Support NeoGAF

[Velius]

If it were SquareSoft doing this, I'd be happy.

The bottom line is, this isn't SquareSoft. It's a company that has the rights to Final Fantasy VII. If the people who came up with the brilliant game in the first place said "Hey, here's a new spin on something we did," that would be one thing. This is just someone else taking it and doing god knows what, and based on SE's track record I'm worried.

 

[lifa-cobex]

This is scam. The game should be named, reboot or reimagining, no remake.

Final Fantasy VII; You can (not) Redo

 

[KàIRóS]

If it were SquareSoft doing this, I'd be happy.

The bottom line is, this isn't SquareSoft. It's a company that has the rights to Final Fantasy VII. If the people who came up with the brilliant game in the first place said "Hey, here's a new spin on something we did," that would be one thing. This is just someone else taking it and doing god knows what, and based on SE's track record I'm worried.

Actually a lot of the important OG staff came back, Kitase the OG director was the producer, Uematsu was a supervisor for the new composers, Nomura was the character designer in OG and is now the Director, Nojima was the OG scriptwriter and came back to rewrite the remake and he's probably actually the one that came up with the Whispers and not Nomura btw and probably other minor names also came back, staff that worked on the OG battle system and other gameplay systems, etc.

I think the only important person from the OG dev team that didn't came back was Sakaguchi for obvious reasons.

 

[LordKasual]

On one hand, i really wish they didn't do the ending the way they did. It didn't NEED it....And then i stepped back and realized, that reaction was the entire point of Square doing something this controversial.

Remember when people up and shat a brick even when we learned that Jessie's bomb wasn't what ultimately blew up the Bombing Mission reactor? Imagine that, except with Yuffie's reveal, or Aerith's death, or the Midgar Zolom, or literally anything else in the remaining games. They'd basically be forced to hit every single checkpoint in order to appease everyone, and even still they'd miss the mark. And even if by chance they did, and it was a 1:1 remake....it would forever be in the shadow of the original, and a comparison would always have to be made. It's possible to recreate the feeling of FF7, but it's impossible to actually create new feelings in the same way if the game is forced to do everything the old one did.

The truth is that Nostalgia is an enemy that's impossible to beat, especially when you're forced to fight it directly. Square understood this, and i was initially glad long before the game released that they understood this concept.

For this very reason, I remember saying that Square would be REQUIRED to make the story completely different in order to actually create something with the same amount of impact as the original FF7....and that's exactly what they've done.

And then also as i stepped back, i realized that while Midgar in FF7 had some amazingly memorable moments.....the most memorable moments in FF7R to me were completely original, and didn't need the backing of the original to work on their own. So whatever's coming, i'm still excited. What we played in FF7R up until the KH ending was solid enough in gameplay and writing for me to not be afraid going forward. If this game was really trying to be Kingdom Hearts, i'm pretty sure i would have noticed long before i got to the ending because KH's dialogue is fucking atrocious and would not have possibly held up this long. If Nomura and Nojima's writing really was as KH as the ending, then the entire beginning of this game would have felt like the opening to Kingdom Hearts 2. complete with stupid ass Sea Salt icecream friendship gimmicks and all.....and thank god, it absolutely didn't.

The overall narrative and story is the same, except the key events are going to likely be drastically different -- after the initial shock of the crazy story wore off, i realize that FF7R Pt.II is going to be EXACTLY what I wanted in the first place.


They managed to make an entire game around the Midgar Slums in order to set up this bait-switch and i fucking loved it. Now that they're free to do anything, i'm pretty stoked for what the next parts will have. And most importantly, while we still have things to look forward to, we have absolutely NO IDEA what's behind the curtain this time.


But the brilliance in FF7R is that i really don't even care what's coming, i'm just excited to see it.

And that is a VASTLY better feeling than what i had before FF7R released, when i was afraid of how they recreated things from the original because i was afraid they were gonna fuck it up. They condensed all of that nostalgic anxiety into a single 2 hour finale at the end of the game, and now that we have that shit out of the way, we can look forward to the actual remake.

 

[Velius]

Actually a lot of the important OG staff came back, Kitase the OG director was the producer, Uematsu was a supervisor for the new composers, Nomura was the character designer in OG and is now the Director, Nojima was the OG scriptwriter and came back to rewrite the remake and he's probably actually the one that came up with the Whispers and not Nomura btw and probably other minor names also came back, staff that worked on the OG battle system and other gameplay systems, etc.

I think the only important person from the OG dev team that didn't came back was Sakaguchi for obvious reasons.

I did not know that. That is slightly encouraging. Thank you for that.

I would add one additional thought though.

The best content in any medium, games, cinema, books, all art... comes from a collaboration of different people who all were at specific points in their respective lives at the best possible time.

That's why good content is so rare, and also why sometimes the best creators conjure content of varying quality at different times.

Look at Weezer, Ridley Scott and pretty much everyone involved with Arrested Development.

Arrested Development in particular strikes me as the most poignant example because they got back EVERYONE for that. The cast, writers, producers, everyone. But the new seasons were absolute shit.

How could Ridley Scott, the guy who made Alien and Blade Runner, make Alien Covenant? How could the guy who made Jaws also make, well whatever Spielburg is making these days?

The same person in the wrong place and/or the wrong point in life is not going to make the same kind of stuff.

I hope I'm wrong.

