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Remake Interviews: Catch-all Thread

hian

Purist
Firstly, before I comment on this - here is my translation of the new Dengeki tidbit

http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/8445276.html

Interview With Kitase P(producer) Nomura D(director) about Final Fantasy 7 Remake :

The following is only a summarized excerpt of the things that I took notice of the most. (trans. Note : clarification - that's not me saying that, but the author of the original article. Seems like I might have to buy Dengeki to get the entire interview)

In regards to "voice" (voice-acting)

Nomura :
Basically, it's going to be fully voice-acted. So, we have to decide on new ones for the characters that were not given voices in FF7AC.

(Which is to say that the "date event" will be fully voiced [as well]?)

Kitase :
That's something we're going to have to deal with as well (laughs)
It's just that because the state of society has changed since back then [when the original was first released], it's necessary to deal with the recreation of the original scenes with discretion/prudence.

Nomura :
Like the Honey Bee Inn and such (laughs).

(Will the map be open-world?)

Kitase :
We cannot say anything yet, but the so-called open world or what is referred to as sand-box format, is not something we plan to fuss about.

(trans. note : literally "kodawaru tsumori ha nai" こだわるつもりはない
Kodawaru means to hold a preference, and kodawaranai, it's negative form is used in common speech to show non-commitment to any given alternative.
"Tsumori" is a word used to describe plans and intents tacked on after verbs.
In the context of this question this means that Kitase is saying he/they do not plan on going out of their way to make the game conform to some idea of the sandbox format - it does not mean that the game will not be in one format or another that may be considered open world, or similar to open world once released)

However, because Nomura is particular/concerned the creation of the scenery/background/setting, we want to make an environment where the actions of characters has an impact/effect/influence on the scenery/background/setting.

(How will the mini-games turn out?)

Kitase :
As far as possible, we want to include the mini-games that have remained in the fans impressions/memories of the game.

Nomura :
From big things to small things, there was a lot [of stuff in the game], but whether there is [really] a necessity to make it all with the latest technology, that's something we have to consider.

Kitase :
The development staff is also thinking/concerned about what to do about the mini-games.

(What's the state of the production?)

Kitase :
We're finally at the stage of "standing at the starting point"
(trans. note : I couldn't think of a good natural English for this - perhaps a good one would be "we've finally completed all preparations to begin full development".)

We also have a plan/concept for the battle system, but it will take a lot more time before we have it all properly implemented in the actual game.

(Are there a lot of expectations in regards to
2017, the year that will be FF7's 20th anniversary -
more specifically - January 31st, which was the original's
release date?)


Kitase :
I can't say anything about that at this time (laughs)

Nomura :
Personally, in 2016, I'm held back by "KH HD 2.8" and "World of FF" among
other things. I think the next time I/we can put out information [on this topic]
will be after [those projects] have settled down.


So, first things first -

Yes, they are obviously saying that they'll be making adjustment to scenes based on the social climate of today.

No, they are not saying that the game won't be open-world-ish, or even open world - but rather that they're not going to be particularly concerned about working towards some set concept of a sand-box game I.E that they'll develop this game organically making the environments based on what they think will convey the story best, make game-play interesting - not decide on a world-format first and then try to force everything else to suit.

They haven't been clear on mini-games - but it's probably that they will cut-out the minor ones of no real impact or remembrance with the fans I.E
things like G-bike, Chocobo racing, Snowboarding and the Battle Arena will probably stick around, while sumo-hand-wrestling, and having abstract button-pressing mini-games at random points around the game will go.
Because why would Cloud have to stand at a ledge and time a button press to jump on a swinging piece of steel, when they could make an actual visually interesting Uncharted-ish platforming segment for climbing the plate instead?


On the social issue thing (sorry Lex, I ended up using your post as a spring-board =P Don't take it personally, it's not a response to you per say) :

Fans are blaming the wrong people too IMO. Yes SJW's are loud, but they're not the ones influencing the decision here, if they change anything it'll be for the PEGI people who actually rate the game.

Based on their choice of wording, I doubt that is the case. If they were worried about rating and reaching a wider audience, they'd say that instead of talking about the times and the state of society.

