Dumb Lowtax posted:

I finished a full watch-through now. Since I had a Chinese speaker handy, I was lucky enough to experience it without the English translation and voice acting. It was a lot of fun.

I'd post about the ending in the spoiler thread but that crowd seem to take this game way more seriously than us, so I'll just ponder things in here instead. I'll tag it and try to leave out any specifics in case anyone mouseovers.

My stepbrother showed me FF7 as a kid and now we reconnected to enjoy Part 1. He says he has high hopes for part 2 "as long as it doesn't turn into Kingdom Hearts, same director. Here's hoping"

I've never played Kingdom Hearts, and thoroughly don't get it, but I still can see a lot of signs this project is heading in that direction. Square went for a more child friendly "Teen" ESRB rating, as if preparing for a more Kingdom Hearts audience. To do so they removed all the blood from Jenova's original escape sequence, which is now Nickelodeon ooze. Certain original Honeybee Inn content (like the funniest room) and shots of soldier carnage are not shown. Besides the ESRB choices, they added an annoying science kid who looks so straight out of KH that we're really only missing Donald Duck!

And that ending is so clearly intentionally designed to give Nomura the excuse he needs to move that direction, don't you think?

As soon as Nomura had the freedom to end the game in a new way, he went with what I assume to be KH style nonsense. The whole last hour kind of went mad not just in terms of storytelling, but in characters breaking the fourth wall by magically explaining the worldbuilding details and script interpretations they shouldn't know about.

The execs really did just throw in whatever they wanted for the last hour or so, eh? I'd love to have been a fly on the wall during that meeting. They finally decided on an ending that's specifically designed to release them to do whatever they want with the franchise now. Soon enough EVERYONE will be wearing a Rufus belt-dress, and have one wing for no reason. I'm sure THAT wasn't the goal, though it will be a silly side effect -- the real goal was probably to just free the company Square Enix from any obligations to remake such a long game in maximum detail. It was a purely financial consideration. They can't afford to do the "whole" remake in this economy.


Here's my new interpretation of that ending now that I've seen it and had some time to process it: How about if it's another breaking of the fourth wall. The "Fate" ghosts represent the Square Enix developer and artist team -- all the employees and staff, embodied as in-game monsters. Specifically, the ghosts represent the team's collective intentions to make the remake faithful and reverent to the original. Whenever the project gets off track, the ghosts lovingly correct course, for the fans. Finally, the game forces you to crush all their dreams by fighting them. Each ghost you destroy causes another writer's decisions to be overruled, and perhaps another artist to be laid off without severance pay. At last, the player wins (they're forced to win) -- and with that, the dreams of Part 2 continuing in a way that respects and understands the original are crushed, and Nomura is now free. No longer bound to the rules of Fate or FF7's plot, he may make another series into his Kingdom Hearts. The corporation (Square-Enix) wins at the cost of everything, which is what the true spirit of FF7 was all about!

Agents are GO! posted:

Could somebody repost the ultimania bit where it talks about how Nomura had to tone back what the staffers wanted to do with the ending? Need it for ownage purposes.

Onmi posted:

Sure.

https://aitaikimochi.tumblr.com/post/616804865416527872

quote:

—In regards to the story’s important key points, there must be a flashback scene from here on out, right?

Nomura: At first, the direction we took was that we did not want to put any of these hints while still in Midgar.

Nojima: Right, we originally planned to have the storyline diverge only slightly.

Nomura: We thought to have only a subtle change where in the ending you see Biggs alive, which makes you think, “Wait, this is weird…” and gives a slight sense of unease. But then the staff thought, well if there’s room for more scenes, then let’s just add it (laughs). When we did that, there were scenes that we had to say, “No this won’t do,” and removed it from the story. We didn’t add too many new things, but we did leave a few scenes in.

Nojima: I myself added about two or three scenarios to that too….I’m not too sure what happened to those scenarios at the end. (laughs)

Pollyanna posted:

don’t post in gbs

Katamari Democracy posted:

Might as well kept going on hard mode and decided to mark this as my next stop in hard bosses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOE0V7V50Q8

Enjoy Roche. hahaahha WHOOOO HOOOOOO!

Took me three attempts

jokes posted:

I love Roche a lot here because his bike basically just physics glitches out and they roll with it. Why not?

Agents are GO! posted:

Stabs him with a motorcycle.

Agents are GO! posted:

I want Roche to be your rival on every minigame. Snowboarding? Racing Roche. Submarine battle? Roche is piloting the other sub. Chocobo racing? Roche is there, riding a chocobo identically to how he rides a motorcycle. Chocobo breeding? Roche is taking up a stall, humping his motorcycle.

Dell_Zincht posted:

Roche casually riding his motorbike up Gaea's Cliff

biracial bear for uncut posted:

Is there any reason at all for the rest of the party to be there once you get all of the ATB boosting materia/related combat materia and put them all on Tifa?

She's basically shredding everything the party runs into now.

jokes posted:

I love Roche a lot here because his bike basically just physics glitches out and they roll with it. Why not?

EVERY TIME GOING posted:

I think the OP is right to highlight the heroes' chitinous resilience in the face of their kafka-esque struggle against the cosmic finality of this fANTasy.

Agents are GO! posted:

Verisimilidude posted:

I finished the game and was really happy with the experience overall. I thought the ending was kinda dragging, but that happens to me with most games. Once you get to Hojo's lab the game is non-stop action, and you don't really get any breathers.

I was pissed off that I couldn't get Barrett's EKG Cannon since I had spoken to the contact before talking to Hart again. Don't do what I did, as soon as you speak with the man inside, speak with Hart again and buy the weapon!!

Also I had one bug the entire game. It was in the air ducts when you're spying on the president. I would view the other vents on the way to the president and get stuck there. I had to restart from the last checkpoint, which meant I had to redo all of the combat trials in the Shinra tower. That sucked, but the combat towards the end of the game is fun at least, except for the last couple boss battles which I felt were much more floaty and spammy than previous bosses. It reminded me of FF15, and my main complaint about that game was how every time you got hit you got knocked down as well.

Overall I loved it. I'm excited for the next one, but glad I get a chance to wait for the experience.