Future Compliation Titles

[Petros]

WARNING: THIS CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS FOR FINAL FANTASY VII AND THE TITLES OF THE COMPILATION OF FINAL FANTASY VII. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO HEAR SOME OF THESE SPOILERS.

This is not a Topic to discuss whether you like the Compilation or say that you hope they don't make any more continuations. This is a "What If?" question for the fans of Final Fantasy VII, asking what they would like to see from their own suggestions, give us a plot idea whatever.

Now before I start this I'm just going to go into the Compliation so far, describing my personal thoughts of it.

So we know that the Compilation didn't go down too well with the public, Advent Children received mixed reviews for it's confusing story but incredible graphical quality and CGI battles. Dirge of Cerberus was not well liked, though personally I enjoyed it and it's story people took it way too seriously, Crisis Core was very well received probably because it's the closest to the original story and answers a few questions Dirge, Advent and the original game did not answer. Before Crisis never made it across shores so I can't comment on that.

The latest release is Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete, which I personally think was a far more refined product that the original and far more enjoyable as it was better written and it actually felt like a feature movie not a bad anime episode. It covered a lot more of the character's development, specifically with regards to the once whiny-emo Cloud who in Complete I saw as more of a hero with a burden in Complete because you knew he was still fighting not just moping over Aeris and Zack. Yet even in this fighting spirit he had, which was on the verge of breaking, you could feel his guilt over their deaths as the story progressed at a still break-neck speed. I think Crisis Core helped out a lot because it gave Zack more prominence which allowed for what I think is the best scene in Advent Children Complete, Zack and Cloud conversing in the weird white spirit world, which I think brings Cloud's story to a full-circle and his guilty conscious to be lifted an become the hero Zack wanted to be himself, Cloud became his living legacy as he promised. That coupled with Cloud telling Marlene and the audience his reason for leaving, more of his relationship with Tifa and reasoning as to why he felt so guilty over Aeris' death, I think turned the original rather dull Michael Bay-esque movie into something perhaps not James Cameron would be proud of but at the very least George Lucas (Come on people, he's really not that great a director he's a much better writer, it shows in Empire that Kershner directed).

Which leads me to the question of the day:

If the compilation should continue, what would you like to see? Apparently they are considering another movie, which if it's as rounded a story as Complete was and not just an explosion filled plot-lacking, paper thin character movie like the original then I'd welcome it with open arms.

Perhaps you'd like to see another spin-off title, for the DS or PSP like Crisis Core.

I don't think a remake on the PS3 or X360 would could as a part of this really though, so please don't comment on that because everyone wants that it's obvious they should make it but in so far as continuing the story rather than remaking the original piece.

What could they do with the secret Genesis Ending of Dirge of Cerberus? Will he return as friend or foe?

Here's an interesting thought, what about a whole new full-length RPG for the PS3, 360 or even Wii. Bring in some of the new characters perhaps Shelke could join the party and perhaps Cait Sith could not even appear in the game, wouldn't we all love that! Genesis could appear as friend or foe, maybe even a secret character. Bring in new characters, old characters, have the Turks join the party and get Cissnei in there. Who knows.

These are just a few suggestions I'm making and for those of you who have been reading all the way to the bottom of this I commend you for putting up with my ramblings. Anyway, the question remains;
What would you like to see as part of the future of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII?

[GypsyElder]

Nothing, I actually hope they stop making extra stuff from VII. I think up to CC was enough, I don't see why they need to continue with anything else. If they were to do anything more to any of the older FF's it should probably be VIII, but not too much, just enough to fill in the gaps, that's all.

[Petros]

I can see we're going to get a lot of those responses so I'm just going to say it here.

This is not a Topic to discuss whether you like the Compilation or say that you hope they don't make any more continuations. This is a "What If?" question for the fans of Final Fantasy VII, asking what they would like to see from their own suggestions, give us a plot idea whatever.

Please, I'd like to hear suggestions, I think we might find some interesting answers.

[Zargabaath]

With the story of Crisis Core and the secret ending to Dirge of Cerberus it would be stupid and somewhat wasteful if they didn't finish the Genesis arc. Sephiroth is still out there and he may have something to do with Genesis laterm or maybe not. One thing that is disheartening is what Nomura, I believe, said that Advent Children was the last time Cloud would be the hero and most likely Denzel would take the mantle - I'm definitely not looking forward to Denzel, if it is true.

If they don't use Sephiroth in the Genesis finale and end the FF VII universe there, it would be funny because the FF VII story starts with Genesis and would end with Genesis - Sephiroth would be just a side-story to the whole thing. Genesis is looking to be the main villian of the FF VII universe unless they input Sephiroth in later games or movies along side or seperate of Genesis. How things are set up it is looking like that would be true, making the Sephiroth arc not as important. I lol to that.

