Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 10:17:26 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Final Fantasy 7 - Remake

Started by Capt.Midnight, June 16, 2015, 11:23:34 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Dewt

I want you to stop posting now.

Abnormal Palm

One thing that this Remake has over the original is the modal jazz version of Tifa's Theme.

Also, u don't have to pretend to care about lil wardrobes or lino, you can just enjoy something for real

Dewt

This isn't working for you. It's just not landing.

I am enjoying trying to work out lil wardrobes and lino are all about though.

Abnormal Palm

Great analysis by Easy Allies and Maximilian Dood here:

https://youtu.be/Rfgw7iDZ-bo


bgmnts

I really like this game now, probably game of the 10s.

Cerys


bgmnts


Jim Bob

Quote from: bgmnts on May 01, 2020, 02:20:40 AM
Fucking hell so it is.

Aye and it's certainly not the game of the 20s.  Everyone knows that was Mahjong.

Cloud

Aaaaand done!  57 hours 41 minutes...and that's just how long it took to write the following walls of text no one will be arsed to read.

In all, I'm glad it happened and despite a few trepidations will definitely be playing part 2, let me say that first.  I'm actually quite looking forward to it.  As long as we live long enough to see the other parts!  A remake was never likely to be perfect and they were never NOT going to meddle with it, so I've not gone into this with those expectations.  The meddling has its pain points that I'll get to in more detail in spoilers.  Really to be honest I wanted an exact upgraded-but-expanded version of the original story without "those other elements" (in the spoilers) but while sitting through the credits reflecting on the game and what they've done - it's obviously an effort to add some new twists and surprises for fans of the original so that we're not just sat there playing through a story we already know.  Seems fair enough and it's appreciated - the only reason I have misgivings about it is because I'm worried, because..... spoilers...

Okay, SPOILERS for the entire game including ending PLUS the original entire game (i.e. the possible future of this game) so if you've not played both this is not for you.  I do know people who have somehow managed to remain blissfully ignorant of things that happen in the original game, which is amazing and I'd hate to be the one to break it.  By the way don't look at the thread tags.  Or most of the thread.  But anyway.

Spoiler alert

It was exactly as I hoped in the beginning, a pretty much perfect replica of the original, tweaked and expanded here and there to make more sense in the new modern style.   

And then it sort of diverged and sort of didn't and then it really sort of did. 

It's like this gradient where it gets more "wrong" the further you go until the end.  First reactor - perfect.  Then it's close enough but the Dementors Whispers start appearing.  Then Sephiroth turns up early.  More Whispers.   Shinra just kind of sends a hologram instead of turning up at reactor 5, but whatever, that seems more sensible of him and I keep on dealing with it.  The extra force of the bomb turns out to be Shinra's doing and not actually the fault of Jessie/Avalanche which takes some of the weight away from the guilt Barrett and Tifa ask themselves about in some conversations that happened on the Highwind in the original, but again I think "whatever" and crack on.

You meet Aerith properly in the church, it's exactly as I remembered and a brilliant reconstruction of that segment.  Then before too long the first signs of proper fourth wall breaking - flash-forwards about her death.  Little hints, flashes of her Holy materia falling.  I think "well okay, newcomers to FF7 won't realise it's about that so whatever" but then you think "well then it's talking to us, the people who've played the original.  What's it saying?  What does it add to the story for Cloud to have glimpses of the future?"

From there for a while it's pretty much following the original game again, except for that moment Cait Sith appears.  Again: Newcomers probably won't think much of it even though it's technically ruining a surprise but... why?  What's the point of him showing up?

And then more divergence.  You can do what you (well, what I) always wanted to do in the original, and get back into Sector 7 and see who survived.  And here's your first major retcon: Wedge is alive.  But, I can take this, you never did see for yourself that BW&J were dead and I did wonder through the first play of the original whether they'd turn up alive sometime.  But still, they didn't, their deaths were talked about, and this time they did.  Retcon.  Or is it.....?  Discovering early that Wedge was still alive is, but maybe in the original he survived.  Otherwise wouldn't the Whispers have something to say about it?

