.

[hian]

Wishful thinking:
Maybe the daylight shots are from the ending, after meteor, in a new, re-built Midgard.

I don't like to speculate like this, but I kinda agree with you. Post-meteor Midgar makes most sense.

Yeah. It's just kinda sad that a rebuilt post-Midgard makes little to no sense with the original narrative - not only due to practical concerns,
and the Nanaki scene at the end of the original game, but because even if it were to happen it would not happen while the cast
was still young, or perhaps even alive. Rebuilding the wreck of Midgard without proper power, after the impact of the meteor would take decades at least.

A reboot/reimagining of FF7 is what I hope for. Not a continuation of the trainwreck FF7 expanded universe. I saw a video on youtube just some hours ago ("top 5 I want to see in FF7R" or something like that) where the guy talking wanted the CC characters in the remake... The horror... I have also seen this in other channels/forums/etc. "I hope they bring X character in", "I hope they continue into the AC story"... Now, I don't mind new characters/storyline as long as it's done good (whatever that is lol). Most of the expanded universe characters though have a certain fecapalm-otaku appeal value to them that I'm sick of. Does that make sense?

I think you makee perfect sense. The extended universe products were all made without the same team as the original game, and they were
made much the same way as fan-fiction - not with regards for what would make sense with the original narrative, but with the intent of satisfying delirious fan expectations and desires. It's essentially glorified fan-fiction rendered into canon by having the label attached to it.

Non of the spin-off products make sense in and of themselves. They butchered the art-style of the original, and the added multiple new and needless layers of contrived BS and plot-holes.

The correct way to address that in a remake is obviously not to go way out of your way to force these products to make sense together,
which will invariably necessitate more contrived and ridiculous plot-bending, but to ditch them all together and treat the remake as an entirely new and stand-alone product. Tie-ins make even less sense from a marketing perspective, since a lot of the new potential players of the remake won't have played the spin-offs and therefore won't understand and get confused by the tie-ins unless they are self-contained and self-explanatory - which they probably won't be given time and resource limitations.

Some things to fix from the top of my head:
Cait Sith. Dat effin bastard. I wouldn't mind it that much if IT actually died in the temple of the Ancients, and did not return. Ever. Reeve could get other means to communicate with Cloud & co.

Many cut-scenes after Midgard could use some more meat. At certain points in the game the cutscene vs gameplay ratio is a bit off imo.

Yuffie's side story feels like fanservice. The turks and the don is too conveniently there. Not terrible by any means, but could also be done a lot better.

If only I had control over the remake 

There's a lot of stuff you could "fix" in FF7, but non of it necessary in a sense - and all of it a potential disaster.

Enter anti-SE rant-mode -

People seem to forget that FF7 was essentially a silly 90's anime game.
Half of the plot was absurd - such as the entire Shinra HQ infiltration, which is hilariously weird. Or Cloud and Co sneaking across the ocean in the Shinra Boat, where the crew ended up being massacred by Jenova, yet walking off the boat all casual-like with no consequences what so ever.
Or Rufus going out of his way to commandeer the Tiny Bronco, a tiny, personal air-craft that serves no purpose to Rufus what so ever that can't be covered by the fleet of cargo helicopters stationed at Junon, or an Airship.

Point is that, most of the time, nobody cared about these scenes, or even noticed how absurd they were - because guess what? The entire game is pretty far out there, and you're invited to relish in the camp and the sheer joy of the experience rather than waste time nit-picking details pertaining to universe-logic etc. which essentially bear no real impact on the important notes of the plot to begin with (which would be Cloud's existential journey, and the themes dealing with loss and human's relationship with the planet).

It's an ephemeral and visceral experience, more so than a realistic, and logical one.
It's a story portrayed in glorious "I'm high on LSD"-like graphics with unnatural and impossible architecture, super-saturated color-palette, with weird and nonsensical characters fighting weird and nonsensical enemies (like a house morphing into a killer robot, or a giant revolver firing rockets). FF7 did not give to fvcks about anything or anyone. It was a trip, and it was a trippy one at that.

The compilation, and the remake (judging by the art-style) is fundamentally incongruent with the original, and that's why they all end up feeling really, really weird and bad. The style and narrative of FF7 was never intended to make sense in the way that we demand realistic/semi-realistically styled media to be.
It essentially flew under the radar in the same way that children's cartoons, and fairy-tales do. Remove that, and then suddenly all the absurdities became readily apparent and jarring as hell.
The more you try to make sense of it, the more contrived and corny it becomes, which is why all the spin-offs (and most likely the remake) end up feeling stupid, contrived and melodramatic.

