The GREATEST difference between original and remake

[keith0301]

It isn't the combat. No. Its the storytelling.

I know I'm not speaking for everyone here...but why did we LOVE FF 7/8/9 or the titles before these? I know some of you may disagree...but why did many of us begin to lose our love for the Final Fantasy's from 10 onward? The switch to Enix brought upon a lot of things that I have resented....but the biggest of all is the absence of dialogue appearing in text on screen.

Watching some of the clips that have been posted in other threads...it reminded me about what was so special about Final Fantasy. You were able to literally attach your own emotion, your own backstory, your own thoughts, feelings, and interpretations to the characters personality, etc. Not only could you identify with the character more (e.g. choosing answers to questions that reflect your own reactions to such situations) but you were able to pace it as you felt appropriate. The BEAUTIFUL music would play...and you would be the Director. You had the control. You could control the "BEATS" as we call it in film. You chose when the next person would speak. Every scene was being orchestrated by you. You were the puppet master in a sense.

I was appalled by FF10. Forcing us to listen to voices for the first time. I'll never forget it. It totally destroyed what made games so special in comparison to movies/TV, etc. I imagine people felt the same way when movies/games, etc. destroyed the magic of the written word and reading a book...

But with my personal feelings being said...agree to disagree if you will about how much it matters...this will undoubtedly though COMPLETELY CHANGE the experience of the FF7 remake. It is the single biggest factor as far as I'm concerned. Every experience, every scene we remember, every element of the story will be subject to someone elses interpretation. We no longer have control. We no longer can have that personal connection.

Such SUBTLE things...like right before the death of Aeris...did anyone else make Cloud jerk the handle of the sword over and over to make it more dramatic? You had in a way...this sense of creative control over the story.

By being able to answer questions in a way you saw fit...you were able to more strongly identify with the characters. You could make Cloud more insecure or more confident. You could make scenes more humorous or more serious. And often times your choices would surprise you and be wonderful outcomes. That was the MAGIC.

The remake will lose all of this.

If you think this isn't a big deal...just think about the times where you got lost in the music and in the moment. Where you imagined you were in that scene with those characters...where you held off on hitting the "next" button because you wanted to let it soak in. You'll never get that but with the original.

Anybody have any thoughts? This will completely reshape every scene we cherish from the original.

 

[Animexcel]

Well, if FF7 Remake comes with Japanese and English subtitles(which I'd prefer), technically I'll still be reading text in the game

 

[Ite]

Came here totally expecting to disagree, but you’re right.

 

[pxp]

Hopefully you will be able to half control Cloud’s sword hand(s) when standing over Aerith, or boy Cloud attempting - with futility - to stop himself from handing over the Black materia, and so on. Hopefully these aren’t just ‘cutscenes’ - that is, if the devs truly acknowledge what a Remake should entail and straddle the border between modern progress and nostalgia successfully.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

The greatest difference between the original and the remake is that within three years of the original's announcement, gamers had seen the main character's final design.

Speaking more to your premise, keith0301, you do raise a valuable observation about the "beats" of dialogue, scene progression, etc., but there's little to no need for those optional elements of dialogue you mention to be discarded. FFX still had those here and there, and FFXV had them in abundance.

As for moments like Cloud holding the Buster Sword over Aerith, as pxp observed, if the development team has grasped what the progression of gaming should entail, then the semi-controllable moments in the original will only be enhanced rather than removed. Modern game design offers more opportunity for that sort of thing rather than less. It's just down to the developers to utilize it.

You are, of course, correct, though, that the experience will be unavoidably different due to voice acting and automatic dialogue progression. But I would argue that in the case of each game to have always featured those components (i.e. FFX onward), they are strengths. Particularly for FFXV, the voice acting became a central part of the experience for me.

The remake will for sure be a different experience with these additions -- one likely more impactful in some ways while less in others.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Every experience, every scene we remember, every element of the story will be subject to someone elses interpretation. We no longer have control. We no longer can have that personal connection.

Such SUBTLE things...like right before the death of Aeris...did anyone else make Cloud jerk the handle of the sword over and over to make it more dramatic? You had in a way...this sense of creative control over the story.