Closure to the Genesis and Sephiroth arcs and the FF VII universe in general would be nice.

[Dodie16]

HEY! Have you been nosing up in the FFVII fanclub? I have a similar discussion going on in there and I don't appreciate your blatant rip-off of MY topic!

LOL! J/K! I'm just messing with ya.

I haven't heard anything about another movie in the works. I'd much rather have a game, because to me, games are more immersive and enjoyable.

Well, since you posted your personal thoughts about each part of the compilation, I will to. Here we go!

I was one of those people who actually liked the Advent Children movie. Yeah, I would have liked to have seen more of my favorite characters, and now that you mention it, the story was a bit confusing and rushed as well, but I think when Advent Children Complete came out, it fixed a bit of the problems that the first release had. After watching ACC, I wished that SE would have released that version first, and maybe people wouldn't be hating on the film.

As for Dirge of Cerberus, I thought the story was decent, but I wasn't big on the gameplay. I personally don't play a lot of FPS games, so I really didn't do to hot on my first playthrough. I liked the part of the story how it expanded on just what sort of company Shinra was, and the things that they were really doing. I was surprised to see that SE brought back

SPOILER!!:

Hojo

as a villain, because I thought I would never see him again (and I would have liked for it to stay that way... HE'S CREEPY!!!). Also, I didn't like Shelke that much (she has a bit of a "loli vibe" going on.... blech...), but I thought the rest of the Tsviets were okay. Too bad about Nero. He was my favorite...

As for the secret ending in DoC, it's been mentioned already in another thread what it could possibly mean for the future of the compilation:

Originally posted by KeybladerXIII
It is revealed in the Crisis Core Ultimania Guide that Genesis was brought to Deepground momentarily, and that Weiss and Nero attempted to persuade him to join in their rebellion against the Restrictors, who were current leaders of Deepground and 14th Lost Force of SOLDIER.(This was in the Japan-only version of DoC.) Tetsuya Nomura explained that Genesis ends up declining this offer, and decides to seal himself in the flooded cavern beneath Midgar (as seen in Dirge of Cerberus). With both Sephiroth and Angeal dead, he decides that it is up to him, being the only one left behind, to protect the world. In order to prepare for the day when a crisis threatens the world, Genesis seals himself in the flooded cavern. This is possibly a "thank you" to Minerva(The Goddess) for fulfilling his goal. When Vincent defeated Weiss, he emerged, took him in his arms, and flew away. -FFWiki

This doesn't lead me to believe that Genesis would be the bad guy if there was another FFVII game.

That looks like a good answer to me. ^^

I loved Crisis Core! It's portable FFVII goodness, so that's a plus in my book. It did well on making Zack a great main character, and I liked that you saw a bit of the inner workings of Shinra. I had a bit of trouble taking Genesis' character seriously, because of that damn Loveless poem he kept harping on about, but that's just me.

I haven't played Before Crisis either, but I read a bit of the game script, and it's pretty decent.

As for what I would like to see in a future installment of the series, I really don't know. Maybe explore a bit on what exactly the Cetra were, and where they originated from? That might be going a bit too far back... But I would love to know why developers are saying that there are connections to FF VII in FF X. I think that FF games shouldn't connect to one another like that, unless it's just an homage, like what happened in FF IX.

Posted by Gypsy Elder
If they were to do anything more to any of the older FF's it should probably be VIII, but not too much, just enough to fill in the gaps, that's all.

Like exploring a bit on just who or what Ultimecia was. That would be nice. Maybe it will stop people from saying "ZOMG! Rinoa is Ultimecia!" Although, I don't see too many discussions about that anymore, since SE came out and said that they are not the same person.

Posted by Zargabaath
Closure to the Genesis and Sephiroth arcs and the FF VII universe in general would be nice

I agree. It would be nice to see some sort of resolution to these stories, so the fans aren't just being kept strung along.

[Pete]

I'm gonna go and agree with Mel on this one. Everything in CC was already explained in that one little cutscene when you revisit the Shinra Mansion after Cloud rejoins. All they did was flesh out more stuff about how Cloud was such a rookie, show off characters that had absolutely nothing to do with the original game and flesh out Zack's last stand.

As for AC, it's also fairly unnecessary. It was a nice little movie, I'll give you that, but it had no bearing on the main story of FFVII. It was just a bunch of Sephiroth's followers or clones or something (way to explain things, Square) that wanted Jenovas head or something. I thought the rest of her was ultimately destroyed when you killed the final Jenova, since each battle was renamed to some sort of life stage. Jenova BIRTH, LIFE, PUBERTY, DEATH. Ok, maybe I'm making that other one up, but I thought that once you killed Bizarro, Jenova was done for. What's it doing in the movie?

