Final Fantasy VII Remake Will Include "Dramatic" Changes

[Geisterkarle]

"It will not be a shooter" ... that is not much comfort!
Yeah, as some point out: There is more to FF(7) aside the combat system. But to put it plainly:
I want FF7-Remake to be a RPG, NOT an Action-Adventure/RPG! It's not, that this can't be good - Secret of Mana (and so on) are great. But I don't want FF7 to change that way!
You could do something like Star Ocean: Second Story and have an ATB with action elements (you have to move, switch characters for optimal usage, ...), but everything that goes beyond that is not what I'm hoping for!
Luckily I don't own an PS4, so those people can check it out if I will get it on PC or not!

 

[Zefar]

uh, why? There was nothing wrong about FFVII's system and quite frankly all the systems they've done since then (save for FFX) have been either clumsy or just plain bad.

9's battle system was awesome. Familiar but fresh.

Exactly how was that Battle system fresh? :/ It was a turn based system in the same way as Final Fantasy 7 and 8. I don't recall it being spectacular in any way.

 

[gonenow3]

And so it begins. The needless tampering. I don't seem to recall anyone ever complaining about the combat unless they were griping about the long un-skippable summon animations, but even those saw their fair share of "At least it's cool looking" defense. Plus some (all?) summons let you mash a button during the animation to power-up their attack, so even the "worst" part of the combat at least had some sort of interactivity.

TLDR:​

The issue with FF7 isn't the long summon animation its the fact to use the long summons that look cool you have to intentionally gimp yourself because they are terrible. FF7 is for a large part really repetitive with very little thinking / strategy for a JRPG so the combat does need a revamp or re-balancing as the combat really doesn't hold up well compared to the later Final Fantasies so you don't have to self limit if you want to have combat options.

 

[KenAri]

Let's pray it isn't FF13 but with the cast of FF7. The combat and the customization are two of the reasons FF7 is so wonderful. I wouldn't mind if they tinkered with the materia a bit; it did always bother me that magic materia reduced strength, so every single character had to either be Warrior or Mage. But a few number tweaks and some cool new ideas are all that required. Not a change to the combat.

I really don't get why they feel the need to stick their dicks in the formula. I honestly don't understand how a company can be as delusional;
>SS games are highly praised.
>SE emerges, and its games are criticised heavily
>SE decides to Enix all over an old SS game
>...Profit?

Like, why?

But ah well. Hopefully they do something unprecedented at SE and actually have at least one human playtest the game that isn't the guy who made it. Maybe it won't be a total disaster.

Issue is the traditional ATB system is a real pain to balance. Look at FF7 and you quickly realize that Cait Sith slots instantly wins all encounters and its stupidly easy to get consistent. If you don't want to use slots then Powersoul is easily better than all other options available and you just run down the list of OP stuff until you actually get actual options to use in battle so you can actually use things that people consider to be OP like Knights of the rounds etc etc etc. This problem isn't just FF7 since FF8 was literally just spam Limits over and over again since everything else was pointless. FF9 had Charge! win every single encounter but thankfully that move doesn't turn up until disc 3 and FFX had trio of 9999

As bad as people say FF13 is at least the combat system gives you options and is actually engaging at all points. Sure it has the auto play option but there is a huge amount of depth to that combat system that just isn't present in the ATB games. However FF13 has a really terrible story / overworld so people ignore the fact that the combat system is actually really good.

I'd have to disagree on the point of 13's combat system. It was the least engaging system in the series for me. Being limited to one party member, the forced fake real time, only having 2 attacks; Single and AOE. It was essentially the same as 7, but with 1/3 of the interaction, a much less helpful camera, and all of the tacked-on components (Paradigms, Stagger, etc) were just hassle.
I like watching simple animations that have great sound effects and impact, with clear indications of just how powerful my characters have grown. At absolutely no point in time did 13 make me care about my character stats, because there was 0 customization to be done, the visuals are hideous, the sound effects were tragic and the fights just take so long. 7 was simplistic, put focus on the things that mattered, and gave users the ability to tinker with what they wanted. It didn't cock around, and that's what I respect about games. 13 was 99% fluff and hassle.

The point on balance is a legitimate one, though. At a certain point, scaling numbers just doesn't work anymore. One could argue that the point of single-player games is to become as overpowered as possible, but it would be nice if the enemies would sometimes offer a challenge. Revamping one of the more integral parts of the classic game is probably not the solution.

