FF 7 remake

[CritialGaming]

So they came out and assured us that we could look forward to those little quirks like the cross-dressing scene, the honey bee inn, and don corneo's mansion in the remake. Everything sounds good so far in terms of this being a very faithful remake. However we know that the dev team is not going to be anything near what the original team was, and if I remember correctly the current dev studio is one that is not really known for quality shit. Which worries me, because even if they remain faithful, if the dev half-asses it, the experience can still suck. Let's hope they don't rush it and make sure they do it right.

After all, it has been 17 years already, what's a couple more to make sure we get the game we've always wanted?

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I've never played FF7, I wasn't particularly looking forwards to a remake, and I realize that it's only a pre-rendered cutscene, but...

Damn, that's a pretty re-rendered cutscene. If the game looks half that good I'll get it

 

[Elidibus]

I remember seeing the PS3 FF7 tech demo the day it was released. I immediately went all over the internet to find out as much information as I could. I even joined all of the threads on Gamefaqs and checked on them regularly. However, with every passing year, my hope dwindled and eventually I just stopped following the threads and gave up.

Now, I see that my dreams have come true. FF7 is the game I spent the most time on in my life (it helped to be a teenager back then) and it was a big part of my growing up, the way my friends and I would compete with each other for the "perfect materia setup" I bought the PS One because of FF7. And I'm buying the PS4 because of FF7.

This is your big chance, Square. I've become disenfranchised with the Final Fantasy series since 13, and it had been dwindling since FF X-2. Do this game justice. Because, asides from a true Parasite Eve sequel or remake, I'm probably won't come back and just opt to replay the classics over and over again.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I really enjoyed Final Fantasy VII and it's one of the few Final Fantasy titles I've gone through more than once. As for the remake, I'm really pleased that it's in development but I would have liked more information. As overused as it is, I would have also liked to have seen the Nibelheim Burning sequence (even if it was just a couple of seconds of it). An indication as to how complete it is would have been nice as well as a release window. At the moment though, I'm not expecting Final Fantasy VII-R until 2019 or 2020. It would be nice to have it before then but I know better than to expect it this, next or even the following year.

As for what I want out of it; I really want to see The Golden Saucer expanded upon. I also really want to see more snowboarding courses and maybe even races. Adding in additional WEAPONS would be pretty awesome too. Finally, I'm kinda torn on this but, since he was such a major plot element in Crisis Core, I think it would be appropriate to incorporate G in FFVII-R. As for the combat system, I want FFXIII's system to be completely ignored. I would be perfectly happy with turn-based combat but I'm not sure how that would work outside of making the combat completely cinematic as it plays out but stopping time to input character commands.

 

[Drathnoxis]

The music will change and be J-Pop crap.

Yea, because that was totally what was playing during the trailer.

It may not have been J-pop, but it certainly wasn't anything from FF7, except a teeny bit of the opening theme at the very end.

The graphics will make everyone look like emo fucks, rather than the usual diverse team. I like original FF Cloud, who was determined, rather than new "Life is suffering" Cloud in everything else.

First, lol at implying cast in original were not emo.

Second, lol at implying the 5 polygon model in the original could look like anything but expressionless 5 polygon models.

Actually, though the models were kind of ugly, animations were used to add a great deal of expression to the characters, like Clouds 'cool guy' pose, or Barrets chest thumping. Actually, I think that each character had some animations that were unique to just them.

I was never the biggest fan of the original, but this was my first reaction as well when I heard of the remake, and the trailer only cemented it. The world looks nothing like in the original, on a very basic aesthetic level. When you are doing a remake, that is the first thing you have to get right, otherwise you will end up with a lot of fans being hit by a peculiar uncanny valley effect and getting pissed.

Yea, this world looks nothing like the original, which is why people immediately recognized Midgar and the playground when it showed up... oh wait.

Yeah, people immediately recognized the playground in Midgar because they did such a stellar job of rebuilding it exactly as it was in FF7.

Spoiler: ...oh wait.

Playground from trailer.

Playground from original game.

Were these supposed to be the same place?

OT: I thought the voice over in the trailer was kind of strange. Why would they not use some memorable quote from the game and instead elect to make up some pretentious sounding nonsense? In fact, nothing from the trailer really seemed to come from FF7. I mean, sure, you can see it if you know what to look for, but there really wasn't anything familiar about the trailer at all. I wonder, if there was nothing in the video or the title that actually stated it was a FF7 remake trailer, how many people would still come to that conclusion?

