The Official "How many parts?" Thread

[Odysseus]

That's the best I got

EDIT:
compare with

 

[Odysseus]

I'm having a hard time grasping what direction we're viewing Midgar from. The mountains behind it imply we've viewing it facing south, and the coastline below it corroborates that, but the landmass jetting out to the left where that second Midgar is doesn't quite line up. It looks like you can just walk around the mountain rather than needing to go through a cave, and the land jets out to sea rather than wrapping around.

 

[FFShinra]

I'm curious if they went through the trouble to make it accurate for a few seconds of a shot. Especially if at the time they might not have been exactly sure how to do the world beyond Midgar.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Can confirm as well that the World book does not have the world map. Neither does the FFVIIR Ultimania, not even a reprint of old versions of the map.

Huh. Neither does the Material Ultimania or the "Midgar no Arukikata."

 

[Obsidian Fire]

The closest you might get is in DoC... where they have a spinning globe of the world at one point on the Shera.... And you can see how streched it looks compared to the OG version.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Oh, the Compilation definitely features the original game's world map. As far as material specific to the remake goes, though, I'm not sure there's any appearances.

 

[Mayo Master]

I tried to map the OG worldmap on a sphere and compare with the remake picture...
It's quite tricky because there's no clear guideline regarding the size of the continents with respect to the size of the planet itself (the OG worldmap does not provide a decent guideline because it does not follow a typical projection). The result is rather unconvincing - I couldn't get a good match.
If Midgar is in the centre of the image, the only possible configuration I've seen that would give a town to the left and a landmass behind Midgar is if the camera view is oriented Eastward, with Kalm on the left. However, the other location of possible reactors aren't matching very well - at best I might believe there's a loose match with the top-right corner location with Fort Condor, but it's a stretch. The location on the top left corner corresponds to... nothing.

tl;dr I thought I could match the topographic features but that didn't happen

 

[Chocobo Eater]

The distance between North Corel and Gold Saucer/Corel Prison makes no damn sense.

 

[Stiggie]

Maybe Shin-Ra starts gathering the Huge Materia earlier this go. They've already introduced in VIIR that Scarlet wants something like it, and even the original game had her bring it up well before Meteor appeared

Yeah, I noticed this as well while replaying, Scarlet is already out looking for huge materia when you get to Gongaga, long before the weapons are even a thing. Having that is a parallel plotline could work as a way to extend playtime without it feeling like events are too far spaced.

The number of parts will depend largely on their release strategy. Nomura mentioned being a fan of releasing smaller games to get content out faster.

I personally would prefer the larger releases so I could get lost in the world of FF7 for a longer duration. If they go the longer route, my guess and hope would be four parts.

I concur with preferring longer releases. I actually like the idea that when the next episode comes the previous one will be long enough ago to almost make me feel nostalgic. I don't need to stay in the hype between releases, I enjoy getting to get excited again.

I'm curious if they went through the trouble to make it accurate for a few seconds of a shot. Especially if at the time they might not have been exactly sure how to do the world beyond Midgar.

I sincerely doubt it. In fact, I'd be willing to wager on it. They probably told the modeler to just make it kinda like the original map, but I don't believe for a second that they went out of their way to predefine what the world would look like, and stick to it, just for that one scene. They're not only not bound to the geography of that particular model, I doubt they even take it into consideration. I also doubt that the layout outside of Midgar will match the opening shot. It will probably look similar, but not the same topology.
Remember, we also see a model of the planet in Bugenhagens astronomy tower back in the day, and I am pretty sure that wasn't accurate either.

 

[cold_spirit]

I thought it would be fun to compare the view with the one we get at the end of Dirge of Cerberus. Since we're in space there's no guaranteeing it's the same perspective, but there's some interesting parallels regardless.

 

[Theozilla]

The distance between North Corel and Gold Saucer/Corel Prison makes no damn sense.

Yeah the inconsistency in the pre-rendered backgrounds and the geography and what’s described in the text was definitely one of the more noticeable blemishes in the OG (even more than the Remake having the Sector 5 slums use the Sector 6 slum’s skybox/plate and the Sector 7 plate debris inconsistencies IMO). Especially with Barret and Dyne being able to see old Corel from North Corel and old Corel existing in a valley surrounded by mountains yet Corel prison in the present is somehow now a desert.

