FFVII Remake - Contemporary Gaming Industry Problems

[TheBusterSword]

It's been a long time since i have posted on this forum (many apologies), but the up coming FFVII remake has dragged me back in. You see FVII isn't just any other game to me. In the era in which i first started gaming (late 80's early 90's), the games that were widely available were the usual Sonic, Mario, Ghouls n' Ghosts side scrolling platforms, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter beat em ups, or early sports sims such as Sensible Soccer and WC Italia 90. When i left high school, the PSX was the big console in the stores and a friend of mine borrowed me a copy of FFVII saying "This looks interesting, but i can't get into it... why don't you give it a go and tell me what you think"... I had no idea how much of an impact that game would have on me. I had no clue anything could be that grand in scope outside of Hollywood. Here was a game with the story of an incredible fantasy novel, filled with moments of pure heart pounding drama and heartbreaking twists. I must've played that game for a months, just to replay it again pretty once a year. It's no exaggeration to say it changed the way i looked at gaming. It set the standard for what i expect from a game and it continues to do so to this day.

Now the internet community being what it is has demanded a HD remake of this classic among classics for a good decade now. It's something i also wanted at first, just update the graphics and overhaul the world map. Give it an awesome HD audio makeover, but for the love of god, don't mess with the game play... Don't fix what isn't broken. As the years went by, i watched as the gaming industry slowly but inevitably drifted further and further away from making games for gamers, where the most important thing was quality, and turned into what it is today where everything is geared towards profit through micro transactions and DLC... And this is my biggest concern for the FFVII remake.

I can forgive the corny sounding voice actors. I can even look past the gameplay changes (even though altering the turn based battle system is complete BS imo), but you just know how this is gonna pan out. Wanna recruit Vincent and Yuffie to your party?... Buy the "hidden character DLC"... Wanna enjoy the Gold Saucer? Buy the "Theme Park DLC"... Wanna fight Emerald or Ruby weapon?... Buy the "Optional Bosses DLC"... And so on and so forth.

From the moment i heard the were splitting the game into "Episodes" my heart sank. It's gonna look shiny and pretty, but at what cost?

I'd be genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on this. There are thousands (if not more) of people out there who are as passionate about this particular game as i am. Surely i'm not the only one concerned here?

[Andromeda]

If you look at the overall track record Square has with their Final Fantasy games and DLC, they've been very reluctant to have any DLC. XIII-2 was the first one that offered any DLC and Lightning Returns had nearly none and XV has already been promised that it's going to be a game with no DLC plans. So I think you're save from VII having DLC like you describe. DLC exists as a way to recoup the development costs in an industry where the price of games hasn't changed since the PS2 era, yet the cost of making games has skyrocketed.

VII will likely end up costing more than $100 most likely after all the parts are out. But the way they are talking you're getting an even more grand and epic game than the original VII. There's going to be even more content to explore and new stories with likely a cleaned up narrative. Square isn't just updated the visual for VII because that game already exists. If they're going to remake it they want to do right where it will be worth replay for old fans so that they have something that they haven't seen before.

So I think it will be fine. It'll cost more to play the game, but you'll get more game as well.

[loaf]

If you want the classic battle system then pop in FFVII.

[Unknown Entity]

Yeah, it's not exactly what I had in mind when they announced the remake. Making it episodic to make it "grander" makes me question what they're doing with FFXV. Will FFXV be LESS grand? Have LESS content?

I'll get it eventually. But it's not a priority anymore. Same with Hitman for me. Way to go, SE.

[Xanatos]

The more I read/hear about this remake the funnier it gets. All those years asking Square for a remake, all those petitions, and Square is literally taking a piss on your favorite game. Seriously now, Square is making some weird, downright unnecessary decisions. I'm sure this game will end up being fun, perhaps even more than that, but to me it seems they are aiming more at the new generation of players rather than the one that was asking for this remake in the first place. I for one wouldn't want this to happen if and when they decide to remake my favorite game in the series, so I can somewhat sympathize.

[loaf]

Aiming towards the new generation is exactly what they are doing on this Remake. It's clear it's for Newer Generations, majority of newer generation aren't going to boot up FF7, they see the graphics and no voice acting and turn it off.

and on top of that all the fans are going to jump on it.