Also it's the developer's decision to change some scenes based on social attitudes.

I don't think anyone denies this - but choices don't happen in a vacuum, and as artistry and business is intertwined in gaming like no other medium, it's completely imaginable that artists end up making choices they otherwise wouldn't ultimately for business reasons.
That's a sad state of affairs for the artistic value of the medium to my mind.

How meaningful is a choice to change something if it's essentially done as self-censorship you rather wouldn't want to do, but feel forced to do because going with your heart is going to make you into a social pariah and damage your business?

But even then I can't think of anything in FFVII that would be considered offensive by modern standards.

Really? I've seen plenty of people in comment sections online going on about Barret/Cid/Tifa being offensive, or about how the various scenes of FFVII dealing with homosexuality and trans-sexuality is offensive (Cloud dressing like a woman essentially making trans people into the but of a joke etc.)
I've seen even more people complain about similar things in other games, who're likely to latch onto FFVIIR when its released because FFVIIR's scope and reach is going to be much greater than that of the original, an almost 2 decades old game that most people really don't care about or even know all that much about.

People use homophobic stereotypes all the time and nobody bats an eyelid. We go "ugh stereotype", not "CHANGE IT IMMEDIATELY IT OFFENDS MY EYES".

Do you think this is a good-faith reading of the current climate on the internet?

Dozens of articles on various gaming sites on regular basis for at least 2 years (since it become noticeable to me at least) have spent time and space calling out stereotypes/"tropes" in games and labeling the people who make/buy/enjoy them as retrograde human beings in every sense that matter nowadays, with closely moderated comment sections filled with circle-jerks of people joining the choir.

Here's the thing -
If I came up to you and told you that the T-shirt you're wearing at the moment was made by child-slaves in a sweat-shop in Burma, and that by buying it and wearing it you're attributing to and supporting child-slavery and torture, and that this by extension makes you a colonialist and white nationalist, you'd probably rip off that T-shirt in a second.
For me to then go "I'm not saying you don't have to wear it, or that I don't want you to wear it - it's just me going 'ugh those T-shirts, like seriously'" is in my opinion not only disingenuous, but also insulting to boot.

As an example - Personally, I don't agree that there is a problem with Barret's original portrayal in FFVII - not only does me liking him as a character not bear any relevance on anything what so ever, he also happens to be extremely similar to several of my best friends, and probably one of the primary factors having made FF7 popular in down-town street-kid sub-culture I used to belong to back in the late 90's (case in point - if you went to youtube right after the launch of the game-play trailer and looked at the first wave of reaction videos, most of them were by U.S men of color going "DAAAAAUUUUUM THAT'S MAH MAN BARRET!").
Yet, in spite of this, you can have some geeky white loaf with a liberal arts degree on Kotaku going "Barret is racist and problematic", but hey, it's not an attempt at having stuff change.

I guess what I am trying to say here is - If people don't want this stuff to change why are they even pointing it out to begin with?
More so, why are they using negative loaded terms associated with bigotry do describe them while pretending what they're saying doesn't have an impact?

In my example of the sweat-shop, at least presumably we're talking about something that is objectively demonstrable - namely whether or not your T-shirt is actually produced in such a place.
In regards to portrayal of characters in art and media that simply isn't the case.
Messaging is ambiguous and interpretive in nature.
Some people say Barret as a raging Mr.T stereotype - I didn't take him that way at all - probably because doing so would mean labeling over a dozen close friends of mine "raging MR.T stereotypes" and I don't know how comfortable I'd be doing that).
He speaks with slang, as does a very large part of the U.S black population who've grown up in circumstances analogous to him.
Apart from that though, Barret is a single father, who openly shows emotions (openly cries at several points in the story), expresses a large set of different personality traits, and has a larger story-arch and clear character progression.
In fact, I'd argue that Barret is one of the best developed black characters in all of gaming period, yet a lot of people reduce him to the most basic traits of his characters and shit all over him, and then on top of that, they get away with the implication that people who like him like that, or don't want him to change, or even that the people who made him, are somehow racist (with all the negative associations that follow).

