tactical-mode

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Turn on CC for the captioning

In OG, Aerith gets changed right away and has a simple exchange with Cloud, who is in his dress. Aerith: "What do you think?" (Cloud shrugs) "Oh, you're no fun!"

In Remake, Aerith gets changed before Cloud finds his dress; based on your actions in the game, she gets one of three dresses: a frumpy one, an elaborate one, or this middle-of-the-road dress. For the Tactical Mode video series, we're picking this one.

The mod Cloud Ordinary Dress by Adol allowed us to have Cloud in his dress during this scene, and Invisible Buster Sword by juijub removed the sword.

Here, we don't add much in the way of dialogue, but the flirtatious "You don't like it/you do like it?" comes to us from Remake.

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A Perfect Fit | Episode 020

Remember to turn on CC for subtitles!

This episode was daunting for a few reasons. The first is that none of these OG scenes happen in 7R. The second is that the scenes with which they were replaced are better, so this is a downgrade imo. Third is that this scenario would be kind of cringe even without something better to compare them against. However, what started

as a "let's get this over with" episode became an experiment in cinematography and engine manipulation. I had fun and I hope you do too.

With the limited blocking and character movement available to me, it was a neat challenge to construct and shoot scenes, but I think I managed to create some interesting moments using idle animations!

This epic shit is not in the episode. Please enjoy your time with the Remake!

[Chapter 09] Scene 36

The shopkeep of this clothing store in Remake is a man, whereas in OG it was a woman, so I transed her gender (Happy Pride!). I did this by shrinking the man NPC down to 0 inches and moving an appropriate-looking patron of the shop behind the counter on top of him, positioning Cloud and Aerith to create the illusion of a scene. Luckily for me, the woman flaps her mouth, allowing me to actually focus on the character talking for once!

It appears that the english mouth flapping and the Japanese jaw flapping don't always line up, looking rather uncanny. Not a great graphical feature. But, since the same thing happens in the Oblivion Remaster, I will count my lucky stars that their teeth don't stretch.

Scene 40

Jumping ahead, we have the bar and the dressmaker. In this scene in Remake, Cloud is here with Johnny, not Aerith (Aerith leaves the party). I refilmed it so that Johnny was never in frame, then I went back to an earlier save and brought Aerith into the bar, and the rest is as usual.

Scene 37

The gym scene was also a bit tricky, as Big Bro (named Jules in Remake) and his muscle hunks only appear in the gym after Aerith leaves the party. The shots with her in them do not have the hunks in them.

Sharp-eared viewers will notice that the music transitions here from the faithful EC version of The Oppressed to Remake's track called Beck's Badasses. This version replaces the flute with an accordion, the clarinet with a trombone, and adds some silly gang vocals, extra percussion, and some synth hits. Groovy! It was a little jarring, so I sampled a shaker and a fish, and the tin drum, and peppered them in for a few bars before the transition to mask it a bit. Hope it sounds good!

To get the footage of the squat contest, I performed the minigame blind; it's a rhythm game with predictable button prompts, but if you're wondering why Cloud's movements are jerky, it's because I am pressing buttons on those visual cues alone.

Scene 45

In 7R, Aerith gets in her dress before Cloud gets in his, so crafting a scene where only Cloud is dolled up required either very creative camera work, or a mod. Luckily, Gantz79 has us covered with Aerith Standard Outfit Over All. To get the shots and positioning I needed, I shrunk and yeeted the 6 other NPCs in the shop, but this started creating hiccups in the engine, leading to the camera flying wildly out of control and eventually crashing. At least I got the footage I needed!

Final Thoughts

I made it through one of the more difficult episodes of this season. Hopefully I'll be able to complete another episode before Pride Month ends, but I have some events to go to and some hangovers to nurse, so I'll get back to you on that. If you're enjoying the series, give the videos some likes and comments! They fuel me.

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Wall Market | Music & Ambience

Nestled in the wedge between the walls bordering Sectors 5 and 7, Wall Market is the only beacon of life in the wasteland of the Sector 6 slums. Brimming with merchant stalls, chocobo carriages, armorers, clothiers, and a famous red light district, the market has a little something for everybody.

