I was just pointing out that these things came from the modding community rather then from square, to the point there was a fair while there where the "official" patch was actually made by someone on this forum and was downloaded from here without permission being sought using up qhimms bandwidth at the time.... Gee I feel old remembering that.
RPGs really haven't exolved much in the last 20years unless you count the shift into action RPG territory, so there really isn't much in the way of quality of life improvement available, they literally could make it a bit prettier and smoother, but that's really about all, maybe tacking on a new game+ or story DLC while maintaining straight remaster status.
Looking at reforged as an example, the hardcore fanbase wanted this se game just prettier but no-one wants to pay $60us for a game that they already own, and new players who came from SC2 lol and Dota all think reforged plays likes.a bag of soggy vibrators, going back tto wc3 is regrettably the same.
Re2 isnt a direct 1-1 remaster because there were innovations in RE gameplay mechanics that kept the overall feel, looks good , plays good reviewed good
A direct remaster plus a couple of spare minigames is a waste of time and effort because they do poorly sales wise, you don't work for free why should they, anymore the a straight graphical update is major work even, even if it's something as simple as streamlineing or updating battle ai, how long has Sega chief been working on new threat, with current tools, how long did it take gjoerulv to make nightmare, both of which play completely different to ff7 base, how many hours did aali put into his driver, what about the hours spent just on making the tools to make modding ff7 possible, all of these where labours of love for a game all of which happened because people had issues with the original that weren't story related.
Point is I've bought reg ff7 3 times because I love the game mainly for nostalgia reasons, it's story while good had many unfinished threads to its tapestry,and didn't feel finished, it's graphics really don't hold up well today, neither does it's gameplay, there is very little you can do to improve base rpg gameplay without a full rebuild of the battle module at which point pretty well anything you make is no longer base ff7.
As for the style updates on no Tifa now has stockings on and shorts instead of a skirt and bare legged(I don't play games to perv it's kinda creepy if you do) and Barret wears sunglasses at night and clouds hair is mildly less super sayan, or are you talking about the no SD/chibi (my least favourite artstyle) because really the arts fairly consistent with the original aside from those changes with the exception of a couple of colour changes on clothing.
I maintain I don't see the appeal of same game again with a couple of bonus goodies, a full remake/reimagining peaked my interest to the point I played the demo and gosh golly it was fun enough to make me wanna spring for the $750 copy, that sold out mind you, to the point they had to ramp up production of the $200 version to accommodate the pre-orders, pretty sure I sit with the majority that gave it a go and liked it that much
Square-Enix should have updated the models, that's the most important thing- especially on the field. A Remaster without new field models based on the original art is not the remaster most people wanted. I would personally have wanted models looking exactly like the original art in a remaster.
RPG's have evolved a lot. For the better and for the worse. A lot of people i've spoken to have agreed with me that the change from FF9 to FFX with too many videos playing all the time was bad. Another bad change were the FFXII to FFXIII where the world-map disappeared. Making the experience less epic and smaller. Also less free as you were led through the story and couldn't go where you pleased in the world like in the PSX titles.
Blizzard didn't do a good job at avoiding bugs and issues. They did remove the old battle.net in favor of the new system- and they did replace the old one for the old game as well. If you owned the old game and tried to login online you would get your game updated to the new- with lots of unstability and issues. Of course it's a very bad idea to replace the original with the remake. It's like if Square-Enix would replace the original FF7 with the Remake ruining the multiplayer experience of the original in the process. Fortunately FF7 isn't a multiplayer game. And it's not on PC only- so it's impossible to ruin like Blizzard ruined WC3 multiplayer of the old version. They kind of put the classic out of action when they released the new. Not good if you did prefer the old one, thereby saying to their customers that now you'll need to play the new one instead. Sure, there is an option to use the old models but players have reported that it has a different battle.net that is less stable and prone to crashing often. It's true that WC3R still has the outdated playstyle, and unlike FF7 people don't enjoy that as much today.
