Message from Yoshinori Kitase

[Claymore]

Yeah it's as Twilight has stated. They have said 'multiple parts' from the start but the media immediately started saying episodic - even in the same articles.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

At the very least I think that hian's latest quote about SE's games and the differences between the terms "multi-part" and "episodic" is worth making an article over of some kind. Also - is Final Fantasy Dimensions described using either of those terms? Suzaku brought it up earlier, and that might help to lend some potential hints of whether or not backtracking would be a possibility that would also be good content if we're gonna write about that distinction.


Additionally, I kinda feel like Midgar itself is a good first chapter. I'm also wondering if they might split the games (roughly) around the various transportation access you get.
1) Midgar.
2) Some world map: Chocobos, Car, Tiny Bronco.
3) Remaining/Full World Map: Submarine & Highwind.

If you're gonna focus on any changes to gameplay mechanics between the various games, that's also a consideration you're gonna want to make.
- In Midgar, your encounters are gonna be largely scenario-driven, and there will only be some areas to wander for random encounters.
- Once you get to explore the World Map, your encounters outside of the towns and caves are gonna be MUCH less linear and more open a good chunk of the time.
- By the time you get the Highwind, you can travel around without encounters, but are also gonna need to be figuring out how to manage satisfying boss fights against friggin' WEAPONS which is a whole nother ball of crazy -- not to mention if they still do the 3 group multi-party fight against Sephiroth that way.

While the first section being Midgar is just gonna take a HUGE amount of effort to get all the scale and density, the rest have very different things to take into consideration, and I think that that might've also been a big chunk of what drove the split into a multi-part series.




X

 

[Tetsujin]

The original press release said "multiple episodes" (Square Enix NA) which prompted everyone to go WHAT WE DON'T WANT THREE HOUR CHAPTERS A LA LIFE IS STRANGE, the entire gaming media jumped on it and started talking about Telltale Games (which are all episodic) and people started working out how that would work.

That press release has now changed to "multi-part series" which is different,

Just wanna say, the press release always said "multi-part" instead of "episode". I saw it as soon as it went up (RSS feed and such)

 

[Lex]

SE said "episode" somewhere for sure, because I asked this question in the other thread and someone said this. Was it a mistranslation from one of the interviews?

Maximillian Dood's video talking about it also blamed SE NA for the "episode" thing so maybe that's where I got it from.

 

[Knuxson]

How it is received will all depend on how it actually is released. They have now clarified that it will be more like the FFXIII games instead of like a Telltale game. However, this has me a little worried because it sounds like it might become simply a multi-game series rather than a game split into multiple games. By that I mean that it will be like Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3, for example, with the story spanning each of the games, but with much of the games having noticeable differences since they are in fact different games. For example, Mass Effect 3 has noticeable graphic improvements over 1, and has vastly different gameplay and item mechanics. Also, you start over in leveling up in every game.

I don't know if I would like this in the FF7 remake. If the first game ends upon leaving Midgar, as just an example here, and you are level 99 and have done all the "end-game" stuff for the purposes of that game (exploring Midgar, hidden bosses in Shinra headquarters or something) and then go into the second game back at level 1 again as you travel to Kalm, I don't think I would enjoy it as much. But this is how games in a series such as FFXIII, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, etc. all work.

I would much rather the multiple parts be more like expansions that you play on top of the base game, and could play all at once when all the parts are released. However, the talk of each one being a "different experience" makes me think it will be more like a multi-game series that is divorced from the other games progression-wise except for the story. This is all just speculation of course as we don't really know enough yet. I am just throwing my 2 cents out there.

 

[hian]

Another distinction usually found between episodic games and other serialized games is that typically when the episodes are added together they only make up one game.

The Walking Dead is a good example of this. Both in terms of size and length, it really is just one game split up into many parts.
If you have a game that exceeds the length and has more content than your average game, splitting it up is natural and necessary.

Nihon Falcom have been doing this for years already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Heroes#Main_games

First of all, the original FFVII game is not gonna cease to exist any time soon. It's on PS4, it's on PC. It'll come out on plenty of other stuff in the future.

How is this relevant? You think every single person playing the remake is going to come from the "I already played FFVII camp"?