The Tactical Mode project celebrates the story and beauty of Final Fantasy VII using the Remake's engine. Visit our page for more!

Mods used:

- FFVIIHook by emoose - Universal Unreal Engine Unlocker by Otis_Inf - Dynamic Resolution Disabler by MorningSpice - Remove Field Prompts by metalliguyAU - 3DMigoto by bo3b - Sector 6 Sunlamp Fix by Altezein

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Wall Market | Episode 19

Remember to turn on CC for the dialogue!

Happy Pride! Enjoy part 1 of the CROSS DRESSING ARC. Cloud, you egg. Despite the amazing changes in 7R, I will stay true to the goal of making this as faithful to the OG as possible. The OG takes a more bouffon-city-of-freaks approach to the LGBT content, which is… potentially fraught. Well, if the original writers were not openly queer, we here at Tactical Mode certainly are. Join us as we point and laugh at a very flustered "straight man" and his bisexual disaster girlfriend as they chase down the lesbian bartender to join their polycule.

I mean, uh, welcome to Wall Market.

[Chapter 09] Scenes 24-27

As in the previous episode, we've had to use clips from multiple scenes in order to recreate this moment.

The shots where Aerith is running was my experiment for the episode. I have learned how to boomerang the player character around the field through clever use of hooking/unhooking the camera. This causes his companion(s) to dash off after him – in the direction of my choosing! The shot where Aerith us running after her future girlfriend the chocobo cart was made by starting to the very far right, just out of frame, with Cloud and Aerith; unhooking the camera and dashing to Aerith's intended starting point for the run; re-hooking the camera which teleports Cloud (but not Aerith) back to his original position just to the right of frame. Now Aerith will run back to him. Action!

The last shot in this sequence is positioned to appear as if Aerith is walking back to Cloud after chasing the cart, when in 7R it is reversed - he actually hops on the cart for an extended scene (snip snip) and walks back to her.

Scene 29

I took about 2 hours of footage of all the townsfolk and dark corners of this environment. I was not a fan of it in OG, but in Remake it one of the best RPG towns I can think of, except for one thing: Uematsu's song The Oppressed (or Oppressed People) has been replaced with an annoying as hell cha-cha song that sounds like a cross between A Whole New World from Aladdin and Copacabana, complete with canned orchestra hits and a slide whistle.

The version of The Oppressed you are hearing comes from EC. Nice and clean: just a drumkit, a flute, a clarinet, a bubble organ, and a nasty fuckin' electric bass. In the C section, some strings underscore it, and an oboe (the Final Fantasy VII instrument) arrives to ferry us smoothly into the bass-heavy coda. (edit: it may not be an oboe but rather a very high bassoon - both instruments are favored by Uematsu for this score).

Our interrogation at the Honey Bee Inn was done entirely with movie magic. While the guy at the door does say something when you interact with him (to the tune of "buzz off") you don't get much from him. In 7R you can go inside the lobby and even bring Aerith with you (and yes, she does ogle the honey bee girls).

(there is no heterosexual explanation for this)

Within the Honey Bee Inn you can meet Andrea, a sexy emcee who will hold the secret to Cloud's feminine transformation. In the OG's version of events, only Cloud can enter in an optional sequence. Instead of being a queer cabaret it is a sleazy brothel where Cloud gets violated - I won't be including either sequence.

Scenes 30-31

Heading to Don Corneo's place, we meet his bouncers, who tell him to scram.

Back outside, Aerith has the idea to sneak Cloud in with a disguise that isn't at all motivated by her wanting to see him in a corset. In 7R, this scene is interrupted by Johnny, an NPC whom I have neglected to include in this series so far despite appearing in the OG as a missable side-character. He lives near Tifa's bar in Sector 7 and was on the train that our heroes leapt from a few episodes ago. His character design in 7R is great but his role in the story has been expanded, and not in a way that allows me to recreate his side content. So, he has been cut.

Instead, the scene has been constructed like a few others before it - with me filming idle animations until they line up to my liking, and using over-the-shoulder shots to mask the fact that no one is actually speaking.

