[SPOILERS] FF7 remake discussion time!

[mr_nygren]

i actually hate the Cloud model as well, looks more like Tidus than Cloud IMO

but the sephiroth one is even worse, i feel like i could bitchslap that dude to the ground, and i'm supposed to believe he can blow up a planet?

Exactly, the old Sephiroth had this coolness in his looks that made you kind of respect him. And at a certain age you even wanted to be him. But the new real-life version is too feminine in his looks and won't give the same impression because of it. I would have removed his lips and made them almost non-existent. Then fixed the hairstyle and made the face slightly more muscular. The old FMV had a more manly face as well.

About Cloud Strife i were pleased to see that his old pants were back, after years of those ugly oridinary pants.. But his hairstyle could have been way more spikey.

The difference between Cloud and Sephiroth is that Sephiroth made the game after the Midgar-section- while Cloud i guess wasn't that important for his looks. I can live with the current Cloud, but Sephiroth who is all about being this elite soldier that no-one can defeat, should not be feminine.

 

[BahamutSIN]

Sephiroth who is all about being this elite soldier that no-one can defeat, should not be feminine.

Remake Sephiroth is probably based on how he looked like in crisis core and ac. He's always had a very graceful/noble appearance and he actually looks decent in the remake.

Japan has a tendency to making feminine male anime villains. Yet, he's not even that feminine except for a bit of eyeliner and mascara. He's very tall, got a deep voice, his manspreading stance with legs wide apart makes him look very macho and territorial, and his personality is as stoic, dominant and aggressive as ever.

This perception that feminine appearance = weakness is a boring, outdated trope.

 

[The Black-caped Man]

Back in high school i literally couldn't think of a more bad-ass character in a videogame. Most of it was due to the hairstyle seen in the picture above.

In the Remake he has a woman's hairstyle. The coolness is gone.. It's like realistic isn't always good.

This is EXACTLY smth that a freaking graphics designer and character artist like Nomura just doesn't get: The old FFs characters were partly so iconic because they were FANTASY characters and not real ppl. They looked half like anime characters at best and even the ones of the Super Nintendo games looked bad ass because you were not given every single detail and pixel of a man/woman: You were given some sort of a mantle(sprites on the SNES and polygon models on the PS) that had little detail to it and yes that was the best one could produce in those days, however a completely forgotten positive side effect of those games was that by that everybody playing this game could INTERPRET this characters details in his own mind and thus easier project himself into a character, a world and live it through in ones mind and it became his own personal fantasy. And that was the magic of Final Fantasy.
That doesn't mean that bad graphics is good and newer suck always or anything but at least in a Final Fantasy game I expect some little space for my own fantasy, some space for my interpretation of things and not another mans 4k HD vision of every pixel forced into my head.
The best and closest approximation of FF7 characters (that I am sure everybody would have liked btw) is the artwork of the manuals and the models of the FMV sequences. Those are the characters as we got to know them and they will be like that forever. With todays methods you can make them look pretty much exactly like that in a smooth way and everybody would be happy....except for Mr. Nomura

 

[gjoerulv]

Spoiler

Hmmm, I was just thinking....
*Commencing useless postulations*
It seems they expand on the FF7 "expanded universe" (EU) here. I'm guessing there will be retconning (haven't there already?).
That means EU is not part of the original game, and that EU + FF7R is a complete different story than the original.

Why?

Because, if it's true that Sephiroth is traveling in time (I'm not convinced yet, perhaps I'm in disbelief) back to the "original story", and every character acts different from what they did in the original, then isn't it logical to assume that what we see is not the original story? And that all EU stuff added to FF7R makes the EU relative to FF7R's story and not the original's?

Still baffled about that this may be a sequel to f*****n AC, lmao. If SE actually intend that to be true my head will collapse into a black hole.

 

[epsilon]

This is not my battle as I have no intention to buy the game, but one obvious weakness of making the game more realistic is that character acting stands out much more, and from the what I have seen of the trailers it can be atrocious: Barret's histrionics are so damned awful... I will say though that, contrary to DPLB, I do find Aerith very beautiful and not slutish in any way, shape or form.

