FFVII Remake... It's Official! (Discussion)

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you on these points here. The mod community already has new graphics, someone is already working on a new localization and if my daughter at the age of 6 could beat this game and understand the plot and its ending resolutions, surely the rest of us would do fine with what's already there.

And I think there are plenty of things they could do to improve the game, especially in terms of gameplay and difficulty. When a game is so broken that you can win battles without pressing buttons, I call that way too easy. For a gamer like me who isn't content with a simple facelift and reworded dialogue, changes sound like a breath of fresh air. This is Nomura's and Nojima's baby; they have to make this game befitting of them and worthy of being called a remake. Otherwise, what's the point of this endeavour to begin with?

I'm sure that if people aren't allowed to play as Tifa, there will be pitchforks showing up at SEHQ.

DOSBOX not work for you?

Calling total ***.

Most of the classic FF games are available in digital form through PSN or even free downloads on android devices. As soon as they changed the 360 and PS3 to no longer play older games, I peaced out on new consoles. If they'd done it at a generation gap, I'd rationalize it as technology changing, but they did it after a console release.

Funny thing is that you can still play Playstation games on it, just not PS2. (Respective models excluded that can).

If it were just the 20 and 60 and they never had a software only emulator available it'd be one thing, but that they just stopped making it available for people so they would have to buy new games is just *** up.

Don't really care about the 360's lack as the xbox didn't have near the exclusive library the PS2 did (well of at least good games).

Edit: inb4 the hate for that.

Eh, there were a few games more or less specific to the Xbox/360, but most of the iconic ones have been at least ported to PC. Sony has a habit of keeping their exclusive titles locked to consoles and console generations so they can sell it to you again via PSN, handheld ports, hd remasters, etc. I mean, it's a pretty successful business model, even as entitled and whiny as gamers can be, we keep buying the same games over and over. Ex: my 5 different copies of FFVII and Tactics.

That's precisely what worries me. FFVII's story is a convoluted mess (which is a tradition in Final Fantasy games, anyhow), but Nojima writes even more convoluted messes. The only work he's ever done that I enjoyed was Kingdom Hearts and trying to figure out what the hell is going on half the time leaves my brain bleeding.

Your daughter doesn't get the nuance of FFVII, either. She knows the bad guy died and the heroes probably made it out alive, but that's hardly understanding the game and the story.

I just pulled up Nojima and Nomura's resumes and cringed. Literally everything they've contributed to, especially in tandem, I've hated. FFVII was at least a conventional game (seriously, it's so bog-standard, I don't get why people piss themselves except for nostalgia reasons). The Final Fantasy games I love the most are also the ones they had nothing to do with (IX and XII, also XI but Nomura helped a little with art in that).

Except the only way to achieve that is by carefully building and preparing for it. Which is why I forgive the Gambit system in FFXII: if you don't pay attention when you build the IF-THEN list, it's going to hinder rather than help. Condemning FFVII's combat because you're clever enough to mix Counter with Master Summon (or whatever) is ridiculous. The whole point of this kind of gameplay is to encourage you, the player, to be clever. You know what I'm not being when I play Kingdom Hearts? I'm not being clever. For the most part, I'm just mashing my attack button because there's neither time nor incentive to do otherwise.

It works, it's just a lot of work compared to "Put in the disc and start playing."

My daughter is 10 now and she understands the nuances of both the FFVII and KH games because she has something we didn't have as kids in 97: easily accessible internet resources and she has a gamer parent to talk to. We often have discussions about topics like the one-winged angels, why Aerith sacrificed herself, why Sora is so important and why he wasn't chosen as keyblade master. Hell, there are plenty of videos that explain all of this but even before all this, she understood alot more than you think.

As for the FFVII battle system, I didn't have careful plan anything. I walked into the materia combo while grinding in my 2nd playthrough because its my completionist playthrough. Even if I didn't find it, I face-rolled the game at 15 and my daughter did at 6. She did it even better because she doesn't like to grind at all.

With Kingdom Hearts, what did you really expect? The game series itself is aimed at younger audiences. If SE threw too many complicated systems into the game, they'd lose a chunk of their target demographic. That same chunk that now buys merchandise like figures, comics and accessories, cosplays as characters as teens and young adults and will be the ones to drive the sales of KH3.

And while you may not enjoy the works of Nojima and Nomura, I find I do and plenty of others do as well. Otherwise, they would've been booted out years ago.