The penultimate shot here of Aerith running back into the market was made using the boomerang trick I used at the beginning of the episode - boomeranging Cloud to the bottom of the stairs so that she runs down and out of sight.

The final shot gave me a little chuckle when I decided to put it mid-credits. Oh Cloud, you innocent boy.

Final Thoughts

You got plenty of my thoughts in this blog! Usually I try to be a bit less candid with my opinions, but here we are. The next episode is going to be constructed using the same idle animation tricks, since OG Cloud gets his dress in a different manner than in 7R.

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Remember to turn on CC for the dialogue!

Another very short episode - for two reasons: the first being that this scene on the slide is a very sweet and romantic scene, that deserves its own little spotlight; the second reason is that I wanted to insert an extended showcase of the environment and the soundtrack between this scene and the next, and I wanted to do that without releasing multiple versions of the episode.

(the YouTube page has two playlists: a scenes-only basic playlist and an extended version with these extra bits in).

[Chapter 09] Scenes 24-27

The music is from Remake, an untitled variation on Aerith's Theme. I added a vamp while Cloud is tweaking out. The shots here were taken during three separate scenes that actually take place in different locations around the park, restored to a single scene that has quite a different feeling and flow. To make sure that the big cat slide isn't in the background of some shots, I rotated the camera slightly.

I hope you enjoy!

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Ep. 17 - Midnight Rendezvous

Remember to turn on CC for the dialogue!

Our shortest episode yet! The music is the Remake version of Underneath the Rotting Pizza, which adds some exciting accents to the arrangement by way of Shotaro Shima.

[Chapter 09] Scenes 1

Moving into Remake’s Chapter 9, this scene cuts out another flash forward and some extended walking-and-talking.

Scenes 2-14

A multi-combat, multi-scene, multi-puzzle sequence is distilled into a single shot! This took a few takes to be happy with, since I was driving Cloud blind and the controls are always janky after climbing a ladder (the game believes the camera has pivoted, not knowing that the camera is following a set path that I’ve given it – but I still have to drive Cloud relative to the camera pivot… which I did not see). It’s why Cloud “wiggles” after climbing up – it’s also why he is not present in the last leg of the shot, although he was meant to be. He hit a wall and got stuck, but thankfully that happened out of frame lol.

Here's an alternative shot where Aerith, not Cloud, is the one who got stuck. Since she's supposed to be his guide, I chose the shot we see in the episode.

Not one, but three claw puzzles were cut.

Don't leave her hanging! (We left her hanging)

Scene 15/17

Two scenes here, separated by a deenglow battle. The shot of the campfire from the high vantage point cuts to Cloud and Aerith arriving at it – our brains mentally hack out the few minutes it would have taken them to get there. Movie magic!

The dialogue between Cloud and Aerith at the fire is pure Remake. The bandits' chatter is also from 7R, although it is longer than presented here. I have tweaked the dialogue for pacing, cutting some extra bumbling. Snip snip.

Scene 18

Cloud and Aerith make quick work of the thieves here. Instead of cueing the battle theme, like we would in the OG, I have kept Under the Rotting Pizza going.

The thieves here are named characters in 7R, with unique costumes. The short one is based on a recurring enemy in OG. That enemy is found in 7R as well, with the original outfit and hair colour, and a variety of weapons including a scimitar and a lead pipe:

But, since these enemies don't have a scene that introduces them, I made the decision to showcase the unique thief.

The last-minute addition to the fight here was Aerith using the Restore materia in her staff to cure herself. It is going to be quite a few episodes before the next combat, so I thought it might be important to show viewers her load-out this early. The purple materia is HP Plus, an advanced materia that will give our girl some survivability as she tries to keep up with Cloud in the dangerous world...

Final Thoughts

That’s it! A short and sweet one. Hope you enjoy! If you’re liking this series, please reblog, like, and comment on the YouTube videos! Engagement will encourage me to prioritize the project and get episodes out sooner. Stay frosty!

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The Sector 5 slum is a small community situated between the monster-infested wastes of Sector 5 and the wall that leads to the gang-filled Sector 6. Folks mill about at all hours of day and night, with the massive plate above blocking the sky and serving as a reminder of who gives them their livelihoods, and who can take it away.