By being able to answer questions in a way you saw fit...you were able to more strongly identify with the characters. You could make Cloud more insecure or more confident. You could make scenes more humorous or more serious. And often times your choices would surprise you and be wonderful outcomes. That was the MAGIC.

The remake will lose all of this.

I'm gonna (unsurprisingly) completely disagree with you here, because there's absolutely no indication whether or not the game will retain or remove having multiple dialogue options to choose from.

The story in FFVII had lots of little branching interpretations, and those things are still completely possible in a modern RPG – even ones that are fully voice-acted. Games like Mass Effect function HEAVILY on that premise. Additionally, a huge part of FFXV's delivery was carried by the voice cast, so it's clear that voice acting isn't the factor that is off-putting to the experience either.

We've had voiced moments for the full cast of characters and scenes of Final Fantasy VII events for over a decade now. Advent Children, Crisis Core, & Dirge of Cerberus have already done the heavy lifting of making those characters familiar to the intended audience as speaking characters. ALSO – as was recently pointed out here – there're a lot of people who were introduced to the original game through pieces of the Compilation, so I don't think that the disconnect with giving characters a voice is the issue at all.

As perhaps the most poignant example, the ending scene of Crisis Core is one of the moments that I cherish the most in the original game (Zack being my favourite character). Crisis Core having the whole scene fully voice acted and as an uncontrollable animated FMV didn't diminish that scene at all, and in many ways – it vastly improved it. I will literally NEVER forget the sound of Cloud's scream when he finally snaps into awareness of what's just happened around him, because it's harrowing me and I still hear it in my head when watching the original.

Additionally, in moments that require player input to understand, there's ALSO no indication that we'll miss out on that either. Cloud's moments of resistance to trying to be forced to strike down Aerith especially. There's nothing whatsoever that would suggest that that moment would be relegated to a cutscene, especially because the notable futility of player control needs to be communicated to players.

I do understand where you're coming from, but I wholeheartedly disagree with the premise that this is a known factor about the Remake, and that the Remake won't allow very close to the same semblances of control. Additionally, I think that what we lose in self-interpretation, we have the potential to make up with exceptionally professional delivery by the voice cast – which is absolutely expected at this point from a game like this.

Sure, there will always be some differences between it and the original, just like there are between reading a book and seeing a film, but I don't think that they're NEARLY as impossible to replicate as you're suggesting.





X

 

[Claymore]

I came here to post pretty much what X said - but it would obviously have been a heck of a lot less eloquent and far less poignant so ... yeah. ^ above.

 

[keith0301]

Hey X.

Your points are fair (that there is no concrete evidence that we will lose the ability to dictate story elements through dialogue choices or character movements,) but I base my concerns off of FF-15. Since that is the most recent entry and the visuals/combat seem to closely resemble it so far...I think its a fair comparison. I don't recall a ton of moments where we could choose dialogue or control the characters during scenes in the same way we could in FF-7? I think my concerns stand.

You brought up FF-15. Wasn't FF-15 heavily criticized for its story? Wasn't it extremely dialogue/cut-scene heavy? Because of all the energy/resources that went into making the game look and sound great...might that have had an impact on the energy/resources that went into the actual story? How about that scene where Noctis learns that his father has been murdered? Absolutely terrible. Feel free to disagree...but I was disgusted with FF-15's story and its execution. So if Enix is making FF-7 in the mold of 15 then I have a reason to be concerned.

"Additionally, I think that what we lose in self-interpretation, we have the potential to make up with exceptionally professional delivery by the voice cast – which is absolutely expected at this point from a game like this."

How about Vaan from FF-12? Were you happy with his performance? Was it “exceptionally professional?” I think you trust Enix a little too much.
I despised that character for many reasons, but most of all I just couldn't stand his voice. It just reinforced that he was a whiny, weak, dreamy, and immature *****. His voice made him super annoying and destroyed my ability to take the story seriously.

Even in Advent Children, which you listed as an example to support your case...there was plenty of people who were really disappointed with the direction of Cloud and how he was portrayed.

Could they do a good job? Sure they could. But is it a risk? It sure is. They’re going to be imposing a new interpretation on every scene in the story and they’re going to break our original immersion and perception in the process. It’s a risky play…and for what? The sake of being modern? So it looks/sounds like a movie?