This leads me to believe that Square Enix will not be making the kind of faithful remake that I've been waiting for and will instead attempt to make it their own thing.

Honestly, the tech demo from 2006 was a much better trailer for a FF7 remake and got me way more excited. It did the two things that a trailer for a remake should do.
1) It was instantly recognizable as belonging to it's source as it was the FF7 intro verbatim.
2) It was obviously a remake, because the intro was... remade.

That's all it takes and they seem to have gone to a great deal of effort to distance themselves from the original with the new trailer.

Edit: I'm not sure I'm much of a fan of the art style that they are using now. The old art style was much more, for lack of a better word, anime.

 

[elvor0]

It's nothing special really. The gameplay was mediocre to me, and I wouldn't call it the Best game of all time. The story was average at best, because "saving the world" hasn't been beaten to death right?

So what? That's the plot, not the story. Saving the world is a framing device that is perfectly fine to use. Are we not allowed to use fairly standard writing tools anymore because it's too mainstream? It's how you tell the story that's the important thing.

This brings up a good time to ask all you ff7 fans

How many of you knew about Sephiroths killing Aerith before playing it?

This isn't even spoiler is it?

I didn't. It was a genuinely shocking moment for me. I remember that much.

"Long ago, we looked upon a foreboding sky. The memory of the star that threatened all burns eternal in our hearts."

He's talking about Jenovah, I guess? I thought people didn't really know much about that in-game? Am I misremembering?

It could be Cloud or someone else referring to the meteor like a narrator who knows the ending might.

I'm guessing Red 13. He outlives Midgar itself, so he's certainly one of the only characters who would end up being old enough for the events of FF7 to be "long ago", presumably telling his cubs.

Did I say it wasn't allowed? No, I didn't, but the story was pretty predictable, but thats a given since I knew what to expect since the fans tend to spoil what happens. Like I said it was nothing special in my opinion, I'm not sorry if my opinion is different then yours regarding FF VII. Since it's pretty overrated.

I just don't think that complaining about the framing device of "save the world" is a constructive complaint. It's an epic fantasy game, /of course/ you're going to be saving the world. People are more than welcome to dislike it, just dislike it for reasons that are fair. To extrapolate I mean "I don't like that there is a villian" isn't a fair complaint, "I dislike the villian" is a fine complaint.

Also, can you really deem the plot as predictable if you'd been told and doubtless had the plot spoiled multiple times over the years? Thats kind of...."well I figured out what was going to happen" "Oh how so?" "Someone told me".

When you're told vital plot points over and over by fans on message boards, you will know what to expect, maybe not all the details, but I was able to piece together based on info fans have said on message boards.

Of course I gave the game a chance and it's story even with the knowledge I had of it's plot, even then I still thought "I seen it all before."

I hate to bring up Dragon Age II, because I know alot of people hate that game, but using it as an example, you can still have a fantasy game, and still not center around saving the world. I'm not saying Dragon Age II had a great story, and I do agree it was incoherent, but I preferred Hawke's story and how he/she rose up in the game, then trying to kill a generic villain wishing to destroy the world for no reason at all, it's one of the criticisms I said about Dragon Age: Inquisition. The game's story was average, so was FF VII. I never said it was bad by any means, just generic in my opinion.

I don't like the usual "save the world" tropes we have in most games, however I can forgive an average story because I'm playing a video game, I play it for the gameplay. FF VII again in my opinion didn't have fantastic gameplay to back up the long hours it has. I can also forgive it's average story if the characters were likable, had good character development, and they were interesting in my opinion.

Different strokes, for different folks and to sum it up, it was just an average RPG, it wasn't terrible, but nothing special in my opinion. I wasn't captivated by it when it was released in the 90s.

Yes well, that's fair enough, I can get behind that, I don't /agree/ on all points but for the most point yeah different strokes. However! "I've seen it all before" is one of those things you've got to think about in retrospect, yeah you've seen it all before /now/ but FF7 is at least for video games codifier of a lot of it's tropes or elements. Is it fair that the game gets the blame for "seen it all before" or "generic" when it came "first"?