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Aerith's House | Music and Ambience

String sections and calming views. Gainsborough Cottage is a respite from the lifeless drab of the slums. While it still sits beneath the oppressive Midgar Plate, the mako-rich water and careful efforts of the ladies of the house allow for life here to flourish, despite all odds.

The Tactical Mode project celebrates the story and beauty of Final Fantasy VII using the Remake's engine. Visit our page for more!

Mods used:

- FFVIIHook by emoose - Universal Unreal Engine Unlocker by Otis_Inf - Dynamic Resolution Disabler by MorningSpice - Remove Field Prompts by metalliguyAU - 3DMigoto by bo3b - Skybox Switcher by Altezein

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Final Fantasy VII - Episode 016

Pure scenes in this episode, flanked by two tracking shots around Aerith’s house (showing off the Skybox Switcher mod once again). The music here is a mix I made of a cover of Flowers Blooming arranged and performed by Patti Rudisill and Paula Bressman, with the isolated string accompaniment from the Remake underscoring it.

[Chapter 08] Scene 33/55

This is an amalgamation of two scenes from 7R, with mercifully similar blocking. Even still, I had to re-shoot quite a bit of it, playing with the animation speed to get the subtitles to match their mouths.

This final shot of Aerith observing Cloud fades out much earlier in the official game, before she does that cute little twitch where her mouth moves to the side. Using the raw animation, I moved the fade ahead by a few seconds so I could include it (it’s so cute!). She schemin.

Scene 56

This is it! The first bit of footage from Rebirth in the show! This scene is done in both Remake and Rebirth, and the differences are quite stark. In fact, here they are:

In Rebirth, we have a younger Cloud model and actual bedding. In Remake, it’s pre-rendered so the kitchen has more realistic lighting and clutter. I stitched the two scenes together and colour corrected them to match. Hope you like it! 

You may notice that in the background of one shot, there are curtains in the kitchen windows that disappear in the next shot. Heh!

Scene 57

Cloud sneaks out. I will spare you the slow creep sequence from OG and the tedious (inexplicable) obstacle course from Remake, and just get him out of the house already!

Final Thoughts

A rather quick episode to whip up, although the scene with Elmyra was more difficult to recreate than perhaps it seems. I had a lot of fun making the episode and really enjoy the piece by Redisill and Bressman. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

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Well so much for a break XD

(Remember to turn on CC for the dialogue!)

This episode starts with a combat sequence, telling y’all that if you're eager for the next story bit, you can skip right ahead. This episode does include a short scene featuring a guy who 'are' sick, but as this was an optional bit of town dialogue, it is integrated into this slum/town showcase instead.

The correct Plate comes to us from the only non-essential mod in this episode: Skybox Switcher by Altezein. In addition to this, the

bright and sunny nature of the slums in general has been tempered by a slight darkening and lowered contrast of the picture. The effect makes everything kind of sad and gross, and that is intentional.

For music, we’re using the OG version of Underneath the Rotting Pizza. It is still the best version of it. The EC version comes close but has a totally bodacious turntable effect. 7R adds a string section and changes the sound of that funky bass synth. No fan remaster has come close to getting it to sound like this, although I would sell my own mother for the same track with a live steel guitar instead of the canned PS1 samples. Ah well, you can’t have everything.

[Chapter 08] Scenes 24-25

Sadly, the hedgehog pie enemy (who appeared in the church in OG and in these sections in 7R) was not included. The hedgehog pie is relegated to graffiti in scene 49. But here's some screens, just for the blog:

The gorger enemies (featured in this episode) aren’t found here in OG either, they’ve been swapped in and the OG enemies (thieves) have been moved to their location later.

Aerith doesn’t use her quarterstaff like a quarterstaff in 7R, she uses it like a marching baton crossed with a magic wand. To get us back to a “bo-staff fighter” look, I turned particle effects off and had to constantly throw her into the middle of enemy groups, as she constantly retreats to back-line position to fling her magic. I like how they have made her staff retractable, and I set up some shots to showcase her extending and retracting it

Scene 32

Love the addition of enormous gates protecting the town from the slum monsters here. The dialogue is an amalgamation of various small chatterings in Remake.

