SPOILERS LTD Remake — It's like New Coke except ... no, it's exactly like New Coke

null

Mr. Thou
AKA
null
Same here, for a time. On a lark I checked the FF7 related forums there. Some of the same people posting the same shit they were 20 years ago.

What kind of geezer posts the same shit for 20 years. glances around furtively

Come to think of it, we got bored and raided GameFAQs one day. I think we brought you back with us afterward at some point.

Ah, memories https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/197341-final-fantasy-vii/45198720

@Isabella wherever you are, you'll get a kick out of it. (Just don't log in and blame me for falling off the LTD-free wagon.)

Oh and this is a must-read for any LTD junkie who'd like to be DESTROYED with FACTS and LOGIC
 

GamerSkull

Pro Adventurer
I definitely agree that the pacing is out of wack in the final two chapters. I also agree that there were way too many "goodbyes' with Aerith that it made it not matter anymore in the end. I hope Part 3 at least helps alleviate the confusion as to what all of this means.

Sorry but no. Why are you comparing FF7 to Persona where romantic choices have absolutely no bearings whatsoever as far as the story goes?

There's a huge difference with a game like Persona that just throws this thing there to please players, versus a game like FF7 where your protags whole character setup involves romantic feelings with a specified character that only gets explored more and more as we go on with the games.

You don't choose Clouds background involving Tifa, what he feels towards her and vice versa, like you choose Ann or Makoto as your chosen "romantic interest" in P5.

It really is not just that simple here. I don't know why you think the optional dates here define the entire thing when the games clearly show and are building towards a very specific outcome regardless of which one of those you saw. The dates are there to establish how Cloud would be and feel with each specific person in said scenario. They don't decide what the canonical outcome to the story is, but instead they give you character insight.
Persona is a series where the protagonist has only small amounts of personality as he mostly meant to be a player-insert for the most part. People see Cloud as a self-insert but I never felt that way. In fact, most FF protagonists have very specific personalities. For other games, like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, the characters are designed to be role-played so that each playthrough can yield to different outcomes.

I don't think Final Fantasy 7 actually meets any of these criteria and you only have very slight input on differences in any given FF game, most of them do not leave much room for drastically different playthroughs in terms of the story stuff. No matter what you choose, Tifa stays with Cloud at Mideel out of love, Cloud always says one of his primary motivations to become SOLDIER was to be special to Tifa, etc. These are not things you can really change, and they exist for a reason.

Making this Cloud's motivation, then having it revealed as a plot twist is not something that can just be swept away as "it's up to the player". It has strong romantic implication because Tifa wanted Cloud to be her "knight in shining armor" and the big reveal was that he kept that promise to her even when she did not know it. He wanted to become a special existence to her and he did exactly that.

Why reveal that? Why make that such a huge part of the story? Only for it to be that it's up to the player?

Moreover, this sentiment seems to only exist with Final Fantasy 7. Not a single other FF game has made the romances ambiguous, they are all clearly defined with very little room for interpretation. Does Noctis like Iris? No, he clearly likes Luna. Tidus clearly likes Yuna, but I suppose we can interpret that he likes Lulu because it's a dialogue option we can choose. Can I interpret that Locke will reunite with Rachel once he dies so he's just using Celes for now?

I want to apologize to any normal fans if this sounds toxic but I don't mean it to be: I find that in a majority of cases where people that say that it's up to player preference seem to always lean towards Clerith, and I feel that's basically because subconsciously they know that it needs to be that way so that they can have their Clerith endgame.

I also think some of them don't even believe it themselves, as I've seen people respond to similar statements with "Well, okay... the way I saw it play it means that Cloti is endgame" which is then met with responses that seem to indicate that Aerith is supposed to be the main heroine and this is not the actual reading they should have gotten. As if to say "It's up to the player... but obviously the devs meant for Aerith to be the real choice."
 
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Sacky

Pro Adventurer
AKA
SackyBoy
What kind of geezer posts the same shit for 20 years. glances around furtively

Come to think of it, we got bored and raided GameFAQs one day. I think we brought you back with us afterward at some point.

