Love the og or the remake part 1?

[Verena]

I rather stick to og, but havnt played it for years anymore, cuz i mastered everything in ff7. Including defeating ruby and emerald and breeding the gold choco. The active turn based battle system was also the bread and butter of the ffs in the so called golden age (ff6 to ffx) of ff. The most impresive ff game being ff7 og with its immersive storyline, character stories and environments plus free world roaming(openworld). Breathtaking aeris character.

 

[1rstClassSoldier]

OG for sure, can’t replace childhood memories with fancy new graphics and new voices, it takes the imagination away from it

 

[Eerie]

If we compare strictly OG Midgar and Remake, then it's definitely Remake, despite a few flaws like the stretch areas that give it a less tight feeling, story-wise.

Because character-wise, and story-wise as a whole (minus ch18 which is its odd thing on its own, may we like it or not), Remake is far, far, far superior to the OG. There's no doubt about it, not when every story moment is much clearer, every character is its best version ever. Cloud and Aerith were AWFUL in the OG - at least Cloud could be better starting the LS scene, but Aerith had not that luck. How everything was recontextualised in Remake and how it makes even the OG MORE enjoyable to replay shows that Remake is superior.

The OG had terrible flaws in storytelling and characterisation, especially since characters were only there as tools to the story, the devs didn't pay much attention to how they presented (they were also young and beginners, mostly, which did not help). This has led the fandom to misinterpret badly the OG message about loss, which I hope will get corrected in the Re-series.

If you don't think the characterisation was that bad in the OG, think again about why Aerith and Cloud were so drastically changed.

 

[Deleted member 13557]

OG, but we’re only 1/3 of the way through the remake series so idk it might change?

 

[KindOfBlue]

 

[Eerie]

I agree @KindOfBlue xD In fact, even if I think (for the Midgar part) that Remake is far superior, I still do love the OG.

 

[Verena]

I dont think og had bad characterization. I do rather agree to him, who made this documentation. I find it rationally fitting to the squareenix story or would you disagree with him?

 

[Makoeyes987]

What is it with posters linking to a youtuber's opinion video every time they have to make a point now?

Like, just say your point. Having to watch a video just to see someone's position isn't helpful.

 

[Eerie]

It's going to take me 2 min to read vs I don't know how much time to watch a stupid video - I AM NOT WATCHING THOSE. I disagree 90% of the time with them when it comes to FFVII/R anyway LOL.

Cloud and Aerith had such a bad characterisation in the OG that it was completely changed in Remake, there is no contest there. Even Nomura talked about how women wouldn't want their boyfriends near Aerith LOL it was THAT BAD.

 

[Verena]

Immersive story telling and character stories were only in the golden age he is saying. Later parts from 12 up after fusion with enix werent as good as them ff6 to 10. But 10-2 in jpop style was also from Square alone before fusion, he says.
Well, i even dont liked myself ff9 and ffx much. Ff7 being far superior to ff8, 9 and 10.
But yeah, he left remake almost out, so it obviously came out after he made his documantation. He only said he hopes that the remake would be good.
So i cannot deny that the remake could indeed have far superior characterization

 

[Ite]

I’m just here to say please stop shitting on the OG’s character writing. You may prefer all the extra stuff but I enjoyed very little of it, and prefer the economy of characterization from the OG to Remake, which I found somehow overcooked and undercooked at the same time, which would have been impressive had it not been so irritating.

Aeris is particular is less of a manic pixie dream girl in OG, whereas I found her insufferably tropey in Remake (and in the comp in general). Making a high-five a character/relationship arc was not the thing for me.

 

[Eerie]

The manic pixie girl is 100% on the NA translation and VA acting, sorry. She doesn't come across like that in French AT ALL.

 

[GuardBreak]

I prefer the original's Midgar and would rather replay it over Remake part 1.

 

[KindOfBlue]

I would probably err on the side of the OG being not bad per se, but let’s just say limited compared to the remake…I also think we should be aware of our own perceptions of the OG if we’re going to compare it to the remake fairly since there’s a lot less left to the imagination this time around, which might put some people’s interpretations of the OG at odds with what the creators intended to convey at the time (ex. I always thought Aerith was a manic pixie dream girl, almost by design really, it was just less in-your-face to me when she wasn’t voiced)

I agree @KindOfBlue xD In fact, even if I think (for the Midgar part) that Remake is far superior, I still do love the OG.