FF7 is not, and never will be realistic, nor a logically coherent game. Trying to make it into such, instead of simply embracing the fact that it isn't and running with it, invites more and more issues down the road in production.

This is another reason I am so apprehensive of the remake - I don't think Nomura, Nojima and Kitase get this anymore. In fact, I think this ephemeral, fairy-tale quality to FF games was solely the result of the creative out-put of Sakagachi, because you still see it present in his post-Squaresoft games, yet non of it in SE FF games.
Nomura, Kitase, Nojima and the rest of the major FF creators in SE, have their heads too far up their own narcissistic asses to see that the stuff they design just reeks of bad fan-fiction.
The stuff they now design, is the game-development and artistic equivalence of the user-names that early teens pick for their characters in their first MMOs because they think it's "kewl" (XxOneWingedUchihaSasukexX etc. and similar manure).

Camp and childish fairy-tale elements was the saving grace of FF, and it always has been - because it's still a fact that most people who write and do creative design for games are immature and amateurish in the grander scheme of writing, musical composition, and visual design.
Accept that fact and embracing it leads to quality camp which is good in its own right. Not accepting and embracing that leads to pretentious post-Matrix BS.

No Nojima, you are no Shakespear, and no Nomura, you are no Leonardo Da Vinci and no everyone, FF7 is not the video-game equivalence of Citizen Kane.
If anything, FF7 is the video-game equivalence of the original Star Wars, and the reason the spin-offs suck are the same the reasons the Star Wars prequels suck in comparison to the original trilogy.

Rant over.

Seriously though - If I had creative control over this game, the first thing I'd do is have the entire game stylized using a cell-shaded graphical solution keeping 100% true to the style of the original, finished cast drawings. Then I'd throw all the compilation stuff in the garbage.
By doing that, I'd literally solve pretty much every stylistic and plot-related problem that could ever possibly manifest itself from the very get-go.

Seriously though - fvck you SE for going with that quasi photo-realistic style which will inevitably lead to you butchering most of the memorable moments and scenes of the game in favor of post mid-2000's melodramatic and cringe-worthy cinematography and writing.
GG.

I actually had an idea around how to influence Square Enix to make the remake in the way the fans would want them to.

The basic idea is a "pledge" website where fans pool their money to voice their opinions and pledge their money to SE if they design the remake according to their desires. For most practical purposes, the fan's money is not just a donation to SE, it's basically used to buy the game. The website is owned by an organization that acts as mediator between the fans and SE. If SE makes the game according to how the fans want it, they get the money (and the fans get the FF7R game), otherwise the fans get their money back, and possibly pledge not to buy the game or give SE any money.

Actually it's more complex than this; fans can divide their money according to different features, instead of all-or-nothing; SE might have an agreement with the mediating company to give fans a discount on the game; there needs to be specific criteria to determine if the fans got what they wanted; and lots of other logistical challenges. But, this could radically change the way remakes are done, in general, for all art forms (games, movies, etc.).

A couple of other problems I see with this are: (1) the remaker has more incentive to satisfy as many fans as possible to get the most money, which might actually not be a good thing, but then again they can always choose to design for a smaller crowd and be more special that way; (2) people with more money will have more influence, which isn't necessarily fair, although the fans will tend to be older and make more money, so this tends to be biased towards older fans, which is a good thing, for the older fans. (3) the fan's pledges and opinions need to be collected very early during development, early enough to actually be able to influence how SE makes the game. (4) Lots of other logistical challenges like this...

Anyway... Anyone wanna help me build this company and website? there's lots of other cool ideas related to this, like a system that's smart and continually learns about which different aspects of the game fans are interested in, etc.

That's probably not going to work. Firstly, you'd have to convince SE to play on board with this, and that's just not going to happen for more reasons than I care to elaborate on here.

Secondly, the majority of the people who'll end up buying this game, won't be original fans - certainly not purist fans of the original title.
SE will not change game-play- or story-design choices based on a small, albeit paying group of people when they have a marketing and research department telling them what design-choices the ought to go with to appeal to a wider audience to begin with.

Your idea assumes that the group of people who happen to stumble across your site, and make pledges on it will be a significant and representative enough group for it to be a group worth listening to - and that assumption is very difficult to justify, especially
in relation to a game like a complete HD remake of FF7.
The production costs of such a game is going to demand Call of Duty/GTA/Witcher level sales in order to justify its production at all.
How ever do you plan to make it so that the people drawn to your site will represent the advocates for changes that will steer the game in the direction of attaining such sales?
What makes you think SE will trust the opinions of these people on your site, more so than their own research department?