 

[TheStruggler]

I wonder in this multi verse type thing with Zack being alive is going to fuck up Cloud. If my memory serves right due to the macko bacteria and infection or whatever and with Zack being dead he always thought himself as Zack ans being the elite soldier when he reall wasnt. I wonder if the time shift will fuck up cloud and make him contemplate who he is and feel like he not reaching his potential now wth Zack being alive etc

 

[Enjay]

Great spoilers ghost and why did this even need a separate thread anyway? lol

 

[Sejan]

CHRONO FANTASY VII.

Someone please make a mockup cover

 

[Kumomeme]

as long nomura not made the game convulted deviated from its own theme..please no more suddenly fight giant hearltless in another time dimension..that things could work in kh game xiii-2, or even xiv but not viir

 

[LordKasual]

How could Ridley Scott, the guy who made Alien and Blade Runner, make Alien Covenant?

Because Alien wasn't the best entry in the series, Aliens was, and by a very large margin. And that was James Cameron.

None of the other Alien movies were anything like the first, so it's not surprising that they turned out questionable.

FF7R isn't really like this. All the writers are the same ones who did the original, and the game isn't a questionable sequel.....it's just as good as everyone wanted, just with a really crazy ending.

 

[martino]

Because Alien wasn't the best entry in the series, Aliens was, and by a very large margin. And that was James Cameron.

you can't say that those two films are the top at what they are doing
they use the same lore for two different genre.

 

[LordKasual]

you can't say that those two films are the top at what they are doing
they use the same lore for two different genre.

I think that's what i was getting at though. Alien, Aliens, and Aliens 3 were all completely different movies, the genre switches almost every time

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Technically FF7R is just FF7+FF1.

 

[martino]

I think that's what i was getting at though. Alien, Aliens, and Aliens 3 were all completely different movies, the genre switches almost every time

Sure the genre they choose can lead to huge difference in how you like them
This is my theory but making a film is team effort and what changed with the fame increasing is probably the ability to listen
Alone or with too much weight in decision making some film directors are not that great.

 

[Velius]

Because Alien wasn't the best entry in the series, Aliens was, and by a very large margin. And that was James Cameron.

None of the other Alien movies were anything like the first, so it's not surprising that they turned out questionable.

FF7R isn't really like this. All the writers are the same ones who did the original, and the game isn't a questionable sequel.....it's just as good as everyone wanted, just with a really crazy ending.

Whoa hold on. It's not a large margin. In fact it's very debatable. There are tons of people who feel that Alien was better. So your premise is not sound.

And that's not the point I was making with Scott anyway. The point is that movies like Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator are considered to be masterful work, but he was at a very particular time in his life, a particular place. He's no longer in that place, and his movies are decidedly different and received differently as well.

 

[Silvawuff]

I personally loved the twist, and it gives this project a lot more depth and sense. We could have just hashed through a story we already knew with characters we already loved with the modern game paint job, but now I feel like the possibilities are out there and lots of fresh surprises are in store, even for OG fans. It's a love letter to what FFVII is, and I'm glad they made the decision to follow the narrative like this. It's a great companion piece to the original game, and made me love the franchise more than I already did.

How it sticks the landing...well, I guess we'll be waiting a while to find out. It'll be so awesome going into the next title with no idea what the heck is going to happen.

 

[LordKasual]

Whoa hold on. It's not a large margin. In fact it's very debatable. There are tons of people who feel that Alien was better. So your premise is not sound.

And that's not the point I was making with Scott anyway. The point is that movies like Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator are considered to be masterful work, but he was at a very particular time in his life, a particular place. He's no longer in that place, and his movies are decidedly different and received differently as well.

i mean that's fair

and that could be true. I don't think the writing team behind this game have really lost anything....playing through FF7R, i feel like they more or less hit all the same notes as the original.

 

[Ryu Kaiba]

I was taken aback by the ending at first. It wasn't what I had wanted, felt like Nomura had been given too much free reign. However after letting it digest.. I'm thrilled.

It's exciting not knowing exactly whats coming next. 95% of this game is brilliant, so I have faith that they care and can maintain that through the following parts.

Just keep Nomura on a leash

 

[Kev Kev]

I was taken aback by the ending at first. It wasn't what I had wanted, felt like Nomura had been given too much free reign. However after letting it digest.. I'm thrilled.

It's exciting not knowing exactly whats coming next. 95% of this game is brilliant, so I have faith that they care and can maintain that through the following parts.

Just keep Nomura on a leash

i get what youre saying, and i dont "hate" the ending

but they could have made changes to the story that make us second guess whats going to happen without going into fate ghosts, multiple timelines and time traveling sephiroth shit (or whatever the hell is going on, i honestly have no fucking idea). in that sense, it seems quite unnecessary and just muddys the waters for them to do all of that.

for instance, keeping biggs, wedge and jessie alive would have been enough for us to specualte that they arent going to follow the originals timeline perfectly. thats it! they could have done just that and that would have planted the seed of doubt. we would all be sitting here wondering if they were going to kill off or not kill off certain characters, or if they were going to make other changes, just from that change alone.

instead, imo, they made everything convoluted and confusing with all this new stuff, and it just seems so unnecesary.

but again, i dont really mind all the new stuff, so its all good. i just hate that the story feels more bloated, it was already a lot to unpack in the original, now its just... oy