WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 3.0

[RedRooster]

6 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Thing is, isn't that a bit of a motif for FF? Not every time, but I thought I remembered a few times where they did that. 

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It's been ages since I played, but could've sworn Yu Yevon didn't put in an appearance until the last battle, same with Ultimecia?

 

I think those examples were referred to earlier in the games though, even if they didn’t make an appearance. But in the case of Necron, I don’t think there was any prior explanation or context as to who he was. I may be misremembering though, or it may have been so subtle I missed it. 

[Dr. Alan Grant]

He was fairly easy as end bosses go. Not a patch on the optional Ozma, who I’ve never managed to finish off.

[seph]

9 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Thing is, isn't that a bit of a motif for FF? Not every time, but I thought I remembered a few times where they did that.

Not quite. Just about all the bosses prior to VI had their primary motivation of "let's kill everything because life is pointless" - with Kefka being the first deviation - but just about all of them were consistent menaces throughout their respective games. Necron stuck out like a sore thumb because it literally appears out of thin air at the very end.

Spoiler

But at least Necron had his own lines unlike that stupid little squid Yu Yevon. The reveal didn't even have the characters go "That's it? all this carnage is down to a space flea from the asshole of nowhere??"

 

[RedRooster]

9 hours ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

He was fairly easy as end bosses go. Not a patch on the optional Ozma, who I’ve never managed to finish off.

Ugh, I forgot about Ozma. I was the same. Such a cheap boss. Just when you think you're close to winning, it fully restores its health and hits you with instant death. 

I've just left Midgar in Final Fantasy VII, and I still get that sense of awe that I did when I first played the game - the desire to explore and uncover all of the world's secrets. I can't wait to breed a gold chocobo. Although I'm approaching what would have been the culmination of disc one with a sense of dread. The whole love triangle is remarkably well done. You can't help but warm to Aeris, or feel sorry for Tifa, with it being clear that she's finding it painful, watching Cloud get close to someone else. The storytelling really does hold up well.

[FLips]

11 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

Ugh, I forgot about Ozma. I was the same. Such a cheap boss. Just when you think you're close to winning, it fully restores its health and hits you with instant death. 

I've just left Midgar in Final Fantasy VII, and I still get that sense of awe that I did when I first played the game - the desire to explore and uncover all of the world's secrets. I can't wait to breed a gold chocobo. Although I'm approaching what would have been the culmination of disc one with a sense of dread. The whole love triangle is remarkably well done. You can't help but warm to Aeris, or feel sorry for Tifa, with it being clear that she's finding it painful, watching Cloud get close to someone else. The storytelling really does hold up well.

The fact she dies during Disc 1 and it manages to feel impactful and linger the rest of the two discs is a testament to how well written it is. Most games would build it up and do it towards the end but they use the collective grief of the characters and the player to drive the rest of the game.

[BomberPat]

18 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Thing is, isn't that a bit of a motif for FF? Not every time, but I thought I remembered a few times where they did that. 

  Hide contents

It's been ages since I played, but could've sworn Yu Yevon didn't put in an appearance until the last battle, same with Ultimecia?

 

Spoiler

They're both mentioned throughout the game prior to the final appearance - Yu Yevon is kind of a shadow over the main story, in a way, though still a bit of a curveball as the final boss. Ultimecia you encounter a few times through the game, and she's possessing other characters throughout, so it's kind of similar to the Sephiroth/Jenova thing in FFVII, where you don't encounter the real Sephiroth until the Northern Crater, you're just seeing various projections or clones aided by Jenova. 

Final Fantasy 3 had an end boss who only shows up, like Necron, right at the end of the game, rather than being a villain you've chased the whole time. 

I remember at the time there were rumours that there's line of dialogue or other text clues hidden throughout IX that provide clues about who Necron is, and why he's the end boss, but I don't think there are any. The best explanation I heard is that he's just a representation of death and nothingness, as kind of an antithesis of the theme of the game, and of the Iifa Tree.

I wonder if it's a bit of a "lost in translation" thing, where the end boss representing an abstract concept rather than being the villain you've sparred with all game makes more sense to a Japanese audience.

 

50 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

The fact she dies during Disc 1 and it manages to feel impactful and linger the rest of the two discs is a testament to how well written it is. Most games would build it up and do it towards the end but they use the collective grief of the characters and the player to drive the rest of the game.

It's so great. Even playing it back, and the whole thing being a bit hokey, it's still such a powerful moment, and a way to give the game actual stakes - it's kind of prefigured by the AVALANCHE deaths earlier in the game, in terms of making you care about someone only to have them taken away, but on a much grander scale. I was reading that at one point they planned to kill off almost the entire cast - the bit towards the end of Disc 2 where you parachute into Midgar, and end up fighting Hojo, one of the designers wanted to kill off every character but the three you choose for your party during that sequence, but ultimately they decided only killing off one character was more powerful and meaningful.

It was a real game-changer to do it on Disc 1, as you say, because before that most JRPGs had saved the big plot twists for the final act, when it actually means less because you're basically at the end anyway - allowing you to build up a connection to the character, to their role in the story, and to have built them up as a member of your party, only to have them taken away so early means so much more.

It's also at the crux of so much gamer bullshit, too. I know a woman who's probably about 40 now who still insists that she unlocked Zack as a playable character and revived Aeris, through all the bullshit methods that the internet says you can. Years ago when she first claimed that I pointed out that there's no data in the game's code for Zack as a playable character, that there aren't enough of the items she insists you need a certain amount of to revive Aeris in the game, and so on, but she was still absolutely adamant. It's the sort of thing that was understandable as a playground boast, but from grown adults 25 years later is all a bit tragic. 