[picklejar]

You're exactly right, it would need to be a substantially large number of people. But if such a large number of people did participate, why would SE not listen? What if we had more pledges than Amazon had pre-orders?

Also I think you might be underestimating the size of the original fan base. And the people most likely to have strong opinions will be the fans that played the original.

Also there is a third option. If option 1 is SE makes it for the new generation, and option 2 is SE makes it for the original fan generation, and if option 2 seems hopeless, then option 3 is that SE designs it such that you can do either/both, e.g. active vs. turn based.

If nothing else, at least it's an extra data point for SE's R&D, and the fans can at least say they tried.

But you're right, it would need to basically be huge to make a difference. It would be not just collecting a few pledges, but more like trying to represent the majority of the original fan base.

[picklejar]

By the way, you're dead on target with your anti SE rant above. I wouldn't actually call it a rant. Most of it seemed to be simply about how the style of the original FF7 (cartoony, campy, silly) just would not work in a "realistic" style game.

To add on top of that, I would say that no matter how SE made the remake, even if it was EXACTLY how YOU (anyone here reading this) wanted it, it would still not have the same impact as the original. You can't repeat a "first time experience". There's no element of surprise.

That's why I'm actually in favor of a complete remake. I can play the original any time I want. I can use mods to improve the graphics and such. Given the choice between two nearly identical FF7's, vs having the original AND a remake, I say go with the latter. At least we'll have the opportunity to experience something new and fresh. And it will be really cool to see how they design the game mechanics and such.

One last thought. Should the oldest, most hard core fans always get their way? If you take this idea to the extreme, we shouldn't play any console games at all. We should go back to text based adventure games like Zork. (Which I loved, by the way!)

[StickySock]

To add on top of that, I would say that no matter how SE made the remake, even if it was EXACTLY how YOU (anyone here reading this) wanted it, it would still not have the same impact as the original. You can't repeat a "first time experience". There's no element of surprise.

Speaking of rants, I guess I'll join with one now (warning, my first attempt at editing this post before submitting it seems that my fatigue has gotten the better of me, and I'm currently correcting random errors everywhere):

I'm not so sure it's necessary to put so much stock in the "first time experience". Speaking from my personal opinion, I have had times where my first experience with something was not pleasant. Be it food, media, or an activity (loss of virginity comes to mind due to my immature sense of humor), there are many experiences that are not at first pleasant, and instead of becoming even worse with repeated exposures, actually became more pleasant over time.

For me and FF7 specifically, my first experience was wonderful, but I was young and did not remember all of it or understand all of it clearly. My subsequent revisits to the game have only convinced me of its quality and inherent value despite the flaws I can easily spot with the wisdom I've acquired with age. With as many things I critique about the game, I also find aspects that I appreciate, and it is in my opinion that my opinion will not worsen.

I have found that for these reasons, spoilers have little effect on me. I used to be worried when people talk about something that I have not watched, but I found that media that I find to be of quality and value still retain it even though I may not be surprised. As long as the surprises make sense, are consistent with the rest of the story, or are interesting in some facet, I still have appreciation for them despite knowing they are coming. In fact, my brother told me that Aerith gets killed by Sephiroth before I reached that part of the game, and not being able to stop it even knowing that it was coming only deepened my connection to Cloud in feeling that I was helpless in stopping it.

All in all, I feel that surprise and "first time experience" are shallow and possibly irrelevant considerations in evaluating one's own enjoyment from something. Surprise to me, is just the phenomena of experiencing something unexpected, which in itself is just experiencing something new. Everything is new to someone and will not be after it is experienced and therefore I do not think it is worth talking about. Some people may seek surprise and consider it a valuable part of an experience, but I personally do not./ End rant

I think when it comes to campy vs. realistic and all that, the most important thing to preserving immersion to me is consistency. The weird aspects of FF7 work because they happen consistently throughout the story, and feel like they are apart of the world and the story no matter how absurd they would be in real life. Where realism interferes is that if they eliminate all of these moments save for a few iconic ones, it will be jarring with the rest of the story. I don't think the graphics or the art-style really have much to do with it, as long as it is consistent. A super realistic design choice that is consistently weird and abstract would be an interesting contrast and by no means bad (Metal Gear Solid comes to mind). But if FF7 is suddenly Ghost Recon (assuming it is realistic, I've never played it), but suddenly still has a moment or two of Cloud crossdressing or Scottish Cat Toys talking and nothing else, it will seem like the game has no identity or is keeping them simply to please fans. If FF7 wants to be super gritty and realistic, but also be weird, it needs to be both from start to finish. Any prolonged seriousness will cause the game to seem conflicted in its direction rather that consistent and yet contrasting.