Game developers and voice actors cannot achieve the same level of drama and authenticity in their work as filmmakers. Its just not possible. That doesn't mean it can't be exceptional in its own right...but its artificial .vs. real life. When a game tries to replicate the experience of cinema then it is always going to be inherently inferior. Period. These "actors" are not emotionally invested in their characters. They are not closely collaborating with the Director and trying to arrive at a "truth" in their performance through raw and real emotion. They are not as talented. When you combine that with a team of designers whose expertise is NOT in story-telling...you get things like the scene where Noctis learns of his dads death. It was comically bad.

And they’re playing with our memories here. This is (for many of us) the most beloved game/story of our lives. There is reason to be concerned that they will mess it up.

----------------------------------

Ultimately my biggest point of my OP wasn't about this though...it was about how we were the controllers of the story in a sense. How we controlled the "beats" (pauses) and how we could use our imagination to apply our own meaning/perceptions to the events. This is undoubtedly going to be lost no matter what.

 

[keith0301]

As for your comments about the compilation, which was meant to kind of downplay my concern (last lines in my post above) ...I think its different when its an original work. I didn't play any of these other games set in the FF7 Universe...but I know I wasn't bothered by Advent Children. It was an original work and therefore I didn't mind if my perceptions were challenged a bit.

I think that I'll be more sensitive though when its the remake of the original. And i think that will be the case for many others as well. If Cloud sounds like a whiny weak lil ***** like Vaan instead of being full of rage when he confronts Sephiroth for killing his friends and burning his village I will have a serious problem with that. You know? Because I will remember my interpretation of how he sounded the 1000 times I played the game before.

Does this make sense? There will be 1000 instances where our perceptions will be challenged with new creative choices. You may have liked the way they did things in Crisis Core...but when they start changing the way you saw things in the original you might change your mind

 

[X-SOLDIER]

That comparison isn't a 1-to-1 analogy though, because FFXV was never designed as a multiple choice dialogue type of story, whereas FFVII was released as one. That comparison is intrinsically flawed at a basic level, because there's still no confirmation or denial about the presence or lack of dialogue options. If the game being remade is one that presented multiple dialogue choices frequently throughout the game, it makes sense that there's a good possibility that those would be preserved – just as much as it makes sense that they'd still give you the option of infiltrating Shinra HQ via the stairs or the front door. – Until we learn otherwise, there's no reason to assume that they're not there.

On your second point, FFXV's whole creation was a 10-year-development-hell lifecycle, and the iterative improvements that they made to it ever since it was launched represent a really strong commitment to it and understanding their audience. If you're looking for someone to criticize FFXV's story – I'm definitely not the person to do it, because they did AMAZINGLY with the presentation and have done nothing but learn and continue to improve upon it in ways that the FFVII Remake team will undoubtedly be aware of.

I've never played FFXII and regardless of how you feel about Advent Children – those were released TWELVE/THIRTEEN YEARS AGO. If you're wanting to take a serious look at the professional performance of voice actors in the video game industry, you can't backtrack that far, because the industry is a completely different beast now. Just continue to look at FFXV in how current-day Square-Enix manages its local VAs. Don't jump back to something that you disliked in older media, because it's disingenuous to the argument. With modern day AAA games, the demands of performance capture and high-quality from the actors has literally never been more pivotal, or in-demand for quality and professionalism than it is now.

The moment that you said,

Game developers and voice actors cannot achieve the same level of drama and authenticity in their work as filmmakers. Its just not possible. That doesn't mean it can't be exceptional in its own right...but its artificial .vs. real life. When a game tries to replicate the experience of cinema then it is always going to be inherently inferior. Period. These "actors" are not emotionally invested in their characters. They are not closely collaborating with the Director and trying to arrive at a "truth" in their performance through raw and real emotion. They are not as talented.

I don't think that I can take your argument seriously. Games have the potential to be far MORE than cinema because of the level of control, immersion, and investment that a player has compared to that of a passive observer. If you try for one second to say that something like The Last of Us or the commitment to a single-continuous camera shot in God of War can't match or exceed the level of drama and authenticity of any film, you're just flat out, objectively wrong. The arguments that you're making may have been true a decade ago, but they don't hold up at ALL in the modern day games industry.

