[Megathread] FF7 Remake

[everydaygamer]

It wouldn't be out of spite, it would be because the game outside of nostalgia is kind of forgettable. Which leads to my main issue with the game they use nostalgia to make a stealth sequel to the first game that nobody asked for. I don't mind some of the changes, and it's fair for them to do that as recreating the game 1 for 1 would be boring professionally....but nobody asked for this

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I'd agree with tAsphyx22, it takes a bit of getting used to...but i absolutely love it. It to me is the biggest shining point of the game, aside from the music.

Honestly, I think people are blowing the changes way out of proportion. The only major change is that Seph now knows the future and is trying to avert his fate and this is used mostly as a way to explain why he is taking a more active interest in Cloud and friends wherein the original he didn't really care about them at all. All the talk of alternate timelines is just wild fan speculation based on what I believe is the misinterpretation of the scene where Zack is carrying Cloud back to Midgar which was from the original (while Zack fighting the Shinra soldiers is from Crisis Core) and in no way means that he's alive in some alternate timeline (which was a hell of a leap to begin with even if Nomura is involved).

[dope_danny]

I think a lot of the dislike, now i've slept on it, isn't the changes but the insert of the 'Time Jannies' which absolutely must be Nomura OC. It reeks of his shitty 'dreams and destiny' fanwank that makes him the tite kubo of jrpgs.

I think the best way to describe it is to compare the two kinds of additional content in the 7 remake.

1: Jessie needs materials for the second reactor bombing, you head up to the plate with her and learn about her past, her motivation to hate shinra and you get the materials needed for the bombing run.

2: Rather than have her now injure her leg during the parachute landing the Time Jannies show up to hurt her leg to ensure Cloud goes instead of her.

Its an easy example but i think i put my finger on it after sleeping on it why its bugging people: Its technically a form of self insert, but as a force of nature rather than an OC.

There was no reason the time jannies needed to show up. She could have easily hurt her leg parachuting or during the break in no problem, or even the bike ride fight against soldier who nobody cares about. If they wanted to add more exposition and character development while keeping events in check they could have before writing the script.

Instead we get a literal insert doing it mid story. Something i thought was going midway to make things go full Eva Rebuild 2.22 that makes you go "WAIT, WHAT?!?" but that doesn't really happen. Wedge survives only to die after calling a helicopter the turks blow up, events are maintained. Biggs survives but since you leave Midgar will probably not have a significant role in the next game. You leave Midgar not knowing this, events are maintained. Hell the only real change is the characters maybe know about Meteor which is just more incentive to follow after him, again maintaining events.

I actually thought about the tonally dissonant Whispers which felt to me like rejects cut from Kingdom Hearts 3 and honestly they seem pointless and invasive which is not a good combo.

Example 2:

-You stand in front of a portal
-Sephiroth dares you to follow him and walks into said portal
-You get a 'yo this is the final boss' message then follow him in
-Instead of fighting Sephiroth you have a honestly pretty atrocious juggle/stunlock heavy fight against faceless OC's that look like venom took over the power rangers from the live action krispy kreme vector a few years back. Along with a giant time god thing that all say nothing, mostly do nothing. You just fight them to waste 10-15 minutes of your finite lifespan
-With this taken care of you fight Sephiroth, learn about meteor and he leaves, bodying cloud establishing his threat, his power gap to the protagonist and wraps up midgar with the real heros journey beginning.

Now remove the time jannies from this section. Notice how it flows better? makes far more sense and feels like the slight reworking expected in a remake rather than "AND THEN SONICHU SHOWED UP TO SAVE JILL FROM THE NEMESIS" style OC inserted fanfic?

I'm being sarcastic there but i have been replaying the chapters to clean up and honestly knowing the full plot every instance of them feels like this. Why do they do something? to maintain the plot. Why do they need to do it rather than writing events to occur how you want, even if that way is different to the original?

Honestly it just reeks of a developer [W I T H A V I S I O N] inserting something that had no reason to be there and honestly only makes things more muddy and meandering. I think if they were entirely removed and it was just "Aerith and Sephiroth clearly know more than they should" and its some groundhog deal -which would give the name a double meaning- then people would have far less issues than the original concept, the blartless, showing up to do basically nothing but interrupt things that never needed interrupting in a remake.

Like on paper, or in the meeting room, how do you think these were sold? what do they add to the story that necessitated their inclusion?

I think you remove the stupid ghosts and just make it a groundhog day meets eva rebuild scenario and it flows so much better if its just 'aerith and sephiroth know how this goes and are trying to change it'.

[Binaris]

Game was great... Anyone complaining about it being the first part of the series needs to get over it. There's a minimum of 30 hours of content if you skip all the side content. Realistically people will spend 35-45 hours.

As for the ending, I'm fine with it, there were hints all along and I want to get the next game ASAP.

When did 40 hours become acceptable for a final fantasy. Was it around the 13 trash? Because I cant think of a FF i haven't dropped a hundred hours or more on.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

When did 40 hours become acceptable for a final fantasy. Was it around the 13 trash? Because I cant think of a FF i haven't dropped a hundred hours or more on.