Anyway that aside and in your mind you carry on to Shinra and all the rest of it.  And then it gets crazy.  Flash-forwards of Meteor and the destruction of Midgar.  All this talk about the arbiters of fate.  Barrett freaking DIES, and I think "WHAT THE HOLY FUCK? NO I WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS RETCON WITH NO BARRETT IN PART 2, SCREW IT ALL TO HELL" and then as if they heard, bam, they give him a Dementor's Kiss of Life and he's back.  And then I kind of realised just how meta this game is getting.  The arbiters of fate are YOU.  The player who's played the original, and thinks they can call the shots, and they represent a conversation between you and the writers who want to shake things up.  They humour you and bring Barrett back to life because that "wasn't his fate".  But what will they, and what will you and the characters, do when Aerith is supposed to die?  Well, isn't that the question?  It's like it's challenging you to defy "fate" and save her this time.  And maybe even stop Meteor and save Midgar while you're at it. 

This can go one of two ways:
1) Gets people's hopes up that they can change things but just like last time, you try to stop Meteor, you try to call out to Aerith, but you can't.  Things still go wrong, you still have some darkness to get through before anyone "lives happily ever after".  Probably the better way, but also a bit mean to dangle that extra carrot. Just let things happen like they did in the first place

2) The story becomes about defying fate and writing yourself a new future instead of what happened in the original.  Oh bloody great. I'd have loved to do things like reviving Aerith in the original back in the day but part of that game's history is that you CANNOT, that sometimes things don't go your way, and part of 'digesting' that game is really a parallel to acceptance in the real world - things go wrong.  People die.  People you love.  You can't undo it, you can't magically "defy fate", they're dead.  This is my biggest problem with all this - the worry that they'll meddle with future instalments and let the player just be a massive Mary Sue that wins at everything and saves everyone.  Aerith survives, Midgar survives, fate is told to go do one and everyone lives happily ever after.

So then you have all the weird parallel / future universe stuff, have exactly the fight with Sephiroth that was meant to be at the very end of the final game, and it appears to then get back to normal almost as if none of it ever happened and you just escaped Midgar like the original.  Oh apart from the weird bits where you see Zack, who you're not supposed to know about until WAY later when Sephy is screwing with your mind. Oh just... whatever.  A lot of my discomfort is, as represented by the Whispers, seeing things happen differently to what they're "supposed" to.  Oh and then Biggs is alive - well, I suppose you didn't technically check his pulse and announce that he's dead, and you did just say he was "in really bad shape, I'm sorry", but.. well, seems Barrett is destined to leave his old buddies for dead when he could have saved them :D

So yeah the way they're taking this.  Who knows?  The Whispers / Arbiters clearly IMO represent players of the original who want things to go as they were "supposed to" but to what extent (and I wonder if Jessie is alive).  Perhaps they leave the story alone but if someone was supposed to live or die they intervene.  In which case it's saying that Biggs and Wedge survived in the original.  Which is plausible, you just never saw them.


Other things then.....
Just being able to see the plates above you (or the lack of one when it falls) makes a huge difference to the atmosphere, for the better.  You just kind of have to take everyone's word for it in the original.  Heck let's just say, the graphics are amazing and I can't wait to see what the wider world looks like.

Materia system - love it, very similar to the original.  It's just a shame it's not a single game so that you can nurture a set of materia right through to the end, as there's nothing more satisfying than getting a full set of Master Materia.  I imagine they'll start you off with some basics for part 2 rather than have you wade in super powerful from your part 1 save.

Battle system - I actually like that too.  Personal taste, I know some wanted the original turn based thing.  It's taken a few games for them to get this right - I didn't like XII with the 'gambits' thing, I didn't like XIII which was a hack-and-slash but with those weird "modes" you could set your characters to, and what I played of XV was a bit hack-and-slash too.  This finally strikes a nice balance between action and strategy, pausing to let you choose magic/actions.  Good stuff. 

Some of the added depth was great.  Controlling Aerith and saving Marlene - that was lovely, touching, made me tear up at one point.  New characters like Marle are a nice addition.  Seeing the upper plate of sector 7 was cool.  The first part of the Shinra HQ was EXCELLENT, thanks to the inspired idea of making Mayor Domino an Avalanche plant and explaining that it's him who's enabled you to bumble around so far.  The whole Shinra section made a LOT more sense than thinking "why's this maze here?  Why's this puzzle game here?  Why am I being attacked by a robot fish centipede thing in the middle of a freaking corridor?" as before. 

Some of the padding was shit.  Anything that has you running back and forward across platforms for hours, so particularly reactor 5 and Hojo's secret lab.  Tedious pain in the arse, both of them.

