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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Final Fantasy VII Remake Review Thread - Current 88 Metacritic / 89 Opencritic

DonFerrari on 09 April 2020
Runa216 said:
Angelus said:
This thread is an interesting study in the duality of a fandom. Core structure vs. mythology.

One group is more than satisfied to play any story that in some way touches upon familiar beats, just so long as there's still a grand adventure with the characters they love, in a setting they remember fondly, with a combat system that feels natural to the FF lineage. For them, it's the moment to moment experience that defines the game.

The other, is much more invested in overarching elements that bind it all together. What's the exact plot? What's the nature of the conflict? How is it resolved? Is established lore respected? If these elements don't match up with their expectations, or established framework of the source material, the moment to moment experience is diminished significantly, and in some cases, made wholly irrelevant.

Neither group is wrong to feel how they feel. You just consume the material differently.

I think everyone's wrong to pre-judge a game they haven't played, while extrapolating the changes to two iterations that we know nothing about. It sounds like PArt 1 is a pretty damn faithful remake from beginning to end with one major change at the very end that opens up the door to a literal multiverse of possibility. I feel that, until we've gotten the whole picture, none of us can truly judge this. You can be excited or not, you can like the direction or not, but you can't really know what's happening until we see the trilogy in its glory. 

IT reminds me of the Star Wars sequels. yeah, those ended up disappointing a lot of people, but there was a galaxy's worth of possibility to explore and unlimited potential. I saw people hating star wars before they even knew what the crew had planned. This is very similar. 

Even more because this change can just make a small deviation and return to the same plot with just a small change of path which isn't changing the major plot.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

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JWeinCom on 09 April 2020
Angelus said:
This thread is an interesting study in the duality of a fandom. Core structure vs. mythology.

One group is more than satisfied to play any story that in some way touches upon familiar beats, just so long as there's still a grand adventure with the characters they love, in a setting they remember fondly, with a combat system that feels natural to the FF lineage. For them, it's the moment to moment experience that defines the game.

The other, is much more invested in overarching elements that bind it all together. What's the exact plot? What's the nature of the conflict? How is it resolved? Is established lore respected? If these elements don't match up with their expectations, or established framework of the source material, the moment to moment experience is diminished significantly, and in some cases, made wholly irrelevant.

Neither group is wrong to feel how they feel. You just consume the material differently.

The issue you're missing though is what the fanbase was led to believe. 

You can say that some people like chocolate and some people like vanilla.  But if I like vanilla, you tell me you're going to make some great vanilla ice cream, you sell me a cone telling me it's vanilla, and then it turns out it's actually chocolate, then that's a problem. 

Runa216 said:
JWeinCom said:

 I don't see any rabid frothing... I see people giving legitimate reasons why what fans were led to expect is not what was provided, and I see people trying to discredit legitimate criticism by referring to it with terms like "rabid frothing".  But, sure, I'll explain what I mean.

Spoiler!

Throughout the game their are characters called the "whispers of fate" who interact with your party in the interest of keeping things consistent with the original storyline.  Towards the end of the game you actually fight these whispers of fate who are trying to keep things consistent with the original storyline.  At which point Aeris says "the future is always a blank page".

The whispers of fate are literally the original timeline (chronology if you will) trying to interact with this new one to prevent it from changing.  And you fight and kill it.  That's what I mean by fighting the original chronology.  And the fact that they went out of their way to have you literally fight a force that's trying to keep the story the same, coupled with a lot of lines about changing destiny, leads to the very reasonable inference that they are planning rather large changes to the original storyline. 

See, this is where we differ. I personally think this 'spoiler' is easily the most interesting, unique, engaging, and fun-sounding twist on the story I've heard so far. I went from 'eeeeh...I guess it'll be fun and I'm getting it because I loved the original so much' to 'holy shit I have to play this and there's so much creative potential there!'

In the end, you are in charge of your own perception of the changes made in an adaptation or retelling or remake. Based on everything I heard the creators say leading up to this, I think this is well within the realm of what we could have expected. Yeah, I guess some people aren't going to like it, but so far it's just...a first step in a direction people don't like or might not like. It's still WAY too early to know if this direction is going to be all that different or not. If it is? Cool! I actually hope it is because the meta-storytelling is interesting to me. (Reminds me of anime and comic books/movies). If it ends up still basically being 90% the same game from here on out, I'm happy with that, too. 