That's sad. It's deeply, deeply sad to me. It's sad because it shows people's lack of creative intellect in engaging with characters and stories. And, it's sad because it stomps creative expression.

I'm fine with Nomura/Kitase/Nojima changing stuff in the story based on their own creative preferences for the sake of making what they think will be a good story, or a good game.
What I am not for, is artists skimping on their products based on a worry about public reaction - especially a reaction that is largely blown out of proportion since the kind of opinions fronted by people such as worryworts over at Kotaku and Polygon are not at all in touch with the larger gaming population - as is patently obvious by the sales of games like Witcher 3 etc.

Now, as for my actually opinion on this - I'm unsure how much change we should expect. I think the original scenes we're quite ambiguous and open to interpretation leaving them largely harmless. With the new graphics and voice acting, that could easily change, which is a concern for Nomura and Kitase I'm sure. It could easily swing in all sorts of ways. It's too early to start complaining.


As for the open world thing :

I don't really see the issue with this.
FFVII was not a seamless open world either. It was divided by zones.

Personally, I think this is superior to the ridiculous seamless open-world trend going on right now.
Giant, open seamless worlds take up tons of space and processing power, yet cannot deliver all that much content at the same time.
Segmenting the world into zones means that you can pack each zone full with much more content than your otherwise could.
Furthermore, using a load-technology like that of Rogue Galaxy, where interconnecting areas load in the back-ground while you play, you can literally create the illusion of one big world in either case, despite using zones.

Personally, I'd prefer this if it meant more fleshed out areas with more interactivity to the game-play, rather than one huge open world where most of it was just wilderness and mobs.

Now, granted I work with completely different limitations than SE, this is the over-world from my game -
http://imgur.com/0XSStUl

Each of the dots represents central location points for entry into a zone, but each zone is in and of itself a size-able map similar to the over-world map with, again, entry points to smaller more contained areas.

I see no problem with doing this in FFVIIR, and why it wouldn't be preferable to the open world approach.
Create a world-map similar to that of the original for Airship travel alone, and then when you land, there's a transition and the game simply loads the area with the co-ordinates that corresponds to where you landed on the world-map.
Have the world-map be divided into zones, and then simply have the game begin loading the new area preemptively once you get close to the border of the area you're in.

I can see them taking this approach - it wouldn't be strictly speaking open world - but it would be superior for handling the amount of content and the level of density that Nomura describes himself as wanting for this game.
0XSStUl
 

Mayo Master

Pro Adventurer
That's sad. It's deeply, deeply sad to me. It's sad because it shows people's lack of creative intellect in engaging with characters and stories. And, it's sad because it stomps creative expression.

I'm fine with Nomura/Kitase/Nojima changing stuff in the story based on their own creative preferences for the sake of making what they think will be a good story, or a good game.
What I am not for, is artists skimping on their products based on a worry about public reaction - especially a reaction that is largely blown out of proportion since the kind of opinions fronted by people such as worryworts over at Kotaku and Polygon are not at all in touch with the larger gaming population - as is patently obvious by the sales of games like Witcher 3 etc.
I wholeheartedly agree. I really hope that Kitase/Nomura/Nojima won't let their creative process get affected by the internet noise.

Open world shizzle

FFVII was not a seamless open world either. It was divided by zones.

Personally, I think this is superior to the ridiculous seamless open-world trend going on right now.
Giant, open seamless worlds take up tons of space and processing power, yet cannot deliver all that much content at the same time.
Segmenting the world into zones means that you can pack each zone full with much more content than your otherwise could.
Furthermore, using a load-technology like that of Rogue Galaxy, where interconnecting areas load in the back-ground while you play, you can literally create the illusion of one big world in either case, despite using zones.

Personally, I'd prefer this if it meant more fleshed out areas with more interactivity to the game-play, rather than one huge open world where most of it was just wilderness and mobs.

Now, granted I work with completely different limitations than SE, this is the over-world from my game -
http://imgur.com/0XSStUl

Each of the dots represents central location points for entry into a zone, but each zone is in and of itself a size-able map similar to the over-world map with, again, entry points to smaller more contained areas.