None of Nojima's stories are any harder to follow than the average soap opera or short novels. The problem I see is people become so used to American style exposition in their movies that they aren't used to stories that are devoid of any of that. I find I can easily read books or watch movies that many times more convoluted with resolutions even more vague.

As for Nomura, I see nothing wrong with his resume that I wouldn't see from anyone else working as long as he has. He has a strong sense of style in his art that resonates with fashion battlefields he has been and continues to be inspired by. While SE was floundering and people called for its death, he was involved in the only new game that received critical praise: The World Ends With You.

I'm remembering all the "fun" of altering autoexec.bat and config.sys files for specific games in that era. I can't say that I recall many games that were simply "Put in the disk and start playing", frankly.

You've never played a console game? Because that's literally what I was referring to as a contrast to PC games.

Here's the problem: I'm an adult with a degree in literary analysis and I don't understand half of the gobble-de-gook that passes for motivation in FFVII and Kingdom Hearts. Any moron knows why Aerith sacrificed herself (she didn't, she was murdered -- for someone claiming comprehension, that's a kindergarten level of error), but figuring out what the hell was going on with Sephiroth relies a lot on personal biases and filling in blanks with speculation. It's a common fault of all Final Fantasy villains: their motivation is completely insane or non-existent. It's why Kefka is probably the worst villain in the series, he has the same motivation as a breakfast cereal villain.

The basic story is not that complex. Now take someone fresh off the street and try to explain to them who the *** Xehanort is.

You really must focus on the most shallow parts of these quagmires. I have a lot of geek friends, surprisingly many with literature degrees, and, no, there's just no way to piece together a rational story, especially without relying on fourteen outside sources. Maybe it's lost in localization, but I doubt it. It's not an effective story if I have to spend half an afternoon reading wiki articles and watching YouTube videos to see what explanations other people have come up with to spackle over really terrible writing.

I don't mind stories with vague resolutions and convoluted plots. One of my favorite authors specializes in that. But he's explicitly not trying to tell a traditional story. Thanks for bringing up TWEWY 'cause that's another one which seems to subscribe to the M. Night Shaymalan school of "when the writing fails, insert a twist!"

For the record, although I consider Nomura's art to be ridiculous ("Add more belts and zippers!!!!"), it's not his art style I object to. Although, it is the fact that he's a visual artist that ruins the games he directs. He wants to create a mood, which would be great, except that it is in direct conflict with telling a story. And that's without going into the rather schizophrenic mood of FFVII, anyhow (you play a group of desperate terrorists who have wacky hijinks involving cross-dressing and riding dolphins... it sounds like a *** South Park parody).

I'm bored with going over the same ground about how lousy this writing is, though, because you're just going to pretend that it makes sense (or that motivation doesn't need to make sense, whichever you prefer).

So let's return to what Nomura has definitively said he's planning to *** up: the battle system. What do you think should be done with the battle system to make it less face-roll? FFXII's system works quite well, especially if you're not over-leveled (which is 99% of the reason why anyone face-rolls anything in most games with levels), but I doubt the average primary schooler would have difficulty with much any of it. I'll go along with pretending that your daughter is clever on her own and didn't just pester daddy for help.

You can faceroll 12 with the 122333 playthrough anyway

Ah, word.

Something that I do miss about older generation console games, and more and more of a reason why I want nothing to do with the xbone or ps4. If I want to sit through a bunch of updates I'll just play on the PC.

Sephiroth has a psychotic break which may/may not have been affected by the hypnotic sway of JENOVA. Word of God says Sephiroth is acting on his own (hes not being influenced by JENOVA) but what's a fandom if there's no spirited debate.

Crisis Core sets up some convoluted nonsense but at the end of the day Sephiroth is a science experiment, suspects hes a science experiment, confirms hes a science experiment and decides to end humanity and travel the stars destroying ***. Like JENOVA presumably did before crash landing on Earth, Gaia or whatever.

I wouldn't say that the tone of VII is schizophrenic when the idea was to setup that while Midgar sucks, there are brief escapes from the dystopia. Like the church or Wall Market. If anything, those segments are there to break up the overall dour mood the entire Midgar arc sets up.

I can explain Xehonart just fine and have done so easily to anyone that asks me. IMO, the KH games have spent too much time explaining who he is and what his motivations are so that kids can understand. They're bordering on clip show territory with how much he's discussed and explained at this point.

As for Aerith, I admit I was wrong with the wording on that part as its not like I've had to actually discuss in a while. Yes, she was murdered. My bad.