I still think it's WAY too early to know if the direction they're going is good or not. all we know is that it has the potential to be wildly different from the original and what many of us came to expect. Subverting expectations CAN be a good thing and often is (Yeah, I know The Last Jedi was NOT a subversion that most people liked, but that's the exception), so I'm still going to withhold judgement until parts 2 and 3 are released. 

all I see is people eager to be upset about something long before they have any real right to know where this is going. be apprehensive, sure. I get it. but not only have none of you (unless you're in Australia or EU) actually played the game, but parts 2 and 3 aren't even out yet. all we have is conjecture on top of theories and extrapolation. We're about three steps away actually being able to judge this based on the whole. Could it be bad? sure, it could. I don't think it will be. It COULD be the best and most interesting take on the FFVII world we've ever seen, going above and beyond the rest of the franchise to date. We don't know and can't. all I see is people whining that the sanctity of their plotline might very literally be defeated. 

You're making some assumptions about my tastesl.  Personally, I like FF7 but it's not even in my top 100 games.  It's not something I'm so passionately invested in that I'm upset at it being changed.  TBH the changes really haven't influenced how likely I am to buy the game in one way or another.

My issue is that this is not what anyone should have anticipated.  I am not responsible for what I think a remake will be.  Language works based on people having a consensus on what words mean.  If Square's definition of remake is different than everyone else's, then the misunderstanding is entirely they're fault.  Honestly, did you anticipate anything like the changes described in the spoilers when you thought of what a remake might be?

To quote you, "all we know is it has the potential to be wildly different from the original".  It's pretty clear based on the fact that they introduced a plot point specifically to explain they can now make major changes to the story, that they intend to do just that.  By no definition should a remake be wildly different than the original, and people who were sold on the prospect of a remake are justifiably disappointed.  Especially for people who are going to avoid spoilers and are going to wind up buying something they may not have decided to purchase if they knew what it was.  

There is a difference between subverting expectations that an audience built for themselves, as in the last Jedi (which I actually liked), and specifically leading consumers to believe a product will be something it is not.  If I'm watching a Spider-man movie and they subvert my expectations by making Aunt May hot, that's subverting my expectations.  If I'm watching Spider-man movie and there's no Spider-man in it, that's false advertising.  

Maybe the changes will actually lead to a better story.  But that's really neither here nor there.  When you tell people to expect one thing, and you give them something completely different, they will justifiably be disappointed. 



Angelus on 09 April 2020
JWeinCom said:
Angelus said:
This thread is an interesting study in the duality of a fandom. Core structure vs. mythology.

One group is more than satisfied to play any story that in some way touches upon familiar beats, just so long as there's still a grand adventure with the characters they love, in a setting they remember fondly, with a combat system that feels natural to the FF lineage. For them, it's the moment to moment experience that defines the game.

The other, is much more invested in overarching elements that bind it all together. What's the exact plot? What's the nature of the conflict? How is it resolved? Is established lore respected? If these elements don't match up with their expectations, or established framework of the source material, the moment to moment experience is diminished significantly, and in some cases, made wholly irrelevant.

Neither group is wrong to feel how they feel. You just consume the material differently.

The issue you're missing though is what the fanbase was led to believe. 

You can say that some people like chocolate and some people like vanilla.  But if I like vanilla, you tell me you're going to make some great vanilla ice cream, you sell me a cone telling me it's vanilla, and then it turns out it's actually chocolate, then that's a problem. 

But what if I made stracciatella? The base is still vanilla. I just threw in a bunch of chocolate chunks.



kirby007 on 09 April 2020
Angelus said:
JWeinCom said:

The issue you're missing though is what the fanbase was led to believe. 

You can say that some people like chocolate and some people like vanilla.  But if I like vanilla, you tell me you're going to make some great vanilla ice cream, you sell me a cone telling me it's vanilla, and then it turns out it's actually chocolate, then that's a problem. 

But what if I made stracciatella? The base is still vanilla. I just threw in a bunch of chocolate chunks.

its named differently, this game is not



 "I think people should define the word crap" - Kirby007

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Angelus on 09 April 2020
kirby007 said:
Angelus said:

But what if I made stracciatella? The base is still vanilla. I just threw in a bunch of chocolate chunks.

its named differently, this game is not

I was being facetious 



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JWeinCom on 09 April 2020
Angelus said:
JWeinCom said:

The issue you're missing though is what the fanbase was led to believe. 

You can say that some people like chocolate and some people like vanilla.  But if I like vanilla, you tell me you're going to make some great vanilla ice cream, you sell me a cone telling me it's vanilla, and then it turns out it's actually chocolate, then that's a problem. 

But what if I made stracciatella? The base is still vanilla. I just threw in a bunch of chocolate chunks.