The town itself is full of character, both in OG and Remake. I definitely wanted to include the camper van turned into a weapon shop, and the big screen. The newscast on the screen shows the blown up bridge where we fought Airbuster; that video goes on to introduce a minor villain - Scarlet! We’ll wait to introduce her where the OG does, so snip snip.

Scene 49

Yes, over 15 scenes from 7R were cut, mostly busy work and side-quests. Here we have Pipe Man, or Mr. No. 2, or “The This Guy Are Sick Guy”. He is not in his pipe, but he ARE sick, and his tattoo is on lovely display. So is Skybox Switcher!

The moment where he touches Cloud and Cloud has a little freak-out is a meaningful change from OG! (7R goes even further by having Mr. 2 appear to Cloud as Sephiroth and do a little song and dance, snip snip). In OG, any connection between this weirdo and whatever is going on with Cloud is nonexistent (at least... as far as we are led to believe). Connecting these two dots this early is a bold departure for our story. In the OG, he's not even in black!!

As it is the only animation we have of getting from the ground to our feet, it is part of the scene. Not thrilled about it but here we are. Despite this, a lot of change was done to try and preserve the OG scene as closely as possible. In these shots, for instance, Aerith holds Cloud hand to calm him down out of his freak-out.

And this shot - originally another super-close up of her mouth -- has been moved to include her whole face.

Final Thoughts

Between 70-140 minutes have been cut down to under 4. Pretty efficient! In Final Fantasy VII this sequence is entirely player-controlled, even allowing you to walk past that sick guy entirely. What you get in a video game in an explorable town with shops and people to chat with. Translating that into webisode format was an interesting challenge. Glad to be moving on to something a little more straightforward.

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By request, these two Rude sections have been added to the Extended Edition of my Final Fantasy VII show. (If you want to know more about the project, visit my page!)

These are mostly to showcase the Skybox Switcher mod by Altezein, which corrects the Plate section above these scenes. Some comparison shots are below:

(This first comparison shot is particularly interesting because the dialogue suggests that he should be looking at the reactor. I infer, therefore, that the scene was initially programmed before the skybox was changed in the final release of the game.)

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Final Fantasy VII - Episode 014

I swear, every episode I am learning how to manipulate the engine better as well as improving my eye for cinematography. Happier with this episode than ever! Remember to turn on CC for the dialogue!

(A note for people who prefer the spelling of Aeris over Aerith: the default subtitles list Aerith, her canonical name. However, all videos have been given English - Canada option, which changes nothing except her name. As the people who wanted Aeris were Canadian, it was only natural. This way, you can select English - Canada while watching via the Playlist starting from the first episode, and you won't have to select it again.)

[Chapter 08] Scenes 9-13

Well the obvious change here is the lack of time ghosts.

Invisible Whispers by Neocoretx is doing the heavy lifting here, however, even with the mod, the whispers leave behind a blurry residue and some conspicuous dust, which could be removed by turning particle emitters off (this had the added benefit of making the yellow materia behind the guard less eye-catching). You may see Reno with a hand on his waist in one shot - he's actually injured from a boss fight that happens in 7R that doesn't happen in this series (it would ruin the flowers!)

The shot where Cloud and Aerith run up the stairs and out of frame, only to appear as the camera lifts up to the beam, is my experiment for this episode - planning a camera path that crosses over multiple moments to quickly show progress through an area is a great way to save on run-time without compromising the feeling of traversal. Without that trick, it takes one minute to run from the bottom of the stairs up to the beam - with this technique, it takes 5 seconds. And looks pretty spiffy if I do say so myself.

The music is a continuation of Enter Turks from EC.

Scenes 14-15

The church has been modified by FantasyRaiderr to resemble its original design, and it looks great. Also, the plate above our characters is thanks to the great Skybox Switcher mod by Altezein.