Though I'd say although DA2s story itself isn't about saving the world, it's very much a set up for it, due to being the second game in (at least) a trilogy. Given there's an overall running story though the Dragon Age games, you just experience it through the eyes of different characters, the plot is still about saving the world, just Hawke wasn't the man to do so, he's a cog in a far larger machine.

This brings up a good time to ask all you ff7 fans

How many of you knew about Sephiroth's killing Aerith before playing it?

This isn't even spoiler is it?

I did not. I was only 6 or 7 myself at the time that it came out and we didn't even have a computer. Well we might of done, but the computer was for Duke Nukem 3D.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

You know as someone who first played this game oh...5 years ago, I seriously don't get the hype. Like at all. It was alright. It was basically a competent game. Absolutely nothing to write home about in a good or bad way.

As Pat from the Best Friends put it, "You can't understand. Final Fantasy 7 came out at a time when the most technically advanced RPG in the world was Chrono Trigger." It's a lot more impressive in that context, no?

As someone who played both of those games for the first time years after they were released I have to say I found Chrono Trigger more impressive. The only thing FFVII has going for it is the nice pre rendered backgrounds (which I do love). The 3D models were absolute garbage, even for 1997, and the PS1's sound chip was only marginally better than the SNES's.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt though since I just prefer Chrono Trigger more in general.

 

[Drathnoxis]

The music will change and be J-Pop crap.

Yea, because that was totally what was playing during the trailer.

It may not have been J-pop, but it certainly wasn't anything from FF7, except a teeny bit of the opening theme at the very end.

Wow, you really want to hate this don't you? You said it would be changed to J-Pop crap, Kyp pointed out that the music in the trailer wasn't, you just jump to "well it's still different!"

Actually, I never said that it was gonna be J-pop, That was L. Declis.

Yeah, people immediately recognized the playground in Midgar because they did such a stellar job of rebuilding it exactly as it was in FF7.

Spoiler: ...oh wait.

Playground from trailer.

Playground from original game.

Were these supposed to be the same place?

actually yeah, that is quite clearly the same playground, scaled up for modern resolution and aspect ratio, at a different angle and with more realistic proportions. The slide is in the center, with the swings to its left and the run down buildings to its right. Only now the buildings are actually building sized. Unless there's some other, more damning images you can provide of the original everything in that one seems to be in the new one, only looking like a modern game.

What, are you kidding? Apart from the layout being similar, the new park looks nothing like the original. The main distinguishing feature of the original playground is the bear thing with the slide coming out of it's mouth. I don't see that anywhere in the new picture. There is no way that curly slide in the new one is supposed to be it because we can see that the slide is not coming out of the bears mouth, and as you said, the swings are still to the left so it can't be at that much of a different angle. Also if it were an angle from the back we would be able to see that other bear thing in the lower right corner.

but there really wasn't anything familiar about the trailer at all. I wonder, if there was nothing in the video or the title that actually stated it was a FF7 remake trailer, how many people would still come to that conclusion?

Buster sword, gun hand, aeris' flowers.

Well, I guess, but those could also be derivative of Advent Children or one of the spinoff games. There wasn't anything exclusively familiar to the original FF7. Nothing really jumped out to me and said "look it's the same FF7, but prettier."

This leads me to believe that Square Enix will not be making the kind of faithful remake that I've been waiting for and will instead attempt to make it their own thing.

It's a teaser trailer... it's meant to be lots of vagueness building up to a "Holy fuck yes!" reveal. at least wait until there's even a proper trailer. I'm starting to see why Squeenix took so long to bother doing this.

Hmm, maybe your right about that teaser thing, and as others were saying the voice over could actually be breaking the 4th wall and talking about the fans, I guess we'll see.

I actually think that Square Enix should have put off making the remake longer. As in forever. I can't really think of a way that they can do the remake in a way that will satisfy me. The level of detail that they will be adding is equivalent of going from stick figures to a classical painting, so the result will be heavily influenced by their own interpretation. And chances are very, very good that the current Square Enix's interpretation of FF7 will not match my own interpretation. For one, my interpretation doesn't include voice acting. I probably won't even play the remake, lest it should taint the original experience for me.

 

[w23eer]

That seems to be an interpretation thing honestly. With no facial expression and just a couple of animations well let's just say I always read Cloud as a whiny *****.

