Below is an article from 1up.com, which i came across via N4G.com and i thought that it actually made a lot of sense lol. The link to the original article is to be found below the article itself.
What's the biggest cocktease in gaming? Probably Half-Life 3. But the second biggest would be Square Enix's constant, coy mentions of a Final Fantasy VII remake. They know fans want it; they cheerfully fan the flames with things like the FFVII "White Engine" demo from E3 2005; they make constant leading comments about it. And yet... they never deliver.
Maybe they will, someday; maybe they won't. Yet should that long-awaited remake arrive, one thing we can be certain of is that it won't be a straightforward up-rezzing of the original PlayStation game. Have you played FFVII lately? It's quite, shall we say, inconsistent. A mish-mash of different art styles, narrative techniques, and some downright weirdness make FFVII a tough game to reinterpret with contemporary tech. For every moment that would translate perfectly to HD -- like the oh-so-iconic introduction Square used for its White Engine demo -- there's one that is better left buried. And that's not to mention all those parts that just come across as awkward all on their own steam.
We'd love to see a Final Fantasy remake as much as the next guy, but you can be sure the following elements won't make the cut when Square Enix finally bites the bullet and gives fans the HD FFVII they've been demanding. For better or for worse, they just don't fit the nature of the series and the medium these days.
Straight-Up Acts of Terrorism by the Protagonists
Cloud Strife, Barrett Wallace, Tifa Lockheart: True heroes all, right? They save the world's life energy from the depredations of the Shinra corporation, stop the mad Sephiroth from smashing a meteor into the planet, and beat down a few thousand marauding monsters of varying threat levels. How noble! Sure... except for the fact that in the very beginning, the Avalanche organization for which they work is a collective of terrorists, pure and simple. Cloud and company begin the game by infiltrating a power planet, fighting through a corps of guards, and blowing up a reactor that powers a huge portion of the city of Midgar, killing who knows how many people in the process.
Maybe that flew back in 1997, but it's hard to imagine Square having the courage to present its protagonists in such a negative light these days. The world has grown considerably more sensitive to terrorists in the wake not only of the September 11 attacks but the numerous other terrorists actions that have spread across the globe in the past decade. On some level, FFVII's story felt like something of a reaction to the 1995 sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo metro system perpetrated by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, but our cultural gatekeepers have grown overly sensitive in the past 15 years. Look at all the games that were cancelled or delayed in the wake of last year's devastating Tohoku earthquake. Timidity and forced sensitivity rule the media today, which makes it hard to imagine Cloud and Barrett nuking a reactor in HD.
Those Stupid Minigames
Final Fantasy V featured a few special events sequences -- the escape from Karnak, the battle on the Big Bridge, etc. -- that stood apart from the game's standard mechanics. Its sequel, FFVI, took that concept a step further with its unique group battles (e.g., the defense of Narshe) and the opera sequence. FFVII took a leap beyond that by offering some of gaming's first standalone minigames. While Super Mario RPG probably has a claim to being the first RPG to properly incorporate minigames, FFVII featured more of them, and a greater variety to boot.
But here's the thing: They weren't very fun. The Gold Saucer events were fairly reasonable, seeing that while they weren't much good they at least were optional. But the rest -- be it defending a mountain with toy soldiers or interminably performing CPR on a drowning child long after she should have been brain-dead -- felt intrusive and out of place. Nothing says "tonal dissonance" like boogie-boarding down a mountain and collecting balloons shortly after your hot date gets impaled with a sword the length of a flatbed truck by an insane villain. Thankfully, Square has increasingly moved away from fully integrated minigames in the Final Fantasy series and largely reserves those events for the sidelines. Sahz's Final Fantasy XIII-2 sidestory sucked, but hey: It was DLC. And with any luck, that would be the case for FFVII's lamest moments. Like grinding your way through dozens of tedious chocobo races in order to win the Knights of the Round Materia.
