video game? And how are you going get them down the mountain? Trudge down it and extend the worst dungeon in the game? No thanks. What if they ski instead? Is that more "respectful?" The snowboarding is fine.

A walk down memory lane:

Spoiler: Here's you from almost two years ago to the day

I will never figure out what confuses people so much about that. You gotta get down the mountain somehow. It's not like it plays the happy music when you're doing it for real, it's just silent. How much time passing after her death would make people think it isn't weird?

Now, I do wonder if they'll change it on account of how do they get the other 7 party members down the mountain?

The more things change ...

 

[ForceStealer]

hahaha, spooky

 

[Channy]

This is the second post Tres quoted someone saying something similar to what they just said but a year or so ago. Now I'm wondering if all he does is squirrel away little info nuggets and predictions from everyone just to whip them out in the future and prove us right/wrong.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

No, actually I just occasionally go searching for something or other I could have swore I remembered someone saying once ... and along the way, come across other things that make me go "huh, fancy that."

 

[null]

The other oft-heard complaint that I never understood is about the snowboarding being "inconsistent." Why? It's a fairly reasonable way to get down a mountain. You do it in silence. Just because it's fun? Exactly how long do you have to wait after Aerith's death that it would be "appropriate" to have fun in a video game? And how are you going get them down the mountain? Trudge down it and extend the worst dungeon in the game? No thanks. What if they ski instead? Is that more "respectful?" The snowboarding is fine.

On the flip side, what would break if the snowboarding was moved or just exclusive to the Gold Saucer? It's not exactly a pillar holding the story up, nor does it enhance the plot the way Crazy Motorcycle does. Does it really need to be shoehorned there to begin with, let alone sandwiched between a major character death, a depressing snow trek and Meteor being summoned? If it's too tedious to climb down the mountain on foot then just handwave it to a single screen transition. Personally I'd rather just snowboard in the arcade.

I'm sure I'll have more to say (assuming this thread stays active) after pondering it a bit more, but the other one that jumps out is the snowboarding. Even besides coming right after Aeris' death, it does seem a bit ridiculous now. And, without the "party members magically go inside Cloud" technique, and assuming the WHOLE group is supposed to be traveling with you now (rather than the chosen 3), are we going to get a sequence where the whole gang--ALL of whom presumably are skilled enough at snowboarding to navigate a potentially deadly downhill mountainscape--rippin' up the ice and launching tricks?? I agree that it was fun at the time, and that the game needs fun, but I feel like even we, and certainly the developers, could come up with a more elegant solution.

Slight tangent, but I think group snowboarding would work great with XV mechanics. I'm imagining something like the XV chocobos where the team mounts off screen and generally stays behind the camera frustrum, occasionally pulling ahead or busting a move.

 

[Jason Tandro]

^ Maybe there would have been a snowboarding sequence if they'd actually finished the second continent.

 

[hian]

The article seems to come from largely one place, with the exception of a few game-play related complaints - remove the silly from FFVII because it "ruins mah immersion in the serious story".
It's a sentiment I'm so sick and tired of.

It makes about as much sense as removing the silly from FF5.

Come on - these games were not made to be serious, gritty, The Last of Us type games.
They're a modern take on classical fairy-tale romps. They never aspired to make much sense, and the entirety of FFVII is a testament to this.
You can't play that game for five minutes without encountering something ludicrous (like 90% of the enemy rooster), or the dialogue of random NPCs, or the total amount of weird moments in the game.

I still hold that trying to make FFVII into serious fiction is one of SE's biggest mistakes of all time.
That being said - the remake is not that - and so I can totally understanding wanting it to address those things - simply because giving the remake the modern SE "FFXV - a fantasy based in reality"-look, will make all of that stuff, if included, feel weird and out of place.

Removing Wutai though? What? Are you on crack?

 

[ChipNoir]

The other oft-heard complaint that I never understood is about the snowboarding being "inconsistent." Why? It's a fairly reasonable way to get down a mountain. You do it in silence. Just because it's fun? Exactly how long do you have to wait after Aerith's death that it would be "appropriate" to have fun in a video game? And how are you going get them down the mountain? Trudge down it and extend the worst dungeon in the game? No thanks. What if they ski instead? Is that more "respectful?" The snowboarding is fine.