What they did with the train graveyard was pretty good, if a little lengthy (again).  The ghost, neato.  I wondered if we'd see that guy on the chariot who you can steal a weapon from and sure enough he didn't disappoint.  I really like a little later on how they meet the ghost again and Aerith sort of calms his soul and sends him on his way back to the planet. Made me think of Yuna, which is an interesting point as Nomura commented at one time that FFX-2 and FFVII are connected (it's heavily implied in X-2 that the kid is the same Shinra, or perhaps an ancestor).

Johnny!  Yeah a very minor character in the original but who I hoped to see fleshed out.  I don't know how much I regret it though :D

As predicted, the battle banter gets old.  Well, apart from hearing Barrett suddenly bellowing out the victory fanfare, which is hilarious every time.  But things like "get behind me" "yep! Then I've got your back~" get a bit repetitive the 500th time you hear them.

It's a bit quick when Shinra is killed.  It was a big moment in the original but in this one someone new to the game could blink and not realise and then wonder who the hell Rufus is.  That is, assuming Shinra IS dead - at this point who knows, anyone could turn out to be alive.

Much like the original, it's quite thought provoking with its allegory to human induced climate change (and its ironic references to corporate greed, considering how many £50 instalments it's likely to be in).  Barrett makes some comments about the complicity of standing by being a part of it all that sort of hit home ("I feel personally attacked!" as they say on Reddit), even though in reality probably none of us will go around blowing things up to save the planet and we'll probably just carry on listening to motivating comments on video games while the world burns around us.
[close]

Hopefully none of this sounds like I either hate it or refuse to see the worst in it, or are trying to enforce any kind of tone or narrative.  Thoughts are lengthy about the things that bug me but I don't hate them, a lot of it is "I'm worried about the direction they'll take it later" and "I'm upset on behalf of other people that they won't experience quite the same story as what I did in 1997".  Iverall I have actually thoroughly enjoyed playing it.  It got me thinking and wondering where it'll go next, rather than just being a blow by blow remake, which is arguably more interesting.

Oh yeah the music... as others have said, a mixed bag.  I thought there were some great versions of old tracks - but also some naff ones.  I liked most of the battle remixes.

Will I go back through the chapters and try to get all the trophies?  Hmmmmm maybe later.  I am ready to play something else for a bit.

Thursday

It's really fun having finished this and having had time to dwell on it watching other people giving their thoughts as they progress through it not knowing what they're in for.

Abnormal Palm

Yeah, totally agree, Thurs, and enjoyed your thoughts, Cloud. Genuinely bold stuff when people who haven't even played it are getting the Epipens out. Shows how important this game is to people, and I really respect the balls on SE. FF7 is going nowhere, perfectly fossilised forever, but FF7R has a future.

Cloud

Aye they've got balls, I'll give them that!  Only time will tell where they go with it and how it'll be received when all is said and done in several years.

Thursday

I've warmed to it over time actually, from what I've seen of a translated interview, they still plan to hit a lot of the same beats and locations, even though obviously some things will change, there's still no reason the likes of Junon/Costa Del Sol/Corel/Gold Saucer/Cosmo Canyon etc need to play out much differently.

Spoiler alert
I think what they'll actually do with Aerith - is that she survives that moment, and then that can have all sorts of interesting ramifications, maybe make it look like they're going for a happier timeline - all in service of making it more devastating when she has to die at the end. Sure that "You have to die to correct the timeline" thing is cliche. But it would be really interesting to have her actually be alive for longer so you can spend more time with the character - see how she reacts at certain events. Considering her death is such a well known game spoiler, even with people who never played the original, you can't create the same impact in a remake, which is why you need to keep people guessing.

Still think it was nonsense to have you actually fight Sephiroth at the end, just fighting the big destiny God was enough to get across the concept, but it's exciting to think about what they could do with it. Still very concerned at their ability to handle it, but even then they'll surely hit some great bits along the way when they just take from the original source material
[close]


Timothy

QuoteFinal Fantasy 7 Remake feels like it took forever to come out, but actually, it's been on Square Enix's mind "for a very long time," according to new information found in an Ultimania book interview (translated by Twitter user aitaikimochi).

Clarifying when the idea for the "Remake Project" started, director Tetsuya Nomura and producer Yoshinori Kitase noted that it would have came out a while ago, but the team was "short on resources" and "busy with other things." According to Nomura, this is actually the fifth installment of the "Compilation of FFVII," a term widely used by Square. The others? Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus.

