1) I think all the FF7 remake talk should be done in this forum now that there's a page for it. Anyway, I was playing Crisis Core recently and thinking, "What's going to happen when Cloud gets his second sword?" If you don't remember, you keep the Buster Sword all the way through Midgar until Kalm Town when you buy the Mythril Saber. You can't sell the Buster Sword either. You have it until the end of the game. Then in Advent Children, we find that Cloud has placed the Buster Sword in a cliff overlooking Midgar (in a very significant spot.) It's such a special item since it's tied in with Zach so much plus it's so iconic, that story-wise, Cloud keeps it with him. I just wonder how they will treat it in-game . It would be a little bit of a bummer to have him just stash it in his inventory for the rest of the game but that might as well happen too.

2) Will there be roads? It always bothers me when fantasy worlds lack two things: Farmland and roads. People need to eat and they need to get around. With so many vehicles in Midgar, you'd think there would be a road leading out of the place to Kalm at least. In the trailer, the highway signs do say "X Miles to Kalm", but it's so early yet, that could all be placeholder art. All I can say is, the area around Midgar (Kalm and the Chocobo farm) in Crisis Core has roads in some of the missions you take on.

So two incredibly minor bits of things to speculate on but I'd like to hear everyone else's speculations.

It may be sacrilege, but I hope they add in the mythical, "way to revive aeris/th". I remember my friend spending like 60 hours trying different " methods" pre internet era. The good days.

Honestly though, they could just add in a second ending - one where she's alive and sacrifices herself or whatever, and the original. It isn't too much to ask and would be a cool thing for the fans who played it back in the day - assuming they don't go too heavy into FMV that is. The more FMV they add (and hence the less they do in-game), the less likely something like this will happen.

They'll add a bunch of references to stupid stuff like Genesis, Weiss, and those three guys from Advent Children.

Vincent is gonna be voiced by Liam O'Brien and it'll be great.

Troy Baker as Barret.

It's been mentioned before I think, but when Cloud dresses like a girl he needs to somehow end up looking like Lightning.

It also need it to fulfill it's anime heritage and go all out with a beach episode at Costa Del Sol featuring Hojo and his ladies. They will be smashing watermelons, all the girls will be wearing their skimpy outfits (except Yuffie because she's going to be wearing a typical school one piece), and the dudes are going to get into some hijinks with Hojo as they try to peak on the girls when they head into the hot spring.

1) Can't wait to try that Fort Condor Tower Defense game again.

2) Will there be roads?? Maybe you ride that motorcycle around? FFVII will have to address the explorable open world map, which has been, let's say, different, in modern Final Fantasies / absent in many realistic rpgs.

3) The bestiary in this game is wild by modern standards. Look here if you need a refresher. Or find a picture of a smogger.

4) I have some thoughts on this game.

I fully suspect that Yuffie and Vincent will be more tightly integrated into the main story and cutscenes, instead of optional sidequest characters. And given how popular both are today, they should be.

There also has been a lot of speculation in the past that Vii and X take place in the same world, I wouldn't be surprised if that is acknowledged in some form in the game.

I hope they develop and flesh out some of the character and story shortcomings. The 3rd act felt really rushed and characters like Barret, Cait Sith, and Yuffie while cool, didn't get the proper treatment in their own stories. Also, maybe it's just me but the death of Aerith wasn't really built up that well. She's not that likable, especially compare to Tifa so maybe work on that too, sense it's such an important moment in the game.

As far as speculations go, I'll bet they'll call back to crisis core often.

@slag: In X-2, the computer kid's name is Shinra and the creator said FF7 is suppose to be a 1000years in the future so maybe a similar nod but nothing significant.

I wonder how they'll deal with the more purposefully humorous aspects of the game. Yes, there's the Honey Bee Inn, but there's also the "pretend to be a Shinra soldier marching in a parade and get rewarded for how well you do" bit as well as what ever you want to call that dance Palmer does when you fight him.

I dunno man, the more i think about the more I think there could be something overt.

I suspect this game's existence at all is in large part driven by a deliberate business tactic to pander to fans who have drifted from the franchise. There's other reasons of course, but the whole thing feels like a deliberate way to re-energize the AAA side of the franchise. And Square is certainly certainly not above fan service,their entire mobile offerings trade on that heavily. So I really think it's very possible we see that kind of stuff.

I 100% agree about the Aeris/Aerith death. When I played the game, that part hadn't been spoiled yet, and it had zero impact with me. It might have been the translation, but I didn't feel she was as well established as say Barrett or especially Tifa by that point. Also for me at least FFII/IV made that plot device an expected one in a Final Fantasy game.

Golden Chocobo DLC that will be required if you want to get the Golden Chocobo, Knights of the Round, and the super-secret ending where Aeris doesn't die.

I had this idea in my mind that, come those particular scenes, the game would just neatly transition into the "World of Final Fantasy"-aesthetic.
Although I'm much more interested in the Costa Del-Sol portion of the game ... hehehehe

I really hope Square hasn't changed stylistically to the degree that they are incompatible with what made that game so great in the 90s. The FFVII Compilation did not exactly fill me with confidence, but they surely know how high the stakes are on this project.

No mopey Advent Children Cloud, basically.

1. Random encounters will be replaced with procedurally generated encounters .
2. Tifa will have 50% smaller breasts (with softbody physics and with subsurface scattered real flesh-like materials).
3. Leveling is done in the 4 dimensional hypersphere grid.
4. Default name for Cloud will be re-translated as "Nimbus".
5. Nimbus's main sword is 50% larger (with softbody physics and with subsurface scattered real flesh-like materials).

i think it's going to end up being vastly different, which for me (not being a superfan of OG FF7) is an interesting/good thing. it's most likely going to be more of a reimagining like the new robocop or something; different, but compelling enough in its own right (sorry i liked the new robocop and can't think of a better example atm).

