Major Plot Spoilers - recent FF7 remake impressions

So, I heard FFVII is actually a “remake” in the sense that the game explores alternate timelines that differ from the original game. I’m not a big FF7 guy but I’m super interested in hearing the crew’s opinion in this if true. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to be really pissed off by this game either because they thought it was more than just Midgar and/or it actually changes major events from the original such that future episodes of the remake will likely be radically different than the original.

This is either Hideo Kohima level craziness in a good way or Kingdom Hearts level nonsense. It will be interesting to see which.

I've always been of the opinion that if they're going through all of this hassle it had better be substantially different in places. Otherwise it's a waste of time.

Either way I definitely have zero fucks to give for anybody who's pissed off that some element or another isn't how they remember it.

It’s a real shame they aren’t able to market this more transparently. It seems like no one knows how long the first part is, what’s in it, when is the next one and now we’re not even sure if it’s even the same game.

@humanity: The hours concern is weird to me because like.. as jrpgs go FF7 is pretty damn short. I feel like too many people have a memory of it being some gigantic game and it's maybe 50 hours if you are real slow about it.

@efesell: I mean if they streamline things and it’s shorter then no problem I just don’t know what I’ll be getting if I buy this thing. Like am I getting the first HALF of the game or 1/10? How many episodes will there be? Hie long between episodes? Is this going to be a Kentucky Route Zero situation? I’m curious about because I only ever played 15 min of the FF7 PC demo in like 1998 and at the time it was very much not my thing. A little time has passed and my tastes have changed over the years and all the gameplay footage seems like it’s exactly the sort of modernizing I can get down with. That said..I don’t want to play the first part and then wait 3 years for the next one and have no idea what’s going on. I’d rather buy all of it and play from start to finish but there is no roadmap or clarification how this will look. Honestly I don’t think they even know. This game has gone through such lengthy development that I wouldn’t be surprised if they would pull the plug on the whole project if this first entry doesn’t meet some sort of financial expectations.

@humanity: I feel that last part seems highly unlikely. Square has had its issues in the past with unreasonable sales expectations but I can't imagine they won't hit with this combination of nostalgia and general fervor. I'm also sure they understand that nothing will bite them harder than botching a project like this so even if it does somehow fall under expectations I don't see that they have much choice beyond gritting teeth and staying the course.

Initially referring to this as episodic is probably the biggest mistake they could have made because what they probably have in mind is a Mass Effect situation. Nobody worries about waiting for every game in a trilogy to come out before playing any of them but you use the word Episode and it instills a very different expectation.

I hope part 2 is the weird existential madness Cloud goes through for about a disc in the original. FF VII was already off the deep end, folks.

@shindig: What if Final Fantasy VII Remake 2 is the the Bloodborne 2 we've been waiting for all along?

@efesell: So are you saying they're splitting the original FF7 into a trilogy?

@humanity: That seems sensible to me, I've assumed it was all to a similar scale of the XIII trilogy.

But that seems kind of nuts? Like if the original was a self contained game how could they possibly get away with splitting that original game into three separate full prices releases? This is like when movie studios suddenly realized they can turn the Hobbit into a trilogy.

@humanity: Were you expecting it to be only two parts? I feel like the overwhelming consensus since it was revealed that it would be multiple parts is that it would be three parts minimum.

There's just no way they're going to sell the Midgard section as one part, which was only like maybe the first 10-15 hours of the original game, and then do the entire rest of the game, which is exponentially bigger, as the second and last part.

Whether the final product will justify that is anybody's guess, but I just don't see any possibility the next part will be the rest of the game at this point.

@humanity: I mean if they take those chunks and expand the content into that of any other game I don't see the issue? If random bits and pieces I've heard on twitter are to be believed they've turned Midgar into a 30+ hour experience which on its own is almost a playthrough of FF7 by itself.

@efesell: @zeik: I knew from the start that it would be "multiple" episodes but at the end of the day they are remaking an existing game, and unless they somehow significantly expand on that original story I think it's a really shitty move to sell 3-5 $65 games that tell the story of something that was sold as one piece of entertainment two decades ago. What if Resident Evil 2 Remake was $65 for each of the campaigns and they added some fluff side objectives? I'm certain people would buy it because people will buy anything - but thats not a business practice we as the consumers should actually be celebrating.

Atlus is already being kind of shitty by releasing Persona 5 Royal as a full standalone game and not allowing existing players to buy an upgrade. This might seem like whining but breaking the original game into several FULL PRICE releases really sucks for the consumer. I've never played the original so I have no clue how the story is structured and have no pre-conceived expectations. That said I am significantly less interesting buying a game that ends on a TO BE CONTINUED with another $65 price tag at the end, and even more down the road. It's not even the money issues it's more the principle.

@humanity: At the end of the day I guess I'm just not all that interested in taking some sort of long view on it. If you want to split something into several parts the only thing that matters to me is whether or not those individual parts can stand up as worthwhile experiences on their own.

Whether or not they succeed at this remains to be seen but I've no interest in immediately viewing the whole product with this level of suspicion.

@humanity: Like I said, it's anybody's guess whether the final product will be worthwhile, but if this first part is what we have to go by the they're definitely not simply cutting the original game up and selling the same product they once sold as a single game. If they were able to expand the first handful of hours into basically the equivalent of a full game then one can assume we'll see something similar with the rest of the games.

I should mention I'm not actually the biggest fan of FF7, so if they were simply releasing the same game in multiple parts it would be a hard skip for me, but I am at least interested in what they're attempting to do. It's a big gamble, but if they can pull it off I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Given the time and money it will take I would even argue it's the only logical way they will accomplish what they want to do.

