LTTP: Final Fantasy VII Remake -- I REALLY don’t like it
- Thread starter AgentOtaku
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Isn't this comment literally nothing? I think we all know that every post on here is subjective. OP didn't frame their point as something objective whatsoever lol
I mean the original isn't a particularly well told story either, I'd say. It has great characters. That's why everyone is still attached to those characters regardless of the medium/games they appear in lol.
OP
OP
I won't lie, I thought them bringing in shit from Crisis Core, etc., was pretty ballsy... But also equally pandering, falls flat and adds more of something that wasn't even needed.
As someone that loves the OG, Remake was like a dream come true for me. I wish the game was actually longer.
I disagree completely. I think an aspect of FFVII that made it popular at the time, and which few people talk about, was that it felt like a movie: it was briskly paced, it kept the story humming along even in its quiet moments, and it had many moments of genuine emotion, from love to anxiety to horror to anguish to courage. The plot wasn't anything to write home about, but the storytelling absolutely was.
One of the sequences that stuck with me the most when I played the original was when the party woke up in their cells at Shinra HQ. Right away you know something is very wrong. The party have been mysteriously set free. The place is a wreck; there are bodies and blood and clawmarks everywhere. The creepy Jenova music is playing. The trail of blood leads up. What on earth happened here? And then following the trail and finding, at its end, the president, the game's main antagonist up to that point, slumped over his desk with a huge katana pinning him to it, no other explanations... god, what a great, cinematic sequence.
The Remake turns this whole sequence into something with far less impact, and robs it of its mystery. The purple glowing trail is less visceral. The creepy music is gone. The whole sequence with President Shinra makes no narrative sense: Sephiroth drags him outside, leaves him hanging from the edge, then leaves, then comes back to finish the job and taunt the party? Huh? Why would he do that?
That's just one example of good storytelling that was lessened by the changes in the Remake.
I see it as even more heartbreaking. The fact that they defeat the physical manifestation of fate or destiny only for them to realize it was futile - Aerith has to sacrifice herself regardless, the only way to stop Meteor. Her spirit needs to be part of the Lifestream one way or another. This is all hypothesis and theory of course.
Yup, I get that people hate that it's not a shot for shot remake of the original, it was never gonna be.
I'm so glad they are doing something new with it.
At this point, I'm happy knowing that the Remake is doing it's own things. Rather than trying to surpass the cultural juggernaut that was the original it's playing with the expectations of fans while also providing a modern shine and appeal for a newer audience. I genuinely believe at this point that you are intended to play or at least have some knowledge of the original game to fully grasp everything that's happening in Remake.
We already learned that in the original, why her death was neccessary. Dragging out a Fate monster the characters have to defeat, and if it's just a way to do the same trick twice anyway, well that would just be a cheap way to milk it.
FFVII-R is a weird one. They did well in the things I thought they would fuck up (combat) and then completely fucked up parts of the game I thought would be perfectly fine (story).
I honestly think the original has a better paced and better told story and that's p a t h e t i c. Just like shitty new Star Wars, they've had decades to come up with a story worth listening to and they totally blow it. Regrettable but whatever.
Lord, I was not expecting an abysmally paced and mediocre story in between cramped corridor walking section: the game.
You read my exact thoughts. Going in, I was worried about the combat!
Lord, I was not expecting an abysmally paced and mediocre story in between cramped corridor walking section: the game.
Her death was not necessary, it was just shocking and part of the development of the game. Sakaguchi wanted to explore concepts like life and death. Also, that even after death, people still live on in some way.
Again we don't know if she lives or not. It even hints at in the game that Cloud has 7 seconds to stop an ending. So even if she dies again, it will be different.
While it was a bit grandiose and bombastic that they are fighting manifestations of the future and ghost that are trying to keep a certain timeline, it was really all just a way to set up future games from being predictable.
OP
OP
Shame you didn't like it, OP. My only real issue with it is that it feels a bit bloated - and its not even that they added new sections, so much as those sections are quite long.
Other than that, I loved it. Stunningly gorgeous, fantastic combat, music that completely floored me on multiple occasions, and an aesthetic that is confident and feels backed by a focused vision.
