The Road and Legacy of Final Fantasy 7 Remake

[meiam]

How would sticking to a pre established story be " blindly make a trilogy"? It's quite literally the opposite, not only is the blue print right there, it even proved to work, just do that. Again you're jumping all over the place, saying the remake is great because it changes nothing from the original while also saying that they had to make change because they had to make it a trilogy (neither of which are true).

And absolutely they can ignore advent children 100%. I was one of maybe 1000 people in NA who saw it in movie theatre when it came out, sat next to someone in the production and everything. I don't remember jack shit about that movie story beyond the weird Sephiroth emo clone. I can guarantee that 99.9% of people who play the remake have either never seen advent children or remember nothing about it. And even that tiny number dwarf those who even heard of the short story. Here they should do like star war and just declare all of it non cannon, nothing of value would be lost.

And I completely agree, the fact that Sephiroth gives 0 fuck about Cloud is part of what made him great and work very well with the eventually realization that Cloud has about his memory. To bring Star wars back again, they didn't need to tell everyone that Darth Vader was Luke's father in the first one to make Vader an interesting villain, and when they eventually remake those, having it in the first movie would be dumb.

I think if Square really wanted to have the remake be significantly different, they should have just done so (I think redoing the game but with Zack alive would have been interesting) but this whole "we're redoing it but not redoing it + weird ghost" is just the worse of both world.

 

[Silvanus]

But Jenova isn't even a part of the Midgar part of the game. Isn't that the same complaint people have with Sephiroth in that he shouldn't even be any part of Midgar and yet is all over the place? But at the same time you are arguing that Jenova is sidelined in a section that had nothing to do with her. You don't even learn of Jenova until Kalm outside of her getting stolen from the Shinra Building at the end of the Midgar section. Beyond that Jenova is not a concern nor even an idea in the party's mind in anyway up till that point.

Jenova is responsible for the breakout at HQ and murder of the President, then she's the one you're unwittingly chasing. Now sure, you can say the player doesn't know that at this stage of the original game. But they seemed (to me, anyway) to be heavily associating all that solely with Sephiroth and scarcely with Jenova-- relegating her to a hunk of remote-controlled flesh rather than a planet-scale threat.

I don't think you can put the cat back in the bag in that regard. Crisis Core was fine mostly, but Advent Children was a mess admittedly and yet they can't just ignore all that shit.

Plus you have the short stories "Life Stream White." And "Life Stream Black". Written by the original writer for the OG game. Life Stream Black specifically is told from the perspective of Sephiroth's Soul in the lifestream and is supposed to bridge the gap between the original game and the AV movie. Basically Sephiroth exists in the lifestream as a consciousness because Cloud refuses to let his memory go. Because Cloud remembers him and fears his return is how Sephiroth can hold onto himself in the lifestream and use his influence to inflect the Geostigma upon the world. Of course then you also have his three clones which he can also thrive off of and eventually manifest himself.

All of this content sort of builds on Sephiroth's obsession with Cloud in that Sephiroth needs Cloud to be obsessed with HIM to exist. It's very Japanese and strange.

But again you can't unring that bell. The characters have evolved beyond the original game at this point and we have to run with their evolution now.

I essentially just disagree that we do have to. The story of the original game absolutely doesn't need that extraneous fluff, and to my mind it detracts from it. I don't think there was anything stopping them from characterising Sephiroth as he was originally characterised.

I don't think that's it. See above about the mini story staring Sephiroth. I don't think it's about fate, it's about dominating Cloud's mind and eventually black materia.

If he's just plain lying, then fine, but I don't get that impression. They seem to want to rehabilitate him into a sort of edgy antihero rather than the callous and dismissive villain he was.

Eh...hibahibidaba. It's not really though. That's just the very end of the Remake chapter, it's not a focus of the party throughout the game, nor is it really a focus of the game after the boss fights. There is no mention of fates or anything like that when they are talking about chasing Sephiroth down. It's just a "Normua-esque" excuse to have a big final boss fight. I think calling it a focus of the story is a bit of a stretch.

It might not dominate the playtime of the game, but it sure as hell makes for a jarring toneshift to me-- particularly to end with that. It appears to me that the central plot of the Remake as a trilogy will be the characters fighting to avoid the events of the original. The whole point of the fate ghosts was that they wanted to enforce the events of the original, right? Then what does killing them represent, if not breaking free of the constraints of the original story and being able to change them?

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Awesome. This is awesome!

No brainer here that Tifa will be the most chosen lol.

 

[meiam]

It might not dominate the playtime of the game, but it sure as hell makes for a jarring toneshift to me-- particularly to end with that. It appears to me that the central plot of the Remake as a trilogy will be the characters fighting to avoid the events of the original. The whole point of the fate ghosts was that they wanted to enforce the events of the original, right? Then what does killing them represent, if not breaking free of the constraints of the original story and being able to change them?

I think the most representative aspect of the "spirit" of the remake is the fact that in the story the fate ghost are incredibly useful, Barrett get killed by Sephiroth and they immediately revive him and the party almost get crushed by a giant concrete slab and they save them. Yet the party ignore all that and always treat them as hostile and they don't hesitate to try and kill them giving the chance, a fight they could easily avoid. The production really want you to know that people who want the story to stay the same are the enemy that the heroic party (ie the production committee) are fighting against.

 

[CriticalGaming]

 

[FakeSympathy]

 

[BrawlMan]

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[BrawlMan]

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[CriticalGaming]

Full copies of the game has leaked and people on social media or playing it, posting shit, and all that fun jazz that comes with copies getting leaked on big games. Meanwhile I am stuck waiting 9 more days.