And no. Halo 1 is about dealing with the first Halo. Halo 3 starts on Earth and is about ending the threat to Earth that Covenant and Flood present. Halo 4 is about stopping the Didact. They work as stand alone stories just as much as Halo Combat Evolved did when it was first released, when it already dropped you midway into a war and threw all kinds of alien terms at you and asked you to accept these things out of hand. No one cared then, nor would they now.

Yes, but they are a part of a whole now. There is a continuous story in that universe. The principle is the same, and whether or not people care is irrelevant.

The point here is that in so far that a product is made serialized or not bears very little, if no impact on anything.
Any complaints that A Song of Ice and Fire wasn't just released as one humongous book instead of in pieces?

Any multipart FFVII series is gonna have parts that start with chasing Sephiroth and end with chasing Sephiroth and do a multitude of barely connected things in the intermedium. If THAT was no longer true, then yeah I'd be pretty worried about the changes to the story.

This is an, and I really don't want to be rude (but seriously...), overly simplistic view of the FFVII's narrative and of story-telling in general.

Almost all stories that are serialized, split, or whatever, can be reduced to one overarching conflict, which is worked towards by smaller narrative strands converging by the end.

Just because the game starts (it doesn't though since he's only introduced later on) and ends with Sephiroth, doesn't mean that the parts of the whole cannot be told in a centered way with satisfying conclusions just because the don't resolve the overarching conflict with Sephiroth.
This is like saying Harry Potter couldn't have delivered the first 6 (or so?) books in the series because they didn't truly resolve the Voldemort issue, or that Lord of The Rings couldn't be serialized because it didn't resolve the Sauron conflict.

In fact, the Lord of The Rings serialization is probably the best way to think of how this is going to happen in my opinion - since not only was it arguably a "remake" of another piece of art, it was also split into parts where the source material (although also split into three books) had been presented in a single book for years and years already.
This is probably what they're aiming for, in a game format.

 

[Tetsujin]

Any complaints that A Song of Ice and Fire wasn't just released as one humongous book instead of in pieces?

I can point to a certain book that was adapted into three parts for film...

 

[Jason Tandro]

Any complaints that A Song of Ice and Fire wasn't just released as one humongous book instead of in pieces?

I can point to a certain book that was adapted into three parts for film...

Rankin/Bass told that story mostly truthfully (ignoring Bjorn and the Arkanstone) in 90 minutes.

Though I will say the difference here is the creative team is (at least partly) the same, whereas Jackson screwed up the Hobbit so bad Christopher Tolkien re-instated the "nobody can touch his works anymore" ban.

 

[Tetsujin]

Rankin/Bass told that story mostly truthfully (ignoring Bjorn and the Arkanstone) in 90 minutes.

Though I will say the difference here is the creative team is (at least partly) the same, whereas Jackson screwed up the Hobbit so bad Christopher Tolkien re-instated the "nobody can touch his works anymore" ban.

I don't think he ever lifted any ban. Whether The Hobbit was bad or not wouldn't have mattered either since Christopher Tolkien refused to even watch the LOTR movies or even have a conversation with Peter Jackson out of principle.

 

[hian]

Any complaints that A Song of Ice and Fire wasn't just released as one humongous book instead of in pieces?

I can point to a certain book that was adapted into three parts for film...

Are you thinking of The Hobbit?

Am I the only person who literally had no issue with that what so ever?

Never mind -
As a person who grew up reading those books I actually prefer the movies.
LoTR is an extremely tedious read though the story and concepts are good, and so I felt the movies essentially removed that layer of snore that bogged down the books, but that's just me.

As for the Hobbit. It was entertaining. After having seen it I can't really imagine it making a decent 2 hour feature film.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Like with the FFVII Remake, The Hobbit was expanded with existing content from Middle Earth to fill out more of a world -- but unlike that, they were also stuck to a deadline and shooting huge part of the film with little to no preplanning at all which is the opposite of SE putting out bigger releases as they're ready and taking the time they need to do each piece.

While the expanded concept is a bit similar, the pitfalls that most people dislike the Hobbit films are don't at all translate into the potential pitfalls that the Remake could, so I don't think it's a really good comparison other than in its most basic premise.




