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In all this time I have held off from making a final verdict on Square until I see the fruits of the labor that is Final Fantasy XV.  When the game was first announced I was a dedicated Square fan just finishing up my adventures in Kingdom Hearts II and Final Fantasy XII.  I was super hyped after KHII and although XII wasn't the greatest, at least it had a semblance of challenge in the bonus dungeon and battle with Omega Weapon. 

Since then I have gotten nothing but disappointed by Squares offerings hoping that XIII Versus would come along and reign forgiveness on the massacre that was the rest of XIII's saga.  I was also hoping that Kingdom Heats III would do something similar but since we never even heard anything about that game until recently my hope and excitement for that series died off considerably.  The only game I have moderately enjoyed since then was Star Ocean IV and I am not sure that really counts as a Square game since its mostly an effort of Tri-Ace, and even then I didn't like it nearly as much as the first three. 

Now I don't really play everything that Square publishes but I do at least try most of their JRPG's and nothing has really captured the spirit of Final Fantasy since X for me other than some of the mobile remakes for III and IV.  All this to say that in the period I have spent in anticipation of XV, I have gone from a firm believer in Square as one of my favorite publishers to someone who barely even cares enough to hang on for XV to be finished.  I will try it first though before judgement as anything can really happen at this point.  We don't know the intricacies of XV's battle system just yet until we get our hands on it but if they removed character switching then in my book that does not bode well so far.

Still comparing a video game publisher to an addictive substance like crack cocaine is a bit of stretch.  Unlike the obvious and unchanging effects of such a substance, a publishing company is dynamic.  People are capable of realizing their past failings and rising above the stigma to create something wonderful.  Will they?  I'd say the odds aren't good that the original team can overcome their seeming hubris to achieve this, yet we really cannot and will not know until the game is fully realized.  I for one don't wish to speculate about things I have such limited information on.

If anything I don't want to put so much energy into assuming it will be garbage.  Any emotional investment I had in the series was long ago obliterated by XIII so even if it is it won't really affect me in any negative way.  Yet if somehow they pulled it off and made something that is worthwhile, even if not perfect, that is nothing but a benefit to me.  Will it be a replica?  We already have a definite answer on that so if that's all you'll accept then I suppose I can accept your negativity if not fully understand it.  I personally never wanted a replica but something that is more fully vetted than the original could have possibly been at the time of its inception.

Any significant change in the story would be fairly uncalled for but as far as the mechanics and game-play; we have had almost 20 years of progress since the original so to simply mimic it on such a powerful system as the PlayStation 4 would be kind of a waste in my opinion.  Now does that mean that they will automatically get it right?  Of course not, and I am not half expecting them to do so either.  I simply know enough now to know that anything could happen at this point.

It wouldn't be the first unexpected surprise to happen in the world of gaming and it most certainly wouldn't be the last.  At the least I would rather be positive in hoping for something good to come of this than just assume what seems most likely to happen.  If it was me in that position I would at least hope I had enough humanity to recognize when I am wrong and start over.  That's up the dev team themselves to decide though so anything I feel or say wouldn't really change a thing.  If it was an open source project that'd be one thing, but its not, so I say they are free to make their Remake and I am free to ignore it if it happens to be garbage.  Anything more than that and I really just don't give a shit enough to guess at.
 
Any significant change in the story would be fairly uncalled for but as far as the mechanics and game-play; we have had almost 20 years of progress since the original so to simply mimic it on such a powerful system as the PlayStation 4 would be kind of a waste in my opinion.  Now does that mean that they will automatically get it right?  off course not, and I am not half expecting them to do so either.  I simply know enough now to know that anything could happen at this point.
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We've had almost 20 years of change - some of it has been progressive, some of it has been regressive.
We could have a lot of discussion on whether or not the original FF7's game-play mechanics are outdated or not - but the FF13 battle system, which is fairly traditional by most standards, or the general game-play of games like Bravely Default, clearly demonstrate that the conventions of FF7 aren't out of date in the sense of use, nor have they been left behind by progression within the medium.

Personally, which is where I think I differ from DLPB, I am not making the argument that I want the remake to be exactly the same as the original in terms of basic game-play.
There are many game-play variations I can conceive of as being good in their own right, or true to the spirit of the game - my problem lies in the idea that the game-play needs to be drastically different (such as a complete transition to an ARPG system), or that it should be changed because the original mechanics are somehow bad or flawed.
By most accounts, and I say this as a developer myself, the original systems are brilliant -
their primary sin is how poorly balanced, and sometimes poorly realized they are, not the systems in and of themselves.

