#441

I think this is possibly more to do with Japanese body language than anything. My wife studied Japanese at university and lived there for a year so has a few Japanese friends. We went to visit a few years back and I did notice a thing of women dipping their heads, sort of half-bowing with their hands behind their backs etc, and particularly in conversation with men. They may have exaggerated it slightly here, and it may seem odd to us because western body language is so different, but I think it’s something that already exists.

Not sure if you’re playing in English or Japanese with subs, but I definitely found the latter helped with that. In Japanese I have no idea what anyone’s saying so still having to read the text for the translation means you’re not getting the full whack of what a prick he is. I tried the dub for a bit and yeeesh.

I think you might also be able to turn voices down low enough to not really hear them in the audio menu.

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#442

Am I the only one who really liked the soundtrack (for the most part) then?

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#443

Should have called it Remix rather than Remake.
or FF7: What If?
Seems like you need to already be a huge ff7 nut to appreciate these radical changes so newbies won’t get that aspect, but a lot of the ff7 veterans would have been happier with things kept the way they were?

  • I’m happy with the changes
  • Wish they’d just done a true/faithful remake

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#444

nah i thought it was pretty great

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#445

Yeah, there’s definitely a cultural element to it that my lack of familiarity with means my criticisms are probably a bit harsh. I was initially playing in Japanese which was helping but, unfortunately, the completely insane decision to have all the NPC dialogue just overlapping with each other and the main character dialogue meant I had to switch back to English.

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#446

Kind of wish they’d met halfway? I like the idea of being creative with the source material, and I even like the direction theyve gone in to an extent, but the lack of subtlety in implementing it and the lack of consideration for any total newbies (imo) is what grates more than anything.

One thought I’d had had been that an interesting thing they could’ve done would be to occasionally give the player the chance to make different decisions, only for apparent coincidences to get in your way – you know, instead of FUCKING DEMENTORS. It would have made it a bit more slow-burny weird, the twist would have felt more like a twist instead of Red XIII somehow knowing what a Whisper of Fate is, and it kind of works better as a meta-commentary on the nature of choice and free will in games.

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#447

Yeah the NPC dialogue thing racing past when you’re in busy areas is mad. Impossible to keep track of it.

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#448

It’s funny when they all just load in at once

“ScAnNiNg FoR cAnDiDaTeS”

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#449

I think I’d liked to have seen it faithful to the overarching story, but expanding lots of the in-between moments and character development that we didn’t get as much of in the original.

Like adapting a 2 hour movie into an extended HBO series or something.

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#450

That’s why I really liked the bit with Jessie’s family so much

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#451

Without having played it, it sounds like the ending opened up the rest of the game for being completely different, which seems controversial to me. Looks like there’s a fair chance people will never actually get what they wanted (a remake of the original) but another sort of spinoff.

#452

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All this chat has just made me want to play the original. Plus I don’t have a PS4.

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#453

This is essentially what it is now, and you’d already need to be massively into ff7 to appreciate the differences and what the hell is so important and to even keep track of who the folks/storyline are.
Feels like they realised the sheer scale of what they were doing was getting out of hand and I wouldn’t be surprised of some of the changes were made after they made the decision to make the game Midgar only as so much of what was changed seems to be them giving themselves a justification to change things up and then shoehorn ING a Sephiroth showdown etc in so early.
The other thing is: if they’d kept to a faithful remake at the pace they were going, would it ever get finished? They’ve basically given themselves the ability to do whatever with the story. “Sephiroth died on the way to the temple of the Ancient”.
The end.

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#454

Did Hellhouse on hard this morning. Was absolutely nails. Like fighting Emerald Weapon or something.

#455

Like most of these extended universes (whether it be Star Wars or Harry Potter or whatever) a lot of the fun was in the implied universe of the original, what’s left to the imagination. The more you grind out every minute detail for a few more quid and a bit of fan service, the less intriguing or magical it becomes. I’m sure FF7 remake is bogged down by a lot of pointless folklore from all the pretentious twaddle that followed it that only about 5 people actually cared about.

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#456

I mean, it’s not as though ff7 hadn’t been fleshed out a bit more already with
Advent children,
Dirge of cerberus,
before crisis,
crisis core,
the last order and
On the way to a smile.

:grin:

#457

Yeah exactly what I mean! But most people just played the original and they don’t care about a narrative that ties in all that bollocks. Ooh make sure you give a decent amount of time to Zack because he’s really important to that bit of backstory on Cid’s estranged brother in Final Fantasy VII: The Legend of Reno

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#458

nailed it

#459

Really want Aerith to get a midichlorian test to check how powerful an Ancient she is tbf.

#460

I don’t know about all newbies struggling to enjoy the story. As a newbie myself I followed it and got a lot from it. Yeah some things didn’t make sense immediately, like the goddamn furry Cat King, but there aren’t many moments like that, and it’s seemingly) left for a sequel. The game is so over the top in every respect, I’m fine with some weirdness. It’s a weird game.

I’m also not sure how you do a “true” remake and what that would look like. What would be the difference between that, and the Gus Van Sant shot-for-shot Psycho remake that’s generally considered pointless? Remakes are expected to change stuff - different creative people doing different creative things. And for people that want to play the original, it’s still easily accessible.

Granted, I’m being a bit flippant bringing up the Psycho remake, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s considered the nadir of remakes, and what not to do. It’s obviously better to look at other videogame remakes, but they’re relatively new (I can think of Shadow of the Colossus, RE1/2/3, Links Awakening, Black Mesa, a couple of Etrian Odyssey games, and this?) so there aren’t many comparisons to make. Also, although those games were released before FF7R, they were announced after the initial FF7R trailer, making comparisons that little bit more weird. Interestingly, most of those other remakes listed above are to varying degrees - too faithful or not faithful enough. It’s something that’s being treated on a case-by-case basis, relative to the game, the fanbase, and the general context of the remake’s release. Seems like most games are on a hiding to nothing in this regard. Change too much? Old fans don’t like it. Change too little? New fans don’t like it.

With games you can justify a shot-for-shot remake more (though shot-for-shot doesn’t seem like the right term but I’ll stick with it now), but there are questions over writing, translation, direction, cutscenes, camera angles, voice acting, animation, lighting, texture details, etc. Creative decisions still need to be made. Of the other videogame remakes that exist, FF7R is by far the most story-based, so it’s going to have the most change. I also feel for the developers of this, and don’t blame them for making creative changes. Working for years on a “faithful” remake where you can’t use any creative license at all sounds extremely unappealing, arduous, and kind of demoralising.

Where I do understand the frustration is that (from what I recall), the initial information about FF7R didn’t indicate that it was going to be quite different from the original. Maybe they felt they didn’t need to - that it would be obvious, and they made a misjudgement. If from the beginning they said it was FF7: Universe Remix or something like that, they would have set expectations better for the fans of the original. Then again, when they first announced it, the plans were probably quite different. Messy stuff.

Don’t know if I have an overall point that I’m getting at, but I think this is all fascinating stuff to think about.

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