Thoughts on how to expand the Midgar scenario

cold_spirit

he/him
AKA
Alex T
Now that we have official word that VIIR Part 1 will consist entirely of Midgar, I thought I'd share a thought or two as to how they'll accomplish this narratively.

So far I've mostly read comments on how the Remake can expand the story BETWEEN the beats we already know. What I want to suggest is that the vast majority of expansion will happen AFTER the Midgar scenario of the original. As in, we won't be leaving Midgar when we rescue Aerith. Instead, entirely new scenarios will play out. What we know of Midgar from the original will only comprise of the first parts of the Remake.

I'd like to point out that the furthest we've gone chronologically in the footage we've seen is exploring the Shinra Building. If the Remake replicates the original's events, that would mean we're looking at footage of the final dungeon. I find it hard to believe that they're already showing the last hours of the game in this expanded narrative. However, we've seen endgame content in trailers before, so this isn't a very strong point admittedly.

Secondly, HP values. During the Bombing Mission, the start of the game, Cloud has HP in the early-1000s. By Aps he has HP in the mid-2000s. While not as far as the Shinra Building, that's still a decent chunk into the original's Midgar scenario. It seems suspicious to me that HP would only grow 1 to 2 thousand over the course of the whole game. Kitase recently stated that VIIR is the "size of an entire numbered Final Fantasy game" and I expect that to also be reflected in the character progression. However, numbers can be fudged for presentations and testing, so once again not the best point.

Finally, and in my opinion the most damning, we have Red XIII. Recruiting Red XIII is at the tail end of the original's time in Midgar. In an action RPG with three party members, there's no way they'd have you play 90% of the game with only four characters to choose from, then add the last one right before the final boss. So much work goes into building a playable character between animation, game balance, and voice acting. To not allow the player to have sufficient time with that character would be a crime.

So as I consider what will be expanded in the Remake, I think big and I think late. Maybe after rescuing Aerith the party escapes through an alternative method? And must covertly fight against Shinra while Midgar is under martial law? In the newest key art, Sephiroth is standing amongst a sea of flames and industrial debris along with his new wraith buddies. Something has to lead up to this. I think we're in for more than a few surprises.
 

jazzflower92

Pro Adventurer
AKA
The Girl With A Strong Opinion
Given that the new players will be from a generation who have seen terrorism in a different light, than those who first played in the 90's; the developers should have more emphasis on how Advalanche's tactics are wrong.
 

Mayo Master

Pro Adventurer
I like the idea of having the storyline going around some other paths than the one we already know - I don't mean to change the main plot points (for one thing, I'm hoping for a similar ending of the arc, which was pretty epic in the OG) but rather the journey between them. In a way, I would very much like the game to keep giving good surprises.
Reminiscing about how it felt like to play the game for the first time (when it was new, without spoilers), I think that having story element neatly under wraps until the REVEAL was one of the strong aspects of the game. For one thing, the OG box and booklet staged the game by presenting Shinra as the main antagonist, while Sephiroth was depicted as an elusive legendary figure without even any artwork shown anywhere. So when you reach the last floor of the Shinra building and find the President dead, it's quite a bit of a shock. Obviously they couldn't take the same angle for the Remake as they did for the OG, given Sephiroth's fame in the world of video games. Nevertheless, I wonder how it could be possible for the Remake to deliver that kind of element of surprise, while still being faithful to the OG - quite a conundrum, it seems.
 

Mother

Pro Adventurer
AKA
B
You know what I'm most excited for? A great thing about having just the Midgar portion expanded is that we'll get to have Biggs, Wedge and Jessie as fully fleshed-out characters for a pretty big portion of this game which also means that their loss will feel that much more heart-wrenching and impactful. I'm fully prepared to fall in love with them proper; I think it's going to be great.
 

Don Corneo's Dungeon

Pro Adventurer
It'll be interesting to see how they portray The Turks.

Will they continue to have them as a bit of a dangerous yet comical / inept bunch or will they actually turn them into a more fearsome group
 

Ite

Save your valediction (she/her)
AKA
Ite
I would still like for radial missions to affect the major story missions. For instance, if you do a sweeper factory mission before the Sector 5 reactor, it will remove the sweeper enemies from the reactor zone.

Getting to Shinra HQ could also be less simple than just climbing up and walking through the front/side door. Don’t know how you could expand it without taking the fun out of the mega-dungeon (for instance, getting keycards before getting to HQ kind of muddies up the flow of the setpiece). But it could be done!
 

FFShinra

Sharp Shinra Shill
Also a way to expand would be how avalanche deals with certain non-shinra third parties, like Corneo's mob most obviously, but possibly other anti-Shinra groups, non-combatant groups, etc.
 

cun10294

Pro Adventurer
Yeah, I don't really like the idea of them showing Sephiroth in the first part - Shinra arc either, the small journey to following the blood trail and a mystery figure you only heard the name mention without knowing anything about them was actually thrilling, a pretty great introduction for Sephiroth. However, since he's kinda famous now with his face everywhere, I guess they just have to promote this a different way, for the new players to be surprised by the fact that he's not gonna show up in the first part at all.
 