Here's my impression of the prospect of major storytelling changes in the remake: it probably needs to happen by default. The Square-Enix of today is a very different company than what it was over thirty years ago. This company today, probably is not capable of telling a story with a silly or humorous Cloud, and it sure as Hell does not have a proper handle on the original game's themes and messaging. On top of that, Square has been adding to Final Fantasy VII's canon for the better part of twenty years, and some of their additions, like Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, are worth using and referencing in the remake.

And as I have said before, and will say again, OG Final Fantasy VII is already available on every conceivable platform. It would not surprise me if my refrigerator eventually had the ability to play Final Fantasy VII. I view this Remake the same way I view the Evangelion movies, interesting artistic endeavors with a new perspective as valid as the original.

Sit tight until all the parts are out, and gauge interests by then. This applies to anyone who is doubtful of this multipart direction and especially those who have never played the original. If you have avoided FF7 after all these years, no need to jump in now.

@zeik: @efesell: I sure hope it turns out good because as I said I do want to play it. Unfortunately I just don't really have much faith in Square Enix these days to not fuck this up in some easily avoidable way. Hopefully they prove me wrong.

I think I'm out after reading what happens at the end of this game. If they were gonna deviate as the big twist, they could have at least made it in service of something better than time travel/alternate universe shlock.

Jason Schreier's review for Kotaku came out this morning (I'm surprised the embargo for the reviews is still centered on the original release date!) and, well, I personally don't care much about spoiling how this game is and isn't the same thing, but I'll spoiler block the most interesting bits for those who just need to know if this thread's speculation is correct. Know that the review contains this sentence early on: "For the bulk of its run time, Final Fantasy VII Remake is a glorious retelling of Final Fantasy VII’s story."

"The answer is simple: Everything’s new. In what will surely be unwelcome news to Final Fantasy VII purists, this remake extends many old scenes and even brings in some brand new ones. The skeleton of the plot remains the same—Avalanche still blows up a couple of reactors; Cloud still meets the flower girl Aerith by falling into her church; your crew still invades Shinra’s headquarters—but the details are all different. It’s as if Final Fantasy VII were the outline of a school paper and Final Fantasy VII Remake is a grad school thesis."

"It isn’t just the city that’s built up and overhauled. Dialogue exchanges that took seconds to read in text bubbles in Final Fantasy VII are several-minute cutscenes in Final Fantasy VII Remake. Plot threads that were hinted at in Final Fantasy VII are now fully explored, while chunks of the old game that made no sense have been revised, like the Honeybee Inn, which in the original game is a bizarre brothel. In the remake, it’s something new—a highlight of the game that comes off as surprisingly progressive."

"Aerith is one of the most improved aspects of this project. In 1997, she was presented as a spritely ally, but the garbled English script lost many of her best lines. In the remake, she feels like a brand new person—a lively, spiritual florist who’s as comfortable cracking a joke as she is connecting with the planet. Final Fantasy VII‘s Aerith was charming—Final Fantasy VII Remake’s Aerith is a lovable goofball. The remake gives her more time to speak and to interact with the other characters, including some wonderful buddy-buddy scenes with Cloud’s childhood friend Tifa. Through those moments, you get a chance to get to kn"

"Some of the setpieces feel straight out of Uncharted, complete with death-defying leaps across falling debris. Midgar is as beautifully gritty as anyone might hope, and this remake offers a close-up perspective that helps you see the city’s class struggle more intimately."

"Every flashback to Cloud’s razed hometown of Nibelheim or hint about Sephiroth’s clones joining together for Reunion was just a reminder that we wouldn’t actually see those scenes in the game. Every new character or extended dungeon felt like it was taking away time that could have been devoted to chunks of Final Fantasy VII that I knew wouldn’t be in here, like Junon, the port city built around a giant cannon that you visit shortly after Midgar. I wanted to see Final Fantasy VII Remake’s take on the beach resort Costa del Sol, or that glorious flying theme park, the Golden Saucer. I was prepared to burst into tears at… well, I won’t ruin that one thing. (You probably know the thing.)

"Then I got to the end and realized that, without spoiling anything, the game’s developers were more or less asking what it means to remake a video game. How faithfully do you have to stick to the script? Just how much, if anything, do creators owe their biggest fans, the ones who have spent so many years begging for a release like this?"

It's worth pointing out that, based on the ending spoilers, it is entirely possible for Part 2 to be a completely new game that has almost nothing in common with the next big chunk of post-Midgar FF7.

Though if fan reaction is negative enough (no idea if it will be), they might pull back on that stuff and do a more traditional retelling of the original story.

I just heard about the changes and I'm really glad I did. My hype for the game has been getting out of control and if I'd been exposed to them 30/40 hours in I'd have been absolutely gutted.

Still really looking forward to the game and keeping an open mind but I wasn't expecting it to deviate so drastically. I personally would have preferred something closer to the original story but the game still looks damn good and I'm looking forward to exploring the characters and setting again at least.

@fezrock: I would hope that they're just going into this prepared for that. I'd like to think nobody on that team is naive enough to think that there wouldn't be a huge traditionalist side grumbling about any change they make.

So hopefully they just point to a copy of the old game and remind everyone that hey it's still there.

@fezrock: That’s what’s craziest about this to me. People were worrying about how they’d divide the rest of classic FFVII across a few games—now it’s possible these later parts of the remake will be nothing like the original game at all. There could only be one more part to FF7 or it could be spun out indefinitely as a permanent sub series.