@hian: I sincerely hope your theory is incorrect, as that would, for me, be the absolute worst case scenario and the biggest possible stretch of the term "remake". Aside from an occasional easter egg, any compilation material is completely unwarranted and unwanted. As you have stated, anything that cannot be internally explained and resolved within the game itself would only be a detriment to the goal of attracting new fans, and obviously does nothing to please old fans. The structure of narrative, and the ability to experience it without the restrictions of flashbacks are absolutely crucial to preserving any "magic" from the original game, and I'm not sure if anyone could really be foolish enough to not see that.

[gjoerulv]

@picklejar
Very hard to pull off. Not only do you need a vast amount of people (in the houndreds of thousands?), but those people have to agree on most of the things and contribute A LOT of money to actually make it not profitable for SE not to listen. I'm not saying it is impossible. They way I'm guessing SE makes their hard choices gravitates around pleasing the shareholders, investors, etc. The passionate and talented developers always have to sacrifice their talent to some degree here.

In other words: SE's top have to show that they have to listen to this website to their investors, shareholders, etc., in order for the top brass to give their blessing to the developers. And I bet that takes A LOT of £$¥€ to get their attention.

[DLPB_]

SquareEnix hasn't ever listened to fans, with the possible exception of FF14 (and that's only because it was initially a disaster).  They don't need fanbase anymore for sales. I don't see that changing with ff7r.  Leopards don't change their spots.  In fact, they now deliberate cater to the masses, which is why I have no faith that the remake will be any good or stick to what made FF7 great in the first place. 

Hian has summed up the biggest issue with using photorealistic graphics with the original story.  It works with the old style absolutely, but a lot of FF7 will not work with realistic graphics.  I would disagree with him that FF7 was not well written, it certainly was (unrealistic scenarios, like cross dressing, in a game are sometimes the price you pay for having a fun game).  It had the right balance between gameplay and story, and it made a lot of effort to portray scenes so that you could suspend disbelief to them.  Something only a good fiction would do - and something AC and the spin-offs failed miserably at.

Also, photorealistic graphics only work if you're writing realistic scenes for them.  AC didn't do that.  In fact, FF7 never had anything as absurd as character's flying around in cutscenes being slammed into walls at 100mph completely uninjured.  Realistic graphics work with realistic writing - something Nomura and co don't seem to grasp.  FF7r will likely have tons of AC style fights and physics-defying logic.

Let's take the scene where Sephiroth slashes Zax.  I can imagine today that the scene will be 5 minutes long and have an "epic" battle between the two before that happens.  Urgh.

[picklejar]

@StickySock: Very good point about overvaluing the element of surprise. In fact, one of the ways that I know I like FF7 so much is the fact that I've re-played it more than any other game (in that generation, at least). Also, interesting idea of having photorealistic and campy/cheesy at the same time, as long as it's consistent,it would work. The Scott Pilgrim movie comes to mind for some reason, even though that's not an apples to apples comparison.

@others:

Regarding getting Square's attention, the replies here are correct. It will take more than a website. A better strategy would probably be trying to create an organization of hardcore fans that becomes a media sensation and creates drama in the news, which would cause more people to ask Square what they feel about it. Or something.

Even if the fan org never convinced Square to change anything, it would be interesting to see such an organization meet regularly and discuss features on a large scale. Like a "convention". And to see how many fans care about which features, etc., in a report format on the web, continually updated.

Getting all fans to agree on everything is impossible, but I wasn't thinking about having the fans design the whole game, just trying to influence Square on various aspects, be it few or many, and/or (again, "option 3") make it modular/configurable so it can please both crowds (e.g. active vs. turn based battle).

[hian]

You're exactly right, it would need to be a substantially large number of people. But if such a large number of people did participate, why would SE not listen? What if we had more pledges than Amazon had pre-orders?

Also I think you might be underestimating the size of the original fan base. And the people most likely to have strong opinions will be the fans that played the original.

Also there is a third option. If option 1 is SE makes it for the new generation, and option 2 is SE makes it for the original fan generation, and if option 2 seems hopeless, then option 3 is that SE designs it such that you can do either/both, e.g. active vs. turn based.

If nothing else, at least it's an extra data point for SE's R&D, and the fans can at least say they tried.