 

[orichalcon]

This is not my battle as I have no intention to buy the game, but one obvious weakness of making the game more realistic is that character acting stands out much more, and from the what I have seen of the trailers it can be atrocious: Barret's histrionics are so damned awful...

very true, even though i liked FFX, it made almost mandatory expectations of voice acting in every RPG thereafter and the classic turn-based RPG died

I will say though that, contrary to DPLB, I do find Aerith very beautiful and not slutish in any way, shape or form.

i actually agree with him on that one, her cheeks should have been more rounded to give her that innocent look that she had in FF7

she's hot though, it was evident in FFX-2 (SE's first game IIRC) that was the new direction, i'm kinda surprised they didnt just say fuck it with aeris and put short shorts on her like they did with Yuna

 

[Caledor]

i'm kinda surprised they didnt just say fuck it with aeris and put short shorts on her like they did with Yuna

they wanted to, but the watchmen of fate forced her into a skirt

 

[Devina]

Point about Aerith is she isn't meant to be hot - she's meant to be cute, innocent, pure.  That's whole point of that love triangle - Tifa and Aerith are opposites.  Her longer dress was deliberately to contrast with Tifa's for example (developer interview from '90s).

I heard someone mentioning that their clothing is meant to be the opposite, in order to make the player surprised by their true personalities.

Aerith wears pink, a dress, does her hair in braids, etc. Someone could be led to believe she is innocent and introverted by her appearance. However, she is quite extroverted personality-wise. She is a young woman who knows the slums. When you first see her after the explosion, she's calm when everyone else is running around panicking (sure, she gets knocked down, but she immediately stands up by herself and brushes herself off instead of having Cloud give her a hand). She catches Cloud by surprise when he sneaks out of her house and she decides to choose the sexiest dress in the clothing store, a striking red dress showing off a bit of her cleavage, and she also does her hair and has earrings. She sees through Cloud's bullshit "macho" exterior, having experienced Zack, and tries to see him for who he really is. Aerith tries to dismantle Cloud's persona, asking him questions that challenge his core, while Tifa plays along with it and hides several truths. That's sort of the thing, Aerith's already been toughened up by her relationship with Zack and the grief she's experienced after, so I don't really get it when people say she's meant to be "innocent". She's also a flower peddler who tries to sell flowers in downtown, and if you've ever been in retail, then you'd know you have to grow a thick skin to deal with people. Another example is when they're threatening Corneo, Aerith says "I'll rip it off" before Tifa's threat. Aerith is very playful and a bit of a fun-loving troll.

Tifa wears no distinctive feminine colors and shows a lot of skin, especially her midriff. One would assume she's extroverted, but Tifa is actually very shy and introverted, and has difficulty asserting her true feelings openly. For example, during the Gold Saucer date, Tifa says "Okay, I'm just going to say it... Aerith probably be able to just come out and say it... Cloud... I..." but then becomes silent and is unable to assert her true feelings (her love) for Cloud. It's pretty clear that Tifa is jealous of Cloud's attention to Aerith and feels like a second banana.

I think a lot of players judge Aerith and Tifa by their appearances and accidentally switch their personalities. Aerith is cute, like you said, but once you analyze their personalities, I think it's pretty evident Aerith isn't supposed actually "pure and innocent" like some fragile flower. Imo, it gives them a lot of depth.

 

[epsilon]

Just as a point of clarification and a parting shot, because as I said this is not a fight I want to have: I did not use the word "hot", Orichalcon did; I used the word "beautiful". Every man has had the experience of finding a woman beautiful without having his lust aroused (now, there's a double entendre for you), especially if you are past a certain age, are weary and jaded, to the point where virtue and exhaustion are indistinguishable. Neither do I disagree with DPLB's characterization of the love triangle, which I do not, I just disagreed with his assessment of Aerith (the "tart" part) in the remake -- from the little I have seen of the trailers, that is.

And Barret's histrionics are really awful (in one of the review's someone said a "bad impression of Mr. T". Ah!) And Cloud does look like a dweeb. And I do not like action RPG's. And the parallel universe storylines with overseers, quite apart from the fidelity to the original story, is a crap plot device inserted to give the authors leeway to retcon willy-nilly, with no rhyme or reason. And I have better things to do anyway.