I've bought FF7 for 50$ back in 1997 for the PC, then i did buy it again from another guy for the PSX and played the full game there as well because i wanted to know the difference. I also played the game on both Win XP with good graphics and on the original Win 95 with worse resolution. After that i've played it countless times using different mods- starting with DLPB's Rejuvenation project in 2007. Then i did buy the game for the full price again in 2013 from the Square-Enix store due to the CD not working when trying to install it. I've bought the game many times over, and played it even more times- it's true that i didn't bother buying the Steam-version when i already have two PC-versions with the CD:s and one S-E Store version. I actually bought a used version for the PC in 2016 i think because i thought my original version had been stolen. Then i found it again, so i have two CD-copies. But the one i got in 2016 didn't have the original package that my old version has.
Real FF7 fans are prepared to buy the original over and over again just to be able to play it again- and that would be true for a remaster with new models as well. The reason i re-installed the game when new cool mods released is because i wanted to play with the many new features- new models being the most interesting new feature. I did never really like the old chibi-models and always wished that the battle-models would be in the field as well. Something made possible in 2007 when i found the first graphical mods which added the battle-models to the field. After that even better models have been made, that are looking like the FMV-models (a dream come true) or even the art-style (perfect). But imagine if the official game had such better models and kept to the original- i woul certainly buy it even though most people might not. But the hardcore FF7 fans would.
Rebooting FF7 might be the best choice if Square-Enix wants it to get out of the originals shadow. There is a risk people would prefer the original over the remaster otherwise- because unless it's perfectly done people would rather play the original. I'd love better models, but that is not enough- if too many changes are made the new models won't make the game better. WC3R changed the models, but they did also change the overall style from cartoony to modern WoW style- in my opinion the new style is inferior to old WoW as an example. Too much modern values in it - and the female units are less attractive. Many modern games are plagued with this.
The original game isn't perfect, if it were there wouldn't be mods that are aiming to improve upon it- but it's story and gameplay were almost perfect. Of course everything can be improved without changing it. Changing things could also improve it- but that's a risk.
Agreed that the story felt rushed in the third CD. I did always want more in the last one to be honest. I were also disappointed that the fight against Sephiroth weren't against him as he looked like in the Kalm flashback. I thought that Sephiroth were the best looking one- i were obsessed with Sephiroth during high school and searched like a mad-man for mods that allowed me to play as him- or trainers. He weren't as cool in the final fight in my opinion.
The graphics were the best ever seen back in 1997 lol. But you're right about them not holding up today. The PC version can look quite well using mods. But those old chibi-models can't be used without the game looking outdated. Gameplay is still fun for us old folks i think. I don't know what young people below 25 think.
Eh, Tifa still has a skirt but it's not a leather-skirt and it's not as wide as the old one. The stockings are an annoyance to my eyes. She doesn't have shorts thankfully, but the new skirt is less hot than the old. Now, i'm not playing to perv or whatever you wrote- but i enjoy my girls to be eye-candy while playing. I do always choose a hot female character over a male one when i play. I'd keep Tifa in my party because i like looking at her proportions. Change that and i'll use something cool instead- ruining my Tifa experience. Real life women are hard to deal with in this day and age. Sometimes hot models of female characters in games could be nice for people who don't have girlfriends and who like to be less bored while playing. I think that's what's great about the 90's- females in games were always as sexy as possible. That's how it should be done. I do not care about Barret's sun-glasses. I do think Barret is looking much better in the Remake than in the old Advent Children. In the original game he might have looked more aggressive but that's because of the style. Cloud's hair on the other hand could have been more "Super Saiyan"- there were people like that in the 90's. Pop-stars with such hair. Anyway, Cloud looks much better than in Advent Children though- much better pants. But they could have been more like the WW2 Germans because they were more like them in the original.
I have already bought the remake, so i'm very much looking forward to it. It being different does peek my interest as well. But i'm still disappointed about the Tifa eye candy.