X

 

[Ryuman]

I know I mentioned this before in another thread, but I think it's an interesting illustration here.
The game series Shenmue is a story epic comprised of 11 chapters written before development. The series is told over multiple games before a hypothetical final game would conclude the story. Creator Yu Suzuki initially planned to tell the story in 2 games for the Sega Saturn but after development moved to Dreamcast he decided to add more to each chapter, even making Chapter 1 its own game (The plans changed a lot, actually). Each game has its own sort of arc, but the main conflict is never resolved. I think that shows how you can make multiple games where the ending isn't necessarily the conclusion.

Of course, FFVII is a game that already came out. We all know how the original story goes, but I just kinda ponder if and how they'll expand the world, framing moments as their own stories. It'll be a very interesting product of direction. Remake has to so many things the original never did as well e.g. voice acting, cutscenes, AAA graphics, etc. That's gonna cost a lot. So I don't blame them in doing this as a means to recoup their costs. Less greed, more wanting to avoid financial suicide, y'know? Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm in the 3 game camp, btw.

 

[clowd]

Great to know it seems as if though they're targeting some form of open world exploration with the Highwind thanks to the "skies above the Planet" comment.

 

[Lex]

I genuinely took that to mean the rocket.

 

[clowd]

I hope thats not what he meant by the comment

If they want to top the original in every way, the game needs at least as much freedom as the original. A point and click style Highwind would be a step backwards.

 

[Alex Strife]

I'm sorry to be "that guy" but I think you guys are reading far too much into what should just be a "Please be excited" letter (along with some reassurance that they truly are putting all they have into this).

 

[Roger]

How is this relevant? You think every single person playing the remake is going to come from the "I already played FFVII camp"?

You think barely anyone will? You think we'll go back to the days of Aerith dying being a legit spoiler?

Yes, but they are a part of a whole now. There is a continuous story in that universe. The principle is the same, and whether or not people care is irrelevant.

If you eliminate whether people will care from the equation then your parts v episode argument is irrelevant as well. There's barely any difference as far as their literal meaning in the English language is concerned.

Any complaints that A Song of Ice and Fire wasn't just released as one humongous book instead of in pieces?

From people that started on third, fourth or fifth book and were asked to evaluate it purely on it's own merits? Plenty. They do not make good stand-alone stories. GRRM has many POVs, tons of them weren't able to have a full story-arc in a single book, he had to be pragmatic about cut off points to get them out on time. (well, on time is a generous description, he makes SE's release schedule look good by comparison). A great series all the same, but you are gonna have to buy more then one book. Perfect analogy for what will likely happen here.

This is an, and I really don't want to be rude (but seriously...), overly simplistic view of the FFVII's narrative and of story-telling in general.

Almost all stories that are serialized, split, or whatever, can be reduced to one overarching conflict, which is worked towards by smaller narrative strands converging by the end.

But not Walking Dead, which utterly fails to give you the feel of a "larger interconnected world" through the sin of episodic gameplay as you've said.

Just because the game starts (it doesn't though since he's only introduced later on) and ends with Sephiroth, doesn't mean that the parts of the whole cannot be told in a centered way with satisfying conclusions just because the don't resolve the overarching conflict with Sephiroth.
This is like saying Harry Potter couldn't have delivered the first 6 (or so?) books in the series because they didn't truly resolve the Voldemort issue, or that Lord of The Rings couldn't be serialized because it didn't resolve the Sauron conflict.

Each Harry Potter book presents one schoolyear. The first book ends with Voldemort being defeated. The second book is called the Chamber of Secrets and revolves around the opening and closing of Chamber of Secrets. YOU'RE the one that suggested that if FFVII is gonna be divided up into pieces it should be less then five. The fight against Sephiroth will be done over multiple parts, the question of what happened at Nibelheim will be posed, developed and then answered over mutiple parts, Barret, Yuffie and Red XIII's returns to their hometown will be stories on one part, but will only pose one part of that installment which'll be in equal parts about other stuff.

For the FFVII parts to each be as good single stories as the seperate Harry Potter books the story of the original game would have to be changed a great deal, or be divided up in parts that take place concurrently (Cloud and Tifa's story, Cid's story ect). I doubt it will. Which is fine.