 

[immortalfrieza]

ATB system is the best for RPGs where you control multiple characters, I hate that system where you just suggest to an AI what to do, it limits strategies and most of the times the AI just sucks and ends up dead.

I think they should take cues from the Tales games for this. The Tales games do a great job of having effective and intelligent party A.I. whose actions can be manually controlled if need be to create effective strategies while the A.I. customization is simple enough to easily make use of while not going overboard. Let's face it, FF12's gambit system is ludicrously complicated and requires constant readjustment in order to be effective without constantly manually managing everything, the Kingdom Hearts party A.I. is damned near useless against anything but standard mooks, and FF13's party A.I. goes too far in the other direction and is so effective the game can practically play itself, though I would at least say that's far better than the other 2.

Personally though, as long as I can switch characters and don't have entire fights lost because the party leader dies unlike FF13 I think I can live with any sort of action battle system they could dream up and probably would even prefer it.

uh, why? There was nothing wrong about FFVII's system and quite frankly all the systems they've done since then (save for FFX) have been either clumsy or just plain bad.

Nomura said in a previous interview that if things weren't changed, there wouldn't even be any point in this project, as people could just buy the original game. It kinda seems like he sees this as a new project complementary to the original rather than a replacement or a "definitive" version.

Whatever Nomura ends up doing with this game, I'm at least glad he said this. I wish more developers would take that kind of attitude with remakes and quit remastering games as well, instead of just pretty it up a bit and release what is basically the exact same game that most everybody that would've been interested in getting a remake in the first place would have already played long ago. Nomura right, there isn't much point in doing this unless there was going to be some pretty significant alterations to the graphics and gameplay, and as for the storyline? Throw in a bunch of new side stuff to do and some scenes to flesh the characters out a bit and help connect to adjoining stories, but otherwise keep it largely the same. Even what I consider the pinnacle of remakes, FF4 DS kept everything largely the same, but introduced a number of interesting changes aside from the graphics that avoided making it feel drastically different from the original FF4.

I've been cautiously optimistic about this and so far I like what I've been hearing for the most part. This could go very very badly, but it could also go very very well, naturally I hope it leans more towards the latter. New, more interesting combat would be a definite plus, as long as they keep the general aesthetic fully intact.

 

[gonenow3]

Let's pray it isn't FF13 but with the cast of FF7. The combat and the customization are two of the reasons FF7 is so wonderful. I wouldn't mind if they tinkered with the materia a bit; it did always bother me that magic materia reduced strength, so every single character had to either be Warrior or Mage. But a few number tweaks and some cool new ideas are all that required. Not a change to the combat.

I really don't get why they feel the need to stick their dicks in the formula. I honestly don't understand how a company can be as delusional;
>SS games are highly praised.
>SE emerges, and its games are criticised heavily
>SE decides to Enix all over an old SS game
>...Profit?

Like, why?

But ah well. Hopefully they do something unprecedented at SE and actually have at least one human playtest the game that isn't the guy who made it. Maybe it won't be a total disaster.

Issue is the traditional ATB system is a real pain to balance. Look at FF7 and you quickly realize that Cait Sith slots instantly wins all encounters and its stupidly easy to get consistent. If you don't want to use slots then Powersoul is easily better than all other options available and you just run down the list of OP stuff until you actually get actual options to use in battle so you can actually use things that people consider to be OP like Knights of the rounds etc etc etc. This problem isn't just FF7 since FF8 was literally just spam Limits over and over again since everything else was pointless. FF9 had Charge! win every single encounter but thankfully that move doesn't turn up until disc 3 and FFX had trio of 9999

As bad as people say FF13 is at least the combat system gives you options and is actually engaging at all points. Sure it has the auto play option but there is a huge amount of depth to that combat system that just isn't present in the ATB games. However FF13 has a really terrible story / overworld so people ignore the fact that the combat system is actually really good.

I'd have to disagree on the point of 13's combat system. It was the least engaging system in the series for me. Being limited to one party member, the forced fake real time, only having 2 attacks; Single and AOE. It was essentially the same as 7, but with 1/3 of the interaction, a much less helpful camera, and all of the tacked-on components (Paradigms, Stagger, etc) were just hassle.
I like watching simple animations that have great sound effects and impact, with clear indications of just how powerful my characters have grown. At absolutely no point in time did 13 make me care about my character stats, because there was 0 customization to be done, the visuals are hideous, the sound effects were tragic and the fights just take so long. 7 was simplistic, put focus on the things that mattered, and gave users the ability to tinker with what they wanted. It didn't cock around, and that's what I respect about games. 13 was 99% fluff and hassle.