- The Materia system is great because it allows for completely free customization of all characters, meaning that the player is free to
pick their party largely only being concerned about which characters they want to experience the narrative with, and not being forced (in general) to play with characters they don't like on a personal level (like Cait Sith ;P ).
The fault lies in sub-par balancing of the materia effects in battle, which is relatively easy to fix with more play-testing.

- The transition system for battles/random encounters are clever because it allows a game to play out epic, big-scale battles with
little to no concern with the environments of the game, clipping/edge detection issues, movement A.I, and many other aspects of the game.
The fault lies in the lack of ability to adjust/turn off encounter-rates at the player's leisure, which is easy to fix by adding a simple
menu command.

- The turn-based/ATB system is great because it allows for party micro-management and 1-man "team-play" taking full use of the potential of several members of the cast at once.
The fault lies in the static and "unrealistic" nature of it, which is easy to fix through stylistic changes such as having the characters
move automatically around on the battle-screen in-between turns to make the battle look more dynamic, adding alternative battle-animations for attacks, etc.

- The mini-games are inspired works of creativity, that serves to break up otherwise very repetitive and standard RPG game-play convention of -town/resource exchange, dungeon/battle/resource gathering, story-segment-, into a more diverse experience
with action-, racing-, sports- and fighting-game conventions.
The fault lies in poor execution due to limited time and hardware, with clunky controls and bad responsiveness, which are all easy to
address given the experience the company now has on other titles, and the new hardware resources now available to them. 

My point with these examples, is that there are plenty of changes that SE can make to the original system to make it more "exciting" or "accessible" to people without changing it entirely, and that non of these systems that require up-dating are silly, outdated PSX-era conventions that no-body use or like anymore, as a lot of people seem to suggest these days.

FF7 requires polish to be up to today's standards - and more polish than just to the script, the graphics, and the sound, but also to the game-play, such as balance, controls, and style. It does not however require a total overhaul, which is what it seems to be getting.
In many ways, keeping the original game-play and simply adding polish might actually teach the new generation the merit of those kinds of games, and lead to a renaissance for the JRPG genre. I see no reason why this can't happen a second time around.
It's not like the original FF7 wasn't also competing with good games from different genres.
[I remember the big debate between gamers back in elementary/junior high school was "which is better FF7 or Ocarina of Time?"(despite almost a two year release gap, between the two).]
 
Sorry to revive this thread; I stumbled upon this:

http://www.kpopstarz.com/articles/222698/20150722/final-fantasy-7-ps4-remake-news.htm

It is not gonna be AC FF7... Yes, not a reuse of resources. Anyone with some knowledge about information technology would probably have figured that one out already. But I bet it will be emo AC Cloud and emo AC Tifa. It will be the extended universe FF7, not the original FF7.

New gameplay because noone can pinpoint what FF7 is? FF7 is not a car. It is not a movie. It is not a puzzle game. It's a turn based JRPG.

FF7R released when it's scheduled will probably be at it's most profitable. SE knows this. Reeling in on nostalgic factor, curiosity factor ("what's the big deal with FF7") and hype factor at the same time. See tranformers for proof.
 
Well i dunno, i'm almost sure somewhere else in this forum i read that someone in square enix that's actually working on or was working on ff15 is here with us somewhere. Who's to say the information we give out about isn't being relayed to the remake creators? If we do it right we could have an influence on how its created?
 
Kpopstars.... That says it all.
They're well known for making bogus articles and they're just living off lying clickbait articles for more ad revenue. Don't believe a word from that website.
So all that is random BS they made up without legit source of proof like all their other articles.
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That's what I was going to say, that site is exactly that. They were announcing fake official release dates (not rumours) for the latest GPUs that were to come, that's how I got to know about them. That site is a shame.
But that one article seems legit, on thelifestream.net  you have the full interview that has been translated from Japanese by someone from their forums.

http://thelifestream.net/news/final...ke-nomura-interview-translation-from-famitsu/

So kpopshit just took it and published a part of it without giving any source..

Well i dunno, i'm almost sure somewhere else in this forum i read that someone in square enix that's actually working on or was working on ff15 is here with us somewhere. Who's to say the information we give out about isn't being relayed to the remake creators? If we do it right we could have an influence on how its created?
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That's L.Spiro, but I don't know if she/he is working on the remake. And even if it was the case, I really doubt she/he can take any decision on the kinds of matter we're discussing here (which parts of the story will be kept and which won't, elements of gameplay, the battle system, the mood of the game, the humour - etc ).
But that'd be really great if a decision taker from SquareEnix could come here just to read through this thread and see what we're saying, our ideas, our thoughts.. I think there are good points that are said and that are discussed here.
 
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L. Spiro is an engine programmer. He almost certainly won't have any say in anything related to the game's actual design.