 

[CriticalGaming]

 

[CriticalGaming]

Played the new part of the demo, graphically I don't see anything they fixed to be honest. The character models are pretty rough when not in a cutscene, but you have to zoom in on them to really see it because the world itself is very pretty. And in combat you are far too busy to notice the fine details.

Speaking of combat, flying enemies are still fucking nightmares to fight. And they might even be worse to fight now than ever before, because they really take advantage of the open-world space and zip and dart around all over the place which not only makes them hard to keep track of, but also makes it super easy for them to dodge your abilities. There is likely a degree of a learning curve and you're materia set up is pretty randomized. But there is still that feel of hassle when fighting an enemy that flies.

Ground enemies are still a blast though, and Red 13 is cool as fuck to use because he is even faster than Tifa when it comes to movement so he can blitz around and claw the shit outta stuff. His vengence mode thing is confusing and I couldn't seem to figure out what it was doing though.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

 

[BrawlMan]

Don't play all the mini games you silly. A majority of those are optional.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (FF7 Rebirth) Review

Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 (FF7) Rebirth has a wonderful story that gets bogged down by a few baffling gameplay choices. Here's our review.

www.escapistmagazine.com

 

[Hades]

Reviews seem to be pretty glowing across the board. Its likely we have a gem on our hands.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Don't play all the mini games you silly. A majority of those are optional.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (FF7 Rebirth) Review

Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 (FF7) Rebirth has a wonderful story that gets bogged down by a few baffling gameplay choices. Here's our review.

www.escapistmagazine.com

" Although the combat in FF7 Rebirth can be a bit of a double-edged blade, the game has a pretty glaring issue: There are too many random mechanics and mini-games. "

What mate? Tell me you've never played a JRPG without telling me you've never played a JRPG. Another example of someone doing game's writing without any interest or knowledge in video games. But why should I be surprised the Escapist fired everyone who gave a shit and quite honestly Yahtzee was the only person with any real video game sense anyway.

Pfft.

 

[BrawlMan]

But why should I be surprised the Escapist fired everyone who gave a shit and quite honestly Yahtzee was the only person with any real video game sense anyway.

Actually, Nick and the rest that went with them are great at their job too. You should see some of their podcasts and live streams. Marty, KC, and Sebastian, etc. know their shit. Besides, not everyone was good in the old Escapist days either. There were plenty of people up there, that either barely knew about gaming, tangentially related to it, or just straight up haters of anything somebody likes. While I miss some of the old talent, most of the old talent that either left, quit, or got fired at some point I didn't care about or grew to dislike them at a certain point.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Actually, Nick and the rest that went with them are great at their job too. You should see some of their podcasts and live streams. Marty, KC, and Sebastian, etc. know their shit. Besides, not everyone was good in the old Escapist days either. There were plenty of people up there, that either barely knew about gaming, tangentially related to it, or just straight up haters of anything somebody likes. While I miss some of the old talent, most of the old talent that either left, quit, or got fired at some point I didn't care about or grew to dislike them at a certain point.

Personally I thought Nick and Marty where boring as fuck. They did know their shit to be fair, but they both lack personality to host a podcast and everything was so dry so I stopped watching.

 

[BrawlMan]

I thought Nick and Marty where boring as fuck. They did know their shit to be fair, but they both lack personality to host a podcast and everything was so dry so I stopped watching.

I don't need a major personality/"eccentric" for every single podcast. I like them the way they are and there's nothing wrong with that. They don't have personality, there's are just more subdued. Even Yahtzee takes a chill pill when he's on most of these podcasts. Yes his personality is more noticeable, that's because we're all so used to him at this point.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Going by the reviews the game's shaping up to be a real treat. They must have had some real confidence in it if they lift the embargo a week in advance.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

" Although the combat in FF7 Rebirth can be a bit of a double-edged blade, the game has a pretty glaring issue: There are too many random mechanics and mini-games. "

What mate? Tell me you've never played a JRPG without telling me you've never played a JRPG. Another example of someone doing game's writing without any interest or knowledge in video games. But why should I be surprised the Escapist fired everyone who gave a shit and quite honestly Yahtzee was the only person with any real video game sense anyway.

Pfft.

Reading a bit further down…

Mini-games should be fun, but everything I encountered in Rebirth felt like an obligation that the game was forcing me to meet.

Rebirth also loves adding new mechanics for traversing the map, even if they’re not that interesting. In the cases of individual characters, those mechanics can sometimes be neat but relatively forgettable. The open world, though, is often a bit of a mess. Each new region of FF7 Rebirth introduces a new twist, and while they’re fine in the early game, they’re a lot more frustrating and tedious later in the game. I don’t want to struggle to get to something because I couldn’t find the right jumping off point on my map. I want to struggle with something because I’m bad at it. Navigation became a massive chore in the mid- to late-game, and I found that although I really liked the variety and vibe of every region, I didn’t much like traversing them.

The problem with Rebirth‘s mechanics is most apparent in side quests, though. There’s one that really sticks with me. Towards the middle of the game, I was tasked with getting chickens to return to a coop using a lure box. You find the chicken and throw the box. The chicken starts walking up to the box, and you have to pull it back. Sometimes, the chicken gets distracted, and you have to wait. If you move too far or too fast, the chicken stops following. It’s unbelievably tedious.


The first couple issues sound more like legit design complaints. The last, idk…at least it’s just a side quest.