I see no problem with doing this in FFVIIR, and why it wouldn't be preferable to the open world approach.
Create a world-map similar to that of the original for Airship travel alone, and then when you land, there's a transition and the game simply loads the area with the co-ordinates that corresponds to where you landed on the world-map.
Have the world-map be divided into zones, and then simply have the game begin loading the new area preemptively once you get close to the border of the area you're in.

I can see them taking this approach - it wouldn't be strictly speaking open world - but it would be superior for handling the amount of content and the level of density that Nomura describes himself as wanting for this game.
0XSStUl
Again I very much agree. When I was reflecting on how a remake would be undertaken (before the remake was officially announced), I imagined something very similar: when the characters are traveling on the ground (walking, chocobo, and why not include the possibility to use vehicles?), have the world map segmented in the same manner as FF XII. FF XII had the great feature of showing the neighboring zones on the horizon of the zone the characters were currently in. If I remember correctly, you could see Rabanastre from Nalbina, for instance. Airship transportation would be done on another map (a seamless world map where the Highwind would be at high altitude - which requires much less detail for the objects located on ground level), with a 1:1 mapping between the coordinates of the "airship map" and the various regions you can explore on the "subdivided map" on ground level. You have landing/take off cutscenes during loading times and Bob's your uncle. Right, that's almost exactly what you said :awesome: Ever heard of convergent evolution?
 

hian

Purist
I really hope they go that route Mayo.
The world-exploration aspect earlier FF games was one of the most dear aspects of those games to me personally.

Making FFVIIR into something more akin to 10, or 13 is one of the few things about this game that could actually be a deal-breaker to me.
Playing FFVII on my PS Vita in Japanese now, and getting to the world-map for the first time it just really hit home how important moving across the grassy plains of that world searching for the next location is to me, and how well the world-map works as a tool for conveying the size and scope of a world.

In FFX, the world just felt so small. Going from places like the plains to Mt. Gagazet just felt extremely jarring to my mind, because there is no natural transition between the two areas.
It literally feels like you can run from one end of the world to another in matter of minutes.
Granted you could do the same in FFVII, the world-map as an abstraction, clearly functioned as a means of telling you that this was literally not what you were actually doing, and put a logical amount of land-mass and water between the various locations.
Remove that, and you're left with these blank spaces in-between loading screens that you instead just have to imagine are there, but never really see or interact with in any sense what so ever.
Even if the FFVII world-map is essentially just a large, glorified transitional screen between locations, it makes the entire difference in whether the world feels like an actual place, or just a game with levels in the same vein as Megaman or Mario.

Not finding an adequate replacement for it in the remake, runs the risk of making the game feel exactly like what Nomura has stated he doesn't want it to feel like - namely a "digest version" of the original.
 

hian

Purist
I bought the weekly Dengeki thing. Feeling slightly salty about it, since there really wasn't all that much of substance in the interview apart from what was already posted online.

One fun fact is that many people on the development team wanted to go with the old ATB command battle system, but were essentially veto'ed by Nomura because he wanted to make it more "in tune with the times and accessible to new audiences".

As much as I know this to be a necessity for sales sake it's still a reasoning I really loath.
It's the equivalent of saying that every fourth move in a Chess match should be interrupted by a fist-fight to make the game of Chess more accessible to a new market of young people with attention deficits the size of grand canyon who can only endure watching sports like MMA.

Genre is genre. FFVII is a god damn classical JRPG. It's not Uncharted, it's not Witcher 3. If that's what you have to make it in order to make it sell, then perhaps that's the cue you should take to either reconsider the format (rather the fidelity) in which you want to remake it so that you can actually afford to remake it while aiming at its original core audience, or not remake it at all.

That being said - I'm getting pretty used to the thought of this essentially being a reboot more so than a classical remake, and I'm going to judge the game on its own merits.
My problem though is essentially that I loath modern AAA gaming, so it's not really a format that I would want Kitase and Co to try to emulate with this remake to begin with.
We'll just have to see though.
 

hian

Purist
Sorry for the double-post, but here's an update on my work -

I still haven't gotten around to finishing the interviews, and they've taken a backseat to my other projects because what little I hadn't translated doesn't really amount to anything you all don't already know.
With my day-job, game development project, and localization free-lance projects, it's still going to be a week or two until I get that over with.