Eerie

Fire and Blood
Given that the new players will be from a generation who have seen terrorism in a different light, than those who first played in the 90's; the developers should have more emphasis on how Advalanche's tactics are wrong.

When the game was out, Europeans AND Japanese players surely had already seen terrorism from front row (IRA and sarin attacks, for example). That remark is only valid for US-Canada-Australia (?) I guess.
 

gapone90

Lv. 1 Adventurer
It would be really cool for Shinra staff to be briefly playable in some parts.
Exactly! I would love it. Playable Turks are obvious choice here:) Considering all of them have slightly different battle styles, it would be very interesting.

Additional ideas on the topic:

More sidequests in Wall Market. For example, to engage in conflict with some local gangs (I am sure there are some criminal minds in WM). Or mini-game where you can actually have a boxing fight with Big Bro (Tifa?) :lol: Travel between sectors and see differences on the living standards in the city would be neat too, even for the purpose of some courier jobs.
And also, due to the fact that Cloud is introduced as mercenary, let us give him some opportunities to make money. Bodyguarding, transport protection, monster hunting etc. ;)
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
Given the way that the Midgar portion originally ends – it's already designed as a perfect endcap to the first game. As Maximilian Dood has put it, it's VERY much going to give us the sense that you get at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, where you're setting out into the vast terrors of a much, MUCH larger world. Really, just rewatch that scene:


Now watch the end of the Midgar section:


In order to sell that ending, you have to establish Sephiroth as something that Cloud feels inextricably obligated to finish, and that that ties in everything from before, so that he's actually acting as the defacto leader for that quest to save the Planet rather than the shrugging Ex-SOLDIER who you met at the start of the game.

This game is all about you being a group of terrorists who feel trapped with no other options. No way to save the world aside from resorting to violence with the collateral damage of countless innocents. Something you're driven towards but uncomfortable with. Meanwhile, Cloud's all messed up and slowly his nightmares are coming back to life. The President is dead and Sephiroth is alive, and YOU have to go end him. It's the solution that everyone can come together to believe in.

That's not gonna cut to Red XIII somehow scaling down a conveniently-placed crane hook.

It's easy to still have the end overlooking the horizon at where your journey is going to take you, change to credits, and then allow you to continue and explore things in Midgar. Especially because Nanaki is a late addition to the part here, I bet that there'll be plenty of things left for you to do, and character-specific quests in all sorts of places around Midgar that'll represent the way that the party actually prepares before setting out and will give us a sense of what things in Midgar are like while Rufus is away, and the President is dead. There's plenty there for post-endgame content, as well as numerous opportunities to expand on the events and scope of how everything leading up to that plays out in order to sell the journey endcap that it's moving towards.




X :neo:
 

Wolf_

Pro Adventurer
I’d like to see more missions leading up to the reactor bombings. On the trailer where it zooms out from Aeris, you’ve got an industrial sector next door. It would be cool to have multiple perspectives. Maybe Barret and the rest of Avalanche starting their campaign by attacking facilities before jumping into the deep end. I suppose that would depend on if the game starts with the iconic jumping off the train scene or that’s later down the line.

Considering the sense of grandeur and the fact it’s on two discs, it’s hard to believe we won’t be able to explore all of the slums and a huge percentage of the upper plates. Just getting to the Shinra building will be over an hour I would imagine going off the scale. In the trailer as it pans up the tower, about half way up you see a section that looks like where part of the first trailer was set (soldiers in the rain).
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
When the game was out, Europeans AND Japanese players surely had already seen terrorism from front row (IRA and sarin attacks, for example). That remark is only valid for US-Canada-Australia (?) I guess.
Here in the U.S., the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and (particularly) the Oklahoma City bombing (1995) were still quite fresh in our memories.
 

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
This could probably spin into it's own thread, but what is everyone's thoughts on Red XIII's integration. Now that we know for certain that Part I is solely in Midgar, he will obviously no longer just be introduced right at the end.
 

Ite

Save your valediction (she/her)
AKA
Ite
This could probably spin into it's own thread, but what is everyone's thoughts on Red XIII's integration. Now that we know for certain that Part I is solely in Midgar, he will obviously no longer just be introduced right at the end.

What makes you say that? If nothing is changed about his role, he's almost a tease for Part 2 (although you do get him for 2, maybe 3 boss fights at least and a good chunk of story during the Midgar finale sequence.) I think it could be perfectly fine - the same surprise for new players of the game, thinking they can predict the story now that they're at big bad HQ.
 

Wolf_

Pro Adventurer
I expect it to be like the original but in more detail. He joins them out of a mutual necessity of fighting the boss and escaping, but he doesn’t trust them enough with his real name. He quite rightfully has a distrust of humans. My only real want is after Cosmo Canyon they call him Nanaki and when he gets there ask about Deneh. He was taken to save her after all.

I wonder, considering how much stuff they are putting into the remake that was planned but eventually cut, if they’ll go with the whole cobalt and indigo plot.
 
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