On that note: Even incredibly cinematic modern games still give levels of control and agency to their players about how interactions take place in them depending on the level of flexibility of the story that they're telling. The Remake's not playing with your memories, because the original game can, does, and will always continue to exist. The Remake may not deliver EXACTLY what you thought, and may not allow you to project your own ideas onto absolutely everything that the original did, but that's the very nature of the medium of a Remake. We'll feel differently about certain scenes from things as small as just having more accurately translated dialogue, and a better localization team. SOMEthing about the Remake was always going to change your perception of events differently than you imagined, but that's not different than retelling ANY story in a new format. It's definitely going to pull on your nostalgia in one way or another, but how rigidly you set your expectations for that is ALWAYS going to taint how you feel about the media.

The Lord of the Rings series are some of my brother's favourite books, but he absolutely LOATHES the films, because they changed some things and they didn't match the way that he'd always imagined them. I also loved the books, but I was more open to seeing someone else's interpretation of that world, and absolutely LOVED the films as a result.

Sure, you could control the pacing of certain "beats" in games by pressing X to move between dialogue, but if you've played ANY modern AAA game title, you know that game developers craft and design emotional set pieces to have specific beats along with composers to match music and camerawork for the scenes. There are other scenes where you have more agency about controlling the pacing or the dialogue, but the main complaint comes off sounding like being annoyed that you can choose when to turn the pages of a book, but a video just plays at a set speed.

I understand the initial sentiment, but the things that mitigate that are basically everything about how modern games are made, which you seem to be woefully disconnected from.





X

 

[Obsidian Fire]

The point of a Remake is to do things differently. If they didn't, it would be a waste of a game. If you really want things to be like the OG, go play the OG. No one's stopping you.

I get the most mileage out of things when I can compare/contrast them. If there's nothing to compare/contrast between the OG and Remake except graphics and combat I will be very, very disappointed.

I bet that a significant percentage of the people playing FFVIIR will have no preconceived expectations to be met since they never played the original game. The remake is as much for all the new fans the Final Fantasy series has picked up since the OG as it is for fans of FFVII.

Also... Vaan in XII was voiced fine. Most of the issues I see people have with him are blown so out of proportion by the fandom that mentioning him as an example of what not to do makes it very hard for me to take you seriously.

 

[Kain424]

And as someone who just finished the Zodiac whatever for FFXII a couple days ago, I can attest that Vaan is perfectly suitable as a young protagonist in the series (even though he does little as a character to impact the overall story). The voice actor is actually pretty good.

But I see where the OP is coming from. There's a lot riding on our own memories of this now-classic game. But like X was saying, it really does depend on our own baggage going in. But I think we should heed the advice of that original trailer and try to give this Remake a chance.

 

[looneymoon]

I think OP is absolutely correct, but I err on the side of what X is saying here. I think what I am about to say may make more sense if you've ever worked on a collaborative creative project. I'm sure there's a TED or something about this somewhere, but oftentimes the creative process really thrives in conditions which are limiting. Especially when there is a team of collaborators.

The original FF7 is very much an example of this. The PSX technologies were unchartered territory then. The development of FF7 was testing with how far they could go with 3D tech for the first time. Without really knowing the limits they were working with, what we got was a pretty unpolished product. It was, despite that, one of the games that showed a lot of people what the medium could offer.

FF7 is a product of its time, and there's no way to replicate those conditions. That isn't to say that isn't interesting to dissect. We have come so far in what we can present in media, that it seems almost if we can do anything. I think that is the kind of freedom that Square seems to struggle with these days. It seems they're going straight for the "polish" before completely understanding what exactly it is they want to achieve. FFX/FFXII/FFXIII seems to be the beginning of this trend, depending on who you talk to.

Where I diverge from the original post; the unintentional assertion that modern gaming will undermine the themes presented in the original game. I think it is a valid concern whether or not Square-Enix is able to do this with the series. That being said, I think there are plenty of non-Final Fantasy games that show that this can be done very effectively.

