Shinra's Experiments With Non-SOLDIER Combatants in the Remake

Turlast

Turlast

Lv. 25 Adventurer
Just wanted to let you guys know that this topic is awesome and I'm looking forward to the articles. Topics like this are why I love the Final Fantasy universe.
 
X-SOLDIER

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
Hito just got back to me with some translation assistance for the concept art, so there're a couple other little notes I added in FFVII-style quotes, so they're easy to pick out.

The good news is that the Strengthened Combatants explicitly have the armor-shattering animation that I mentioned called out, as well as some little things about the way they're supposed to move in both forms.

I also got some notes for the Jenova-related stuff that I'm currently working on.





X :neo:
 
leadmyskeptic

leadmyskeptic

Pro Adventurer
Very well-plotted article, a great read and the accompanying screenshots/artwork were integrated very well. That said, I'm still not convinced these dudes AREN'T just creepy-looking robots...the "roboguards", as it were. Especially considering there are enemies in the Comp that look overtly like 'regular' humans (as opposed to 'mutated') and are confirmed to be robotic, that certainly would leave room for more monstrous looking androids. A case can be made either way, though, and this was a good case for the Cyborg option.
 
X-SOLDIER

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
leadmyskeptic said:
Very well-plotted article, a great read and the accompanying screenshots/artwork were integrated very well. That said, I'm still not convinced these dudes AREN'T just creepy-looking robots...the "roboguards", as it were. Especially considering there are enemies in the Comp that look overtly like 'regular' humans (as opposed to 'mutated') and are confirmed to be robotic, that certainly would leave room for more monstrous looking androids. A case can be made either way, though, and this was a good case for the Cyborg option.
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Thanks much! I'm really glad that the article had a good flow with the content that was there.

In the OG their finger and toe claws being visually different from their mechanical arm pieces that first made me think that they were cybernetic mutants rather than just plain robots. If they were just robots, it'd've made sense that the claws would've been metal on the rest of their body, rather than being the odd bone-white colour. Glad I made that case well in a much more tl;dr form even if it isn't a definitive one! :D





X :neo:
 
X-SOLDIER

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
Fun little update on this. As I was working on my next editorial about Horror & Jenova, where I'm touching on the tone of Hojo's Experiments, I was looking at the concept art for Yin/Yang, and noticed something really interesting about them:

Ying_Yang_Concept_Art.jpg


Awkwardly thin, elongated forearms with four claws, and long feet with two claws:

Standard_Combatants_3D.png


This's a thing that I felt was worth putting in the article retroactively (especially since they're in the Shinra Manor and ostensibly parts of the same batch of experiments that are related to the Makonoids).

The only odd thing about them that I didn't have an easy way to include was that Yin/Yang uses the red fading death animation for their initial single-side dying, but the shattering apart animation if one side dies alone:



Hojo's Sample H0512 is the only other organic creature that I know that uses that shattering animation – assumedly since it's an artificial amalgamation of different beings.




X :neo:
 
leadmyskeptic

leadmyskeptic

Pro Adventurer
Man, what a fucked-up enemy. It's amazing how, when you've been random battling for some time, besides just different enemy appearances, when one of the enemies appears to exhibit some kind of variant 'behavior' (the most iconic example, I 'spose', is Tonberry), it really throws you off/gets your attention. In this case, its the weird, lumbering movement and long delay before attacks, coupled with the 'mood updates'. Does anybody know if those actually apply to anything, or are just randomly generated to creep you out? Also, any idea if you kill both simultaneously if it fades or blows apart?
 
X-SOLDIER

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
leadmyskeptic said:
Man, what a fucked-up enemy. It's amazing how, when you've been random battling for some time, besides just different enemy appearances, when one of the enemies appears to exhibit some kind of variant 'behavior' (the most iconic example, I 'spose', is Tonberry), it really throws you off/gets your attention. In this case, its the weird, lumbering movement and long delay before attacks, coupled with the 'mood updates'. Does anybody know if those actually apply to anything, or are just randomly generated to creep you out? Also, any idea if you kill both simultaneously if it fades or blows apart?
Click to expand...