Hope the remake fixes said inconsistencies.

 

[cold_spirit]

I wonder how they'll fix the North Corel to Gold Saucer nonsense. They need the gondola lift to cover some great distance to make it believable that the prison is inescapable. Can't move the gondola lift to a reasonable location otherwise how will customers cross the dangerous desert to get to it. They could make the desert less threatening and wall off the prison, but that ruins the fun of it. I wouldn't be surprised to see the gondola lift moved out of North Corel and placed at the edge of the desert, though that'll also ruin my headcanon that North Corel's residents survive by selling goods to passing customers of the Gold Saucer, adding insult to their injury. Guess they could move the whole town too.

Yeah the inconsistency in the pre-rendered backgrounds and the geography and what’s described in the text was definitely one of the more noticeable blemishes in the OG (even more than the Remake having the Sector 5 slums use the Sector 6 slum’s skybox/plate and the Sector 7 plate debris inconsistencies IMO).

Wish I was like you haha. I barely think about the North Corel to Gold Saucer inconsistency. Remake's plate errors though? They make me want to skip Chapters 8, 13, and 14 entirely haha.

 

[Makoeyes987]

They're just going to move the town and Gondola, and give the Gondola area its own special town location with Shinra employees and personel. They'll probably even be multiple gondolas going to the Gold Saucer. It's really not that big a deal to update and change the location up to fit new and updated aesthetics.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I hope they have concession stands selling popcorn and Dio's Weiners.

 

[FFShinra]

The Gondola is not difficult to reimagine, but if they were to toss the idea out entirely, I imagine it'd be in favor of some sort of airship ferry. Either way, not really difficult to put in place.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I'd put my money on them keeping the gondola, as it's quite beloved.

 

[Saven]

Corel feels like something that was changed last minute in development for OG FFVII as others have said with the inconsistencies. It was always strange to me that North Corel was located so far up north near Mt. Corel when the background on the Gondola screen shows it clearly in the desert, like you were supposed to exit to the world map from the bridge screen in the mountains and then run down to the desert to where North Corel was supposed to be. If there is one thing geographically that I can see changing is that, mainly to cover for the Gondola ride that seems to cover as much distance as a small airplane ride.

 

[JBedford]

I imagined the Gold Saucer was originally meant to be in that desert north of North Corel (the "North Corel Area" where the HP<->MP Materia Cave is, and where North Corel is not). Barret and Dyne look north from Mt. Corel to see Corel burn, and the gondola seems to go north. The gondola wouldn't be travelling nearly as far.

Though that really wouldn't explain a lot of other things. Even the early World Map concepts place the Gold Saucer and its desert where it is. That concept art doesn't place North Corel so I just imagine ideas changed in development without everything being updated to match it.

 

[Odysseus]

That desert IS strangely pointless in the final game

 

[Shademp]

Speaking of that almost-pointless desert, I'm betting that Remake will include the oil derrick mentioned- and visited in On the Way to a Smile: Episode Barret.

Not far to the east of Rocket Town stretched a desert region where hardly any vegetation grew. Situated there was an oil derrick about fifty meters high, and a small, aging refinery built next to it.

Several men and women stood beneath the weathered derrick. One of them was Shera, dressed in a white lab coat.

The engineer standing next to her shook his head. “It’s down seventy percent compared to last month. Bad news, that’s what this is. So how are things goin’ on your end?”

“We’re done. I can’t say it compares to mako, but we’ve managed to take the refining process quite a ways.”

“Knew you’d pull it off. Now we just need the stuff to refine, huh?” The engineer directed his stare toward the ground. Shera couldn’t help but follow his gaze. She thought of the milling drill pipe, whirring away to dig up any oil left underground.

“Just a little more.” Shera clapped her hands together in prayer, but the stain on the back of her left hand wasn’t oil. It was the stigma.

 

[Keveh Kins]

I thought the deserts were caused by the Corel reactor and Gold Saucer respectively sucking up loads of energy

 

[ForceStealer]

Which would make Cait Sith's remark that only one person has escaped considerably less impressive

 

[Makoeyes987]

And that desert isn't really that pointless.

It holds the Materia Cave

 

[Odysseus]

yeah but that's ALL it has. For being a large part of the world map, I usually forget it's even there. Putting the Gold Saucer there rather than to the south honestly makes more sense.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

There's a materia cave in the desert????