In a way, the "you must be able to revive Aeris" assumption is kind of the Patient Zero of the kind of "fan theory" wank that infects pop culture now, where people ignore the subtext (and often the actual text) of a piece of media, and instead try and bend and shape it to fit their own unfounded assumptions. Approaching it with video game logic, yeah, characters don't stay dead, and you've invested time leveling Aeris up and whatnot, so why wouldn't you be able to bring her back (aside from the fact that she's the only character whose ultimate weapon and Level 4 Limit Break are available on Disc 1, and you find no new weapons for it after that point)? But in terms of the story, the entire game is meaningless if she doesn't die. People arguing that you can definitely revive her just don't understand the story of the game.

One thing I found quite striking about Remake is that there's a real sense that Aeris knows what her fate is. That might be because of the weird alternative timeline approach the game's taking, but it definitely coloured my last playthrough of VII by reading a lot of her dialogue that way. She knows that she has to die and return to the Lifestream in order to stop Meteor. 

[RedRooster]

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

It's also at the crux of so much gamer bullshit, too. I know a woman who's probably about 40 now who still insists that she unlocked Zack as a playable character and revived Aeris, through all the bullshit methods that the internet says you can. Years ago when she first claimed that I pointed out that there's no data in the game's code for Zack as a playable character, that there aren't enough of the items she insists you need a certain amount of to revive Aeris in the game, and so on, but she was still absolutely adamant. It's the sort of thing that was understandable as a playground boast, but from grown adults 25 years later is all a bit tragic. 

Interestingly, if you add Aeris back into your party using an Action Replay, there is dialogue programmed into the game for her in the Icicle Inn area and slightly later on. No idea why, perhaps there was initially a way of accessing this area prior to her death? You can read more about it here. I'm sure there's a definitive answer out there as to why this exists, but I've not been able to find it. 

[seph]

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

One thing I found quite striking about Remake is that there's a real sense that Aeris knows what her fate is. That might be because of the weird alternative timeline approach the game's taking, but it definitely coloured my last playthrough of VII by reading a lot of her dialogue that way. She knows that she has to die and return to the Lifestream in order to stop Meteor. 

She well knows what her fate was supposed to be, and the only one who knew from the start...

Spoiler

Except Sephiroth. It's not clear if he managed to manipulate the Canon Plot Enforcement Squad ghost things into attacking the team or it was just happenstance that they got involved, but bloody hell did he benefit - for all intents the classic canon is invalid and he has a clean slate to wreak havoc on the world... and ReMake it in his own image.

 

Edited May 23, 2023 by seph

[TildeGuy~!]

I thought it was pretty clear Remake is a sequel to 7? 

Remake isn’t remake per se it’s the timelines that are being remade, Aerith and Sephiroph seem to be the only two aware of this.  Rebirth will pretty much confirm this I think once the gang get to Cosmo Canyon and it’s all explained to us in a confusing way by Bugenhagen

 

Edited May 23, 2023 by TildeGuy~!

[seph]

2 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said:

I thought it was pretty clear Remake is a sequel to 7? 

Remake isn’t remake per se it’s the timelines that are being remade, Aerith and Sephiroph seem to be the only two aware of this.  Rebirth will pretty much confirm this I think once the gang get to Cosmo Canyon and it’s all explained to us in a confusing way by Bugenhagen

 

How's it a direct sequel where it involves going through the first half of Disc One (in a more roundabout fashion), then the curveball happens?

[TildeGuy~!]

9 minutes ago, seph said:

How's it a direct sequel where it involves going through the first half of Disc One (in a more roundabout fashion), then the curveball happens?

Cloud keeps having these visions of what’s happened previously as well as things that happened in Advent Children, they have already happened.

In regards to the curveball at the end of disc one I reckon It’ll either be prevented this time round or it’ll happen to someone else.

Plus the 3 bosses you face near the end of the game prior to Sephiroph are clearly Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo

You can read up in this article here for other views on the game.

https://www.dualshockers.com/is-final-fantasy-7-remake-a-sequel/#:~:text=That would mean that the,they're destined to transpire.

Edited May 23, 2023 by TildeGuy~!

[seph]

1 minute ago, TildeGuy~! said:

Plus the 3 bosses you face near the end of the game prior to Sephiroph are clearly Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo

 

They're composite parts of Sephiroth himself, so by extension the large boss is Sephiroth - this makes no sense as he would not fight to keep a canon that he benefits from breaking.

[Version1.0]

How has it taken over 3 years to release FFVII Remake Part 2?

 

Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX and X were all released from 1997-2001.

[seph]

4 minutes ago, Version1.0 said:

How has it taken over 3 years to release FFVII Remake Part 2?

 

Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX and X were all released from 1997-2001.

1. FFXVI.

2. FFXIV (ongoing).

3. Games are *far* bigger in scope-size and asset-size than they were. If you made a SSD specifically for XVI, you could instead get I-XII on it and maybe some of XIII alongside.

Edited May 23, 2023 by seph

[Dr. Alan Grant]

I follow a group on Twitter called Final Fantasy IX: Memoria Project. They’ve just announced something happening next month. I was always under the impression they were remaking part of the game, or at least the Alexandria opening. But it seems to be more of an art project. I’d love a full on remake. Not necessarily as next gen as the FF7 one, but improved visuals, voice acting and a moving camera at least.