The point on balance is a legitimate one, though. At a certain point, scaling numbers just doesn't work anymore. One could argue that the point of single-player games is to become as overpowered as possible, but it would be nice if the enemies would sometimes offer a challenge. Revamping one of the more integral parts of the classic game is probably not the solution.

The issue is what you considered tacked on mechanics were actually what gave FF13 its depth there was a lot of control you could have over your companions and there is actually a lot of skill in controlling them via paradigm manipulation (Okay to be fair no where does the game actually explain you can actually control you allies via having two of the exact same paradigms and swapped between the two of them over and over again but it is a very interesting mechanic) plus staggering was genuinely pretty interesting in my opinion as it changed your strategy around based on the meter rather than always spamming the same thing over and over and over and over and over until the boss dies. You say FF13 had only one character but if you were actually using all 3 characters in FF7 you were playing kind of badly as using only 1 character in FF7 is actually better in the best two strategies that people can use (Cait Sith slots or Powersoul) so it is the same interactivity but FF7 has more illusion of choice but had less depth as a combat system.

ATB system is the best for RPGs where you control multiple characters, I hate that system where you just suggest to an AI what to do, it limits strategies and most of the times the AI just sucks and ends up dead.

I think they should take cues from the Tales games for this. The Tales games do a great job of having effective and intelligent party A.I. whose actions can be manually controlled if need be to create effective strategies while the A.I. customization is simple enough to easily make use of while not going overboard. Let's face it, FF12's gambit system is ludicrously complicated and requires constant readjustment in order to be effective without constantly manually managing everything, the Kingdom Hearts party A.I. is damned near useless against anything but standard mooks

The issue with KH AI is that the bosses run on a revenge value system which means that allies hitting the bosses actually make the bosses harder as you can't loop them as easy. Funnily enough 358/2 has the best AI as far as allies go with KH1 having by far the worst.

 

[major_chaos]

The first thing to go will be clouds complex personality. Instead he'll be replaced by a brooding emo. Yuffie will be annoying instead of perkie. Tifa will be a moron and aerith will be a princess (instead of a flirty woman that threatens to crush a dudes nards).

Uh, did we play different versions of the game? I'll admit I haven't played FF7 in like six years but I seem to remember Could's "personality" beginning with "big sword" and ending with "brooding ellipsis", Yuffie making even fourteen year old me want to punch a hole in the TV , and Tifa being kinda dim (although that might just be the translation occasionally making everyone sound kinda slow).

OT: Good. The standard >fight >magic >item >run of older FF games was fine for the the time, in fact it was great, so great that it was the template for many, many, many, JRPGs and (disclaimer: IMO) feels incredibly rote and basic now. I'm not adverse to it still being turn based but I would prefer it get some major shake ups such as a positioning element ala valkyria Chronicles.

 

[Auron225]

I would have been more surprised if they had opted to keep the standard ATB system. It's just out-dated now. Games are capable of so much more, but I get the feeling that people will rage at whatever Square produce and moan of them trying to "fix" it. Don't get me wrong, I could go back and re-play the original FF7 and be content with ATB, but I expect more from Square if they're making a new game (and no, the fact that it's a remake doesn't otherwise make it ok). If Square were to release the exact same thing they made back in 97, then great - I guess it's indeed a remake - but what purpose would it have?

"Arg! Why is it not on 3 separate disks? They ruined it!"

So long as they don't mess with the characters or story, then I'll be happy. I am recognising that they MIGHT try to do that (and it is my own concern) but I don't see the logic in raging over everything they make different from the original. I can already guess that someone, somewhere, will be annoyed with the upgraded graphics and claim the original did it better with it's lego people.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Ironically, the bobble-head doesn't happen for all the cutscenes or in battle. Just in the first half of the game or so. And in the rest of the cutscenes the design is more human proportioned.

The apparent change of art direction confuses me.

 

[Batadon]

Materia were too specialized IMO. Did we really need 3 Bahamut summons? A Bajillion elemental magics?

Making Materia into Jobs would be a good streamline. Have Cloud start with Fighter materia, Tifa with Monk, Yuffie start with a Thief materia, etc. and have them unlock class abilities as Materia level up, give them an ability when equipped on armor and on weapon. You could drastically reduce the frankly absurd amount of slots and still have a fair bit of customization.