While Final Fantasy VII proper is an absolute legend of a classic, a lot of folks tagged out for all of the above craziness. Advent Children is an animated film that takes some of the more insane elements of FF7 and dials them up to 11. Before Crisis is probably the silliest idea of them all: a mobile phone prequel on a now dead platform. Crisis Core is possibly the most beloved in the form of a proper PSP prequel featuring Zack, but also took many liberties with the canon established in the PSOne entry. And Dirge of Cerberus, while filling in some narrative gaps, is probably the least offensive project as it was mainly a pure action romp with fan-favorite Vincent Valentine.

Amid making all of this, Remake was still on Kitase and Nomura's mind. Kitase explains that once the Final Fantasy series hit its 25th anniversary, the crew knew it was time to get serious. To actually hit that mark they needed to get started "as soon as possible," a process that Kitase says "got the ball rolling" at the company. Apparently the nail in the coffin was when producer Shinji Hashimoto said that he wanted to "correct some of the graphics from FFVII Advent Children [again, an animated film]." From then on, the team was assembled. For reference, the 25th anniversary of the series was held in 2012.

So there you have it: the story of how the project began, and why it took so long to actually materialize.

https://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-7-remake-director-says-that-the-new-remake-is-the-fifth-installment-of-the-vii-compilation-588813.phtml

Timothy

And

QuoteThanks to the recent Ultimania book for Final Fantasy VII Remake, we're learning just how much of a little stinker director Tetsuya Nomura can be.

Amid statements that he "can't tell us what the second meaning behind the 'Remake' title is just yet." he and producer Yoshinori Kitase recently commented vaguely on the future of the Remake project: both from a philosophical and practical perspective. While Kitaste maintains that they are keeping with the core story of the original, Nomura notes that the game "might be broken into shorter stories" so they can release it quicker.

While Remake newcomers are probably floored at where the series could go next, folks who enjoyed the original have some idea of what's to come. While Kitase made no promises, he slighted hinted that the expectation was for VII Remake to be a trilogy: which would put the total project at $180 MSRP for about 120 hours of gameplay.

https://www.destructoid.com/how-many-episodes-do-you-want-final-fantasy-vii-remake-to-be--588808.phtml

All news is coming from the Ultimania book.

Dewt

They[nb]the people making the game[/nb] definitely have no idea what's coming next, right now.

Cloud

Quote from: Thursday on May 01, 2020, 06:36:25 PM
I've warmed to it over time actually, from what I've seen of a translated interview, they still plan to hit a lot of the same beats and locations, even though obviously some things will change, there's still no reason the likes of Junon/Costa Del Sol/Corel/Gold Saucer/Cosmo Canyon etc need to play out much differently.

Yep....

Spoiler alert
The fact that Red immediately offers to lend a.. nose, suggests maybe the Cosmo Canyon bit will be a little different.  IIRC, in the original when they dropped out of Midgar he just bluntly said he'd go as far as home, then the CC section was a big (and very Japanese Warrior) "growing up" thing about him learning about his heroic father and basically being told to go and be a hero himself.  This time it seems he's already on board and acts heroic and mature enough.

On the Aerith front I was wondering the same thing with the cliché of having to die to set the timeline right.  Cruel, but so was the original killing her off in the first place, so fair enough.  Whether the modern crew would have the heart given that they seemingly didn't have the heart to kill off Wedge (or later Biggs) remains to be seen, unless it's to lull players into a false sense of security about the characters.

I think, didn't she have a few hidden lines in the original PSX code because she was originally going to be killed in the crater?  But yeah it'd be interesting to see what she really has to say to events that she wouldn't have seen before.

Another thought occurs: that maybe she already knows.  I got the odd little feeling from her (especially when she's talking with Cloud in her garden, or later on when she's talking about living every moment) that very subtly hint she may be well aware what fate has in store for her.  There are a couple of times when she's got those kind of sad knowing eyes behind her smile.  It's extremely subtle but it follows along with the original which also seemed (in hindsight in subsequent playthroughs) to very slightly hint of an awareness as well, and she's already well known for keeping secrets like that whole thing with the Holy materia.  It's interesting, as if she believes it has to happen then she could effectively end up working against Cloud and the others.
[close]

Abnormal Palm

^ I got a very similar vibe about Aerith.