It's cool, but it doesn't do anything except make Square some money.

[Petros]

I think it's part of the compilations beauty is that it doesn't infringe on the original story, it gives a few answers that it needed to and then expands on things fleshing them out introducing new characters. That way, the original game and our perceptions of it are kept the same.

I always thought that characters like Barret, Cid and Red got a bit of the short straw given to them in the Compilation. I know whilst their story arcs had fully ended by the end of Final Fantasy VII, they could have been given larger roles.

In future installments I'd like to see what these guys are up to these days, not just a one word explanation "OIL!!" or "SHERA!" that simply explain away two years of missing history from the Final Fantasy VII universe. I think a game would be good to do that because Advent Children was the continuation of Cloud's story and the people related to his back story in Crisis Core, Zack, Aeris, Tifa and his "son" (yeah I'm calling him that), Denzel. And with a maximum 2-hour time limit for this thing really (which they didn't even use, although the hour and a half Complete version made it feel much better) and it doesn't give us much of a chance to explore the other characters.

Anyway, a new full-RPG would be a great addition to the compilation perhaps to round it up because it would give an opportunity to hear about everything and everyone Budgenhagen, Rufus Shinra (does the company even still exist), Choco Billy, plus with the capacity for memory storage on Blu-Ray games, we could see some new areas that were always there but just didn't appear in the original game like Modeoheim and Banora from Crisis Core were.

[smurphy]

Just to get it off my chest i hated the last order anime.

What i would like to see explored is the history of the world. Perhaps the rise to power of shinra or when the calamity from the sky(jenova) came to the world initially. I would like to think jenova was defeated by a team of warriors similar to the protaginists in the original vii.

[Petros]

The way you put it there Smurfy I can suddenly see a very classic style Final Fantasy game using similar principals and gameplay ideas to Final Fantasy VII but incorporating themes like Four Light Warriors or something. An idea: Perhaps the story starts out as a murder mystery that the lead character goes to investigate leading to the discovery of Jenova. The technology is medieval style rather than VII's more modern look and the planet summons four warriors of light to defeat Jenova and seal her away. Would be interesting.

[loaf]

Here is my what if they did make another.

and my what if answer is....


No.

[Petros]

Thank you Loaf, that's about as helpful as AIDS.

[Josh_R]

No more titles, cause there doesn't need to be anymore remakes. The first was fine CC was okay, advent children ehhh. No more the FF VII franchise stops here...

[Petros]

If think you guys are missing the point of this thread.

This isn't a question if you think there should be any more titles!

This is a question that asks, if there was going to be a new title, what could they do next? If you don't want there to be new title, don't bother posting because that doesn't answer the question. Everybody is aware about this but you feel the need to get your two cents in that you don't want them to continue. Please refrain from doing that because it narrows the productivity of this thread and encourages others to post in suit.

[Pete]

In the second paragraph you said people could discuss whether or not they wanted any more titles. Asking about future titles also gives the option of no future titles.

In all seriousness though, I would not like to see any more titles. I feel like Square is just releasing more because they know the fanbase will pay for another game, movie or whatever. The other characters in the other games don't really play any role in the original PS version of VII. It kind of annoys me that new towns and locations, as well as people were created in the pre-VII world. Where did they go, why are they not on the map?

I can understand why people like Genesis are not involved in VII, simply because they're all dead, but (now correct me if I'm wrong; I refuse to buy a PSP just to play one single game) I'm sure Cloud must have interacted with one of those clowns other than Sephiroth or Zack.

My main point is that by creating more and more towns and backstory, you're creating issues within the original story of FFVII. AC was acceptable, only because it happened after the fact. I enjoyed the CG, but I wasn't a fan of the Sephiroth fan club, who wanted to become him, or whatever it was they did (I saw it 2-3 years ago). I was perfectly content with how the story ended in the original game, and while it's nice to go off and tie up all loose ends and burning questions, I for one, think that it's that much better when some things are left open to interpretation.

Did the Sopranos get whacked in the series finale? Who knows, and that's what makes it so sweet.

[Petros]

I guess it does cause some minor continuity issues with extra towns but if you think about it logically, no world that advanced should just have a population of like 1,000,000 at best, It should be sprawling with at least small villages like Kalm everywhere. I always saw the World Maps as representations of the world of the story not literal maps. These locations were always there the story just never went to them.

[SuperSabin]

I got an idea for another FFVII game. What if they made the next entry into a racing game where you have Cloud and Co. race through different parts of the Gaia world and you can also choose villains to race as like Sephiroth, Kadaj, Genesis, Hojo, etc?

[Petros]

Hahaha! Not the most orthadox of suggestions but if it can work for Mario, I guess it can work for Cloud.