Whenever anyone else is selling vanilla ice cream, they mean vanilla ice cream.  While vanilla ice cream can be made differently, nobody says vanilla ice cream when they mean vanilla ice cream with chocolate chunks thrown in.  

Personally, I wouldn't mind as I like chocolate chunks. I'd even prefer it.

Other people hate chocolate chunks, and would not have bought the ice cream if they knew chocolate chunks were in it.  By advertising your product as vanilla ice cream, they reasonably believed there would be no chocolate chunks, based on the common understanding of the words.  They would therefore feel justifiably ripped off by your chocolate chunk tainting the vanilla ice cream they were promised.



Metallox on 09 April 2020
DonFerrari said:
Runa216 said:

I think everyone's wrong to pre-judge a game they haven't played, while extrapolating the changes to two iterations that we know nothing about. It sounds like PArt 1 is a pretty damn faithful remake from beginning to end with one major change at the very end that opens up the door to a literal multiverse of possibility. I feel that, until we've gotten the whole picture, none of us can truly judge this. You can be excited or not, you can like the direction or not, but you can't really know what's happening until we see the trilogy in its glory. 

IT reminds me of the Star Wars sequels. yeah, those ended up disappointing a lot of people, but there was a galaxy's worth of possibility to explore and unlimited potential. I saw people hating star wars before they even knew what the crew had planned. This is very similar. 

Even more because this change can just make a small deviation and return to the same plot with just a small change of path which isn't changing the major plot.

It could be that, it could be something totally different, and bad at that. That's right where concern, more than criticism, comes from. A lot of people don't have confidence in Square Enix and their writers. 

But obviously I hope whatever they make turns out to be nice. Right now this first part that we have, for the most part, meets that profile. 



My bet with The_Liquid_Laser: I think the Switch won't surpass the PS2 as the best selling system of all time. If it does, I'll play a game of a list that The_Liquid_Laser will provide, I will have to play it for 50 hours or complete it, whatever comes first. 

DonFerrari on 09 April 2020
Metallox said:
DonFerrari said:

Even more because this change can just make a small deviation and return to the same plot with just a small change of path which isn't changing the major plot.

It could be that, it could be something totally different, and bad at that. That's right where concern, more than criticism, comes from. A lot of people don't have confidence in Square Enix and their writers. 

But obviously I hope whatever they make turns out to be nice. Right now this first part that we have, for the most part, meets that profile. 

Sure, it is valid to have concern and criticism towards the changes. Also it is fine to not like the game or the changes themselves.

But to claim the company deceived everybody, or that they made major changes to the plot when there is still much to be told is another one. I'll reserve judgement for the project as a whole for when it ends.

Or to claim it isn't a remake because they changed some points of the plot is ridiculous. Reboot is something much deeper in changes, very little is really kept, and trying to shoehorn this to FFVIIR doesn't make any sense. Just look at the reboots we have seem in game and movies and they have almost nothing storyline in common with the previous story.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

haxxiy on 09 April 2020

Oh boy, these plot changes and general nonsense tacked in. And right after RE3 being a disappointing mess too. Maybe Nojima truly is the George Lucas of the Final Fantasy universe: don't put him on a leash and things like that happen.

Tidus being canonically decapitated by an explosive blitzball should have warned us already, back in the day.



 

 

 

 

 

Angelus on 09 April 2020
JWeinCom said:
Angelus said:

But what if I made stracciatella? The base is still vanilla. I just threw in a bunch of chocolate chunks.

Whenever anyone else is selling vanilla ice cream, they mean vanilla ice cream.  While vanilla ice cream can be made differently, nobody says vanilla ice cream when they mean vanilla ice cream with chocolate chunks thrown in.  

Personally, I wouldn't mind as I like chocolate chunks. I'd even prefer it.

Other people hate chocolate chunks, and would not have bought the ice cream if they knew chocolate chunks were in it.  By advertising your product as vanilla ice cream, they reasonably believed there would be no chocolate chunks, based on the common understanding of the words.  They would therefore feel justifiably ripped off by your chocolate chunk tainting the vanilla ice cream they were promised.

I guess I should have put a wink or something at the end of that post.

I totally understand the misgivings some people are having with the marketing of this game. I suppose I just don't think it's the key factor in the negative reactions that some of you do. If the alterations that were made to story, advertised or no, were generally seen as an improvement, or at least an interesting deviation, there would be some foul called for the advertising, but I don't believe it would happen to the same degree. What's happened here, is that the changes are seen as nonsensical, and playing off the director's ego, rather than the spirit of the original material. That's what I think is really rubbing people the wrong way here, and the sting of that wouldn't be lessened for those people even if Square had called it something other than a remake.