FF7 REMAKE. IT'S A THING.

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Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I've been a very much "I'll believe it when I see it" person when it comes to an FF7 remake.

Well, okay. Let me specify. I was probably pumped when I got wind of the tech demo for PS3, but, that was ages ago. I'm a little concerned about how long the game is, though. I seem to recall reading an article in a GameInformer that each "episode" is supposed to be equivalent to one main-line entry in the series? I don't pretend to know how many "episodes" they are planning, or how far into the game the first "episode" is. However, the statement irks me a little bit, and makes me a bit worried about the remake's future, if that is their aim.

Let me put that into perspective. The PS1 games where likely 20-30 hour affairs. On PS2 (era), FF10 and probably FF10-2 were maybe between 20-30 hours worth of game. FF11, I have no clue. FF12, last play of it (which I finished within the last couple days) was a 50+ hour affair. On PS3, FF13, I probably sunk at least 50 hours into it. FF14, no clue. Now on PS4, F15, was pretty much a 100+ hour affair for me. Going by the trend, if that statement is to be trusted, wouldn't be safe to assume that each episode of 7R would be a least 50+ hours of game?

I dunno. I should probably stick to the "wait and see" strategy to see what's up on this matter as well.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

@Marrend

I believe that they will add additional content. Weather the additional content helps or hurts the legacy of FF is another thing.
author=Marrend
I'm a little concerned about how long the game is, though. I seem to recall reading an article in a GameInformer that each "episode" is supposed to be equivalent to one main-line entry in the series? I don't pretend to know how many "episodes" they are planning, or how far into the game the first "episode" is. However, the statement irks me a little bit, and makes me a bit worried about the remake's future, if that is their aim.


I think I found the source for this:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/final-fantasy-7-remake-will-be-multiple-full-sized/1100-6438387/

author=Kitase
So if we're just looking at each of these parts, one part should be on par with the scale of one Final Fantasy XIII game.


FF13 games were around 30 hours if I'm remembering right, so I'd expect individual parts of this new FFVII series to be 30 hours in length. Although there is a question as to whether that would be 30 hours to rush through the story or only if you do all the side content. From the E3 footage, we already saw a new side quest where you have to escort Jessie on a motorcycle with a piece of materia as a reward.

I think most the increased width of the remake will come from trying to get the world of FFVII to feel like a real place. Square really backed away from abstract concepts at the start of the PS2 era with FFX ditching the world map. It seems they want to maintain that lack of abstraction of a modern game while maintaining the scope of the original. That's the vibe I'm getting. I imagine they want to give the world an actual sense of infrastructure. In episode 2 we could see actual roads throughout the world outside Midgar with farmlands around Kalm and trucks carrying produce in and out. I'll be impressed if they pull it off.

Overall I'm still pretty positive about the remake and loved just about everything we saw at E3. The combat has me really excited, the guard scorpion fight looked incredible. I like the stagger system (it actually looks more like Xenosaga 3's break system than FF13's stagger), I liked how the boss had different stances that asked the player to move around it (it's weak spot being it's anus was... something), I liked how debris fell to constantly changed the battlefield, add cover, and just how important the environment was to the fight. I like everything I saw combat wise.

Story wise, it looks like they're adding some weird stuff. The ghosts tormenting Aerith looked a little goofy without context. I'll admit I don't care much if it's truly honoring the legacy or anything like (I think FF15 already killed the legacy), FF7 just isn't sacred or special to me. I want to be clear I'm not trying to invalidate those that do feel that way, however, just explaining why I personally am not that concerned.

What did excite me about the story stuff was that scene with Tifa questioning what they were doing and expressing a feeling of being trapped. If they really take the increased length to flesh out these characters and add more of these quiet human moments like this new Tifa scene, I'll be pretty satisfied with the game as whole.
I'm firmly in the "eagerly awaiting" category, as I think I've said before. And FF7 is relatively sacred and special to me (although it's become less and less so over the last ten years).