But you're right, it would need to basically be huge to make a difference. It would be not just collecting a few pledges, but more like trying to represent the majority of the original fan base.

I am not saying it couldn't be done. I am simply saying that FF7R will be aiming for multi-million numbers of sales - the original fanbase - that is to say everyone who played the original when it was first released, not as a result of being brought on the band-wagon by spin-offs like Advent Children etc. (most of which enjoy those spin-offs more so than the original), are most likely not many enough to create the kind of social capital that could pressure SE to make design changes to the game.

As for the 3rd option - I don't see that as feasible. You might be able to create a dualistic battle system (like Dissidia), but it entirely depends on the basics of the battle system (party control with free-movement etc. probably would not work well for a dualistic system).
There's more to the game than the battle system though. There's also the story - the cinematography etc. Having two options for everything like that simply isn't realistic.

Someone in the fan-base are going to have to bite the sour apple here. That's just a fact at this point, I am afraid. I'm hoping it won't be me, but I'm pretty sure it will.

To add on top of that, I would say that no matter how SE made the remake, even if it was EXACTLY how YOU (anyone here reading this) wanted it, it would still not have the same impact as the original. You can't repeat a "first time experience". There's no element of surprise.

This implies that what I enjoyed the most about FF7 was the first-time experience. In my case, that's simply incorrect. I've replayed the game once every 1/2 years since it's release. In my mind, it's still the game I enjoy the most out of every game I've played since it's release and it's the only game in my collection I consistently go back to play. If anything, my best memories of the game was from my second or third play-through, going back to it after completing FF8 - not the first one.

The remake doesn't need to have the same impact as the original, nor is that what I want or ask for. It simply needs to provide a new and fresh way for me to enjoy the narrative and style of the original.

That's why I'm actually in favor of a complete remake. I can play the original any time I want. I can use mods to improve the graphics and such. Given the choice between two nearly identical FF7's, vs having the original AND a remake, I say go with the latter. At least we'll have the opportunity to experience something new and fresh. And it will be really cool to see how they design the game mechanics and such.

I can get behind a completely remake, if it's good in its own right. But, as I've said before - remakes are not made for new fans, or drastic changes. People who think that are fooling themselves. After all - People with no emotional connection to the original material won't have any expectations at all - these people don't know what FF7 is suppose to be to begin with - they might as well be playing FF15, and be non the wiser.
If you're going to remake anything, it's to capture the hearts of those who enjoyed the thing you're remaking. More often than not, this means catering to those people.

If anything, the Resident Evil 1 remake is both the best example of, and proof of, what a remake is supposed to be, and what makes a remake successful. If anyone for a moment thinks that the RE1 remake would be even half as popular if it had been pushed out designed with modern survival horror conventions, akin to The Evil Within etc. they're fooling themselves as well.

One last thought. Should the oldest, most hard core fans always get their way? If you take this idea to the extreme, we shouldn't play any console games at all. We should go back to text based adventure games like Zork. (Which I loved, by the way!)

That's just absurd. If the oldest fans were asking for regression, then they wouldn't be asking for remakes to begin with.
Everybody is obviously fine with graphical improvements, game-play re-balancing, expanded side-quests, or minor design-choices to improve upon dysfunctional or buggy elements (mini-games and button-prompt events etc. could do a lot of work) - they're simply averse to changing the entire style of the original, and literally revamping the game-play entirely, turning it into some hack-n-slash cut-scene ridden action-fest.

Hian has summed up the biggest issue with using photorealistic graphics with the original story.  It works with the old style absolutely, but a lot of FF7 will not work with realistic graphics.  I would disagree with him that FF7 was not well written, it certainly was (unrealistic scenarios, like cross dressing, in a game are sometimes the price you pay for having a fun game).  It had the right balance between gameplay and story, and it made a lot of effort to portray scenes so that you could suspend disbelief to them.  Something only a good fiction would do - and something AC and the spin-offs failed miserably at.

You misunderstand me. I am not saying FF7 isn't well written. It's well-written for its time, its format, and its style. It's an amazing piece of story-telling and media.

I am simply saying that it does not compete in the same arena as a lot of other media to begin with, and that compared to what we considered "well-written" in the larger context of art history - it's a pretty simple narrative.
The same way you don't rate fairy-tales against auto-biographies, or documentaries against sci-fi movies, FF7's story is not comparable to the stories in most classic novels.