Like I said, I think what is described in the initial post is right. The game was structured around the constraints of text-only dialogue, and did this very well. Does this mean the story won't have the same impact with the addition of voice acting? I don't think so. I also don't think voice acting was a huge problem in the post-PS2 era. At the end of the day, it's another tool in the grand scheme of things. How they use it to elevate the story is a test as to how well the developers can adapt to using the tools available to them.

 

[keith0301]

X,

Are you always a pretentious ass? "That statement is intrinsically flawed at a basic level." Try to be a little less condescending. You are an admin after all.

My premise follows the assumption that they're going to stick to their trends. If they haven't done the interactive dialogue in nearly a decade...it stands to reason that they aren't going to revert back to it now. As looney pointed out - the technology restrictions were the reason at the time and those are no longer an issue. My assumption that 15 will most closely resemble what we get with the 7 remake is a fair and valid assumption based on the video and screenshots we have seen. So on one hand I'm citing past FF titles and video/screenshots of the upcoming remake...and you're basing your stance on hope that they honor the past.

I can't cite FF-12 or Advent Children because they're "old"...but you can use "The Last of Us" or other various AAA titles to support your claims? Makes a lot of sense.

I'm an award winning screenwriter and filmmaker. No. A videogame (while having technical advantages over film) still cannot compare to traditional film as far as drama and emotion go. Never. One is synthetic and one is natural. One is emulating the other. End of story. I could go way into the vast differences in the creative process, the level of expertise, etc. but ill save my time.

My concerns about them changing story/plot points are valid. I will try to not be too rigid in my expectations as you said. Its fair to say I will sometimes be disappointed like your brother was with the LOTR movies.

Your last statement shows just how much you didn't seem to understand my initial post. I was not saying that the remake is going to suck because of any of my concerns. I explained that as I was watching a video on Youtube of a sequence of dialogue, and I remembered just how magical the OLD STYLE was. I identified this as being a major (if not the greatest) difference between the remake and the original - and I felt it was being overlooked. It might seem obvious, but it will no doubt completely change the experience. It is something to be aware of and I thought worth discussing. That was really it.

 

[keith0301]

Looney you made some excellent points about the technology restrictions of the time.

Many film scholars suggest that the real "art" of film was during the silent era. I think that argument could be made for video games as well.

 

[Geostigma]

X,

Are you always a pretentious ass?

Many film scholars suggest that the real "art" of film was during the silent era. I think that argument could be made for video games as well.

Lmao. Seriously?

 

[JechtShotMK9]

This just got fun.

 

[Roger]

X,

Are you always a pretentious ass? "That statement is intrinsically flawed at a basic level." Try to be a little less condescending. You are an admin after all.

My premise follows the assumption that they're going to stick to their trends. If they haven't done the interactive dialogue in nearly a decade...it stands to reason that they aren't going to revert back to it now. As looney pointed out - the technology restrictions were the reason at the time and those are no longer an issue. My assumption that 15 will most closely resemble what we get with the 7 remake is a fair and valid assumption based on the video and screenshots we have seen.

The problems they had with XV have no reason to follow them to VII Remake. They know what VII's story is already, we know what VII's story is already. Versus started as a action-adventure that played out as a Shakespearan tragedy centered around Noctis. Things had to change a lot, both in terms of brightening the mood and turning into more of partybased game. VII Remake will differences, sure but I doubt there is any dispute about what the maor story beats will have to be. Sector 7 will fall, the President will die, the Nibelheim flashback will be told, Aerith will die, ectera.

Also they've hardly completely shied away from interactive dialogue altogether in the past decade, nor was the interactive dialogue in the original game that far reaching. We're talking dozens of lines of dialogue Cloud's VA will have to record, not hundreds, like any Mass Effect game is already doing for their dialogue trees.

I'm an award winning screenwriter and filmmaker. No. A videogame (while having technical advantages over film) still cannot compare to traditional film as far as drama and emotion go. Never. One is synthetic and one is natural. One is emulating the other. End of story. I could go way into the vast differences in the creative process, the level of expertise, etc. but ill save my time.