I was not happy to learn that it was being released in multiple parts, however. For the plain and simple reason that now there are multiple games I need to scrape together the money to buy instead of just one.

author=Marrend
Let me put that into perspective. The PS1 games where likely 20-30 hour affairs. On PS2 (era), FF10 and probably FF10-2 were maybe between 20-30 hours worth of game. FF11, I have no clue. FF12, last play of it (which I finished within the last couple days) was a 50+ hour affair. On PS3, FF13, I probably sunk at least 50 hours into it. FF14, no clue. Now on PS4, F15, was pretty much a 100+ hour affair for me. Going by the trend, if that statement is to be trusted, wouldn't be safe to assume that each episode of 7R would be a least 50+ hours of game?


I'm not sure how much those totals reflect the actual length of those games versus your play style changing over time? Back in high school I remember people bragging about putting 100+ hours into FFVII, FFVIII, and FFIX, but those people were completionists who needed to get all the things, level everybody to 100, whatever. (Myself I think I put around ~50 hours into each of those games? And that was with no completionist tendencies to speak of.) Likewise, I think it's probably possible to finish FFXV in 30 hours or less, and that I only got 100+ hours out of it because I chose to delve into as much of the optional content as I did.
The new video makes me a happy girl. I'm so looking forward to this. I better save up for a PS4. XD
author=Liberty
The new video makes me a happy girl. I'm so looking forward to this. I better save up for a PS4. XD


Haha i need to save up for a PS4 too JUST for this game... maybe they will port to PC later but i think it wont happen until they finish all the "episodes" thing.
I was always against the idea of a remake because I thought they'd screw it up, but god damn, this game looks AMAZING and extremely faithful to the original. The PS1 game is one of my top 3 favorite games ever.

I'm a little disappointed that the first game only covers the opening Midgar section, although I imagine this section will be greatly expanded. The only thing that worries me is that if they continue to expand the game at the same rate, the FF7 remake will consist of like eight games.
I had faith from ground zero and I'm proud of that fact. I'm very much looking forward to all of it X3

I view it as 'they had different discs so I've no issue with them having it set up in 'chapters' since that's pretty much what they did initially. Just... they released all the chapters at once'
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I could definitely see them putting in open-world kinds of things to do in Midgard to pad the game out. I don't know what the plan is after Midgard, though. Would the game just start in Kalm, with the flashback? Will they let players on the overworld map? Will there even be an overworld map in this game? Or... what?

I will say that the Kalm flashback was semi-playable in the original, and I think it would be a downer if they pull a Crisis Core, and we only get glimpses of the events there. Though, who knows? Maybe they'll stave it off until the whole truth is known, and we get to experience the events as they actually happened? I dunno.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

I have always wondered how they would do the overworld. Without the overworld you eliminate many aspects of the game, like chocobos and breeding them to get KOR. Or the airship.

It could be super complicated, like Witcher 3 levels of detail / open world nature.
So, less more space between towns, etc...
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I mean, they could setup the airship to be a fast travel system, like it was in FF10 or FF10-2. I also suppose they could do FF7's overworld similar to FF15's, and be able to select locations that you could then either fast travel to, or use an auto-pilot feature, or other kind of waypoint. I'm not sure about the rover, or chochobos, but, vehicles where encounters are not possible (the Tiny Bronco, the sub, or the Highwind) might have such fast travel and/or auto-pilot features.
I would love a Witcher 3 type world map but I doubt we'd get it.
I just hope this game gets a good open world, like the original... i mean, its not necessary to do it at a full scale like The Witcher 3 (doing it that way will take HUGE amouount of resources), they just can do it like the original FF VII and done... One only can dream anyway.
Dudesoft
always a dudesoft, never a soft dude.
6309
The first game will be entirely in Midgar.
Yes, and I'm looking forward to doing some asscreed type exploration. We haven't seen anything about the exploration, sadly, but I hope they do it assassin's creed style (at least, akin to the newer ones) where you can climb up and around shit. Imagine that with Midgar.

I'd also love to see on the plates a bit more, and not just under them, but I doubt we'll see much of the richer areas. I did like tha small view in one of the trailers of the small alleyway. Running around through alleys might be fun, especially if you're trying to avoid enemies.