 

[Devina]

Tifa and Aerith are contrasts, I'm not debating you there, I agree with that.

I was just explaining that the whole "Aerith is a gentle/pure/innocent/demure/girl" notion is heavily flawed in many ways. She is in some aspects, others, not so much.

Haven't played the remake yet but I have no issues with Aerith's appearance and it's always how I imagined her. I got to say tho, her voice is a bit nerdier than I imagined, but I hope it will grow on me.

I do think Aerith is beautiful in both the original and remake, altho I wish she was a bit more dirty looking, perhaps with some parts of her outfit looked a bit ragged, dirt on her jacket, etc. It would help the idea that she's a slum woman easier and think make her look a bit more sympathetic.

I have no issues with Cloud looking a bit slender or tired, because (spoilers)

Spoiler

He's been in a coma for years so it'd make sense he'd look a bit atrophied and malnourished.

There's already a million buff and muscular dudes in gaming.

As for the story,

Spoiler

I'm actually interested in the idea of FF7 being an alternate timeline, it makes the story very exciting, I think a 1:1 story adaptation would be boring, especially for people who play the original. I hope Zack and Aerith stay dead and that confusing information for newcomers is kept a bit on the minimal side. If they aren't, then that's really butchering the original story and cheapens their deaths.

 

[gjoerulv]

I just want a 1:1 carbon copy of the original story. Anything added or removed is blasphemy.  : : :

 

[The Black-caped Man]

And the original soundtrack, no KH/AC shit.....Just the FMV graphics or the anime graphics of the original manual/menu avatars and we could embrace it.....

 

[Caledor]

My 2 cents, from someone liked what saw from the E3 till 2 days ago, before "spoilers day".

Spoiler

I just don't care about this "ff7 remake saga" anymore. They can (and will) do whatever they want with the game now, it won't affect me in any way. The one thing i'm angry about is that they lied to us for 5 years, cause this is not a remake but a sequel. But that's it. My care meter reads zero.

Now, it's highly likely that this first game will be the worst in the entire compilation since the WoF are no more, hopefully the rest will have some linear plot. Even though i don't know how it could end differently: if they ultimately defeat Seph as the last boss this whole parallel timeline mess would be meaningless. Why try to make a different story if the end result is the same?

Even better, hopefully Square will be forced to apologize for lying from the backlash.

One thing i know, I hope Square won't "Remake" anything anymore, or at least won't use the word "remake" for stuff like this.

BTW, the Watchman of Fate are the in game representation of all of us that played the original. Those that wanted things to adhere to the original faithfully. Dunno how i feel knowing that Nomura slew us so he could have free hand in it.

PS. Aerith is not meant to be cute beautiful, innocent and pure. Aerith is meant to look, at first glance, innocent and pure. it takes anyone 5 minutes to realize she's anything but a sheltered princess. Everything else about the contrast with Tifa is obviously true. Hot combat girl is actually shy and beautiful gentle girl is actually very extrovert (for lack of a better word).

 

[LeonhartGR]

Spoiler

lol  time travelling Sephiroth

To mods:  Why do we need to use spoilers when the actual subject has SPOILERS?

I guess for the same reason the whole world is in quarantine instead of just the vulnerable groups! Haha.

 

[Kefka]

Attention, another spoiler coming up! I just read on some other forum that:

Spoiler

this time it is actually the Shinra themselves who are blowing up the reactors to blame it on Avalanche. This was apparently done to make Avalanche look "nicer", and less terrorist-like, to make it fit into today's time, and to draw a much clearer picture of good guys vs evil guys (ugh!)...

And it gets even more hilarious when they argue that "the original game already hints at that", lol! Maybe some of you remember: in the original game, in the Avalanche hideout, Jesse was a bit surprised that her bomb's explosion was stronger than intended, and she wonders whether she made a mistake. Now I (and any sane person too, I presume) always figured that she simply miscalculated, since she's an amateur, afterall. But Nomura (or Nojima?) apparently interpreted that as Shinra being behind this with a bomb of their own. 