 

[Lightspeaker]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SF-oQmqaj0

This is going to be FF15 with an FF7 skin isn't it?

... -_-

Square-Enix: get your goddamn action RPGs out of Final Fantasy you bunch of blithering idiots. Holy hell can you seriously not actually make a good game anymore? You haven't made a proper, good Final Fantasy game in FOURTEEN YEARS. Twelve if you include X-2 (although that had some glaring weaknesses).

I could be wrong. They could be bringing back X's conditional battle system (by far the best system they've ever had...dropped after one installment) but I've got a horrible feeling they're going to lift FF15's system for this...

If its action RPG I'm just outright not buying it. Final Fantasy XV is the first main-series non-MMO Final Fantasy I have no intention of buying because its battle system is basically sticking two fingers up at the series. If the 7 remake is going the same then what's the damn point?

And for the OP "old FF is better than modern" fanboy argument, FF1-3, FF5, FF8 and FF11, FF12 and FF14 (1.0) were far weaker than FF13. FF13 was far more superior to most of those games.

Sorry, no, FF1-3, 5 and 8 are all better games than 13 was. And I'm a person that makes excuses for 13. 13's combat system was incredibly dull, poor and limiting with several mindblowingly terrible design choices (first and foremost control of ONE character...and if they die you instantly lose the game and can't revive...). Its saving grace was a semi-competent story. Nothing wild but considering the absolute travesty that was 12's combat system at least this one was playable. But in comparison to other games in the series it one of the weakest entries by far.

Issue is the traditional ATB system is a real pain to balance.

...see this is where you're missing a somewhat fundamental point. It doesn't NEED to be balanced. It isn't a multiplayer online thing where everyone has to have equal chances. Part of the appeal of this kind of RPG game has always been figuring out how to "break" the system.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

I'd be okay with a more action based battle system.
It's the story (and Cloud's personality in particular) I'd rather they not mess too much with, I probably won't get my wish.

There are many possible things that they could mean.

They may mean that their adding in the stuff from the movie to after the end of the game, or they may be making Cloud into Lightning's little brother. ;p

Time will tell.
At least they won't be able to tease the remake anymore after this.......Probably...

 

[Imp_Emissary]

This is going to be FF15 with an FF7 skin isn't it?

... -_-

Square-Enix: get your goddamn action RPGs out of Final Fantasy you bunch of blithering idiots.

And for the OP "old FF is better than modern" fanboy argument, FF1-3, FF5, FF8 and FF11, FF12 and FF14 (1.0) were far weaker than FF13. FF13 was far more superior to most of those games.

Sorry, no, FF1-3, 5 and 8 are all better games than 13 was. And I'm a person that makes excuses for 13. 13's combat system was incredibly dull, poor and limiting with several mindblowingly terrible design choices (first and foremost control of ONE character...and if they die you instantly lose the game and can't revive...). Its saving grace was a semi-competent story. Nothing wild but considering the absolute travesty that was 12's combat system at least this one was playable. But in comparison to other games in the series it one of the weakest entries by far.

Issue is the traditional ATB system is a real pain to balance.

...see this is where you're missing a somewhat fundamental point. It doesn't NEED to be balanced. It isn't a multiplayer online thing where everyone has to have equal chances. Part of the appeal of this kind of RPG game has always been figuring out how to "break" the system.

Aw. <-> FF12 is my favorite...

<.< Granted, I've only played it and FF10 to completion (tried out FFX-2, but couldn't go very far into it).

Still, if ya didn't like the combat I can understand. Part of why I liked Dragon Age: Origins is that it's combat reminded me of FF12's. But if ya don't like the combat of a JRPG, you're unlikely to enjoy the game as they do have A LOT of combat. :/

I should try out some of the other ones one of these days though. Anyway, best of luck to the FF7 fans!

You'll probably need it. 0.0

 

[circularlogic88]

I said this elsewhere but:

The combat should be restricted to one character with the other party members as AIs, the less input the player has during the battle, the better.

Also, materia is too confusing, so everyone will just have a linear progression skill tree whereby everyone will eventually be able to have access to the same pool of abilities and roles, thus making all characters equally viable, with the only difference among them being which type of weapon they hold.

If the player the character is controlling dies, it should be an automatic game over, regardless if the AI party members have healing or recovery magics/skills. It's the player's fault for not picking up on patterns of the enemies after all.