Cloud

QuoteThanks to the recent Ultimania book for Final Fantasy VII Remake, we're learning just how much of a little stinker director Tetsuya Nomura can be.

Heh heh... he's certainly divisive that guy....

QuoteAmid statements that he "can't tell us what the second meaning behind the 'Remake' title is just yet."

Well,
Spoiler alert
I think that pretty much settles it now as with the "fighting destiny to change the future" thing it has going on 'Ooh, Remake has a second meaning!' is exactly what I was thinking in those final chapters.
[close]

Cloud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HNHCQ396r8

"It's a lot like Cloud in a dress"

(SPOILERS)


BTW I like the addition of Anime Boy to the Corneo stuff, as well as the casting of Pokemon's Clemont as the dude who makes materia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdx_yXQgv7E

Cloud

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2020/05/02/the-big-plot-twist-of-final-fantasy-vii-remake-is-brilliantbut-i-hate-it/

This (spoilers) echoes my take on it in a better way than I could.

Just had a thought
Spoiler alert
what would be really interesting, is if in subsequent parts they design it so you can decide whether to pursue the destiny path (be a stickler for the original canon) or not.  If "Aerith dies" is a fixed event, it's easier to accept and embrace as part of the faithful canon.  But if you're faced with a choice "do you want her to die to preserve the original course of events, even though you now have a choice?", That might be a bit different and give you something to think about.
[close]

Jim Bob

Quote from: Cloud on May 04, 2020, 01:12:03 AM
Just had a thought
Spoiler alert
what would be really interesting, is if in subsequent parts they design it so you can decide whether to pursue the destiny path (be a stickler for the original canon) or not.  If "Aerith dies" is a fixed event, it's easier to accept and embrace as part of the faithful canon.  But if you're faced with a choice "do you want her to die to preserve the original course of events, even though you now have a choice?", That might be a bit different and give you something to think about.
[close]

That would be interesting but it'll never happen because it would mean Square Enix effectively doubling their workload and developing two separate scenarios based around whichever path players chose for the remainder of the game.  There's a reason why Telltale Games' The Walking Dead series would give players the choice of saving or killing a character in one episode, only to reset the status quo to the same state for all players early on in the following episode (for example, if you saved one of your party in episode 1, that same character would automatically be killed in episode 2).

Cloud

Quote from: Jim Bob on May 04, 2020, 02:52:56 AM
That would be interesting but it'll never happen because it would mean Square Enix effectively doubling their workload and developing two separate scenarios based around whichever path players chose for the remainder of the game.  There's a reason why Telltale Games' The Walking Dead series would give players the choice of saving or killing a character in one episode, only to reset the status quo to the same state for all players early on in the following episode (for example, if you saved one of your party in episode 1, that same character would automatically be killed in episode 2).

You mean they wouldn't just use it as an excuse to make each part even smaller? ;)

It does make playing in sequence a necessity though and I have my doubts whether they'd ever do that rather than support customers who are dumb enough to start with part 4 or whatever

Abnormal Palm

Vaguely spoilery for the Remake, but no specifics.

I'm sure that 95% of the story beats will follow the original because the source material characters and locations and story are the reason why people have any interest in the Remake. All this means is that they now have licence and narrative justification to subvert expectations. Essentially, we are asking that one big question here, but it also means that they can surprise us at any moment. Having set up that tension now, they basically have to take advantage of it at some point, otherwise it will seem like a completely pointless plot development in hindsight. If they do stick exactly to the original story now, they might as well have not bothered with Ch 18. I certainly don't love how they did it (Whispers are pretty naff) but I do really like the metanarrative stuff about resistance to change and the liberation of being unshackled from expectation.


Timothy

QuoteQuote by Kitase on how different the #FF7R will be from the original story:

"We're not drastically changing the story and making it into something completely different than the original. Even though it's a Remake, please assume the story of FF7 will continue as FF7 always has."



Abnormal Palm

Haha great ten years of 'bring da noose'

Cloud

SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING yadayada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmDI0ascWdc

This is really interesting, and if that's the way they're taking it then I think I'm on board. 
Spoiler alert
Funny enough it reminds me a bit of Doki Doki Literature Club, where the one who kind of is destined to be deleted becomes self aware and does everything she can to stop it, and drops in hints that she knows.  Except Aerith being Aerith this is in the Planet and humanity's interest, not hers
[close]

Dewt

Reminds me of bad, bad game club.