Other than that, I loved it. Stunningly gorgeous, fantastic combat, music that completely floored me on multiple occasions, and an aesthetic that is confident and feels backed by a focused vision.
Yeah this and the way the game went out of its way to make every female character flirt with Cloud was terrible. Instead of improving on this from the original it felt like the remake amplified those issues. Sincerely hope part 2 does better.
I really do love the game, but yes the last hour or so is just straight up awful and I have no idea what the hell they were thinking.
But what? utter trash? Nah. Oh and the music is amazing. Pretty much all the remixes and new songs are A+.
"The VP needs us"
My crackpot theory that I'm about 90% certain is true is that this was the work of Rufus and the Turks, not Jenova. Rufus was clearly about to make a move. How does he swoop in ready to take advantage of the power vacuum before anyone could know the old man is dead? Why does he command the Turks to do...something hours before the attack? Why is the party given a free ride through the shinra building? Why does mayor Domino think they're there to kill Shinra? Why does Shinra never mention Sephiroth when the party comes across him? What is Avalanche HQ doing there that night? My theory is that the Turks, under orders of Rufus, were orchestrating an easy kill for Avalanche that night. My guess is that Rufus thought Shinra went too far with the Sector 7 plate drop and went for a power grab before daddy could make more damage and was setting up Avalanche as the culprit
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I don't see the story telling as being lessened in the Remake.
You kinda had to use your imagination to fill in the gaps of what happens in FFVII. That made it so impactful, your mind is going crazy trying to figure out what happened.
In the Remake, they went for something different. The only strange part of that sequence was how they find him hanging there with no real explanation. So you implying it was Sephiroth is wrong. President Shinra at no point said "Seph left me hanging." The dialogue between Barret demanding the president to clear their names only for Seph to show up and stab him was pretty badass. Plus fighting Jenova and having the music ramp up made it quite the highlight.
It's disingenuous to say that the story telling of FFVII is lessened in the Remake. It's different but impactful in different ways, also a bit messier.
well, in that case, couldn't you at least have said 'thanks for nothing'? i mean, would it've killed you or something?...
Midgar was never gonna be able to carry a whole game for me from the get go that's just incredibly boring for a game let alone a jrpg.
You just said (or implied) it was, with holy and everyone having to return to the lifestream.
Well I guess, one way it was necessary for the characters' growth, the way they portray their grief. Having the characters defeat fate, just adds ridiculous stakes.. so if they try amplify the grief when they kill her again. That makes it too cheesy and dragged out imo.
Well I guess, one way it was necessary for the characters' growth, the way they portray their grief. Having the characters defeat fate, just adds ridiculous stakes.. so if they try amplify the grief when they kill her again. That makes it too cheesy and dragged out imo.
I didn't find it impactful at all. It made little narrative sense. You don't know what the purple goo is, Sephiroth keeps appearing and disappearing for no reason, and the sequence of events on the roof is nonsensical. Sephiroth's behavior doesn't make any sense, and the exposition given by the president isn't as effective as just finding him dead.
Hell, the devs themselves knew this. They've said they felt Sephiroth was more effective when he was seen less in the original game, and they were right.
"Different" isn't always a virtue. It can be, when what's new is good on its own merits... but this wasn't. And believe me, I am not one of the people advocating for a shot-for-shot copy of the original, because not every moment in it works as well as the tower scenes... but when something works so well as that and other scenes did, if you're going to mess with it, you'd better have some truly great ideas for doing so. S-E did not.
Kind of what I think, imo it's smug to make a whole RPG, a commentary of fans obssessed with a pure remake, using the Whispers as stand ins, and it isn't earned. Maybe if their new stories were better, we wouldn't have been so excited about wanting to re experience the past. If all the prequels/spin offs had much better stories, the "defying destiny" premise, would have been more exciting to me.
I said she has to potentially sacrifice herself. That's different than dying to Sephiroth. Like she chooses to give her life up to help the planet instead of just being killed by Seph.
Don't get me wrong, I see your point that the stakes are pretty crazy right now, but that's what's exciting about it also. The possibilities.