Ah, memories https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/197341-final-fantasy-vii/45198720

@Isabella wherever you are, you'll get a kick out of it. (Just don't log in and blame me for falling off the LTD-free wagon.)

Oh and this is a must-read for any LTD junkie who'd like to be DESTROYED with FACTS and LOGIC
my brain aint reading that stuff 2007 seems like hell for the LTD XD
 

Sacky

Pro Adventurer
AKA
SackyBoy
I definitely agree that the pacing is out of wack in the final two chapters. I also agree that there were way too many "goodbyes' with Aerith that it made it not matter anymore in the end. I hope Part 3 at least helps alleviate the confusion as to what all of this means.


Persona is a series where the protagonist has only small amounts of personality as he mostly meant to be a player-insert for the most part. People see Cloud as a self-insert but I never felt that way. In fact, most FF protagonists have very specific personalities. For other games, like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, the characters are designed to be role-played so that each playthrough can yield to different outcomes.

I don't think Final Fantasy 7 actually meets any of these criteria and you only have very slight input on differences in any given FF game, most of them do not leave much room for drastically different playthroughs in terms of the story stuff. No matter what you choose, Tifa stays with Cloud at Mideel out of love, Cloud always says one of his primary motivations to become SOLDIER was to be special to Tifa, etc. These are not things you can really change, and they exist for a reason.

Making this Cloud's motivation, then having it revealed as a plot twist is not something that can just be swept away as "it's up to the player". It has strong romantic implication because Tifa wanted Cloud to be her "knight in shining armor" and the big reveal was that he kept that promise to her even when she did not know it. He wanted to become a special existence to her and he did exactly that.

Why reveal that? Why make that such a huge part of the story? Only for it to be that it's up to the player?

Moreover, this sentiment seems to only exist with Final Fantasy 7. Not a single other FF game has made the romances ambiguous, they are all clearly defined with very little room for interpretation. Does Noctis like Iris? No, he clearly likes Luna. Tidus clearly likes Yuna, but I suppose we can interpret that he likes Lulu because it's a dialogue option we can choose. Can I interpret that Locke will reunite with Rachel once he dies so he's just using Celes for now?

I want to apologize to any normal fans if this sounds toxic but I don't mean it to be: I find in a majority of cases that most people that say that it's up to player preference seem to always lean towards Clerith, and I feel that's basically subconsciously they know that it needs to be that way so that they can have their Clerith endgame.
I truly don't understand how people see Cloud as a self insert. Hes a guy who has an alien in his brain that has convinced him he has false memories, who suffers from headaches, has a whole backstory with movitations and specific character moments not chosen by the player. Has a movie were no one would want to self insert as a character with a deadly disease who is running away from his family because of the guilt he feels and he doesnt want them to be there when he dies. Compare this to Joker from Persona 5 a highschooler who tried helping a woman then got arrested in trouble, and was sent to Toyko to live with someone in a cafe while he attends school. Thats all you learn about him, he doesnt have any character specific motivations for any of the romanceable people. You chose all actions how he acts rarely ever acts out an emotion on his own. The most you get is you are friends with everyone but theres not that much of a difference in the dynamic with any of them. Thats a self-insert; you choose which relationship matters most from characters you have no history with and a character who you know didn't have a crush or become a phantom thief for.
 

Yoru

Pro Adventurer
She is the og Aerith from 1997 ps1 game. She controls the white whispers and is waging a war against Sephiroth in the lifestream.

I know my bro ! It was a rhetorical question.

I just don't care. She's sending conflicting signals compared with my Aerith who were all fun and games.

Asking Cloud to play along the boyfriend game when he refused or was not okay with it during the game (yes, i know it's less mean in japanese) ? Just weird.

I don't know. This scene is tormenting me. I understand the meta message. I kind of understand the goal of it, but I don't like it.


I'm happy fot Clerith I guess. But that's not the Cloud I played. You can argue it's Real/Child Cloud. But why now ?
 