Films are articifial productions, restricted in their own way by having to tell their story to their audience in one sitting. That one is more natural then the other is a matter of opinion. And being a filmmaker and screenwriter does not give you insider perspective on the creative process and level of expertise behind every film and every videogame that anyone ever has attempted to produce.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

A videogame (while having technical advantages over film) still cannot compare to traditional film as far as drama and emotion go. Never. One is synthetic and one is natural. One is emulating the other. End of story.

This is very, very untrue. There are things a videogame can do that a movie can not do by it's very nature. I've played plenty of videogames who created drama and emotion in ways a movie did not and did it very well.

A special sub-set of that would be all the videogames that create drama/emotion by letting the player make choices that effect the way the game ends. When those are done well, they draw the player into the world and story of the game in a way movies will never be able to do. With movies, you watch a story unfold. With videogames it's possible for you to decide how it unfolds.

Off the top of my head, here's a list of games that have great emotion/drama
The Beginner's Guide - while you can find playthoughs of this on YouTube, it's so much better if you play it yourself
Bastion, Transistor, Pyre - These are all made by the same game company. The storytelling in these is amazing and when those emotional moments hit, they hit hard. And the art is gorgeous.

Also, I'm interested in what you think about books compared to movies. They're even less like a movie then a video game is and yet most people think they handle drama and emotion just fine.

 

[T@ctic]

i'm looking at FF12 and i thought the same thing! so i'm not the only one lol

 

[Sprites]

are you always a pretentious ass?

Are you always this rude to people when they're posting. I didn't agree with your posts but I thought they were well thought out, however any respect I had for your posts have gone out the window the minute you start being rude to other posters here.

X isn't being condescending or pretentious he's responding to your arguments and giving his own opinion it doesn't matter that he's an admin, he's giving you his opinion, he's also a member here entitled to his own opinion same as anyone else (including yourself)

As a new member here you really should think about the impression you're giving off before you call anyone here pretentious or condescending because right now to me your coming off exactly how you said X was behaving towards you.

I apologise for jumping in here guys and for taking the actual discussion off topic, I was originally planning to put my own two cents in about the post but now I think i'll pass on the subject.

 

[looneymoon]

X,

Are you always a pretentious ass? "That statement is intrinsically flawed at a basic level." Try to be a little less condescending. You are an admin after all.

I think that's just the way X communicates. He gets excited and wordy. No need to be rude about it.

I'm an award winning screenwriter and filmmaker. No. A videogame (while having technical advantages over film) still cannot compare to traditional film as far as drama and emotion go. Never. One is synthetic and one is natural. One is emulating the other. End of story. I could go way into the vast differences in the creative process, the level of expertise, etc. but ill save my time.

I mean, if we're gonna talk about pretentiousness... but really, I think is a pretty dated way of thinking. Film was created in emulation of stage plays. There's always something to be said for what a newer form has to offer.

Looney you made some excellent points about the technology restrictions of the time.

Many film scholars suggest that the real "art" of film was during the silent era. I think that argument could be made for video games as well.

That is an argument to be made when getting into these types of topics. You must admit, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would actually limit their enjoyment of art to a single moment of time.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

... I base my concerns off of FF-15. Since that is the most recent entry and the visuals/combat seem to closely resemble it so far...I think its a fair comparison. I don't recall a ton of moments where we could choose dialogue or control the characters during scenes in the same way we could in FF-7?

There are. Possibly as many as in FFVII.

Wasn't FF-15 heavily criticized for its story?

Yes.

Wasn't it extremely dialogue/cut-scene heavy?

No.

How about that scene where Noctis learns that his father has been murdered? Absolutely terrible. Feel free to disagree...but I was disgusted with FF-15's story and its execution.

Its execution could've used plenty of improvement, sure.

So if Enix is making FF-7 in the mold of 15 then I have a reason to be concerned.

The company is Square Enix. The lead developers of the remake were lead developers of the original.

Game developers and voice actors cannot achieve the same level of drama and authenticity in their work as filmmakers. Its just not possible. That doesn't mean it can't be exceptional in its own right...but its artificial .vs. real life. When a game tries to replicate the experience of cinema then it is always going to be inherently inferior. Period. These "actors" are not emotionally invested in their characters. They are not closely collaborating with the Director and trying to arrive at a "truth" in their performance through raw and real emotion. They are not as talented.