Him hanging off the ledge did not make sense, I'll give you that.
Other than that I found the execution handled well outside that one glaring issue. The purple goo obviously has something to do with Jenova, and a stand in for the blood of the original game. Seph has always been appearing and disappearing for no reason, that was established in the second chapter where he comes out of nowhere early on or when Cloud sees him in other earlier points of the story. His behavior has always been him trying to goad Cloud into following him, reunion theory. The exposition focused on trying to clear Avalanches name, but that went down the drain the moment Seph stabbed him.
I find it perfectly fine especially with the culmination being a fight with Jenova.
These clearly went for two different approaches. FFVII went for something mysterious, bloody, and poignant, then you fight Rufus. FFVIIR went for something slow, alien, fleshed out, and you fight Jenova.
I left one of the you tube theory videos (Sleepezi) in the backgrond and I believe the purple colour and blood is representing
Sephiroth, and his will is trapped and inhibited by the Whisper Harbinger,
Well - each to their own but normally when the phrases 'Graphically superb, great music and an awesome battle system' come together, it usually means its a great game?
I will take your point about cut scenes taking an age to actually say anything. I will also add, I absolutely despise the anime grunts and moans where the scene switches to a character to literally grunt while we watch for seconds. (Still not as bad as Kingdom Hearts 3 for that).
I will also take your point about the game could have been better paced if it were a straight up 15 hour run through - won't deny that because the side quests were useless.
However, even for its useless side quests and grunting cut scenes do I believe this game was 'fucking baaad' and 'trash'.
Hard no. Great game. A fun and engaging battle system with possibly the best soundtrack this year and a superb story, well told (Barret in the first reactor literally had me squirming with his speech on 'killing the planet' but after that over dramatic shout fest he grew on me and I think the actor did very well) narrative that yes, made mistakes - The President Shinra scene, again I agree with you - but in general was really well done.
I will take your point about cut scenes taking an age to actually say anything. I will also add, I absolutely despise the anime grunts and moans where the scene switches to a character to literally grunt while we watch for seconds. (Still not as bad as Kingdom Hearts 3 for that).
I will also take your point about the game could have been better paced if it were a straight up 15 hour run through - won't deny that because the side quests were useless.
However, even for its useless side quests and grunting cut scenes do I believe this game was 'fucking baaad' and 'trash'.
Hard no. Great game. A fun and engaging battle system with possibly the best soundtrack this year and a superb story, well told (Barret in the first reactor literally had me squirming with his speech on 'killing the planet' but after that over dramatic shout fest he grew on me and I think the actor did very well) narrative that yes, made mistakes - The President Shinra scene, again I agree with you - but in general was really well done.
I don't really agree with that comparison since FF7R has great fundamentals but issues everywhere else while FFXV was a mess in a lot its core aspects, especially at launch.
I quite like TLJ, but disagree. Remake goes for shallow fan service at the end,
by having a 'cool' Sephiroth battle.. where he just outmatches you in a cutscene. [\spoiler] Despite some suprises, it's much more pandering than TLJ.
While I agree that FF7R had some great fundamentals, I think they were both very messy overall.
FFXV suffered from by the numbers open world design, and a story that was essentially unfinished.
FF7R suffered from at least two cringe support characters, uneven visuals, and a very linear design approach (complete with slow walk load screens)
Neither are close to perfect, but as far as the overall packages go, I thought they were pretty close in quality.
Honestly I loathed it too. While I liked the combat I found that the inability to issue commands (or at the very least lock a character on) to attack particular enemies while not under direct control really hurt the battle system. I should add I played on normal difficulty and had absolutely no issue completing the game.
The story went off the rails in a really unappealing self-indulgent way - and the presentation felt like a PS3 game with PS4 character models. I don't think it deserves a shred of the praise it gets.
*edit* I should add that my experience was probably soured quite a bit from the discourse here - it came out nearly two weeks early in Australia and when I gave my thoughts I had a bunch of people (that didn't have the game yet) telling me how I was "playing it wrong".
The story went off the rails in a really unappealing self-indulgent way - and the presentation felt like a PS3 game with PS4 character models. I don't think it deserves a shred of the praise it gets.
