I'm not sure I buy that. I'm not even sure it's safe to say that expanding on Zack's story is even relevant to that since, most of the old-school FF7 fans I know didn't play Crisis Core, and didn't like the compilation.
You can't have your cake and eat it too - If this game's core audience is going to be the old-school FF7 fans, then CC once again becomes pretty irrelevant - just look at the time-difference, and sales of the two titles. I don't think you'll find a lot of overlap in the two fan-bases. If anything, most people I know who really enjoyed CC hadn't played the original FF7, or joined the boat with AC.
First of all, putting your anecdotal evidence aside --
Did you seriously just say that you don't think you'll find a lot of overlap between the Crisis Core fans the FFVII fan bases? The game that
LITERALLY ended with the words:
"to be continued in"
FINAL FANTASY VII
Were you attempting to say that those fans aren't going to be interested in playing the remake, or don't represent a good chunk of the existing millions of Final Fantasy VII fans? Or do you believe that most of the so-called real, old-school fans of FFVII (their likes, dislikes, or knowledge of the compilation notwithstanding) don't care about fleshing out Zack's story when the game is remade? Because right now, the argument that you're attempting to make about that bit is incredibly unclear.
I would say there is "a lot of way" they'd completely forgo it, or entirely rewrite most of it -
Firstly, because really, the compilation doesn't mesh well with the original - meaning that some rewriting is going to be necessary in either case, to make the material integrate better.
Secondly - this is a remake/reboot - saying they have to integrate the compilation as is makes no more sense than saying they have to keep it 100% true to the original.
If they're moving away from the original in certain ways, which they are, they can just as well be moving away from the compilation too.
1) Personal opinion, but I don't think that they're suddenly going to just drop off everything from the Compilation -- especially since Crisis Core is built directly into the opening of FFVII.
2) True, but it's a part of the FFVII mythology that's appeared in: Advent Children (Complete), Last Order, Before Crisis, & Crisis Core, so you could say that it's a more concrete part of the FFVII story at this point than how Barrett lost his arm. (Not that it IS, but for argument's sake, there's more detail and story designed around it).
I also think you really overestimate the reach and appeal of the compilation. The one with the biggest reach and popularity is AC with somewhere between 4-5 millions sales world-wide - meaning that it still hasn't been bough half as much as the original game.
The rest of the compilation even less - some, such as the novellas, even border on niche.
Yeah, and Crisis Core is 3.15 million for a
handheld game, not to mention that Crisis Core isn't solely responsible for generating Zack's story as a point of interest amongst the FFVII fans -- in fact, it's the fan interest in his story that drove them to make a game about it (and an anime short, and include clips of his story in AC & BC), which will tell you a bit about the OG fans' opinions on the relevance of Zack's story. This isn't about the Compilation in general, it's about how Zack's story grew throughout almost every. single. piece of it and in many ways was the common thread between them (DoC notwithstanding).
I don't think I've said anything to the contrary - and I think you're actually making the point for me here.
Yes, he was being what he thought a 1st Class Soldier should be, using what little he know of Zack - and granted the huge personality differences and the lack of expansion on Cloud's supposed Soldier life, the natural conclusion of that is that Cloud really didn't know all that much about Zack in context of the original - perhaps, even to the point that when the original story was written, Cloud and Zack might have met for the first time on the Nibelheim mission (the Japanese dialogue, to my mind, seems to indicate this, due to the lack of familiarity, and social-bond signifiers between the two the few times they speak).
...It's made pretty clear in pretty much all of the Compilation that Zack & Cloud don't really
know each other well before that mission, but Cloud looks up to him as a commanding officer, and they're in each others' presence before then, but aren't pals. I'm not sure what your point is here though, because that relationship between them and Zack's very different personality help to distinguish the clear differences between Zack & mentally-messed-up-Cloud as well as the similarities and differences that Aerith notices when she meets him. Those elements are why the pieces of that story are important to portray in a way that's clear and that a good chunk of the fanbase knows of i.e. similar to what Crisis Core gave us in some places.
This is why Zack's story doesn't need expansion to make sense in the original, and therefore won't need it in the remake either. I am not saying cut Zack out here - I am saying it's not necessarily necessary to make a larger tie in to CC to make the remake feel complete in its own right if its focus is primarily on the original narrative.
I also think that you're heavily misunderstanding what everyone means by "expansion" here. The fact that you know what happens to Zack in the OG and you know who his parents are, but can't tell them the story to give them closure feels incomplete. Additionally, providing clarification between Cloud's hazy memory of the events from his time with Mako Poisoning, and the real series of the events as shown in Crisis Core is important to be able to give them an accurate summary of what happened. That's what most people are talking about.
Beyond that, there's the heroic/tragic versions of his death that's been discussed earlier.
I think the same thing. I am simply saying that it isn't inherently necessary, and that people shouldn't get disappointed if that doesn't happen.
If SE had come out and said "We're remaking FF7, and making the definite version tying together the entire FF7 universe!" then I'd be thinking more along your lines.
However, they've just said they're remaking 7 - not the compilation, not the universe, not the franchise - just 7.
I take that to possibly mean exactly that - that we're just getting 7.
After all, regardless of development progress etc. it would cost them nothing to confirm a tie in with the compilation.
The fact that the narration in the trailer suggests changes though - suggest to me, that they might actually be doing a down up rewrite of the entire story - not as in changing everything to something else entirely, but as in cleaning up the mess
(Sephiroth's Masamune coming and going into the plot, and magically
going from Sephiroth's hand into the Mako pit, then suddenly being in Shinra Building, then back to the Jenova/Sephiroth for the death of Aerith for instance - makes no sense, needs to change etc.)
and so maybe we'll see an entirely new death sequence for Zack - or an entirely different integration of how Cloud came to be Cloud.
It isn't impossible. It might even be likely.
So, to summarize - I am just saying I don't think anyone should bank on this game trying to integrate compilation material as is.
There really are good reasons to think otherwise.
We won't know anything until winter, but pretty much all of my counter argument is easily contained in the above YouTube video of the end of Crisis Core. All of the Compilation titles fleshed out the outer fringes of the FFVII world, and the last one came back around directly into the opening sequence of FFVII. If that isn't an indication that the work on the Compilation lead into the current remake, I don't know what is.
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