Cloud had somewhat mixed personalities in FFVII. I doubt it was intentional, but it does actually make sense. But still, at least in my last playthrough, it does seem as if he's obnoxiously cocky more often than a whiny emo. I distinctly remember him tooting his own horn a couple of times at the start of the game (he liked reminding people he was a top class soldier, and that battles were fairly easy for him). Other characters often make reference to that 'cocky pose' he would always pull throughout the game.

It's a shame that Advent Children cloud is the most prominent interpretation, at least for Squeenix. Say what you want about FFVII Cloud, at least he was pragmatic. AC Cloud just moped all day.

 

[go-10]

for a remake that so many of us were asking for there sure seems to be a lot of complaining with regarding change. Personally while I'm a huge fan of the original (currently playing it again, just got to Costa del sol) I for one don't mind the changes, I rather welcome them. I want them to change the game so much to the point that it feels like a remake not a retelling or remaster. If I wanted to play the same game I already have the original in nearly every system, so yeah I want voice acting, different camera angles, larger world with more quests and story details that weren't included in the original due to Crisis Core, Before Crisis, and Dire of Cerberus not existing at the time

maybe it's just me but I think remakes are better than graphical upgrades, look at Resident Evil for the NGC it was much better than the original despite changing just about everything

 

[SFMB]

I really hope that Squenix will milk this baby for all its got! Pricetag of 5o? at release and they would still make huge profits... Until the golden spectacles drop from the eyes of fanboys.

 

[Javetts Eall Raksha]

listen, i'm not trying to be pessimistic. however the current climate at square enix is concerning to say the least. they seem to care only for cinematics, they care about spectacle. I want this game to be good, but based on their recent work, i very much fear this game will fail. most kids now-a-days will take one look at the original FF7 and laugh. it's too old, if this new version sucks, future generations will only know this version. cloud has always been depressed, but not emo (other than the end where he found out, his life is a lie). they'll just make him full emo and angsty.

 

[Phasmal]

Well I hope that it sticks mostly to the original, because I've never played the original.
I have no nostalgia for it, I tried to play it for my boyfriend, who is a big FF7 nerd but I couldn't get over the terrible boxy characters, so as a joke I promised my boyfriend I would play the remake when they made it- thinking they would never do it.
I hope they realise what position they've put me in now!

Spoiler: Basically me now

More seriously, I'm looking forward to it. Boyfriend reckons the trophies will be super duper hard, and maybe I'll finally understand what the big deal is about it.

 

[Lilani]

listen, i'm not trying to be pessimistic. however the current climate at square enix is concerning to say the least. they seem to care only for cinematics, they care about spectacle. I want this game to be good, but based on their recent work, i very much fear this game will fail. most kids now-a-days will take one look at the original FF7 and laugh. it's too old, if this new version sucks, future generations will only know this version. cloud has always been depressed, but not emo (other than the end where he found out, his life is a lie). they'll just make him full emo and angsty.

Square had some pretty great success with Bravely Default, though, which was a very faithful return to true turn-based combat with classes and mechanics that worked with the format rather than against. As for any character changes to Cloud, if this is truly a remake of the original and not a reboot or retelling then that shouldn't be an issue. From what I've seen so far I think Square understands what people want, and I think with the right people they can pull it off. But yeah, I don't doubt some kind of gimmick is spawned from this. If not some kind of arbitrary online feature, then some kind of bonus story. Or perhaps turning it into a launch pad for remakes of all FFVII extensions, or a new line of sequels altogether.

 

[Random Argument Man]

This brings up a good time to ask all you ff7 fans

How many of you knew about Sephiroth's killing Aerith before playing it?

This isn't even spoiler is it?

My brother spoiled half the plot to me before I even played it as a kid. His mind seemed like it was blown and he couldn't stop talking about it. Since we couldn't get a PS1, I didn't had a chance to play it until my early teens. He didn't spoiled me disk 2 which is where I enjoyed most of the story.

Yes, it's a spoiler by the way. I wouldn't tell anyone about any plot no matter how old or how "hard-to-avoid-spoilers" it is on the Internet. To me, it's only fair that anyone can fully enjoy a story without it being undermined by spoilers. However, I'm happy that a new generation will have a chance to experience this.

That and I will be hoping they can remove some ridiculous amount of necessary grinding this games demands. I was playing FF7 until I bought FF10. The latter really managed a levelling system that keeps the pace of the game.