But yeah, I wanna see some of the exploration, treasure-finding gameplay next. Battles are great and all, but we need to see how the game will play out a bit outside of dungeonesque areas.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I predict it's all just a giant grid of identical featureless roads, to "immerse you in the massive scale of the city"
author=Liberty
Yes, and I'm looking forward to doing some asscreed type exploration. We haven't seen anything about the exploration, sadly, but I hope they do it assassin's creed style (at least, akin to the newer ones) where you can climb up and around shit. Imagine that with Midgar.


That might be cool. A lot of games in the "you climb up a tower and unlock the shit around you" sub-genre has actually been trying to move away from that exact mechanic because it's become so overdone across so many genera (it's a word, look it up if you don't believe me!) of games. Except for the climb up the "golden shiney wire of hope" I never thought of FF7 as having much to do with verticality, but Advent Children kind of puts paid to that notion.

author=Liberty
I'd also love to see on the plates a bit more, and not just under them, but I doubt we'll see much of the richer areas. I did like tha small view in one of the trailers of the small alleyway. Running around through alleys might be fun, especially if you're trying to avoid enemies.


What they conceivably COULD do...which they totally won't because it's completely at odds with Squenix's motivation as a large consumer entertainment corporation to make as much as possible by selling the game to as many people as possible regardless of their politics...is really make this game ABOUT something, ABOUT things like systemic poverty (systems that keep the poor poor and Shinra rich), the haves and the have-nots, redistribution of wealth...all of this stuff that's mostly just kind of inferred in the beginning of FF7. This is a complete pipe dream, and I'm sure they won't do it. It's not why people are nostalgic about FF7 and for serious consideration of the implications of soft scifi/spec-fic Squenix already has the Deus Ex franchise whose BRAND is essentially this. But to me, this is like the one thing that could really justify giving Midgar its own disc all to itself. When I heard about that I was not happy. I am poor, and sick, and goddamnit, I want to experience the VII remake in its entirety before I die from critically failing at existing in a capitalist system.



I was thinking more like the Egyptian one where, yes, you can climb stuff, but also can squeeze through stuff and roll under stuff and interact with the environment a bit. So, hey, there's a junkpile up against another junkpile but there's just enough room to squeeze through and here's a hidden item for your trouble.

It was sort of the gameplay in original FF7 where Cloud would jump on and over stuff, especially in the slums, but also in other areas of the game. Like the scene with he and Aeris after running from the church, jumping from trashpile to trashpile while talking, or in the church rafters or the train graveyard.

FF7 had a physicality to the movement that would fit well with asscreed exploration play - climbing and jumping and running and rolling. There was a lot of interacting with the environment to get around - climbing ropes and ladders and running over logs and the like. It'd fit well, I think.


FF7 was already about shit. There was a lot about ideals of masculinity vs femininity and a bunch of psychological shit. (If you read the design docs and such, you'd find out that there was this whole thing with how Cloud was designed as a character - a reason to his size and how he talks and acts. It's really quite interesting how they set that up, though a lot of it didn't read through quite as well in the English version as it did in the Japanese. Cultural expectations and whatnot didn't read as well. But it's still an interesting read about the psychological journey and aspects of the game and what it represents/how it goes about implementing such things.)

The themes of rich vs poor were pretty slammed in there already, too. Then there was the theme of environmental terrorism and how we're the ones destroying the planet and how it's up to humanity to save it would have been lost. The whole 'erosion of culture' aspect of Wutai, the whole 'rich can do what they want' with Corneo and ShinRa, the 'sacrifice to save' of Aerith... there's a lot there to unpack. Focussing it on just one theme is dumb.
...I feel like there away more exciting things to look forward to when it comes to a 'dreams come true video game remake' than characters crawling through crevices to load the rest of the assets crap lol.
Dudesoft
always a dudesoft, never a soft dude.
6309
I have a painful feeling the exploration will be more akin to FF15. Where it seems like you can go everywhere, but there are clear cut videogame barriers. Not GTA 7r where you can asscreed the cityscape. This is Square-Enix we're talking about.

Save those pipedreams for Cyberpunk 2077. That's the game we're all waiting for.