 

[hian]

You think barely anyone will? You think we'll go back to the days of Aerith dying being a legit spoiler?

Straw-man and false equivocation.
I said no such thing, nor did I imply it, nor is the likelihood is there necessarily any meaningful link between not having played FFVII and not knowing that Aerith is going to die.

FFVII is such an iconic game, as is the death of Aerith, that even a lot of people who haven't played the game knows of it, and even more are likely to get exposed up until the release of the remake regardless of whether they played the game or not and regardless of whether or not they know anything else of substance about the story.

The fact of the matter is that the original game hasn't even broken 20 million sales (compare that to other AAA titles like GTA or Call of Duty) of which a significant amount are resales to people who already bought the original.
The remake on the other hand is a AAA production on the newest console hardware in a much more competitive market than before.
It's also an almost two decades old game at this point.

If you think the remake isn't going to be aiming for the larger demographic of people who didn't play the original, then there is no hope for this dialogue what so ever.

Those people will have a very different perspective on what would be a reasonable place to end one entry in the series than those who already played the original game.

If you eliminate whether people will care from the equation then your parts v episode argument is irrelevant as well. There's barely any difference as far as their literal meaning in the English language is concerned.

This is bullocks and you know it just by looking at the reactions people had to the use of the term "episodic", which in the context of gaming, has been specifically used to describe Telltale games titles, and games like Life is Strange for the better part of half a decade now.

Do you think people would have had the same reaction if, let's say, Kitase had said, "we're turning FFVIIR into a series", or "we're going to have to split it up on several disks which we'll sell separately in order to get the game out faster".

No, there is a distinction here, and that's because languages, yes the English language included, are not prescriptive, they are descriptive, and there is an entire genre of game that has existed for quite some time now specifically being referred to with that label - games which distinguish themselves quite obviously in nature from your run of the mill serialized game.

Also, I'm not eliminating the "whether people will care from the equation then your parts v episode argument" - that's exactly what my argument is about - how people care about that distinction. What I said is irrelevant is the care of the people in your argument.
Because you explicitly made the argument that people not caring about the serialized nature of the Halo series is the distinguishing factor between Halo being a accepted as a series, and FFVIIR turning into a series being accepted.

However, no it isn't. The distinguishing factor is HOW they turn it into a series, how it is handled - in which regular serialization such as in the Halo games is commonly accepted because each title offers an actual full game-play experience, whilst the Walking Dead does not - and while that is fine for The Walking Dead, and other games like that, nobody is keen on that format for FFVII - however that is not to say that people cannot accept or won't accept a serialized FFVIIR as long as it finds a way of doing it that works. The standard episodic format is not a way to make it work though.

However, since Kitase and Nomura has said nothing like that what so ever, and indeed have said many things indicating that this is not the format they are going for, people shouldn't be running around using a term that by and large refers to that specific kind of format.

Please see this distinction.

From people that started on third, fourth or fifth book and were asked to evaluate it purely on it's own merits? Plenty. They do not make good stand-alone stories. GRRM has many POVs, tons of them weren't able to have a full story-arc in a single book, he had to be pragmatic about cut off points to get them out on time. (well, on time is a generous description, he makes SE's release schedule look good by comparison). A great series all the same, but you are gonna have to buy more then one book. Perfect analogy for what will likely happen here.

To be pedantic - there is a difference between a book "not being a good book" because it's part of a series and doesn't function well on its own, and it simply not being a good book.
I would argue that a good book in a series is very different from a good stand-alone book.

Secondly, this is just reiterating the point I was making.
Nobody complains that A Song Of Ice and Fire is serialized in and of itself, because each book contributes to making it a good series.
I reject the idea that FFVII cannot make a good series, so what's your point?

But not Walking Dead, which utterly fails to give you the feel of a "larger interconnected world" through the sin of episodic gameplay as you've said.

Except that's not what I said.

1.) What I said was not a value-judgement of The Walking Dead as a game, which I actually like.

2.) My criticism was how the format of The Walking Dead would work poorly with FFVII (if they plan to stay true to it) because FFVII is an RPG that is centered significantly around exploring which being broken down into TWD size chunks will hamper - not that the TWD format is bad story-telling, or that it doesn't work for TWD.

