It is a real shame too because rather than these silly sequels and prequels we could have had a new decent original FF...
But let's assume that I made the sequels and prequels, what I would have done differently. It is simple. I would not have tried to alter and retcon the original game. You see, there was plenty in FF7 that could be made into a prequel that at least WORKED on most levels. The Wutai war was a major part of it, the formation of Shin-Ra etc.
The problem is to pull off prequels and sequels is very difficult and requires someone who will not take the easy options, but of course they made these for money pure and simple so that is what they did. We have Cait explained with Reeve being some kind of whacked out collapsible doll for example...
It is just plainly ridiculous. ON every level the prequels are wrong.
Then you have a sequel, and you ask yourself this question: "Will they take the easy route and just make it a graphic fest and retcon main character deaths from VII to force a story"
and you KNOW the answer is going to be yes and the reason is again... it sells to most people. I really feel like abusing those kinds of people in this post but I will refrain this time. It irks me so much that Squenix can do all this and people still lap it up. The amount of people who will stick up for them in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are pure cash ins .. is scary. It scares me. When you get people who will tell you that there is nothing wrong with Rufus surviving after being bombed out of his office, or Sephiroth returning from the dead and GOOD GOD Hojo having his brain in a computer... what more can you do only resign to the inevitable that the world is truly mad.
The only thing I can take out of this is that I read about the prequels and spin offs and decided never to indulge them and I can ignore them. I made a big mistake watching AC because it is the most ridiculous farce ever. It is sad for me that I had to finally admit one day that FF is dead. Will it return one day? I dunno, but for the foreseeable future get used to graphics and fanboyism over brains.
As I have said before, there will come a time when graphics fail to sell a game... there is always a bottle neck and in this case it is the time needed to create such games. 1080p is far harder to make than 720p due to the extra effort needed and that is why Enix is refusing to remake VII, because it will take too much time and money for them to do it in a way which will appeal to the mindless graphic whores.
But as time goes on, the bottle neck arrives and graphics lose their selling point. THAT is when companies are again forced to reach out to art and can no longer get away with mediocrity. For now, those of us who enjoyed VI-X will have to wait, because it is much easier for them at present to slap dash a medicore game complete with graphics, than it is to make intelligent gameplay and story with the graphics as a vehicle but not as a selling point.