As far as I can tell, the problem we have here is that Nomura and Nojima are stuck in a positive feedback loop. It's not that they don't know people disagree with their opinions, as clearly shown by the Famitsu interview, but that they keep playing yes-man to each other's ideas, regardless of how good or bad they are. And then the games sell anyway, which reaffirms this. So they're trapped in their own little world, where garbage like Advent Children was good, without any incentive to see reality.

For what it's worth, they really are putting their all into this. They really want to make a good product. It's not at all that they're lazy and just pumping something out because they know it will sell, and entirely that they genuinely think that what they're doing is the best thing to do. It's like how Adam Sandler keeps making awful movies, but they keep bringing in money, which tells him that people like them and they are good, so he never has cause to re-evaluate anything.
 
I just thought if i were the owner the best way for me to sell this game was to find out exactly what the fans wanted. By now they know there's mods and more than likely know about this forum. A wise choice for them would be to use us to make it perfect. There never gonna find a collection of fans as large as this so its kinda a jackpot to them. I would without a doubt if it was me
 
They only have to make it modable. That's the only thing I ask for.
If they would come down from their high horses and do this they would get an incredible feedback, which they could use for new projects.

Nomura: There certainly are some staff who put too much of a focus on the ‘VII-ness’ and are resistant to changing it. But that FFVII-ness isn’t something you can easily point to and say ‘that’s it!’ about, and it means different things for different people. I’ve got a lot of attachment to VII myself. But those “feelings” and being “trapped” by the FF of the past are two separate things. If you make up your mind, “‘FF is like this,” then you can’t make FF.
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Now I understand it. Someone has told them that FF is like a good JRPG game...  :evil:
Needs someone that tell them that modern FFs are like tradition breakers. Would be interesting how they solve this paradox...

Really my expectation to this remake getting lower and lower after reading it.
 
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Even if FF7r is modable, there are 2 major issues

1. The game will be huge in size and probably a lot of the content will be on disc (and not on Hard drive).  It may well be that modding the game is simply impractical given the files and their formats and sizes.

2. All tools would need to be remade and new formats decoding, and getting people to do that is no easy task.  It's taken years to get us where we are with current FF7 from 1997. 

In other words, putting my usual doom and gloom about, I don't foresee a modded FF7r happening.
 
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The only mods I can see for FF7R will be a GeDoSaTo profile for downsampling and an ENB/SweetFX setting for better coloring and lighting.
 
Kpopstars.... That says it all.
They're well known for making bogus articles and they're just living off lying clickbait articles for more ad revenue. Don't believe a word from that website.
So all that is random BS they made up without legit source of proof like all their other articles.
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Oh, I had no idea. Just kinda stumbled upon it. Well anyways, it kinda does sound legit. I mean, nothing new -or things we didn't already know- is said here.
 
Even if FF7r is modable, there are 2 major issues

1. The game will be huge in size and probably a lot of the content will be on disc (and not on Hard drive).  It may well be that modding the game is simply impractical given the files and their formats and sizes.

2. All tools would need to be remade and new formats decoding, and getting people to do that is no easy task.  It's taken years to get us where we are with current FF7 from 1997. 

In other words, putting my usual doom and gloom about, I don't foresee a modded FF7r happening.
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If its on a pc then at some point or another it will get modified on some level however if they don't release sdk and a creation kit then any substantial modifications would be beyond the scope patience and or ability of many programmers. If it did happen it would takes years and some extremely skillful reverse engineering. Knowing square and Japanese culture in general they definitely will not encourage modifications of the game and doing so will be a royal pain
 
For crying out loud, IGN, is it really that hard to write an honest headline?

Nomura says "We are going to be bringing dramatic changes, but we want to make sure it’s still recognizable," so off course the headline only mentions the dramatic changes. Nomura says the visuals will draw inspiration from Advent Children, the headline implies the combat mechanics will draw inspiration from Advent Children.

This bullSephiroth is precisely why I don't read IGN. They have taken what amounts to things we already knew and rephrased it to sound worse. Good job, guys.
 
Off topic but Covarr did you change my Avatar?? :o
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No, if I was gonna change someone's avatar, it would either be a pirate (the same pirate avatar I always use) or EQ2Alyza (has she even noticed I made her global moderator?).
 
No, if I was gonna change someone's avatar, it would either be a pirate (the same pirate avatar I always use) or EQ2Alyza (has she even noticed I made her global moderator?).
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Yes, I noticed. Thought it was an accident at first, but hasn't changed in awhile soooo lol
 
Yeah, I was thinking about asking you if you were interested because I felt it would be helpful to have another moderator who's actually active and you seemed like the best candidate, but then I decided it would be funnier to just do it and see if you'd notice :P
 
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