You're projecting positions unto me which I do not hold - haven't stated to hold, nor even implied to hold - please stop doing that.

Each Harry Potter book presents one schoolyear. The first book ends with Voldemort being defeated. The second book is called the Chamber of Secrets and revolves around the opening and closing of Chamber of Secrets.

Firstly Voldemort isn't actually defeated until the last book.
Secondly, there is nothing preventing FFVII's story or game-play from being centered around a specific set of problems and goals centered around one limited area in a similar way.

YOU'RE the one that suggested that if FFVII is gonna be divided up into pieces it should be less then five.

Where did I say this?
It becomes more and more apparent that you're not even reading my posts - not just reading them in bad faith, but not just reading them period. I did not say this anywhere.

The fight against Sephiroth will be done over multiple parts, the question of what happened at Nibelheim will be posed, developed and then answered over mutiple parts, Barret, Yuffie and Red XIII's returns to their hometown will be stories on one part, but will only pose one part of that installment which'll be in equal parts about other stuff.

Where are you getting this from?

For the FFVII parts to each be as good single stories as the seperate Harry Potter books the story of the original game would have to be changed a great deal, or be divided up in parts that take place concurrently (Cloud and Tifa's story, Cid's story ect). I doubt it will. Which is fine.

I disagree.

The very series we just mentioned (A Song Of Ice and Fire, and a lot of other fantasy series btw) told over several books tell fragmented stories that jump and dart all over the place and nobody bats and eye.
I see no reason why they'd have to restructure FFVII's narrative to any meaningful degree to make it work as a series when plenty of other great adventure series out there are told in a serialized format which just as a fragmented central story and do just fine.

 

[hleV]

The news post mentions that this is going to be a series of games rather than "episodic". I am stupid. What's the difference?

 

[Tennyo]

I think generally "episodes" are short (2-3 hours maybe) where as this will be a series of full-sized games. I think.

I could be wrong.

For example, Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Neither Episode 1 nor Episode 2 were anywhere near being the same length as one of the Genesis Sonic games. They were both very short. And then for some reason Sega never bothered to give us an Episode 3.

 

[hleV]

Ohhh, that makes sense. Episodes as in shorter games than normal full-size ones.

 

[Roger]

Straw-man and false equivocation.

I'm sorry, you think bringing up the Harry Potter or A Song of Ice And Fire series as an example of single story divided up into more then one book WASN'T a strawman?

I said no such thing, nor did I imply it, nor is the likelihood is there necessarily any meaningful link between not having played FFVII and not knowing that Aerith is going to die.

FFVII is such an iconic game, as is the death of Aerith, that even a lot of people who haven't played the game knows of it, and even more are likely to get exposed up until the release of the remake regardless of whether they played the game or not and regardless of whether or not they know anything else of substance about the story.

The fact of the matter is that the original game hasn't even broken 20 million sales (compare that to other AAA titles like GTA or Call of Duty) of which a significant amount are resales to people who already bought the original.
The remake on the other hand is a AAA production on the newest console hardware in a much more competitive market than before.
It's also an almost two decades old game at this point.

If you think the remake isn't going to be aiming for the larger demographic of people who didn't play the original, then there is no hope for this dialogue what so ever.

The remake. Not every individual game. Size alone doesn't mean it's first part can be compared to Halo: Combat Evolved or Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

This is bullocks and you know it just by looking at the reactions people had to the use of the term "episodic", which in the context of gaming, has been specifically used to describe Telltale games titles, and games like Life is Strange for the better part of half a decade now.

Do you think people would have had the same reaction if, let's say, Kitase had said, "we're turning FFVIIR into a series", or "we're going to have to split it up on several disks which we'll sell separately in order to get the game out faster".

No, I don't. I do still think that it is primarily WHY he is doing it and ultimately the nature of this remake.

Because you explicitly made the argument that people not caring about the serialized nature of the Halo series is the distinguishing factor between Halo being a accepted as a series, and FFVIIR turning into a series being accepted.