In the mean time, I'll finish up my interview for SE, and tonight I begin recording my analysis video for everything FFVII:R where I will read most of both of the interviews in both Japanese and English while running through the game-play trailer, interspersed with commentary.
It will probably be extremely long, but I intend it to be the most extensive and complete commentary video on the topic of the remake out there, and a real heavy batter for laying to rest all the misconceptions etc. caused by other news-outlets thus far, so for those who want to waste 1-3 hours listening to someone waffle on in English and Japanese about FFVII:R with a choice selection of remastered FFVII OST tracks running in the back-ground - heads up.

Hopefully, it will be up and running by tomorrow night, or the morning after.
 

Highwind

Pro Adventurer
THE NEW WAVE OF PS4 GAMES

No fewer than 35 freshly-announced games are on their way to PS4, including Psychonauts 2, Rez Infinite, Ni No Kuni 2 and Epic Games’ Paragon. We investigate them all inside this month’s magazine before taking a closer look at one of your most wanted titles – Final Fantasy 7 Remake – in our huge cover feature.

0000.jpg


I hope we get some news out of this. :)
 

RedFFWolf

Donator
I purchased this digitally. If anybody wants to read, follow this link.

Then, just log in using
Email:[email protected] Password: thelifestream
. The only detail of mine featured on the account is my email address - no payment details, home address, or anything else, so no one can feel tempted to find out where I live and, you know, warm me up for Valentines Day :P

On the bottom of the online reader, click "Show Contents" and drag the toolbar up to pages 54-55 and click. It's a bit buggy, where different pages will take the place of the FFVII pages, but that could just be my browser or internet acting up. If this happens to you, a refresh should solve this. If your internet is generally slow, it's best to wait a while when you open it to allow some pages to load up first before flying ahead - it makes things a lot smoother. Also, pressing the down button will zoom in on the pages, and you just have to click and drag around the screen to move.


Please don't hesitate to delete this and warn me off for having done this if any of the above seems inappropriate. There is nothing in the terms of the site, and I know this is not really any different than "showing your mates the mag you bought", but I just don't take these things for granted, and tend to err a little too much on the side of caution :P - Otherwise, ignore all this and my unwarranted worries :P
 
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Cthulhu

Administrator
AKA
Yop
Just don't be surprised to suddenly find your account suspended, :monster:

(TLS can pay for a new account or whatever though)
 

Teioh

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Teiocho
I had asked in chat a couple of weeks ago if anyone had bought it and if it was worth buying but since no one responded I thought that no one was interested in it. I bought it anyway because I wanted to see what they were saying about Jessie, Biggs and Wedge. Plus I never got the chance to buy magazines in the run up to the original game's release and the fangirl in me wanted to buy even if it didn't have anything really new to say. In hindsight I should have made a post asking about it instead of going to chat. Welp.
 

RedFFWolf

Donator
Just don't be surprised to suddenly find your account suspended, :monster:

(TLS can pay for a new account or whatever though)

If it lasts long enough for a few people to get a read out of it, that's cool with me :P
I only set up the account with the site just for this anyway. Regardless, I don't think it's the kind of site that'll act on the multiple logins from different locations - not unless people used my email to purchase their own stuff [and thus their own card/PayPal associated with a different billing address and whatnot], but I can't see any benefit for people to be doing that.

If instead you are referring to my account here on TLS and need to make an example of me, I deserve it [I'll never forget my tea-dissing moments in other threads :P] :monster:
 

Diamonddark

SEPINHORF LIVES!
AKA
Rich
I have the Playstation Magazine from the pre-release of FF7. I had no idea what the game or series was about, but reading the article made me buy it.
 