It did not aspire to be realistic, nor even necessarily all that logical or reasonable.
It did not require players to suspend their disbelief, because any notion of disbelief should have been left at the door the moment you popped the game in the disk-tray after having glanced at the screenshots on the back of the cover.
Semi-realism requires suspension of disbelief - and the more incongruent fantastical elements are with the realism, the more of a struggle the act of suspension becomes.

The same is not true of FF7 because it comes with a guy with gravity defying hair wielding a sword that is literally physically impossible to wield without having the momentum of each swing launching the wielder into orbit - It literally tells us from the get go - This game does not aspire to tell you things that makes sense in your world, so let it go already, and just enjoy the ride.

However, present the narrative of FF7 in semi photo-realism and that suddenly does not work as well anymore. The presentation shouts "this is serious business people", but the physics and the rules of the universe make no real sense, nor the motivations, actions and thoughts of many of the characters.

Seriously - Cait Sith? In "slap-stick, campy, anime FF7" I can accept that without batting an eye, the same way I can accept giant chickens in neo colors being run on race tracks, or Cloud dressing up as a women to sneak into a place he could literally just level with the earth if he wanted to granted his strength.

In moody-broody, photo-realistic FF7R? Hell no. It will look stupid and out of place. Remove it though, and what are we left with? An FF7 without a soul - another re-telling of the Nibelheim flash-back, some choice scenes from Midgard, the back-stories and relevant story-segments of characters like Barret, Vincent, Nanaki, and Cid, the death of Aerith, and the show-down in North Crator.
That's pretty much it - because the rest of the original game, and it's narrative is a roller-coaster of "teh weird", sprinkled with  "teh wtf did I just smoke" that falls apart if you apply the same scrutiny to it, that you would to a Tom Clancy story, or something similar.

Nobody did though, playing the original, and neither were we supposed to. That much should be readily apparent after playing the game for less than five minutes.
This does not mean that it's badly written. It simply means that its really well-written fantasy, but really badly written realism.

[DLPB_]

Well, I can tolerate Cait in the original game (although I am one of the biggest opponents of Cait, since I believe the character to be the worst thing about FF7's story), but in realistic graphics, it only becomes more absurd.  But Cait shouldn't have even been in the original game, let alone anything else.  Cait is also the one thing I couldn't suspend disbelief to in the original game because he is not just a battle element - he's part of the story and forced on you in some big moments of the story.  When it comes to Cait, I just try to pretend he doesn't exist.  The character was very poorly written too, which makes it all the worse inside a game that got so much right.

If you look at AC, any writer with a brain wouldn't have included him (and the story didn't necessitate it either given that he is supposed to be a controlled robot that was no longer needed), but they did.  And... well, we all know what that looked like.

[hian]

Well, I can tolerate Cait in the original game (although I am one of the biggest opponents of Cait, since I believe the character to be the worst thing about FF7's story), but in realistic graphics, it only becomes more absurd.  But Cait shouldn't have even been in the original game, let alone anything else.  Cait is also the one thing I couldn't suspend disbelief to in the original game because he is not just a battle element - he's part of the story and forced on you in some big moments of the story.  When it comes to Cait, I just try to pretend he doesn't exist.  The character was very poorly written too, which makes it all the worse inside a game that got so much right.

If you look at AC, any writer with a brain wouldn't have included him (and the story didn't necessitate it either given that he is supposed to be a controlled robot that was no longer needed), but they did.  And... well, we all know what that looked like.

I actually really liked Cait Sith in the original - because getting him was such a wtf moment, and he was literally the most bizarre character I had ever seen in media at that point. When the wtf-moment passed though, he pretty quickly fell into disuse as a character.

My main party was always Cloud, Vincent and Cid for the most part (with me swapping Vincent our for Barret in the end-game because Vincent's Limit Break is pretty much useless at the LV4. tier point).
Most of the other characters just didn't matter to me.

Still - he adds spice to the party. One of the things that make FF7 so memorable - is the cast. Look at the diversity of it compared to pretty much any other game. The body-types, the clothing, the weapons, and colors - it's literally one of the most vibrant casts in gaming history - like or hate them.
To me, from an artistic point of view, adding to that alone justifies Cait Sith being there.

But in AC? Yeah, didn't get that either. Why is Reeves screwing around with the Robot post FF7?
I thought he had better things to do. Or wait? I just the mog a robot, and the cat sentient? Wait... Whatever.

[DLPB_]

I think we both know why - they wanted to include all characters purely as fan service.  Hell, even dead characters were back.  No justification needed.

[gjoerulv]

I think we both know why - they wanted to include all characters purely as fan service.  Hell, even dead characters were back.  No justification needed.