Weird Stuff
If you go back and replay FFVII with a more mature eye than you had back in 1997, you'll realize that the game can be downright weird at times. Remember that part where Barrett (the huge, angry dude with a gun for a hand) dressed up in a sailor suit while the feline Red XIII wobbled about the deck of a ship on two feet? Remember that couple that inexplicably passed out at the train station after spouting what appeared to be random innuendo? Or how about the part where Cloud started talking to the player before looking up to the on-screen cursor and sputtering, "What the hell? Finger?"
That stuff was pretty strange, right? Much too weird to fly in a modern Final Fantasy game. Let's face it: Square takes itself a lot more seriously these days. There may have been some parts in FFXIII that you laughed at, but the humor wasn't deliberate. Somehow Square Enix wrote a 60-hour game without a single real joke to be found. Have you slogged your way through any of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII material, like Dirge of Cerberus or Advent Children? Grim, joyless stuff. There's no room for humor in Square's revisionist version of Final Fantasy VII, so you can forget all about Cloud breaking the fourth wall or going on an awkward man-date with Barrett. FFVII is serious business.
A Nuanced, Interesting Cloud Strife
And no one in Final Fantasy VII is more serious than Cloud Strife. At least, that's what all the post-release content tells me. Cloud is the definitive solemn hero, weighed down by the oh-so-grim reality of his own existence. Watch him stumble sadly through Crisis Core! See him mope his way through another fight with Sephiroth in Advent Children! See him proclaim meaningfully in Dissidia! Cloud doesn't fool around.
Except those supplemental projects kind of miss the entire point of Cloud Strife and focus on a hyper-limited slice of his actual personality. In FFVII, Cloud starts out as a cocky, sarcastic jerk; in time, he begins to lose sight of his own self and literally begs his enemies to give him purpose; and eventually, he comes to terms with his own true past (he was a small-town boy who didn't make the cut to become an elite warrior and adopted the persona of his friend and hero a little too well) and finally makes peace with himself and his friends. Cloud's is a broad, complex tale, and his personality is too subtle to easily describe with a single generalization. Nevertheless, that's precisely what every official take on the character has done since FFVII: Reduce him to a sulky child. In Advent Children, Square Enix actually rolled back all of the character development he experienced in the course of FFVII and reverted him to a bland caricature of his initial self.
It's not hard to imagine that this would be the extent of Cloud's characterization in a remake of FFVII, too. For whatever reason, Square seems to have decided that the best way to present Cloud is to make him this ultra-emo man child. The problem is, that's not why everyone liked him! We liked him because he was a hero with a hard edge, a no-nonsense fighter with a pragmatic personality and yet a keen sense of humor, too. Yet you never see Cloud presented that way in FFVII's spin-offs and sequels. And, one suspects, we probably wouldn't see him that way in a new version of FFVII, either.
The Honeybee Manor
Midway through the Midgar sequence of the game, Cloud sees his childhood friend Tifa in a strange outfit riding a cart to what basically amounts to a sex dungeon: The Honeybee Manor. Red flag! Would Square Enix really include a sex dungeon in a Final Fantasy VII remake? Probably not.
But let's say they did. The problem with the Honeybee Manor is that Cloud can only get in if he goes in disguise as a woman. And the process of earning that disguise involves buying mysterious medical supplies for a man in a sleazy hotel, doing push-ups for a strange muscleman who keeps a woman's wig in his briefs, and other unsavory acts. Red flag!
And once you're inside, Cloud gets ogled by other dudes. And, should you play the cards right, he gets to splash around in a hot tub with a bunch of muscular guys, passes out, and wakes up in inky blackness, exclaiming about strange sensations. Red. Flag.
Eventually, Cloud meets up with both Aeris and Tifa, both of whom narrowly escape from molestation. They go after the don of the slums, Don Corneo, a fat dude who makes humping motions until they threaten to mutilate his genitals.
In short, the Honeybee Manor constitutes a 30-minute sequence that would go over like a fart in church these days. But that's just as well. Do you really want to see a weightlifter pull a wig out of his underwear and stick it on Cloud's head in full HD? There's a word to describe that image, and that word is, "Barf."
http://www.1up.com/features/five-things-final-fantasy-vii-remake