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pxl_pushr

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Pixel
I know my bro ! It was a rhetorical question.

I just don't care. She's sending conflicting signals compared with my Aerith who were all fun and games.

Asking Cloud to play along the boyfriend game when he refused or was not okay with it during the game (yes, i know it's less mean in japanese) ? Just weird.

I don't know. This scene is tormenting me. I understand the meta message. I kind of understand the goal of it, but I don't like it.


I'm happy fot Clerith I guess. But that's not the Cloud I played. You can argue it's Real/Child Cloud. But why now ?
And I just don’t know how I feel about a demigod Aerith using her powers to help figure out how she feels about Cloud.

That could lead to a loop around to fully humanize her again, but I don’t know if the fandom brain will go for that
 

Hellenic

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Hellenic
I definitely agree that the pacing is out of wack in the final two chapters. I also agree that there were way too many "goodbyes' with Aerith that it made it not matter anymore in the end. I hope Part 3 at least helps alleviate the confusion as to what all of this means.


Persona is a series where the protagonist has only small amounts of personality as he mostly meant to be a player-insert for the most part. People see Cloud as a self-insert but I never felt that way. In fact, most FF protagonists have very specific personalities. For other games, like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, the characters are designed to be role-played so that each playthrough can yield to different outcomes.

I don't think Final Fantasy 7 actually meets any of these criteria and you only have very slight input on differences in any given FF game, most of them do not leave much room for drastically different playthroughs in terms of the story stuff. No matter what you choose, Tifa stays with Cloud at Mideel out of love, Cloud always says one of his primary motivations to become SOLDIER was to be special to Tifa, etc. These are not things you can really change, and they exist for a reason.

Making this Cloud's motivation, then having it revealed as a plot twist is not something that can just be swept away as "it's up to the player". It has strong romantic implication because Tifa wanted Cloud to be her "knight in shining armor" and the big reveal was that he kept that promise to her even when she did not know it. He wanted to become a special existence to her and he did exactly that.

Why reveal that? Why make that such a huge part of the story? Only for it to be that it's up to the player?

Moreover, this sentiment seems to only exist with Final Fantasy 7. Not a single other FF game has made the romances ambiguous, they are all clearly defined with very little room for interpretation. Does Noctis like Iris? No, he clearly likes Luna. Tidus clearly likes Yuna, but I suppose we can interpret that he likes Lulu because it's a dialogue option we can choose. Can I interpret that Locke will reunite with Rachel once he dies so he's just using Celes for now?

I want to apologize to any normal fans if this sounds toxic but I don't mean it to be: I find that in a majority of cases where people that say that it's up to player preference seem to always lean towards Clerith, and I feel that's basically because subconsciously they know that it needs to be that way so that they can have their Clerith endgame.

I also think some of them don't even believe it themselves, as I've seen people respond to similar statements with "Well, okay... the way I saw it play it means that Cloti is endgame" which is then met with responses that seem to indicate that Aerith is supposed to be the main heroine and this is not the actual reading they should have gotten. As if to say "It's up to the player... but obviously the devs meant for Aerith to be the real choice."
Exactly all of this. I don't get why it's so damn hard to accept the very obvious in this game simply because it has some optional content thrown into it that doesn't even contradict anything anyway. Having some of that doesn't make Cloud automatically a self insert either.

Sure it dangles a love triangle carrot more than the other games like ff10 where your rikku and lulu picks are completely pointless anyway, but this is really not as ambiguous as so many make it seem out to be. It's almost as straightforward as every other FF game out there with these things to be honest, but just couse it plays with the idea a bit more, somehow it's totally player choice.
 

abzy1200

Pro Adventurer
What kind of geezer posts the same shit for 20 years. glances around furtively

Come to think of it, we got bored and raided GameFAQs one day. I think we brought you back with us afterward at some point.

Ah, memories https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/197341-final-fantasy-vii/45198720

@Isabella wherever you are, you'll get a kick out of it. (Just don't log in and blame me for falling off the LTD-free wagon.)