With Sephiroth and Kefka, you cannot fault your grievances of FF villains as some failing that is only credited to SE. Plenty of characters out there in literature and gaming remain mysterious in their origins and motivations and still come out pretty iconic and able to drive a story. Some of them also come out very simple and not needing much explanation at all.

Kefka's motivations have been pretty obvious: he wants to delight in the choas, misery and destruction of others. It's how he goes about those motivations that can disturb people at times. The Joker has been described in a similar manner for many years and is even more mysterious because those motivations change slightly or even drastically with reboots and such.

And what's wrong with not telling a traditional story? Why shouldn't people push at convention? TWEWY only had a few twists and the story had a simple take on the topics it addresses. The art direction is very apt to its environment and the battle system makes excellent use of all the DS's features while allowing creativity with how you want to go about the game.

And I suspect you could understand the plot points of both series and their meanings very easily but you're getting in your own way. The fact that you're likening alot of it to "gobble-de-gook" seems to point to this dismissal (which is perfectly normal for most adults like ourselves as we age) and are looking too hard sometimes for meaning when its not necessary or prudent to future games. We're talking about video game storylines conceptualized when the entire industry was and is even now, still in its infancy when it comes to adult conversation. Its not like I've been comparing any of these titles to literary masterpieces but they are far from hard to understand.

As for the battle system, the game can start by making the enemies (especially bosses) able to take you out, even moreso for auto-piloting, making detrimental effects actually hurt you and better balancing for weaknesses, resistances and weapon types. More dramatic changes can come in the form of timing combos between characters for more damage. This is all just for a start.

Whether they use ATB, turn-based or an action-based system are of no consequence to me as I am not so prejudiced as to hate any of them.

As for my daughter, I don't think I ever mentioned her playing FFXII, only FFVII. And as I mentioned, the game is the easiest of all the FFs which is why I let her play it at a young age. The only thing she ever asked me for help with was setting up and turning on the PS3 the first time because she was scared to break it. Kids are a very capable bunch with little and sometimes no guidance needed.

Speaking of FF12, I'll just leave this here.

Speculate!

And regarding Kefka, he was pretty much the best possible villain for FF6 thematically.

(He does -technically- have a backstory, but most people ignore that because it actually kind of detracts from the character.)

Agreed. Up until this thread and Onorgul, I've never heard anyone call Kefka the worst series villain but have always heard quite the opposite. Having a degree in literary analysis, I wouldn't mind reading something in more detail from Onorgul about such a topic.

And thanks for catching me on that backstory. Reminds me that I need to play that game again. Anyone know if the iOS version is worth playing?

Not much to speculate, we can go all day HOW they should release a remake/hd remaster but nothing will happen untill SE announce it officially

Controls suck bad, if you have the GBA version, play that instead.

It also looks terrible on iOS

I don't know about that, it looks crisper on the iOS.

The controls are super bad though which ruins the whole experience....

I prefer the original

I do too.

Either the SNES version or the GBA version is better than the iOS/Android versions.

They should not have even attempted to make the mobile versions unless controls were perfected.

I see where Onorgul is coming from and usually I'd agree with him on this matter. A character (villain no less) without solid motivation will come off as malformed... Kefka wouldn't work if he didn't steal the show whenever he was onscreen -- an outrageous, entertaining character despite being insane and unrelatable.

I think Kefka fits really well as a whole with FF6, though --

Mobile versions were quick cash grabs. They don't look aesthetically pleasing but they do offer you the ability to take FF on the go, without the need of pesky controllers and the like.

If you're a scrub and dont use emulation.

I bought a Moga controller, it works alright for emulators, but it's balance is off for bigger phones.

Am I the only one that looks at the Final Fantasy series through the lens of a YA series rather than hold it to Adult standards? These games are made for a young (presumed male) audience and should be treated as such.

You could nitpick the simplicity of the storylines, especially in the earlier entries but gaming has always tried to walk the tightrope between storytelling and creating something to play.

Too much story and you're in Xenosaga territory of put down the controller. Too little story and you're back in the NES era of 'read the *** manual'.

Exdeath is probably the weskest villain in the (post 4) series. I say post 4 because that's when Final Fantasy started to really attempt character development and a story.

True, but it's awfully hard to give character development to someone that is little more than a demon-possessed tree.

He's certainly a callback to the I-III era of thinly motivated villains. You could even go as far as to say that he's not much different from the Cloud of Darkness. But III wasn't released in the US widely so most of us became familiar with V before III.