Not accepting it as a series. Being satisfied with Halo 1 as the one game in the series they own, as opposed to Final Fantasy VII: the Remake Part 2 being the only game in the series they own. I don't think FFVIIR will get to that point, nor should it be it's goal.

To be pedantic - there is a difference between a book "not being a good book" because it's part of a series and doesn't function well on its own, and it simply not being a good book.
I would argue that a good book in a series is very different from a good stand-alone book.

But as has been brought up, this is an RPG. You have levels, equipment, materia and stuff carrying over, or you won't, in the next release.

Treating these parts as single games as opposed to letting them just be episodes, if much bigger episodes then entries in Life Is Strange season 1, is a problem.

Secondly, this is just reiterating the point I was making.
Nobody complains that A Song Of Ice and Fire is serialized in and of itself, because each book contributes to making it a good series.
I reject the idea that FFVII cannot make a good series, so what's your point?

A Song of Ice and Fire features several stories and more importantly, several protagonists more then FFVII, FFVII can and HAS been contained in one game. You only need one look at the A Song of Ice and Fire pile of books to know this wasn't true of that series and hardly could be.

Except that's not what I said.

1.) What I said was not a value-judgement of The Walking Dead as a game, which I actually like.

2.) My criticism was how the format of The Walking Dead would work poorly with FFVII (if they plan to stay true to it) because FFVII is an RPG that is centered significantly around exploring which being broken down into TWD size chunks will hamper - not that the TWD format is bad story-telling, or that it doesn't work for TWD.

I think typically, when the term "episodic" is used in relation to gaming it conjures up an image of Telltale game series like The Walking Dead, where each episode is completely separate from the next one, which exception of in the sense that it tells the next part of the story.

There is no walking back and revisiting older locations, or any sense that you're in this larger interconnected world.

You have to see how that is at the very least incredibly close to what you said? And gives a negative impression of the Walking Dead?

And also, this description of episodic you give is pretty much how I'd describe A Song Of Ice and Fire.

Firstly Voldemort isn't actually defeated until the last book.

His plans are utterly stopped and Voldemort is once again reduced to a mere ghost, going back to the shadows where has been for the past 10 years of peace for the wizarding world. That's an ending. None of the FFVII: Remake games will be featuring these unless great changes are made.

Secondly, there is nothing preventing FFVII's story or game-play from being centered around a specific set of problems and goals centered around one limited area in a similar way.

Well, I think there is. Sorry. I don't think FFVII story (or gameplay) lends itself particularly to being broken down to parts utterly divorced from each other. I think I'd want a season pass to be assured I'd get the full story, if I were a new player.

Where did I say this?

Your second post of the third page.

Where are you getting this from?

Aerith's background as a Cetra and Shin-Ra escapee is related to us in great detail by Elmyra in Midgar. FFVII will however not truly shift focus to Cetras rather then Shinra after we leave Midgar. The whole story of Aerith won't have been told until Icicle Inn after she dies

Barret is in relatively great focus while we are in Midgar and won't truly be again until we reach North Corel. It culminates much later when Cait Sith's true colors are shown and he gets in Barret's face for AVALANCHE activities as terrorists.

I feel Cloud and Tifa should really go without saying, he declares his intentions to after Sephiroth in what will almost certainly be part 1, gives a history of why thereafter and then are encounters with Sephiroth are sparse until later, and even then Cloud disappears for while only to come back and only then defeat Sephiroth.

These things would have to be told on multiple parts, or told out of chronological order, as A Song of Ice and Fire eventually ended up doing in A Feast for Crows and A Dance of Dragons (and still in a Dream of Spring).

 

[Flare]

I think generally "episodes" are short (2-3 hours maybe) where as this will be a series of full-sized games. I think.

This is basically what I'm thinking too. Episodes would mean shorter 'games', less content, and probably released pretty quickly one after the other. (I also makes me think of chapters, like say if they released the CC chapters as individual episodes every few months).
But this being called a 'multi-part series' and them saying each installment will be a full-sized game, I'm imagining each one to be pretty big and have loads of content. I'm hoping they release one each year, so we don't have to wait long but still get good games.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Just posting to say I find myself agreeing with a lot of what both hian and Minato are saying in this back and forth.