I like to think of it all as one overarching experience especially since Remake helped add more context to stuff that wasn’t so clear in the OG and I feel like even if I disliked the story changes, I would at least still appreciate Remake adding more depth in areas the OG was limited in

I prefer the original's Midgar and would rather replay it over Remake part 1.

To be fair though, in terms of replayability, we’re comparing a 40+ hour game to like a 5 hour segment

 

[Golden Ear]

For me it's weird to hold up only one or the other and say "I like this one better" because my love for Remake is directly connected to my love of the OG game and vice versa.

The whole reason why I play the Remake is because I got to see and experience an expanded/modern version of a game that I have a lot of nostalgia for from years ago. As of late I've been replaying the OG from Kalm to North Crater and getting excited to think about how they are going to flesh this out in Rebirth.

I all ready know what it's like to have the experience of polygon based characters and text boxes in a relatively more footnotes version of the story. I loved it back in the day and I continue to love it now. But the whole point of the Remake is to go beyond that so we can experience the characters more in depth, hear them talk to each other, crack jokes to each other, amazing new version of the music and see all the locations like Midgar and beyond. These are the things that everyone is getting so excited about.

As far as the combat/gameplay, I do prefer the Remake because I find it more engaging and challenging but I have no problem enjoying the OG combat as well. As far as the characters in Remake I thought they were the closest to the OG then they have ever been in spirit. I don't get the manic pixie thing, to me Aerith comes off like someone who is very wise but expertly conceals that part of herself with a playful, teasing and quirky front to throw people off which I think is perfect for the character that she has always been. All the characters come off basically how I imagined them in the OG and it felt like the development teams had a really good sense of this.

 

[KindOfBlue]

For me it's weird to hold up only one or the other and say "I like this one better" because my love for Remake is directly connected to my love of the OG game and vice versa.

My sentiments exactly

I don't get the manic pixie thing, to me Aerith comes off like someone who is very wise but expertly conceals that part of herself with a playful, teasing and quirky front to throw people off which I think is perfect for the character that she has always been.

I think for me it really only comes through when she’s with Cloud, mainly because Cloud’s the perfect setup for the “brooding edgy loner boy who just needs the perfect quirky girl to turn him around” (thankfully, that wasn’t the case in the OG)…other than that, Aerith’s friendship with Tifa was a highlight for me in Remake and I’m glad the devs at least had enough restraint to not just go full-on with the love rivalry

 

[Verena]

I think cloudoo and tifa fits more together. Cuz Tifa is Clouds childhood friend. Aeris is just annoying when she wanted Cloud to be her protecting soldier. But Aeris and Zack also fits perfect, i think, like Tifa and Cloudooo

 

[cold_spirit]

@Golden Ear's first paragraph pretty much sums it up, and comparing the first section of a retro game with a modern AAA audiovisual extravaganza is problematic, but I'm going to ignore that and give my own thoughts anyway.

If I were to teach a class titled "Storytelling in Video Games", I'd focus an entire lecture on the Midgar portion of the original game. It'd be titled "Effective Pacing". I would not teach Remake. The original game knows exactly when to push the pedal to the metal, and when to pump the brakes. It says so much with so little, and that will always be more worthwhile to me than saying a lot with a lot. Now, pacing isn't everything, but I personally don't think the characterization in Remake falls that far ahead or behind the original game's either. At the end of the day the voice of each character shines through. They're engaging in both instances, and I'm not about to argue over the details (this isn't one of my theory posts).

As for the plot between the two, well, in my opinion Remake is the most interesting in respect to the original game. As in, you really can't analyze what Remake is trying to say without having memories of the original. It's a prerequisite, regardless of how much the creators say otherwise.

Truthfully, I could teach an entire class on FFVII. The whole game is immaculately paced, even the huge materia sidequest! (In short, it makes immediate use of the freedom given to the player by the Highwind. Same with searching for Cloud. That's good game design!)

 

[LNK]

I love both, but if the remake trilogy continues what Remake did, I might not ever play ff7 again.