I've been hunting for footage, but I can't find any of somebody killing both sides at once, so I might load up a game and see if I can test it out myself. (EDIT: They shatter apart just like H0512 if you kill them both at once. I made some edits to the article to clarify this)

The Zombie-like movements are something called out in the concept art, though. The mood updates correlate to it buffing attack/magic as a result of getting hit by physical/magic attacks.




X :neo:
 
The Twilight Mexican

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Another point to add to the observation you just made about Yin-Yang, X: in the Mobius artwork for the enemy, while it now has five fingers on each hand, it also appears to be emerging from some shattered glass cylinder -- perhaps like the Experiment Cylinders we've seen previously, used for the purpose of fusing two lifeforms into one? Almost like the Yin-Yang is two one-time humans merged into one?
 
Obsidian Fire

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
I hate to say it, but that scene with Aerith and Nanaki makes way more sense with that theory about Yin-Yang...

Like why Hojo thought it would work in the first place... It already has...
 
X-SOLDIER

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
Thanks, Tres! I'm totally gonna touch on that in the Jenova/horror article I'm writing now, since it's more the speed of the horrors of the Shinra Manor.

Also, I really am curious if they're going to take the "we were just fusing them" in a tube route in the Remake and ignore all of Nanaki's, "I don't like two-legged things, I should be allowed to choose, I was only acting that way to throw Hojo off" lines that definitely imply that it wasn't just essentially a fusion dance.




X :neo:
 
Turlast

Turlast

Lv. 25 Adventurer
Loved the article, X. Read it a few times and that amount of insight just makes me want to start a new game of FFVII. If there's one thing I've always been fascinated with in the FF world, it's definitely the monsters/enemies. Things like Brain Pod, the creepy Ghirofelgo guy from the Shinra Manor, Sahagin (called them distant relatives to the TMNT when I was a kid, lol), and various other enemies. Knowing what they are and how they came to be.

Sometimes I really wish there was a guide that elaborated on all of them beyond basic stats. Kinda like how VIII does with the Scan option. Looking forward to the Jenova article!
 
C

ChipNoir

Pro Adventurer
Turlast said:
Loved the article, X. Read it a few times and that amount of insight just makes me want to start a new game of FFVII. If there's one thing I've always been fascinated with in the FF world, it's definitely the monsters/enemies. Things like Brain Pod, the creepy Ghirofelgo guy from the Shinra Manor, Sahagin (called them distant relatives to the TMNT when I was a kid, lol), and various other enemies. Knowing what they are and how they came to be.

Sometimes I really wish there was a guide that elaborated on all of them beyond basic stats. Kinda like how VIII does with the Scan option. Looking forward to the Jenova article!
Click to expand...

While it's not gonna be official, because hey, I'm not Square, I am working on a project that is basically going to be a video where a fan-made ShinRa scientist documents various monsters across Gaia, and explains their backstories.

So keep an eye out for that sometime this summer.
 
Shademp

Shademp

420
X-SOLDIER said:
And when FFVII was inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame, they show the animation of an Unarmored Strengthened Combatant dying like a living thing, and not exploding like a robot.

https://youtu.be/4pwJWa6MxJc?t=1047


Perfect.
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I instantly thought about you when I watched that clip. :lol: Be aware that they also uploaded that gameplay clip separately, in case you ever want to use that reference.


ChipNoir said:
various monsters across Gaia
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You're never going to stop referring to the FFVII world as "Gaia", are you? :monster:
 
X-SOLDIER

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
I definitely added it at the end as a little aside, that also links to the current news article. :awesomonster:





X :neo:
 
leadmyskeptic

leadmyskeptic

Pro Adventurer
Okay, forgive me if this is easily available info online, but uh...the Ultimanias are available in English now?? Or is this a really well-done fan version?
 
leadmyskeptic

leadmyskeptic

Pro Adventurer
Strangelove said:
https://thelifestream.net/forums/threads/dark-horse-final-fantasy-ultimania-archive.20029/
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Thank you sir. Madam? Human. I see this is not the obsessive-compulsively detailed "FF7 Ultimania Omega" thingy from years back, but new books more focused on the art ("coffee-table books", I suppose is the best description). But then, 7, 8, and 9 are the ones I'd really want the nitty gritty on, so that's cool. Always felt a little bothered that they assumed only Japanese fans were nerdy enough to want this shit haha.
 
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