Treat with a glacier-sized grain of salt post from the r/FFVIIR:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/comments/bndw4s
“Okay so I will post it in this topic. To be clear this is not an individual that I am all that close with. Just a casual acquaintance that I attended HS with and share a similar taste in games with. So he is involved in game journalism with the majority of his content being Japanese games. He shared details with me about the trailer 3-4 hours before it dropped and was 100% accurate beat for beat. I mention this information just to share why I am even given this the time of day. Please understand that I cannot verify this information. I cannot claim it is 100% correct. This same individual also thought we would get information in March-April, but we did not. So either his sourcing is inconsistent, or he has located a new source in Japan that is much more in the know. AGAIN UNDERSTAND THAT IS ALL RUMOR UNTIL PROVEN CORRECT! I am not endorsing this as fact. That said I will now list the information given to me and some may be considered spoilers for those who have not played the original:
FFVII Remake is going to have a HUGE presence at E3. When people say information blowout this will be the definition of it. He says to expect a pretty lengthy trailer that will incorporate game play and story. There will be a game play demonstration as well. We will also get a release date. Not a window, but a date. Early November 2019. He would not give me a hard day. Now, this is stuff we could have all theorized ourselves to be honest.
He also gave me some information about how the game will be split. He claims it will be split into two parts. Part one will end with the death of Aerith. The wait between part one and part two will not be a very long wait in comparison to this initial wait. The games will have expanded plot points and locations with tweaks here and there, but the overall narrative will fell familiar to fans of the original.
Also tells me that the towns and cities feel much more real and organic. Real roads present and feel like they serve realistic functions. A world that feels living. Each location feels unique and feels like it exists for a reason. It makes sense that people put up shop their once upon a time when people were settling in Gaia.
Yuffie and Vincent will be much more organically tied into the story. Said that even though Yuffie is a mandatory character the window that you obtain her optional. Can range anywhere from Junon region to Rocket town. She is obtain via side quest early, but an automatically triggered event later if you do not have in her tow. I think we all figured the two were obviously going to be mandatory characters since they have been included in just about all FFVII related media since the OG, but I find the Yuffie stuff interesting if real and I am not sure how hard that would be to program something like that into a game.
Jenova will still be expanded on, but they are going to keep her origins a bit mysterious. She is going to be frightening with this new tech.
Also mentioned that the Sephiroth scene from the teaser is from the Nibelheim flashback in Kalm. Points to the fact that you can see the road lines to prove that it is not in a reactor like some fan speculation has been.
He also gave me some information game play mechanics:
Limits will be familiar, but different. For example the characters will retain the ability to use all their limit breaks from the OG, but they will serve in different functions. For characters that had the full tree of 7 limit breaks their first limit of that level will be a special attack as in one that you can use from the command menu more freely. Hence Braver in the shortcut menu he says. But Cross-Slash would be used as a limit break in the conventional sense. Bar fills up. Attack is used. Bar depletes after you select. So to simplify it further:
Cloud: Lvl 1: Braver - special attack from menu/ Cross-Slash - Limit Break
Lvl 2: Blade Beam - special attack from menu/ Climhazzard- Limit Break
He also states that Magic and Summon materia will be very familiar in their use. Attaching them allows for those options to show up on the command menu, but you will want to strategically attach materia as the characters will be a little less like "blank slates" than they were in the OG. They will have their niches in combat and constantly utilized them all will be beneficial for players. Trying to just spam one character will not get you very far in the game. You won't want to load your CQC guys with a bunch of magic and weaken their attack and HP stats since they have to be close to the enemies for melee attacks. Where as characters like Vincent and Barrett could shoulder a little more since they do not have to be up close and personal to deal melee damage.
This is the information I was given. Again a lot of it is stuff we could come up with if we sat and thought long enough, but I don't know what this individual would have to gain by making it up. He could have a bad source. He could have a good one as he was right about the teaser. Who knows. Please do not take this as gospel.”