Tetsujin

he/they
AKA
Tets
So apparently in the latest GameInformer issue it said this (stolen from neogaf):

In regards to FFVII remake. Looking at the FFXIII saga as a model of release (three full-fledged games). Each game will be the size of a FFXIII game is specifically stated. In other words full scale 30+ hour RPG, and they also say plot wise nothing is off the table in terms of changes. They clarify they aren't changing everything but Kitase, Nomura, and Nojima feel since they were involved with the original game that they have the liberty to add / change what they want while still making fans happy. They also state they want FFVII Remake to gave a much shorter development cycle than FFXV.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Well, I sure as fuck hope so. :monster:

As for having legitimacy to change anything, I guess I can see their point -- they absolutely do. I just hope they make those changes more for helping the narrative than for the Rule of Cool.
 

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
3 full games sounds about what most of us were speculating. But wait, do they mean the 3 year development cycle of XV or the 10 year Versus-XV? :P
 

Dashell

SMILE!
AKA
Sonique, Quexinos, Pinkie Pie, Derpy Hooves
As for having legitimacy to change anything, I guess I can see their point -- they absolutely do. I just hope they make those changes more for helping the narrative than for the Rule of Cool.
I'm guessing the only thing that will change might be stuff that they retconned in the compilation... at least I hope so, I don't want a completely new FFVII or something
 

Ite

Save your valediction (she/her)
AKA
Ite
Since the OG's run-time is about 40-90 hours (although I am sure most of us overclock) we're looking at a trilogy? A very padded trilogy or a very tight duology. (Duet?) The story has both a 3-act and a 5-act structure, but either way, the end of the penultimate act is a real downer.
 

Alex Strife

Ex-SOLDIER
I'm still traumatised over what Square did to Lufia.

When I saw Lufia was being remade and saw Square was involved I fangasmed big time. But the result was a lot of things were changed and while it paid hommage to the original Lufia II, the flavour was lost and the story ended up being different.

I'm still concerned about these changes they speak of. I want FFVII to be the FFVII we know and love. That's not to say things can't be changed. But there are changes and then there are CHANGES.

To give an example; I don't mind if they add towns, change a bit how the story is presented but the events do happen as we know them. But it would be quite horrible if we have deaths that do not happen in the original or dead characters in the original that survive here. Or new characters taking story roles from old characters.

I can understand their "moral" in terms of artistic liberties, since they were involved with the original game. I mean, I don't think it's WRONG for them to change whatever they want. I just selfishly wish they won't change it in a way that I will dislike. At the same time, I think it would be a mistake to do so, but those are just my 2cts.

On a more positive note, three full games sounds quite good.
 

Flare

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Flare
^TBH I highly doubt they'd change the deaths in the og, and I don't think they'd add deaths in at least not by major or side characters. Nor do I think they'd make new characters that take the place of old characters (at least with, again, main/side characters).

What I think they mean by changes is largely adding more content, fleshing things out, connecting things better, making things easier to understand, possibly make things more realistic (?), and so on. I'm sure some scenes will be altered, y'know they won't happen the same way they did in the og, but I think they'll do a good job at keeping the emotion and the big scenes still just as impacting (or even more so) in the Remake.
 

Lex

Administrator
So apparently in the latest GameInformer issue it said this (stolen from neogaf):

In regards to FFVII remake. Looking at the FFXIII saga as a model of release (three full-fledged games). Each game will be the size of a FFXIII game is specifically stated. In other words full scale 30+ hour RPG, and they also say plot wise nothing is off the table in terms of changes. They clarify they aren't changing everything but Kitase, Nomura, and Nojima feel since they were involved with the original game that they have the liberty to add / change what they want while still making fans happy. They also state they want FFVII Remake to gave a much shorter development cycle than FFXV.

Front page purease <3
 

Tetsujin

he/they
AKA
Tets
I want a proper source to quote though, i.e. not just a NeoGAF post :P

If anyone can pick up a copy for me and summarize the info on XV and VII that'd be swell :wackymonster:
 
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Tennyo

Higher Further Faster
Is it the current issue that's out right now?

I'll go hunt down a copy tonight, and if you like I can also scan it at work tomorrow. :monster:

Or I could also go find their location and break into their offices.

Up to you, but probably not that last one. :monster:
 
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