 

[Eerie]

@cold_spirit FFVII may be a masterclass in its pacing, but certainly not in the way it presents its story or characters (which were to the devs only tools to narrate it). I cannot say it's well executed when:

- fans remember it not for its climate scene (the LS scene) but Aerith's death: it's a failure in storytelling
- a good chunk of them tried to revive Aerith: it's a failure of getting your message across
- the very basic love story isn't understood, and a LOT of fans, even nowadays, think that Tifa is second best (which may relate to them not understanding the Lifestream scene)
- many think Tifa is easy to replace (she's not, she's the other heroine with Aerith, she has been created for the LS scene, you cannot replace her)

This is EXTREMELY basic and to me why FFVII failed, no matter how much I love it: they failed to convey Cloud's interest in Tifa before Aerith's death, so when the Lifestream scene happened, people did not connect the dots. They failed to understand the story and more importantly, Cloud's story.

To me, Remake is already making a huge difference in the characterisation (as someone who deeply HATED Aerith in the OG and was glad she died, but who absolutely adore her in Remake, yeah you can trust me, her characterisation has vastly changed; same with Cloud I hated the guy until the LS scene, here his characterisation is awesome) but also in the way it presents their interactions and most importantly the story. The aim I feel is to get FFVII's message across in a better way; that you will miss the dead but they continue to live in your memories, that you should definitely let go and accept that they're gone. It *is* FFVII main message and it will be Re-series' message too, as stated in an interview by one of the devs (Kitase?).

 

[Verena]

The only way, where ff7 might have failed would be the weird graphic presentation for the mainstream.
But it makes it more than odd by the masterpiecing musical presentation of nobuoooooooooooo.
The game is taken to the next level with the music only and gives a atmosphere the remake never could doooo

 

[Ite]

@Golden Ear's first paragraph pretty much sums it up, and comparing the first section of a retro game with a modern AAA audiovisual extravaganza is problematic, but I'm going to ignore that and give my own thoughts anyway.

If I were to teach a class titled "Storytelling in Video Games", I'd focus an entire lecture on the Midgar portion of the original game. It'd be titled "Effective Pacing". I would not teach Remake. The original game knows exactly when to push the pedal to the metal, and when to pump the brakes. It says so much with so little, and that will always be more worthwhile to me than saying a lot with a lot. Now, pacing isn't everything, but I personally don't think the characterization in Remake falls that far ahead or behind the original game's either. At the end of the day the voice of each character shines through. They're engaging in both instances, and I'm not about to argue over the details (this isn't one of my theory posts).

As for the plot between the two, well, in my opinion Remake is the most interesting in respect to the original game. As in, you really can't analyze what Remake is trying to say without having memories of the original. It's a prerequisite, regardless of how much the creators say otherwise.

Truthfully, I could teach an entire class on FFVII. The whole game is immaculately paced, even the huge materia sidequest! (In short, it makes immediate use of the freedom given to the player by the Highwind. Same with searching for Cloud. That's good game design!)

fgj

Seriously you said it better than I ever could have.

 

[Verena]

The original story had a record size of over 300 pages and there wasnt a game with such a deep story
In the remake the focus is on action and wandering around, but the world has no life not such as have felt with ff7 og
The remake fails in recaptivating the nostalgics

 

[Eerie]

At least, it doesn't fail in telling its story

 

[Leafonthebreeze]

I don't think the Remake feels lifeless - quite the opposite. At first I wasn't sure about their presentation of the slums - I'd always gone with the perceived wisdom from the og that the slums were completely hellish, dog-eat-dog and miserable, so I wasn't sure about what at first felt like a kind of sanitising, with the militias protecting people from monsters and people all coming together to help each other.

What actually sold me on it was the food carts near the station, with people coming down from the plate to get "authentic" dishes, whether that's because they grew up there and missed it, or because they'd heard it was good. And the fact that places had popped up right by the station to cater to that crowd, so tourists didn't have to go too far into the neighbourhood. That and a couple of NPCs talking about how they had jobs on the plate but lived in the slums because the rent was cheap.

The slums suddenly felt very 3D and real, with way more nuance than the shitshow we'd seen it as back in the day. The fact that sector 7 seemed poised at the very beginning of a kind of gentrification process was fascinating, and made it feel like a place with a future, not necessarily a good future but that things were om the brink of happening there that were going to change. Its true that making every single named npc survive platefall was a bit of a dud move, but the tragedy that was the destruction of the neighbourhood itself was far more noticeable. Wherever sector 7 was going, Shinra ensured it wouldn't get there.

So while I don't have a huge stake in the "which is better" fight (I'm firmly in the "both good for different reasons, one doesn't ruin the other" camp) I would disagree with the world in Remake feeling empty or soulless. There's so much care and detailing there. Whether they manage that with open world remains to be seen though.