[Rowan]

Anyone here that knows me even the slightest know that I am a HUGE FF7 fan. Its my favourite in the series, and one of my favourites of all time. From the artstyle sprite backdrops and beautiful music, to the addictive materia battle system and wonderful story+characters. However, I do not feel that square owes me anything. I am gracious that they are going through with this remake, something at one point seemed like it would never happen. When I heard on our TFF skype combo that they showed it during the E3 event, I immediately thought they were deliberately pulling on my heart strings. But to my surprise, they actually did announce it along with a hype inducing trailer. I once said I would pay even $500 to play a remake of FF7, so a few little DLC here and there isn't going to bother me personally, I would think true fans of the game wouldn't mind either. It depends on how you view square because many games have DLC nowadays, why should we single out square as being moneygrubbers

Being the huge fan that I am, most people would assume I have a problem with the combat. I actually dont care. I figured from the start this wasnt going to be turn based and for good reason. There hasnt been a turn based FF for a long time, and they have been just as successful. I dont believe theres a way you could have a turnbased game seamlessly integrate with the enviornment and flow of the game without it taking away the realism; which is a huge factor in the FF7 remake. I dont have a problem with action combat as long as we have a great character development system in place in which we are able to customize and empower them (something I have yet to see a possbility from FF15).

I'm looking forward to the remake and I cant wait to see what the final product looks like.

[loaf]

ATB will more than likely stay in this game and every title after.

[TheBusterSword]

Anyone here that knows me even the slightest know that I am a HUGE FF7 fan. Its my favourite in the series, and one of my favourites of all time. From the artstyle sprite backdrops and beautiful music, to the addictive materia battle system and wonderful story+characters. However, I do not feel that square owes me anything. I am gracious that they are going through with this remake, something at one point seemed like it would never happen. When I heard on our TFF skype combo that they showed it during the E3 event, I immediately thought they were deliberately pulling on my heart strings. But to my surprise, they actually did announce it along with a hype inducing trailer. I once said I would pay even $500 to play a remake of FF7, so a few little DLC here and there isn't going to bother me personally, I would think true fans of the game wouldn't mind either. It depends on how you view square because many games have DLC nowadays, why should we single out square as being moneygrubbers

Being the huge fan that I am, most people would assume I have a problem with the combat. I actually dont care. I figured from the start this wasnt going to be turn based and for good reason. There hasnt been a turn based FF for a long time, and they have been just as successful. I dont believe theres a way you could have a turnbased game seamlessly integrate with the enviornment and flow of the game without it taking away the realism; which is a huge factor in the FF7 remake. I dont have a problem with action combat as long as we have a great character development system in place in which we are able to customize and empower them (something I have yet to see a possbility from FF15).

I'm looking forward to the remake and I cant wait to see what the final product looks like.

I guess it's all down to what you want and expect from a game. If we're getting a FFVII Remake, then i expect the game i love... not cut to pieces and I'm not singling SE out as moneygrubbers, every studio does it and my gripe is with the direction of the business itself. I'm from a generation where you would buy a game and all the content within that game was there from the get go. If something was extra, it would be acquired by inputting a cheat code or progressing far enough and mastering a game to an extent where you had a new weapon or whatever to unlock. Nowadays, more and more of this content is added content that you have to purchase. I'm shocked it took so long for companies to figure it out tbh. Gamers love extra content. That Legendary sword that unlocks after you have X amount of magic gems it took forever to gather in game, well we can leave that out of the retail copy, and sell the added stuff they used to expect in a good game anyway. It just bothers me and it speaks volumes about the greedy society we live in as a whole.

When we first dreamed of a FFVII remake, it was vital that they changed as little as possible from the original. Why mess with it? Just update it for the modern pallet. If you can create vast worlds in games such as Fallout or Skyrim, with their huge maps, forests villages, towns and a huge population of NPC's to bring it to life and still be able to release it as one game not in Episodes "because it would be too vast otherwise", then surely SE with all there resources could remake a world that they are already familiar with and just keep it the same but with updated graphics?

Change the core workings of the game and it ceases to become FFVII. The battle system, the flow of the game, the various scenarios that you encounter throughout the story... change it too much and it becomes a mockery of greatness. As has been said in another comment, the more i hear on this remake, the more it worries me.

[nix]

Not all companies do cheap DLC lets nip that in the butt right now, to me its a disgusting thing to make people do, fork decent chunks of change for a pitiful addon, its exploiting your fan base.

If you want to do an expansion with a load of content to explore more of an already full and COMPLETED game, you got my blessings and if i like your game, my money also.. But to tell me you're going to take a game i love and really want to play again, break it up and sell it to me in fragments.. Well then fuck you very much unkind sir!