On the flip side, what would break if the snowboarding was moved or just exclusive to the Gold Saucer? It's not exactly a pillar holding the story up, nor does it enhance the plot the way Crazy Motorcycle does. Does it really need to be shoehorned there to begin with, let alone sandwiched between a major character death, a depressing snow trek and Meteor being summoned? If it's too tedious to climb down the mountain on foot then just handwave it to a single screen transition. Personally I'd rather just snowboard in the arcade.

I'm sure I'll have more to say (assuming this thread stays active) after pondering it a bit more, but the other one that jumps out is the snowboarding. Even besides coming right after Aeris' death, it does seem a bit ridiculous now. And, without the "party members magically go inside Cloud" technique, and assuming the WHOLE group is supposed to be traveling with you now (rather than the chosen 3), are we going to get a sequence where the whole gang--ALL of whom presumably are skilled enough at snowboarding to navigate a potentially deadly downhill mountainscape--rippin' up the ice and launching tricks?? I agree that it was fun at the time, and that the game needs fun, but I feel like even we, and certainly the developers, could come up with a more elegant solution.

Slight tangent, but I think group snowboarding would work great with XV mechanics. I'm imagining something like the XV chocobos where the team mounts off screen and generally stays behind the camera frustrum, occasionally pulling ahead or busting a move.

Remember how much people pull their hair out over XIII, and the answer is YES. You NEED stuff like snowboarding and all those other mini-games to break the tension. You get a mini game about every 3-4 hours, and the last minigame before Snowboarding is hunting for the Lunar Harp about 3 hours prior, give or take your grinding and exploration methods.

You should have a game changeup every 2-3 hours ideally if you ask me.

 

[ChipNoir]

The article seems to come from largely one place, with the exception of a few game-play related complaints - remove the silly from FFVII because it "ruins mah immersion in the serious story".
It's a sentiment I'm so sick and tired of.

It makes about as much sense as removing the silly from FF5.

Come on - these games were not made to be serious, gritty, The Last of Us type games.
They're a modern take on classical fairy-tale romps. They never aspired to make much sense, and the entirety of FFVII is a testament to this.
You can't play that game for five minutes without encountering something ludicrous (like 90% of the enemy rooster), or the dialogue of random NPCs, or the total amount of weird moments in the game.

I still hold that trying to make FFVII into serious fiction is one of SE's biggest mistakes of all time.
That being said - the remake is not that - and so I can totally understanding wanting it to address those things - simply because giving the remake the modern SE "FFXV - a fantasy based in reality"-look, will make all of that stuff, if included, feel weird and out of place.

Removing Wutai though? What? Are you on crack?

Here's the thing. Even as far as the compilation goes, there's some silly crap in there. The games are much smaller though, so it's almost portioned out at the same ratio. For every 15-20 minutes of seriousness, you get Cait yelling or Rude being bonked on the head by a 1 ton billboard featuring his crush.

As dour as the compilation has been, it has no been without its silly moments. And I think, being the largest thing they'll have done since the original, they'll be able to portion out humor and oddness at a better pace. As I said earlier, you need to break the tension and repetion ideally on the hour, and at the very least every 2-3 hours with something out of the left field. Be it a sidequest like Wutai, a mini game, or just ending up in a hot tub with a bunch of DILFS.

 

[ForceStealer]

You can't play that game for five minutes without encountering something ludicrous (like 90% of the enemy rooster)

What a well-timed typo

 

[hian]

Here's the thing. Even as far as the compilation goes, there's some silly crap in there. The games are much smaller though, so it's almost portioned out at the same ratio. For every 15-20 minutes of seriousness, you get Cait yelling or Rude being bonked on the head by a 1 ton billboard featuring his crush.

I really, really don't agree with that.
The compilation title's "humour", if you can call it that, is the occasional joke, or odd moment.