Rufus: "That time, I managed to escape..."

I was also under the impression Tseng died in FF7. After the Temple of the Ancients he isn't in the story anymore. iirc that is.

Concerning Cait -as I said earlier- I wouldn't mind him actually dying in the Temple of the Ancients. It would actually make his character better imo.

[DLPB_]

Zeng was alive.  It was a translation error in the original English game.  He's not in the story after the temple, but you learn from Scarlet that he was busted up. 

[reversebustersword]

What I'm wishing for in the remake.

1. not a remake but a sequel. Fuck having to play the same story.
2. I want to be able to play everyone. Zack, Angeal, Kadaj, Hojo, Sephiroth and anyone else already dead. Make it so that you can recruit anyone.
3. everyone's advent children outfit+ fusion sword
4. motorcycles maybe in battle as well. idk how but find a way
5. Maybe new outfits for everyone? if they suck we can always not use them.
6. I want to see Honey Bee Inn in its full ultimate glory. idc make it rated M prob will make the game better.
7. new game+  with normal, hard, and insane difficulty options.
8. turn based: honestly, I wouldn't mind if they used ffxv's battle system but leaning more towards turn based.
9. Give every American release a Japanese voice with English subtitles options.
10. lastly I hope they dont fuck up Cloud overall appearance or anyone else's for that matter. He looks pretty derp in the new dissidia game. Just make him look exactly like in the ps3 demo or advent childern movie.

[StickySock]

What I'm wishing for in the remake.

1. not a remake but a sequel. fern having to play the same story.
2. I want to be able to play everyone. Zack, Angeal, Kadaj, Hojo, Sephiroth and anyone else already dead. Make it so that you can recruit anyone.
3. everyone's advent children outfit+ fusion sword
4. motorcycles maybe in battle as well. idk how but find a way
5. Maybe new outfits for everyone? if they suck we can always not use them.
6. I want to see Honey Bee Inn in its full ultimate glory. idc make it rated M prob will make the game better.
7. new game+  with normal, hard, and insane difficulty options.
8. turn based: honestly, I wouldn't mind if they used ffxv's battle system but leaning more towards turn based.
9. Give every American release a Japanese voice with English subtitles options.
10. lastly I hope they dont fern up Cloud overall appearance or anyone else's for that matter. He looks pretty derp in the new dissidia game. Just make him look exactly like in the ps3 demo or advent childern movie.

Even though I don't personally want a sequel or most of the things listed here, wouldn't it make more sense to have a remake first (especially if it was already announced as a remake)? You could easily justify a sequel using the assets of the remake for an easy cash in, and do FF7-2, FF7-3, etc. (I really hope they do not, but as long as they did an excellent job on the remake the sequels wouldn't really affect me)

[Tekkie.X]

Thinking about it, I actually don't want a straight remake.

[Shard]

What I'm wishing for in the remake.

1. not a remake but a sequel. fern having to play the same story.
2. I want to be able to play everyone. Zack, Angeal, Kadaj, Hojo, Sephiroth and anyone else already dead. Make it so that you can recruit anyone.
3. everyone's advent children outfit+ fusion sword
4. motorcycles maybe in battle as well. idk how but find a way
5. Maybe new outfits for everyone? if they suck we can always not use them.
6. I want to see Honey Bee Inn in its full ultimate glory. idc make it rated M prob will make the game better.
7. new game+  with normal, hard, and insane difficulty options.
8. turn based: honestly, I wouldn't mind if they used ffxv's battle system but leaning more towards turn based.
9. Give every American release a Japanese voice with English subtitles options.
10. lastly I hope they dont fern up Cloud overall appearance or anyone else's for that matter. He looks pretty derp in the new dissidia game. Just make him look exactly like in the ps3 demo or advent childern movie.

Sorry, but...

No buts. You know better than to speak like that. ~EQ2Alyza

[Kaldarasha]

For me it looks like sarcasm.

[dkma841]

.

[Shard]

For me it looks like sarcasm.

I suspected that until I got to one of the good ideas. I've dealt with enough bad game designers that I can smell the "throw every idea I've ever had into a pot" design mistake from miles away.

[StickySock]

It looked like sarcasm to me at first as well, but some of the points are written in a fairly convincing manner.

I don't get why someone wouldn't want a remake to actually be a remake. There are what, six entries in the compilation of final fantasy 7 that are sequels/prequels? The reason why there is such a demand for the remake is because it was constantly teased by those entries, and that all of those entries are of extremely low quality in the opinions of many fans. How about we get a remake first (that hopefully does justice to the original) and then all of these random requests and fan-fiction-esque wishes could easily be met with other titles? Hell, most of the requests I've read could easily be done with DLC, which I would actually be okay with because fans who wanted them could buy them and the rest of us could keep it out of our games.