They change the combat to match FF12.

Well some interviews with Nomura came out of Famitsu and Dengeki Online, and the way Nomura's talking definitely makes it sound like he's not interested in just updating the visuals. He said they're aiming to "surpass the original" and the only way to do that is to challenge what current hardware is capable of. He didn't give many examples but when asked about the "Game System" (presumably talking about the mechanics), he said they're "changing it to a more realistic system." Another choice quote about the mechanics is "We haven’t shown any gameplay yet, but since we’re updating them quite a bit, please look forward to that."

Looking at quotes like that it's hard to imagine this game shipping with anything resembling the original combat. I'm not in love with the ATB system or anything, but I'd be disappointed if they used something else, because I have no confidence in their ability to make a new battle system that's any good. And if they end up trying to make this an action game I'd almost rather they never made it at all. We have enough shitty Japanese Action RPGs.

As for the story, Nomura says "if you are going to do a full remake, you have to take a different approach and make something that suits the times" and that "there will be more plot devices in the story." So we can expect some changes there as well, likely some references to the dumb spinoffs. Probably some swimsuit DLC too. One word that was thrown around a lot during the interview was "realistic" which is worrisome, because this game is fucking silly, and if they don't embrace that they'll lose an important part of this games identity. So I'm not very confident this will be the remake I want, but I'm still pretty confident it will be more interesting than whatever else they would've put out. Certainly better than Lightning Returns. I guess we'll see. Nomura's still gotta get Kingdom Hearts out (which I don't think they've even announced a year for yet). Maybe this game will require less input from him since its a remake, but I think holiday 2017 is pretty optimistic.

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I want to see the same exact game play and story but with modern 3rd person over the shoulder perspective instead of isometric view pre rendered backgrounds. But with how big FF7 is I don't see how that would be feasible so I can't even begin to think how there going to tackle this. I'm sure they'll end up having to streamline/cut some of the story and It'll make me very sad. Either that or it'll end up just being an HD remaster instead of a remake and we just get the same game in 1080p or something dumb like that and then we burn SE to the ground.

I have the utmost faith in this remake. Jesus Christ.

Definitely an awkward situation, but the article actually did reinforce my faith in this project because it states, among other things, they are actually well into development of the remake.
Also there seems to be no confusion about Nomura's part in this anymore: "These days Nomura is well aware - and well into - his directorial role. Apparently he even tried to get the ball rolling on a remake "quite a while ago", but to no avail."

@obcdexter: I actually do have more faith in an FFVII remake without Nomura directing than I do in a remake with Nomura directing.

@hassun: lol just to be clear, pretty sure this was when he saw the trailer internally at Square, not when he saw the trailer at E3. Which would be even more hilarious.

"Man we're remaking FFVII? Wait I'm remaking FFVII?"

I'm a monster who loves the FF13 battle system so they could pretty much just redo it with that and I would be set.

All I want is a mission where you quickly play through the main story bits of Zack because some of those moments in Crisis Core are fantastic (Such as the Red Dead Redemption-style end, three years prior to that game). Maybe portray it as Cloud getting to understand the weird mentality he now has after that switch-over (for want of a better word) from Zack to him. Maybe just have them like those Laguna levels in FFVIII.

Heck, I think they could probably cover Crisis Core in a single opening cinematic like how they sped through the story of KH:Chain of Memories in the opening-credits scene of Kingdom Hearts II.

Given the nature and track record of modern Square-Enix, not to mention the giant, looming shadow of the original I have zero idea what this remake will (or should) actually be. All I know is that I have a genuine/morbid interest in seeing how it turns out, for good or ill. Well, that's not entirely true. I bet it will be super pretty to look at if nothing else.

I really hope they keep a lot of the weirder elements of the game intact. Things like the crossdressing section would be super weird with modern detail and I'm really curious how they handle some of the things that were left more to imagination due to limitations in graphics and character design.

I could also see them ditching the overworld as it was in that game and go for something that flows a little better, even if it means changing how certain segments work.

@dixavd said:

The scene you spoiler tagged was actually in the original game. It was difficult to find though. If I remember correctly you have to go to the mansion basement after Cloud's memory is restored.

@hunter5024: There's loads of things I probably miss-assign to Crisis Core that are actually in VII that I never got around to seeing. When I tried to play VII originally, my copy of Disk 3 broke *curses* when I was near the end of Disk 2 and I said fuck it and have never fully played it myself since. I tried to go back again recently and that game has aged so badly I didn't get further than I was before.

Thanks for pointing this out though. I just checked it out and it was amazing seeing the original's simple take on it. Knowing how much they bolstered that part in Crisis Core makes me wonder how much they'll emphasize and dramatize the other moments in VII in this remake.

I can't help but consider how damned annoying the characters may be what with them obviously going to add voice acting into the mix. JRPG English voice acting is generally really bad, and FF in particular seems to feature some of the worst of it lately. It'd be neat if they include the Japanese dub as an alternative.

The English dub of Barrett could possibly be the most offensive thing in existence. Unless everyone is voiced by Charles Dance.

Yeah this is a concern of mine too. I felt like playing FF X for the first time like a bucket of ice water was thrown onto my pre-existing idea of what these kinds of characters sounded like. Almost as bad as hearing Mario for the first time in Super Mario 64.

Though I thought the actors in Adevnt Children mostly did alright. Rachel Leigh Cook in particular as Tifa and the Actress played Yuffie (The Kim Possible actress maybe?) in particular seemed reasonably natural.