 

[hian]

I'm sorry, you think bringing up the Harry Potter or A Song of Ice And Fire series as an example of single story divided up into more then one book WASN'T a strawman?

It isn't. It was my argument. It also happens to be correct because A Song of Ice And Fire and Harry Potter are stories divided into series. If you think they aren't you clearly have no idea have these stories were written and work with a really strange definition of the term "story".

Please read up on the definition of strawman, because you're clearly using it wrong.

The remake. Not every individual game. Size alone doesn't mean it's first part can be compared to Halo: Combat Evolved or Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

I didn't say that either - but please carry on not reading what I am saying.

No, I don't. I do still think that it is primarily WHY he is doing it and ultimately the nature of this remake.

Doing what? What ultimate nature? Your replies are becoming more and more incoherent. What's the point of quoting me if the thing you write doesn't naturally extend from what you're replying to?

Not accepting it as a series. Being satisfied with Halo 1 as the one game in the series they own, as opposed to Final Fantasy VII: the Remake Part 2 being the only game in the series they own. I don't think FFVIIR will get to that point, nor should it be it's goal.

I find it funny you compare Halo 1 with FFVIIR part 2.
Wouldn't the more accurate analogy here be Halo 2?

Personally, I wouldn't walk into Halo 2 without having played 1.
I certainly wouldn't have walked into Halo 4 without having played any of the preceding games. Maybe that's just me.

You're shifting again though - I am not saying these games (FFVIIR) should function as stand alone games - I am saying they CAN function as "stand-alone" games in a series both in terms of content and story-telling structure just as well as any other serialized game (and by that I mean that no serialized title truly functions entirely as stand-alones, yet function more as stand alones than what is typically associated with episodic gaming. This is a grey area, not black and white).

The obvious comparison would be to FF13, but as I've said 3-4 times already which you've conveniently ignored all this time is that the format I'm talking about already exists in The Legend of Heroes franchise.
These games are split into several parts (sometimes as many as 4), they don't make sense when played alone, but they are non-the-less full-blown games individually that wouldn't fit on a single disk.

That is exactly the same what you seem to think even isn't possible, or shouldn't be done for reasons.

Furthermore, as I also posted out earlier in the thread, the Japanese here is clear - there is a distinction, and they've purposefully used an original term that isn't used for episodic games in Japan, therefore this is not the format people should be expecting from FFVIIR.

But as has been brought up, this is an RPG. You have levels, equipment, materia and stuff carrying over, or you won't, in the next release.

Treating these parts as single games as opposed to letting them just be episodes, if much bigger episodes then entries in Life Is Strange season 1, is a problem.

Only in your mind. The Legend of Heroes has carry over save-data in their games. As do several other games using this format from one degree to the other.

A Song of Ice and Fire features several stories and more importantly, several protagonists more then FFVII, FFVII can and HAS been contained in one game. You only need one look at the A Song of Ice and Fire pile of books to know this wasn't true of that series and hardly could be.

Yet, FFVII didn't fit on a single disk - the story left most of its fans confused about several central issues of it, it contains tons of sub-narratives as well a larger overarching plot, the same as any other series.

And what exactly stops A Song of Ice and Fire from being one book? Length. It isn't the plot stopping the book from being told in a short way - after all the plot of that series, like most plots can be summed up in half a page or so.

No, it's all the characterizations, all the descriptions, all the flesh of the plot.
FFVII has endless potentially for the plot being fleshed out in a similar way - and you have Nomura is saying he plans on adding as much as he possible can to the game, which result in this version having more content than the first - literally - so again, what's your point?

You have to see how that is at the very least incredibly close to what you said? And gives a negative impression of the Walking Dead?

Nope, I don't. Only when you read in the clearly biased and charged way you do, does it come off that way.

And also, this description of episodic you give is pretty much how I'd describe A Song Of Ice and Fire.

Good for you. That's not how I or most people use the term (as is apparent by how people reacted to the news), because hey, "episodic" is a term derived from television, referring primarily to pieces of visual entertainment that lasts for, at most, a couple of hours, whilst each book in that series usually take people several days to read.

His plans are utterly stopped and Voldemort is once again reduced to a mere ghost, going back to the shadows where has been for the past 10 years of peace for the wizarding world. That's an ending. None of the FFVII: Remake games will be featuring these unless great changes are made.