FFVII literally goes off the rails - from having Cloud dress up as a women to infiltrate a place he, by the plot's own standards, could easily waltz into and tear to shreads (which ironically he ends up doing anyways, if you don't get him chosen), fighting electronic stop signs with motion censor gattling guns, slap fights between martial arts experts and business executives, Barret hitting Bigs so hard he actually hits the frikkin camera, having a four year old waiter at a bar, having a small woman lift up and twirl her overweight husband around as he gets of the train, fat chocobo, the weird banter between the drunks in the slum, kids using magic to beat on each other, weird muscleheads doing poses while standing on crates, kicking balls at Nanaki, getting medicine to a guy with explosive diarrhoea, riding a dolphin, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

Not only are the nature of the jokes, and indeed the tone of the very world itself vastly different between the original and any of the compilation titles - to say it's about equally proportioned?

Well, firstly that's almost impossible to qualify since the games move at a pace decided by the player, whilst the movie/anime/novels less so -
but even with that factored in, I'd argue that the two first hours of the game has more absurdities by far than any of the less interactive parts of the compilation - and Midgar alone contains more absurdities than any of the games.

It's neither proportional nor comparable.

You can't play that game for five minutes without encountering something ludicrous (like 90% of the enemy rooster)

What a well-timed typo

I aim to please.

 

[Clement Rage]

The last of us actually was immersion breaking for me when I was slaughtering half the population of Pittsburgh.

I don't think there really is a hard and fast line with these things it's just a question of whether you like it or not. As for weird looking monsters in good graphics, anyone remember these little guys?

Metal Gear can be deadly serious and incredibly silly from moment to moment. It's not some rigid rule. Anyone not expecting weird sidequests in an RPG should probably know better.

ng Cloud dress up as a women to infiltrate a place he, by the plot's own standards, could easily waltz into and tear to shreads (which ironically he ends up doing anyways, if you don't get him chosen)

The problem with doing that is that he doesn't want them to take Tifa hostage (yeah, she'd be fine, but if he's certain of that, why break in at all?)

The Wutai sidequest never really meant anything to me one way or the other, (aside from accidentally making the Turks more unsympathetic than they were) much like Wall Market, actually. Nice to have a big extra subquest, but I could take or leave it.

 

[Channy]

you get Cait yelling or Rude being bonked on the head by a 1 ton billboard featuring his crush.

Didn't Rude have a crush on Tifa? /weirdthingtoknitpick

There is always room for the silly in video games and yeah, whether they keep every single little thing has always been the talk of the forum. XV did a great job handling the Frog situation, with some sidebar comments. And VII had Mini status too, right? Even better!

This person definitely has a chip on their shoulder to want to remove an entire continent relevant to the story and lore of VII.

I'd definitely like for them to take this opportunity to fix some of the random things - like the 1/35th Soldier model. What is it for???

 

[Shademp]

I'd definitely like for them to take this opportunity to fix some of the random things - like the 1/35th Soldier model. What is it for???

Here is what it's for

Spoiler

Spoiler

Okay it's only there as a useless collectible along with Tissue, Super Sweeper, Masamune Blade, Combat Diary, Autograph & Gambler.

 

[null]

Remember how much people pull their hair out over XIII, and the answer is YES. You NEED stuff like snowboarding and all those other mini-games to break the tension. You get a mini game about every 3-4 hours, and the last minigame before Snowboarding is hunting for the Lunar Harp about 3 hours prior, give or take your grinding and exploration methods.

You should have a game changeup every 2-3 hours ideally if you ask me.

I didn't play XIII. Did players seriously have trouble coping with the tension? There's plenty of similar RPGs that don't insert minigames into the main plot and nobody complains. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what tension refers to (grind or plot?)

 

[Obsidian Fire]

^Oh yes.... tension was everywhere and the melodrama was so consistent it became eye-roll worthy. Instead of having a mental breather from it every couple of hours, they instead devoted an entire gameplay chapter to it and even that was melodramatic in the end...

I think the most upbeat everyone was was when you were fighting someone and winning.

 

[ChipNoir]

^Oh yes.... tension was everywhere and the melodrama was so consistent it became eye-roll worthy. Instead of having a mental breather from it every couple of hours, they instead devoted an entire gameplay chapter to it and even that was melodramatic in the end...

I think the most upbeat everyone was was when you were fighting someone and winning.

Not to mention for a supposedly super popular theme park, Nautilus is devoid of almost anything you'd expect to find at one. You'd think people that already live in the lap of luxury would have high expectations for their entertainment, but apparently milling around aimlessly, petting chocobos, and waiting in line all day for the only roller coaster in existence is the way to go for Coccoonians.