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General Discussion / Re: [SPOILERS] FF7 remake discussion time!
« on: 2020-04-12 09:52:00 »
As to the overwhelming amount of positive reviews from professional reviewers, faithfulness to the original is not a criterion that critics apply or care about. Therefore, to them, how much FF7R sticks to the original plot, is probably of no importance. To be honest, I am not sure how many of them would even be able to tell whether it does or not stick to the original plot and to what degree. So, by completely discarding any considerations as to how closely this game really does resemble the original release from 1997 in terms of overall story or atmosphere, one might be able to understand how these reviewers come to their conclusions and consequently to their rave reviews.
The main problem, in my opinion, was the decision to split the Remake into several episodes. Maybe that’s the only way to feasibly do it, however, it does cause all kinds of issues that are glaringly obvious. In order to make this game palatable to people who have not played the original 1997 FF7, it must feel like a whole game to them, not one that only deals with the beginning, possibly not so exciting first quarter of the original game’s slew of events. As a result, the ending of FF7R probably has to have an ending and a final boss that awe the audience. I am afraid that this is why they did not choose Motorball as the final boss but something else. Even though Motorball may have been iconic in 1997, I don’t think it would have been something that would have felt like an inspiring end to this game for newcomers to FF7. One can clearly find elements of FF7 in FF7R that would only happen in FF7 at a much later point in the game. For instance, the final one-on-one scene between Sephiroth and Cloud, which is the very final fight of FF7, is now happening conveniently at the end of FF7R. I do wonder how they are trying to remake the rest of FF7, if they are already using up some of the most memorable moments you would not see in the original until much later in the game.
That even makes me wonder whether they are going to remake the rest of the game anyway. After all, this game is officially called “Final Fantasy VII Remake”, not “Final Fantasy VII Remake Episode I” or something similar. Assuming they did indeed intend to remake the rest of the original FF7 in additional episodes, wouldn’t it have made more sense to have called “Final Fantasy VII Remake” something like “Final Fantasy VII Remake Episode I”? Maybe they just did so for marketing purposes since, to be fair, pretending it’s a complete remake and hoping that some people might not have read about the episodic nature might boost sales. People who have never even played FF7 would, and I am really just guessing here, probably be more likely to spend money on what they expect to turn out as a whole game experience rather than a mere part to what they think might be only a first part to a trilogy or maybe even a tetralogy.
But maybe the naming “Final Fantasy VII Remake” was entirely intentional as the next episode will dramatically swerve from what would have been the second part of the original FF7. Based on the allusions in the ending of FF7R, it seems not unreasonable to present this as the base case for what is going to be the next installment in the FF7R series.
The main problem, in my opinion, was the decision to split the Remake into several episodes. Maybe that’s the only way to feasibly do it, however, it does cause all kinds of issues that are glaringly obvious. In order to make this game palatable to people who have not played the original 1997 FF7, it must feel like a whole game to them, not one that only deals with the beginning, possibly not so exciting first quarter of the original game’s slew of events. As a result, the ending of FF7R probably has to have an ending and a final boss that awe the audience. I am afraid that this is why they did not choose Motorball as the final boss but something else. Even though Motorball may have been iconic in 1997, I don’t think it would have been something that would have felt like an inspiring end to this game for newcomers to FF7. One can clearly find elements of FF7 in FF7R that would only happen in FF7 at a much later point in the game. For instance, the final one-on-one scene between Sephiroth and Cloud, which is the very final fight of FF7, is now happening conveniently at the end of FF7R. I do wonder how they are trying to remake the rest of FF7, if they are already using up some of the most memorable moments you would not see in the original until much later in the game.
That even makes me wonder whether they are going to remake the rest of the game anyway. After all, this game is officially called “Final Fantasy VII Remake”, not “Final Fantasy VII Remake Episode I” or something similar. Assuming they did indeed intend to remake the rest of the original FF7 in additional episodes, wouldn’t it have made more sense to have called “Final Fantasy VII Remake” something like “Final Fantasy VII Remake Episode I”? Maybe they just did so for marketing purposes since, to be fair, pretending it’s a complete remake and hoping that some people might not have read about the episodic nature might boost sales. People who have never even played FF7 would, and I am really just guessing here, probably be more likely to spend money on what they expect to turn out as a whole game experience rather than a mere part to what they think might be only a first part to a trilogy or maybe even a tetralogy.
But maybe the naming “Final Fantasy VII Remake” was entirely intentional as the next episode will dramatically swerve from what would have been the second part of the original FF7. Based on the allusions in the ending of FF7R, it seems not unreasonable to present this as the base case for what is going to be the next installment in the FF7R series.