Oh and this is a must-read for any LTD junkie who'd like to be DESTROYED with FACTS and LOGIC
On the topic of old forum members, I'm guessing the name "Vendel" will ring a bell with some people here.

They're still active on twitter to this day, for anyone curious.
 

Yoru

Pro Adventurer
And I just don’t know how I feel about a demigod Aerith using her powers to help figure out how she feels about Cloud.

That could lead to a loop around to fully humanize her again, but I don’t know if the fandom brain will go for that

That's one of my main problem with this idea of demigod Aerith.

Like... demigod Aerith is supposed to know about Zack... How he died... why he did... She may even know about him fighting his way through the other worlds... And seriously girl ? You still don't know how you feel after all this time ? (time is not even supposed to exist for her...)

So... what was that ? Are you implying she doesn't care about Zack ? Other in-game moment said no. She still love him.

So for now it's just some fanservice Clerith moment and... it's not even good for them.

EDIT : And now I'm thinking about it, if it's really demigod Aerith she's supposed to know what's gonna happen to Cloud ? How he is fixed with Tifa's help in the Lifestream ? So how they feel too about each other ? And I'm supposed to enjoy this all "liking and liking" stuff ?
 

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
So, went to the place where the person was quoting the wacdonalds interview. Touched the poop trying to correct some misunderstandings.

How hard did you try not to touch the poop? Did you strain until you broke or just say fuck it let's mosey?

The response I got was interesting. "Prove this is a fake interview. It being set in a wacdonalds was a joke, obviously! That's why it got removed when the interview was reposted later"

Ooo that's a new one for me. So the interview was "real" and the setting a joke? That's a cute little blatant lie.

Said person also linked the infamous "Koi space Bito" argument, you know, the one where Koibito means something entirely different when you write it with Kanji as opposed to not.

Ahhh back to old and busted.

But more than anything, the rules there are extremely telling. Basically all of them are "This is a place for CXA, Do not mention Tifa or Zack or Zerith and argument is right out!"

Might as well just say "This is a CxA echo chamber talk about CxA or GTFO."

Out of curiosity I checked the Cloti subreddit and the rules were normal "be polite, don't be a dick" style rules. Also the difference in members was insane. 600 members of the CXA sub versus 138K for Cloti.

That's a helluva ratio, something to keep in mind when someone makes a bullshit appeal to popularity.

It definitely put me in her good graces.

It's nice to see people taking care of each other.

They're most fun. Next time you get yourself a laptop or the like try doing a couple.

I've heard, if and when it becomes plausible I'll definitely take it under advisement.

Being exploded is typically not a problem for Cloud.

True enough.

It's better for him this way, honestly.

It seems that way, certainly.

Hey now. They might also be dying to Zero.

The world shudders from fear at the prospect of those two ever meeting.

Throat/ voice nonsense, but enjoy it as nonsense anyways.

Ahhh right. Now I can enjoy both, so that's nice.

The Uranium talks? We might be getting into entirely new ethical quandaries here.

To be fair, I might just have pretty intense radiation sickness and be hallucinating :monster:

Finish it in an hour and it's on the house.
Only Cloud and Barret have ever finished it.

Sounds about right. I'd like to suggest Yuffie was this close to finishing once.

And Aerith with a Chain-Gun. Or maybe she should be Scout and Cait Sith can be heavy.

I like Aerith/Heavy, I think I'd make Cait play Sniper just for the sight of the kitty with a huge rifle. The Moogle makes a decent sniper nest.

I think the only thing he knows now is pain.

It's appropriate.

It's also very indicative of Scout's character. Regardless of how sane it is, he's the guy who wants to be where the fighting is, even if he's hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed.

Scout is never outclassed in his own mind. Or when there's a really good Scout-main at the controls, for that matter, but that's beside the point.

I meant the turrets for Barret, but yeah, I can see Scout using his brothers as a distraction while he slipped behind and bonked his enemies in the back. Why it might even bring a smile to The Spy Tom Jones' face and a tear to his eye.

Sounds especially good for a Scout with the Backscatter.