Honestly, what on earth were they smoking when they made up stuff like this?

 

[-Ric-]

Attention, another spoiler coming up! I just read on some other forum that:
Honestly, what on earth were they smoking when they made up stuff like this?

Did you even play the original?
Cause Shinra 100% blows up reactor 5 as well as the pillar that supports sector 7.
The first explosion is hinted at being caused by Shinra as well by the very same scene you mentioned...

The remake is so triggering that some of you are going above and beyond looking for stuff to hate on.

I mean, we got socially awkward, on the spectrum, basement virgins debating if Aerith is innocent or slutty... WTF!

And sure, Sephiroth is a transgender super soldier far less manly than y'all. You extremely macho folks.  :roll:

This thread is a hilarious pool of tears. And the salt... Oh my. I love it.

Stay triggered my friends, stay triggered.

 

[Kefka]

Did you even play the original?
Cause Shines 100% blows up reactor 5 as well as the pillar that supports sector 7.
The first explosion is hinted at being caused by Shinra as well by the very same scene you mentioned...

LOL, you're not really serious about that, are you? I could return that same question.

For reference, here's Barret's exact words when they first meet president Shinra in reactor 5:

Barret: Don't give a damn 'bout none of that! This place's goin' up with a big BANG soon! Serves y'all right!

Avalanche DID place a bomb in reactor 5, in case you've forgotten. Just the timer wasn't visible this time for gameplay reasons (there was still a cutscene and a boss battle coming up, so they probably didn't want to pressure the players too much), but the original game never left any doubt that this was Avalanche's bomb.

And on a side note, it wouldn't make any sense for Shinra to blow up the reactors themselves. They are ruthless, yes, but like any company their prime objective is earning money, and as an electric power company the reactors are their main source of income. If they wanted to denounce Avalanche as evil-doers, they could've easily done so in other ways. From a business point of view, demolishing your own production is devoid of all logic. (And I'm actually surprised that Nomura, who is also among the leadership of a big company, seemingly doesn't understand that.)

And Jesse wondering about her bomb's strength isn't really a "hint" for any sort of conspiracy from Shinra. It's far more likely that she just made a mistake when constructing her bomb. Everybody makes mistakes from time to time, that's normal, and Jesse even made another one with Clouds ID card on the train, so we already know her work isn't always the most reliable.

Oh, and to answer your initial question, I've played the original more times than I can count over the past 22 years.

 

[-Ric-]

, I've played the original more times than I can count over the past 22 years.

"And such a waste of good fireworks, just to get rid of vermin like you..."

"We'll destroy Sector 7 and report that AVALANCHE did it. Then we'll send in the rescue operation care of Shinra, Inc. ...Heh, heh, heh... This is perfect."

Go back and play it some more.  lmao.

 

[Caledor]

Love it how there's no evidence of Shinra actively blowing up Reactor 5 (other than just letting Avalanche's bomb go off) yet you act like you're enlightened.

 

[-Ric-]

Love it how there's no evidence of Shinra actively blowing up Reactor 5 (other than just letting Avalanche's bomb go off) yet you act like you're enlightened.

Jessie was surprised her bomb caused such a massive explosion. *cough cough*. Yet the 2nd bomb causes exactly the same kind of explosion. Yeah, she definitely made the same mistake twice.  :roll: There's absolutely no possible way that Shinra would've. Especially when soon after they purposely blow up an entire sector of Midgar and kill everyone in there. Shinra would never.

They definitely had to be smoking something to come up with that for the remake. There was absolutely no possible way.  :roll:

Oh and they definitely didn't have a "Neo Midgar" plan as well. Must be my head-cannon.

Bunch of geniuses here...

And on a side note, it wouldn't make any sense for Shinra to blow up the reactors themselves. They are ruthless, yes, but like any company their prime objective is earning money, and as an electric power company the reactors are their main source of income. If they wanted to denounce Avalanche as evil-doers, they could've easily done so in other ways. From a business point of view, demolishing your own production is devoid of all logic. (And I'm actually surprised that Nomura, who is also among the leadership of a big company, seemingly doesn't understand that.)

Pure gold right here...