[reversebustersword]

Sorry, but...

No buts. You know better than to speak like that. ~EQ2Alyza

lol so offended.

[hian]

lol so offended.

Assume much?

Maybe he just thought your opinion was inane. I think you'll find that most people here agree. If you were trolling that makes you an idiot and I hope to the gods someone bans your ass for purposefully walking into a thread to mess things up.

Seriously though - let's have a look -

What I'm wishing for in the remake.

1. not a remake but a sequel. fern having to play the same story.

Your wish for the remake is for it not to be a remake? That doesn't even make sense. It's incoherent.

2. I want to be able to play everyone. Zack, Angeal, Kadaj, Hojo, Sephiroth and anyone else already dead. Make it so that you can recruit anyone. 

This is retarded. Angeal and Kadaj don't even appear in the original game. Sephiroth and Hojo are villains, and Zack almost irrelevant. Making them playable would be a waste of time, space and resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

3. everyone's advent children outfit+ fusion sword

I can see this as an DLC. Don't really care either way.

4. motorcycles maybe in battle as well. idk how but find a way

What does this add to the game what so ever? Again, a waste of time, space and resources better spent elsewhere.

5. Maybe new outfits for everyone? if they suck we can always not use them.

Agreed. New outfits, or visual equipment change is something that can add to the experience without detracting anything from it.

6. I want to see Honey Bee Inn in its full ultimate glory. idc make it rated M prob will make the game better.
7. new game+  with normal, hard, and insane difficulty options.
8. turn based: honestly, I wouldn't mind if they used ffxv's battle system but leaning more towards turn based.
9. Give every American release a Japanese voice with English subtitles options.

All okay by my standards. I don't see how the game would benefit from a new game pluss option, but a difficulty option
raising the base stats of enemies and perhaps their A.I could be a good way to allow people to tweak the experience
to their own preferences without screwing over the game-play.

10. lastly I hope they dont fern up Cloud overall appearance or anyone else's for that matter. He looks pretty derp in the new dissidia game. Just make him look exactly like in the ps3 demo or advent childern movie.

He looks derp in the PS3 demo and in AC as well. Non of the FF7 characters were designed to look realistic to begin with, and their
semi-/quasi-realistic counterparts in the spin-offs look out of place like no tomorrow.

The best Cloud redesign by far, if you look away from the ridiculous costume, was the Kingdom Hearts version. At least he retained most
of the style from the original.

Anyways - nobody here is offended by your opinion. The act of calling out someone for reaction to your opinion in a negative manner "offended" is a childish, dismissive and BS control-tactic. It's an asinine thing to do.

[DLPB_]

I didn't respond to that post because I have to believe the person is a troll for my own sanity   There's no way I can have any hope for humanity if not.

[reversebustersword]

Assume much?

Maybe he just thought your opinion was inane. I think you'll find that most people here agree. If you were trolling that makes you an idiot and I hope to the gods someone bans your ass for purposefully walking into a thread to mess things up.

Seriously though - let's have a look -

Your wish for the remake is for it not to be a remake? That doesn't even make sense. It's incoherent.

This is retarded. Angeal and Kadaj don't even appear in the original game. Sephiroth and Hojo are villains, and Zack almost irrelevant. Making them playable would be a waste of time, space and resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

I can see this as an DLC. Don't really care either way.

What does this add to the game what so ever? Again, a waste of time, space and resources better spent elsewhere.

Agreed. New outfits, or visual equipment change is something that can add to the experience without detracting anything from it.

All okay by my standards. I don't see how the game would benefit from a new game pluss option, but a difficulty option
raising the base stats of enemies and perhaps their A.I could be a good way to allow people to tweak the experience
to their own preferences without screwing over the game-play.

He looks derp in the PS3 demo and in AC as well. Non of the FF7 characters were designed to look realistic to begin with, and their
semi-/quasi-realistic counterparts in the spin-offs look out of place like no tomorrow.

The best Cloud redesign by far, if you look away from the ridiculous costume, was the Kingdom Hearts version. At least he retained most
of the style from the original.

Anyways - nobody here is offended by your opinion. The act of calling out someone for reaction to your opinion in a negative manner "offended" is a childish, dismissive and BS control-tactic. It's an asinine thing to do.

Nope, don't do that again. ~EQ2Alyza