I honestly have no problem with developers extending their game and giving us hours of new content for a reasonable price on an already complete product/story, a good recent example of that is the witcher 3, it released a DLC add on which adds like 20+ hours of gameplay for 9.99. Grand price. Lets face it, that's an expansion pack and a great priced one too.

Now I can forgive square with their decision to make it episodic IF its like a 3 part and they charge at most $20 for each installment. But if they start doing more and adding price tags everywhere they can fuck right off and anybody who gladly gives in to that greedy export is a fucking idiot, i dont care how big a fan you are Actually wait, episodic is retarded no matter what way i look at it, waiting months/years between each release? Disgraceful, id end up just waiting until the complete thing is out (which lets face it, is the sane thing to do for any self respecting gamer) And then if the price is reasonable, on par with the norm. I'll buy it, i wish all gamers had a lick of sense and done this instead of blindly accepting and paying anything, they will just think of more ways to fuck your wallets up the ass.. C'MON WORLD!

[Rowan]

TBH, squares PR is absolutley dreadful.

We know aboslutley NOTHING about the game except the following;

It is action oriented
You can have a party of 3 characters and you can control them individually.

thats it. The whole 'episodic' buzzword doesnt mean its going to be a telltales style game. We really dont know. We can only go based on a 2 minute trailer with a few snippets of alpha gameplay. Lets stop being worried and start recognizing that the remake we asked for is being given to us.

[nix]

We did ask for a remake yeah..We didnt ask for a remake to be broken down and sold to us in multiple parts...ever.....at any point

[Rowan]

We did ask for a remake yeah..We didnt ask for a remake to be broken down and sold to us in multiple parts...ever.....at any point

Im not the only who thinks that this multiple part idea is amazing and going to give us more than we ever imagined...

[Andromeda]

Another thing to be mindful of, Square never said episodic, they said multi-part series, it was the media that called it episodic. Multi-part series and episodic have two different connotations, and I think it's important to think of it as multi-part. I say this because we're probably getting very sizeable parts, episodic will make people think it's going to be 5 hours of content, where I think it's going to be more like we're getting 30-40 hours of content.

And Nomura and Kitase have a point when they say what's the point of remaking the game if it is going to be the exact game just prettier. The game is already available on so many platforms to play the original that if you want the original game it is there to play. This is to bring in new fans and give old fans something new to experience that's not the same thing exactly.

Aside from knowing the exact story, doesn't the thought of playing FFVII almost like it was fresh and new to you all over again make you more excited than replaying the exact same thing? You can get closer to the feeling you had the first time you played it since it is going to be a new experience.

[SuperSabin]

I'm really looking forward to square's remake of FFVII. It's like people who have been wishing for the remake expect a 1:1 with voice acting and cutscenes which can pretty much be done if someone performed an HD mod (which is already out there) and altered the games source code to incorporate fan-dubbed voice acting and cutscenes; the technology out there now makes that possible. The remake square is doing is taking FF7 in a different, fresh direction giving the story more life than it had before.

[loaf]

Multi-Series can also mean they just release Disk 1 2 and 3 separately.

[nix]

I have my money on the first part being set solely within Midgar, betcha!

And im thinking episodic as it seams to be a trend SE are leaning towards, see Hitman. Anyway when i see multi part and episodic i see the same thing

[loaf]

Midgar being the first "series" was my first thought. Not sure what they can do to make that more than a 5 hour game. Add sectors to visit for side quests/exploring.

Doing them based on major events would be cool IMO.

1: Midgar
2: Kalm/Flashback To junon
3: Coral to Nibelheim
4: Rocket Town - Temple of Ancients

Something like that, can even make that smaller.

Who knows what they might do. Knowing me, I probably wont even get a PS4 and would hope they release this on PC haha.

[TheBusterSword]

If (and it's a very tentative IF) they do release it in 3 parts with each part ending where the original disc changes occurred, then i'll begrudgingly be ok with that. But waiting for the next part of the game will break the continuity in a big way.

[Rowan]

If (and it's a very tentative IF) they do release it in 3 parts with each part ending where the original disc changes occurred, then i'll begrudgingly be ok with that. But waiting for the next part of the game will break the continuity in a big way.

Im not worried about that, ill probably play the first part over and over and over and over again.

dude, im so excited just talking about it.

Unforuntately, we probably wont get it for at LEAST another year.