Should also make sure they take out the randomness of encounters, so make sure that most areas are linear by nature with a set amount of enemies for the party to kill. Just enough to make them strong enough for the next setpiece boss battle.

Actually, shouldn't make it too easy to just grind the same areas and overlevel for fights, so they should definitely add an arbitrary level and skill cap until they're able to beat the boss to unlock more abilities after events unfold.

Instead of Limit Breaks, every enemy should have to be dealt a certain amount of damage before any real damage can be done to them to increase gameplay length...I mean let the player truly enjoy the cinematic experience of the battle. /s

 

[RejjeN]

[snip]

The sarcasm! It buuuurns! D:

 

[CaitSeith]

Ironically, the bobble-head doesn't happen for all the cutscenes or in battle. Just in the first half of the game or so. And in the rest of the cutscenes the design is more human proportioned.

The apparent change of art direction confuses me.

I suspect there was a change in the development team or management at mid-production, and there was no time left to change everything.

 

[circularlogic88]

[snip]

The sarcasm! It buuuurns! D:

For a game as graphically demanding as they're alleging it to be, everything has to be streamlined. Materia system will be simplified, leveling up will be simplified, and areas will (hopefully) take a similar route to FFX rather than FFXIII and at least allow backtracking and reasons to revisit older areas in late game. I can very easily see them taking away the overworld concept in favor of a Mass Effect Normandy hub style, dropping you off at key locations, with the possibilty of exploring random places on an overworld map a la FFX, with whatever vehicle you're in possession of at the time.

My personal opinion is that it is waaaaay too early to even speculate on what they mean by "dramatic combat changes," but to think that there weren't going to be changes to the gameplay at all is just not realistic given how Squaresoft has changed into Square-Enix.

My one little personal annoyance would be if they made a way for Aerith to live. It completely goes against the game's themes of loss and accepting that loss and moving on, but again, that's my pet peeve, I know there are many who would love to see Aerith live eventhough it would make no sense contextually to the story. I mean, she was about to use the Holy materia to tap into the life stream cleanse the world of Jenova, if she survived that, then the final act would be rather short. Again, just my reasoning, I am known to be horrendously wrong with these types of things.

 

[Auron225]

I said this elsewhere but:

The combat should be restricted to one character with the other party members as AIs, the less input the player has during the battle, the better.

Also, materia is too confusing, so everyone will just have a linear progression skill tree whereby everyone will eventually be able to have access to the same pool of abilities and roles, thus making all characters equally viable, with the only difference among them being which type of weapon they hold.

If the player the character is controlling dies, it should be an automatic game over, regardless if the AI party members have healing or recovery magics/skills. It's the player's fault for not picking up on patterns of the enemies after all.

Should also make sure they take out the randomness of encounters, so make sure that most areas are linear by nature with a set amount of enemies for the party to kill. Just enough to make them strong enough for the next setpiece boss battle.

Actually, shouldn't make it too easy to just grind the same areas and overlevel for fights, so they should definitely add an arbitrary level and skill cap until they're able to beat the boss to unlock more abilities after events unfold.

Instead of Limit Breaks, every enemy should have to be dealt a certain amount of damage before any real damage can be done to them to increase gameplay length...I mean let the player truly enjoy the cinematic experience of the battle. /s

We can call it a success if they only implement 1/3 of those.

 

[Fox12]

The first thing to go will be clouds complex personality. Instead he'll be replaced by a brooding emo. Yuffie will be annoying instead of perkie. Tifa will be a moron and aerith will be a princess (instead of a flirty woman that threatens to crush a dudes nards).

Uh, did we play different versions of the game? I'll admit I haven't played FF7 in like six years but I seem to remember Could's "personality" beginning with "big sword" and ending with "brooding ellipsis", Yuffie making even fourteen year old me want to punch a hole in the TV , and Tifa being kinda dim (although that might just be the translation occasionally making everyone sound kinda slow).

Evidently. FF7 had the most nuanced characters in the series. It wasn't until Nomura made Advent Children and KH that they were reduced to charicatures of themselves.

 

[circularlogic88]

/s

We can call it a success if they only implement 1/3 of those.

Also, I think during the crossdressing segment to gain access to Don Corneo, Cloud's crossdressed persona is Lightning! After that segment is finished, Cloud learns that he feels more comfortable dressing and identifying as a woman and insists that everyone refer to him as Lightning! Change his weapon from the buster sword into a gunblade... I dunno, I'm spitballing here. /s