There is a singleplayer, mainline FF game that has over 100 hours of quality content? The only I can think of is FFXII, and that's due to the sheer amount of padding in the game, in the form of the level design and the hunts.

Whenever I hear that a game has "over 100 hours content", that's a warning sign for me. It means to me that the game is almost certainly bloated with low quality filler. I want the most amount of quality playtime, not spending my time slogging through mediocre content.

[kenn9530]

When did 40 hours become acceptable for a final fantasy. Was it around the 13 trash? Because I cant think of a FF i haven't dropped a hundred hours or more on.

there is between 50-60 hours if you want to complete everything and max it all out, but no final fantasy story has even been over 40 ish hours, its the extra stuff at the end and grinding that adds all the playtime and ff7 remake will eventually have all that when all of it is released.

[Cattleya]

When did 40 hours become acceptable for a final fantasy. Was it around the 13 trash? Because I cant think of a FF i haven't dropped a hundred hours or more on.

Anyone who spent more than 100 hours on a single playthrough of Final Fantasy 1-9 is either a liar or supremely slow. All of those games' main stories are between 20-40 hours, add sidequests and they're 50-60 tops. Not in an "if you know what to do" way either, straight-up first playthroughs.

FF10 was the first to last longer than that, but only because it just has grindy content like the colosseum and the ability to go through the sphere grid 5 times over so you can min-max stats. FF12 was a bit better about the grindy content, since at least a lot of the hunts felt pretty unique.

[Gorsameth]

I assume Square isn't stupid and knows that seriously deviating from the original ff7 without a worthy payoff is going to raise hell.

They have given themselves the option of some leeway and I would expect some details to change but the overall story beats to be the same. And for people that know the original this can actually be a boon, you can experience the story as if its the first time because you don't actually know exactly what is going to happen.

Look at the quality of the remake and have a little faith.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

go through the sphere grid 5 times over so you can min-max stats.

My gosh, don't remind me.

I don't think I've ever had the displeasure of having to use such a meaningless, tedious progression system that did not change my gameplay experience at all. Well, I guess there's XIII's Crystarium, but hey at least it was actually honest about what it was and didn't take freaking ages to fill like the Sphere Grid (4 button presses to fill one single Sphere! Rinse and repeat 400+ times... so like 1600ish-2000ish button presses to fill the Sphere Grid. Yikes!). They really should've just made leveling give you static statboosts, no progression system to waste your time with.

[Biomega]

When did 40 hours become acceptable for a final fantasy. Was it around the 13 trash? Because I cant think of a FF i haven't dropped a hundred hours or more on.

I posted a comparison of completion times earlier in this thread (though probably 50+ pages ago by now), and FF games have never been as long as people make them out to be.

They're long if you don't know what you're doing, or if you're being completionist - in which case this game isn't 40 hours either. If you're at least halfway decent and familiar with FF games or JPRGs in general, you'll need a lot less time.

For comparable metrics, everything so far seems to pointing towards it being comparable to most previous FF games.

[Trassk]

I assume Square isn't stupid and knows that seriously deviating from the original ff7 without a worthy payoff is going to raise hell.

They have given themselves the option of some leeway and I would expect some details to change but the overall story beats to be the same. And for people that know the original this can actually be a boon, you can experience the story as if its the first time because you don't actually know exactly what is going to happen.

Look at the quality of the remake and have a little faith.

You'd like to think that, but then you remember ff13 and its sequels exist

[Lefrog]

I think you remove the stupid ghosts and just make it a groundhog day meets eva rebuild scenario and it flows so much better if its just 'aerith and sephiroth know how this goes and are trying to change it'.

Ghosts were necessary.

I walked out of the theaters 5 min after the live action remake of lion king started because rafiki entered the scene without his stick and a bunch of weeds in his hand instead. You don't mess with blind devotion and nostalgia like that. Now to others, it was more realistic and flowed better without it, but to me it hurt.

Japan has always been very respectful of its most hardcore fans, who continue to buy merchandise and support the company 20 years after a title release. Sometimes it's cringey, like when a 90 year old woman voices a super strong male anime character like Goku from Dragonball Super just because she was the original VA, but it's necessary to pay homage.

Totally agree that the story would have been better without them, but if they had so much as done a single change to the story without them, they would have dissapointed all the true fans.

You either make a "remake" for the masses to maximize profit or you make the game for your fans.

[kaelleria]

When did 40 hours become acceptable for a final fantasy. Was it around the 13 trash? Because I cant think of a FF i haven't dropped a hundred hours or more on.

When it's the first part of my initial playthrough... I still have to go back and do side quests (looking at you Jules...), arena battles, vr sims, etc...

And that's before I even step into hardmode.

The game was enjoyable and was absolutely worth my money.

[Absintheminded]

Anyone who spent more than 100 hours on a single playthrough of Final Fantasy 1-9 is either a liar or supremely slow. All of those games' main stories are between 20-40 hours, add sidequests and they're 50-60 tops. Not in an "if you know what to do" way either, straight-up first playthroughs.