Nothing you said here is true by default. Just as there is nothing authentic by default in the performance of entirely flesh-and-blood actors.

As an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, you should know that.

 

[Mage]

Okay just a reminder that some of us still haven't played XV so spoiler tags please. I already know two major characters die and I ain't even seen Kingsglaive yet.

Also I'm an award-winning designer too but walls of text are still an insurmountable obstacle for me.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

X,

Are you always a pretentious ass? "That statement is intrinsically flawed at a basic level." Try to be a little less condescending. You are an admin after all.

How about we don't go jumping in with name-calling, mate. It's a bad look for your argument, and also as a brand new member. Consider that an official warning from this forum's admin.


Additionally, if you're gonna criticize my points for being pretentious, don't mis-phrase what I said when it's right there for you to copy/paste accurately. What I actually said was, "That comparison is intrinsically flawed at a basic level, because there's still no confirmation or denial about the presence or lack of dialogue options."

Comparing remaking an extant property whose story and title was designed for the game world of 1997 JRPGs, to one that was written for the modern age of cinematic ARPGs are fundamentally different in their overall storytelling design (largely for reasons that looneymoon covered about restrictions of games back then). Additionally, Square Enix hasn't remade a game on this level before, so there's no reason to assume that because their current games have moved to different methods of storytelling, that when they go about retelling a beloved classic they'd throw all of those older storytelling and dialogue options out the window – especially when OTHER modern games still make use of variant dialogue options.

My premise follows the assumption that they're going to stick to their trends. If they haven't done the interactive dialogue in nearly a decade...it stands to reason that they aren't going to revert back to it now. As looney pointed out - the technology restrictions were the reason at the time and those are no longer an issue. My assumption that 15 will most closely resemble what we get with the 7 remake is a fair and valid assumption based on the video and screenshots we have seen. So on one hand I'm citing past FF titles and video/screenshots of the upcoming remake...and you're basing your stance on hope that they honor the past.

Like I said before: None of their new games have ever involved retelling an existing legacy title with baked-in storytelling varieties. I've also covered the general premise of how this could impact the Remake, when I addressed Choice Vs. Canon as a part of a much larger article a month ago, as well.

Just because the development team and gameplay resembles FFXV, that's no reason to assume that dialogue will all be streamlined. That's just like assuming that Materia will be eschewed for an MP-regenerating magic system like XV had just because we haven't seen how magic works yet, and that's what they did in their most recent game. My points were all at why it's a mistake to assume things one way or another at this stage of what we know about the game.

I can't cite FF-12 or Advent Children because they're "old"...but you can use "The Last of Us" or other various AAA titles to support your claims? Makes a lot of sense.

Yes, it does because at this point we were talking about the demands and acting capabilities of voice/performance actors in modern games – and the industry has changed significantly in the last 12 years since AC & FFXII were released. Whereas the titles I mention were all released in the last 5 years because they accurately portray the current demands of the industry which have changed – especially once games like The Last of Us started taking full advantage of using Performance Capture.

I'm an award winning screenwriter and filmmaker. No. A videogame (while having technical advantages over film) still cannot compare to traditional film as far as drama and emotion go. Never. One is synthetic and one is natural. One is emulating the other. End of story. I could go way into the vast differences in the creative process, the level of expertise, etc. but ill save my time.

Apologies that I've never heard of the award-winning films by keith0301, but if you'd cite some sources on things that you've done it'd be appreciated.

My concerns about them changing story/plot points are valid. I will try to not be too rigid in my expectations as you said. Its fair to say I will sometimes be disappointed like your brother was with the LOTR movies.

Your last statement shows just how much you didn't seem to understand my initial post. I was not saying that the remake is going to suck because of any of my concerns. I explained that as I was watching a video on Youtube of a sequence of dialogue, and I remembered just how magical the OLD STYLE was. I identified this as being a major (if not the greatest) difference between the remake and the original - and I felt it was being overlooked. It might seem obvious, but it will no doubt completely change the experience. It is something to be aware of and I thought worth discussing. That was really it.

And just like I said, there's zero reason to assume how that worked in the original and adapting that for the Remake being overlooked and will feel incredibly different just because we don't know how it's being handled.




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