*edit* I should add that my experience was probably soured quite a bit from the discourse here - it came out nearly two weeks early in Australia and when I gave my thoughts I had a bunch of people (that didn't have the game yet) telling me how I was "playing it wrong".
I love them both! So yeah, I think you're right and it's a beautiful thing.
I totally agree with this.
As OP says , the team making it gave every right to add to the story what they want - what's so worrying, considering this is the some of the best people working at Square Enix now - is how badly the new content stacks up against the original.
They seem to completely miss what made the original so good and so loved
As OP says , the team making it gave every right to add to the story what they want - what's so worrying, considering this is the some of the best people working at Square Enix now - is how badly the new content stacks up against the original.
They seem to completely miss what made the original so good and so loved
What can I say. It'a a well made game on it's own but I don't think a Remake should be done in a way that you have to bloat it so much to justify a price tag. There's absolutely no restrain in FF7Remake in terms of content, fanservice... and even if it's well made it's not the way I like it on a remake, hence "to me".
I largely enjoyed the Remake, but did indeed hate the ending, seeing things escalate so much so soon in what's the beginning of a reimagining that will take at least several installments to complete, and pretty much everything pertaining to the Whispers. And yes, sanitizing the carnage wrought by Jenova in the Shinra building for the sake of a lower rating was also disappointing.
That it's different approaches is not in dispute. I just found the newer approach markedly inferior from a narrative standpoint. There's no real suspense in it. It's just an action setpiece in a game that already has a lot of action setpieces.
As for knowing the purple goo is from Jenova, that's true if you've played FFVII before. But I'm not just judging based on my own foreknowledge here; I'm judging based on what makes a cohesive story. It shouldn't require foreknowledge about Jenova to understand that sequence, but it does.
And it wasn't just Shinra hanging off the ledge that made no sense. Sephiroth leaves Shinra there, then he leaves, you find Shinra, you have to climb an antenna thing looking for Sephiroth; he's there, then he's not, then you have to climb back down, you have to talk to Shinra, then Sephiroth comes back and stabs him. It was like a sequence designed to showcase a bunch of moments the writers thought up, but they didn't give as much thought to the act of stringing those moments together in a logical way. And there are a lot of elements in the remake that are like that: moments that are "cool" in and of themselves but which aren't strung together in a way that makes sense.
Take the train graveyard as another example. Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith have learned that Sector 7 is about to be destroyed. It takes them three chapters to get there, during which time they fuck around in the sewers for ages and then stop to... help some ghost children and have a bonding moment with them? All while they know all their friends are about to die if they don't arrive in time? Again, the moments themselves are cool, but in the grander scheme of the story they fall apart, and they blow the game's pacing all to hell.
You should meet more humans then lol. It's really not crazy to see someone in their low 20s acting like that.
Jessie in particular clearly just craves attention following leaving her dream of becoming a popular actress.
We wanted the full game, not the split up in parts like they been doing now.
Too bad you didn't like it OP. A few bloated sections but the game was amazing.
VI is awful? Reported.
I agree op, not with all your points though as I thought the combat was terrible and Jessie just made me cringe the entire game but everything about the bloat, inconsistent graphics, the awful story changes, boring side quests, the dire ending, Barrets 'angry black man' characature (I mean he was a bit like that in the original, this was where I wanted change... But no) , Sephiroth turning up all the time.
Honestly it felt like some kind of crap fan fiction made reality. I was OK with stuff being added, just not what they did. Most disappointing game I've played probably in years.
Only positive really is the Airbuster theme is top notch. I added that to my mp3 player but didn't like the rest of the OST really.
Honestly it felt like some kind of crap fan fiction made reality. I was OK with stuff being added, just not what they did. Most disappointing game I've played probably in years.
Only positive really is the Airbuster theme is top notch. I added that to my mp3 player but didn't like the rest of the OST really.
This is my exact feelings on the Series.
I'm not sure they could do it without splitting it up. Junon and the Gold Saucer/Mount Corel are going to be awe-inspiring. Even if they managed it in just one game, I guess Wutai would have been DLC.