FF10 was the first to last longer than that, but only because it just has grindy content like the colosseum and the ability to go through the sphere grid 5 times over so you can min-max stats. FF12 was a bit better about the grindy content, since at least a lot of the hunts felt pretty unique.

Bullshit, FFVII was my absolute favorite game growing up. I had *several* gold chocobos and every boss and special materia in the game. The game timer was maxed at 99 hours for ages. I even started a new playthrough to record certain things on VHS to later watch as a movie.

[PickleballAce]

Bullshit, FFVII was my absolute favorite game growing up. I had *several* gold chocobos and every boss and special materia in the game. The game timer was maxed at 99 hours for ages. I even started a new playthrough to record certain things on VHS to later watch as a movie.

Yeah, I'm with you here. I remember pinning the game clock as well. Spent a lot of time grinding in the Gelnika and Northern Cave trying to cap all the characters and level materia. Fucking around at Gold Saucer... that kinda thing.

[Binaris]

I posted a comparison of completion times earlier in this thread (though probably 50+ pages ago by now), and FF games have never been as long as people make them out to be.

They're long if you don't know what you're doing, or if you're being completionist - in which case this game isn't 40 hours either. If you're at least halfway decent and familiar with FF games or JPRGs in general, you'll need a lot less time.

For comparable metrics, everything so far seems to pointing towards it being comparable to most previous FF games.

The issue is, even for completionists. By 45 hours, I had already hit max level. Had 3 of every materia maxed that I could get 3 of. And am making my way through hard mode but there isn't anything new. Other final fantasy games you sank 100 plus hours doing side quests, leveling up, and gearing for the bosses. Hard mode isn't new content. Its is the same crap but more damage with item and mp restrictions.

Ive said it before, I would have paid 180 for a complete game through to the crater. I loved the story and think it was worth my money. Im not taking issue with the game so much as I take issue with the fact that the bar is constantly being lowered for games while additional content is released via dlc just so they can keep the 60 dollar price point. Games these days cost a lot more to make so i would expect to pay a lot more for them. I would just rather pay that up front instead of pay for it with dlc and shorter games.

[Absintheminded]

The fact that you went back and did minigames forever and ever doesn't have any impact on this discussion, though.

STFU and read the post I was replying to.

Furthermore, fuck you patronizing different aspects of the game by calling it "minigames" lol. I had every materia in the game fully leveled.

[Binaris]

Maybe you should pay attention to the conversation in the post you were replying to. You spending 5000 hours doing whatever doesn't have anything to do with the topic being discussed.

(Also, damn, are you just a wee bit defensive about your little minigames?)

It doesn't matter if it is your so called mini games or side quests. It was working towards achievement and getting the rewards behind it back in a time where the rewards took time and effort and weren't just handed to you on a platter. The newer generation on gamer's don't want that level of work and so the games are paced out to not need leveling. Not once in the story, on normal, did you need to stop and level. You play through the story until you beat it, run chapter 16 opening for an hour and ding, max level achievement for all characters. Pat on the head move on to the next.

Meanwhile, you had games like ff6 where you had to stop and level before major milestones. Recollect your entire cast after the world falls. Level them all. Use them all. And by the time you were done you dam well felt like you have actually accomplished something as opposed to the walking simulators that play the game for you. Jrpgs in general were all like this back in the glory days. And now, the spirit is lost.

[Biomega]

The issue is, even for completionists. By 45 hours, I had already hit max level. Had 3 of every materia maxed that I could get 3 of. And am making my way through hard mode but there isn't anything new. Other final fantasy games you sank 100 plus hours doing side quests, leveling up, and gearing for the bosses.

I think this is probably just biased memory speaking. Maybe it's because you remember yourself doing that 10 years ago, but now you're 10 years more experienced in RPGs so naturally you'll be better at it.

When I go back do, say, FFX playthroughs I'll have the game beat WAY below 100 hours, including all superbosses etc. I think my last one was like 37 hours or something. Speedrunners can do it in 20.

I'll see how long it'll take me for FF7R once it's out on PC.

[Big Thanks]

If you mind me asking
From a scale of 0 to 10 how much "linear" or "sandbox" is this game?

0 being 100% linear ("The game is playing itself JON! The game is playing itself JON!)
10 being 100% sandbox (without any path to follow, or like Bovinity Divinity says "without content")

The famous Jontron quote about Final Fantasy XIII (>_<)

[Tech614]

"XIII plays itself".

Coming from the guy hyping up XV in this thread. XV where you literally hold down warpstrike and kill any enemy in the game. XV where the car fucking auto drives you to your next destination. XV literally plays itself.

Granted XIII certainly does play itself for the first 10 hours or so, but it's combat system opens up at a certain point to be pretty damn good. XV never does.

But on the subject if linearity in VIIR, the game is mostly linear just like X or XIII. It has a few chapters that are open ended and let you do side activities, but most chapters are linear in the mold of X/XIII level design I mentioned above. This also isn't really a bad thing since the game has a cohesive direction unlike *cough shit show XV cough*.