It ends with Dumbledore telling Harry Voldemort isn't dead and will come back completely setting up the next book in the series.

It's an ending of a sub-plot - it's not the ending of the plot of Harry Potter. That distinction is important in story telling even if you have no grasp of it.

Leaving Midgar is a sub-plot ending and transitional point.
Sailing off Junon is a sub-plot ending and a transitional point.
Leaving Gold Saucer with the buggy is another sub-plot ending and transitional point.
I could keep on going all day. There are literally so many places you can draw lines to this story it's harder not to find them than the other way around.

Well, I think there is. Sorry. I don't think FFVII story (or gameplay) lends itself particularly to being broken down to parts utterly divorced from each other. I think I'd want a season pass to be assured I'd get the full story, if I were a new player.

This is so daft we're literally half-way saying the exact same thing - you simply seem to see no distinction between the degree with which something is part (a four piece cake as opposed to a 10 piece cake), and think that it's the story, rather than the game-play that will suffer the most from this shift in format - I think the impact on the story is largely inconsequential and that the biggest risk in splitting the game is on the coherency of the world and the game-play, and that for this reason, the parts will be few and large, rather than many and small.

I too, don't think FFVII story lends itself to being split up into parts "utterly divorced from one another", however I reject that this is a natural and meaningful way to characterize the serialization of FFVII or any piece of art or media for that matter.
How many series have parts utterly divorced from one another?
I'd argue the numbered FF titles would be among the few that can.

When serialized, you will want to play the game from the first part to the last, of course, just like you'd want to read Harry Potter from book 1 to book 7(was it?) if you want that story.

My point is simply that I see no compelling argument as to why this cannot be a working format from a story perspective in regards to FFVII.

Your second post of the third page.

Except that I didn't. Come on, quote the actual paragraph you're thinking of - or maybe you just realized that if you use you eyes and actually read what I wrote, that wasn't what it actually said?

Aerith's background as a Cetra and Shin-Ra escapee is related to us in great detail by Elmyra in Midgar. FFVII will however not truly shift focus to Cetras rather then Shinra after we leave Midgar. The whole story of Aerith won't have been told until Icicle Inn after she dies

Barret is in relatively great focus while we are in Midgar and won't truly be again until we reach North Corel. It culminates much later when Cait Sith's true colors are shown and he gets in Barret's face for AVALANCHE activities as terrorists.

I feel Cloud and Tifa should really go without saying, he declares his intentions to after Sephiroth in what will almost certainly be part 1, gives a history of why thereafter and then are encounters with Sephiroth are sparse until later, and even then Cloud disappears for while only to come back and only then defeat Sephiroth.

These things would have to be told on multiple parts, or told out of chronological order, as A Song of Ice and Fire eventually ended up doing in A Feast for Crows and A Dance of Dragons (and still in a Dream of Spring).

My point was simply that there is no rule that says they have to be told chronologically or in one part - as FFVII already doesn't do this.

Cloud's background for example, isn't even fully explained unless you randomly run back to the Shinra Mansion in late game to get the "Crisis Core" flashback - it's optional for god's sake.

This is true for a lot of series too. The Wheel of Time jumps from one character's story to another all the time - sometimes omitting important characters for an entire book.
Pick up any one book of A Wheel of Time and you'll be ten times as lost as if you started playing FFVII at any random point.

In fact, even if you arbitrarily split FFVII as it now is, into parts, it's story wouldn't be meaningfully different in formate from The Wheel of Time.

But let me rephrase and do a tl;dr of my argument so it cannot be said I didn't make the effort to make my argument clear -

1. Based on the interview, and the common usage of the term "episodic" in the gaming industry at the moment FFVIIIR is not going to be episodic.

2. episodic gaming is not a format that blends well with the game-play typically associated with large world-exploring RPGs - it does not necessarily impede story-telling though, which should be obvious looking at The Walking Dead games.

3. splitting up FFVII will not necessarily harm FFVII's story or game-play in any meaningful sense - it entirely depends on how it's done.

4. Personally, I think it will be done like The Legend of Heroes titles. Look it up for god's sake.

THE END.