I'm reminded of the fact that all the cocktails at Artnia had Summon themed names.

It is good. More of this please.

True that.

:monster:

On a related note whenever Yuffie fins a beau it's going to be very scary for him. Or her.

I imagine Cloud going over his sword with a whetstone, Barret swabbing the barrels on his gun, Tifa working the heavy bag, etc when he comes over to meet the gang. Just wordless expressions of capability and potential intent to sweat the poor kid.

It's why he goes ham trying to make sure everyone has a good time on the booby prize date.

It was definitely a strong effort.

We could go deliberately dumb and call them the Jennies.

We get enough deliberate dumb in the LTD, methinks.

There's overlap between the groups, I think.

Both groups seem to have some difficulty with reality for one.

Such is the way with him and Marlene.

It's true as fuck of being a dad.
 

nepheneethedestroyer

Lv. 25 Adventurer
I finally succumbed and made a fandom twitter account :( now I can get exposed to more takes!
Also happy birthday to Tifa!

Like... demigod Aerith is supposed to know about Zack... How he died... why he did... She may even know about him fighting his way through the other worlds... And seriously girl ? You still don't know after all this time ? (time is not even supposed to exist for her...)

So... what was that ? Are you implying she doesn't care about Zack ? Other in-game moment said no. She still love him.

I really think it was a mistake to have non-WM-memories Aerith with us the whole game and then jarringly transition back to Omni-Aerith at the very end.

EDIT: Oh gosh I've missed 50 pages of discourse. Time to catch up!!
 

GamerSkull

Pro Adventurer
As excited as I am for the conclusion, it will certainly be very interesting how the meltdown will be surrounding the story and the marketing.

There are many different camps/factions of fans that like FF7 so some of them will definitely have to swallow a bitter pill. I just hope the writers do not try to cater to all of them, as they will essentially be catering to none of them. It's why I'm a bit afraid they won't fully commit, the cowards.
Also happy birthday to Tifa!
It's not quite her birthday in my timezone but... it would be in Japan so: Happy Birthday, Tifa!
 

abzy1200

Pro Adventurer
Yeah, like I've said Cloti got Rebirth praise, with no Clerith praise in sight.

The marketing and part 3 itself will 100% heavily lean into Cloti, more so than ever before.

It's going to be.....interesting, to say the least.
 

GamerSkull

Pro Adventurer
I was 15.... Shit's weird lmao
I do not want to be 50 and still discussing the LTD, that's all I know. SE wrap this shit up!!
I just hope they commit. The cynic in me is worried they'll chicken out.
Yeah, like I've said Cloti got Rebirth praise, with no Clerith praise in sight.

The marketing and part 3 itself will 100% heavily lean into Cloti, more so than ever before.

It's going to be.....interesting, to say the least.
Like @null said, it's probably best not to count our eggs before they've hatched. We don't necessarily know for sure what the writers will do.

Otherwise, it would be a repeat of the CA reaction to the NPTK trailer in which serious bait happened.
 

Rin

Pro Adventurer
I just hope they commit. The cynic in me is worried they'll chicken out.

Like @null said, it's probably best not to count our eggs before they've hatched. We don't necessarily know for sure what the writers will do.

Otherwise, it would be a repeat of the CA reaction to the NPTK trailer in which serious bait happened.
I'm not really worried about them chickening out. It doesn't matter what they do because CAs will never accept it anyways and I think they already know that.
 

Yoru

Pro Adventurer
I just hope they commit. The cynic in me is worried they'll chicken out.

Like @null said, it's probably best not to count our eggs before they've hatched. We don't necessarily know for sure what the writers will do.

Otherwise, it would be a repeat of the CA reaction to the NPTK trailer in which serious bait happened.

Well. They always said the story won't change too much, that this is their definitive vision of FF7, that its their chance to make it right and without too much place for interpretation... so... a big happy ending with every side of the fandom having what they want... is not compatible with their quotes over the years. So I will confidently say they lied to us and not give a fuck about any new future FF7 project after that
 
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