To get the coverage, much like last episode, I set up over-the-shoulder shots and let ‘er rip for a few hours while I went dancing. I've created a nice shorthand for myself to organize the shots by which idle animations happen, to clearly see what I'm working with:

(Ironically, I didn't end up using any shots from this angle ^_^)

The music transitions from Enter Turks to a track from Remake which actually plays when you meet Aerith earlier (Episode 6 of this series). I only use the first four bars before transitioning to Remake’s version of Flowers Blooming in the Church which replaces the bells with a piano and has a more embellished accompaniment.

Scene 16

This 5 minute sequence has been pared down to a single ~30 second shot. I decided that fading the characters in and out gave a greater sense of adventure and traversal. The sequence where they’re shimmying along the pipe is actually me going in the wrong direction lol, it was on purpose - the goal was to give the sense of them travelling from right to left across the screen.

Scene 17

The church mod is on proud display in this shot, but something else is happening. The roof above Cloud is thanks to Skybox Switcher - but that mod has an error that is apparent from this vantage point alone - the section where the outer wall should be is missing the wall and worse, the lighting creates a kind of ghost-wall in front of an expansive desert. Can’t have that, so I hand-composited 82 frames to transition from the ceiling to the floor. Eagle-eyed viewers may notice some flickering of color in the sky, where my frame-by-frame compositing is glaringly amateurish. Hehe oops!

Aerith gives us a delightful cuss in the Remake version of this scene. I was tempted to include it, but my better angels prevailed.

Scene 18

Another transitional shot leads us down to solid ground. In 7R there’s a scene and a combat here. Snip snip.

Final Thoughts

This is a really pleasant episode to watch, I knew the travelling shots would be cute but I’m honestly quite enamored with them! I hope you like them.

Gonna take another short break as I get some real life ducks in a row and this is a lovely beat to rest on. My passion for this project will ensure that I don’t stay away for long.

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Final Fantasy VII - Episode 13

Turn on CC for dialogue!

(by request, an "Aeris" version has been added under English - Canada)

[Chapter 07] Scene 40

This scene is lifted wholesale from 7R, with the exception of the short exchange between Tifa and Cloud, which is from OG. "There's so much I need to tell you..." is one of those lines that communicates something completely different if this is your second time through the story, but I'll leave it at that. To get the shots, I slowed the engine down so that I could get coverage without the actors blinking away every half a second.

[Chapter 08] Scene 1

For this sequence, I decided to use the OG version of the music - the original soundfont. No remake or remix has quite recreated that eerie sound. While I was at it, I recreated the mysterious voice effect with an on screen text - including downloading a fan-made font (Reactor7) and hand-animating it by frame to evoke the PS1 text boxes.

Scene 2

This heavily anticipated scene has a great script, and it was very fun to play with it. The music is the Ever Crisis version of Flowers Blooming in the Church.

For the shot where Aerith says “You remember!” I in-fact reshot a moment from a future scene in 7R and flipped the image to create her blocking...

Scene 3

This scene starts when Aerith says “Come to think of it…” and ends when Reno enters the church. It doesn’t happen in 7R. To create the scene, first I made a record of all of Cloud and Aerith’s idle animations. Then, I storyboarded out the scene, picking which idle animations I thought could convey the dialogue. I planned the shots to never show the mouth of the character that is speaking, using body language instead. To get each shot, I set up a looping camera path, pressed record, and let ‘er rip for an hour while I did other activities. I assembled the scene from the best takes.

Scene 4-8

This is the Ever Crisis version of Enter Turks. For this scene, I learned more tricks with the Unreal Unlocker, and some of the shots are actually taken in slow-motion! These help with longer reaction shots (like Aerith’s smile after she proposes a date), and Reno saying “mako eyes” (in 7R, he is saying a different word, much faster, but with this manipulation he appears to say the dialogue I gave him!) How neat is this?

Final Thoughts

Yes, there are no time ghosts, and yes, there are no more prophetic visions. Those are the most obvious changes, but I enjoyed every little switch and reshoot, and I especially enjoyed restoring the three music tracks, the first of which (Who Are You?)  has no 7R counterpart. 7R’s version of Flowers Blooming uses piano instead of bells, and the complicated and delightful percussion of Enter Turks has been restored.

No new mods to show off. I hope you enjoy the episode!

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Episode 12 - Airbuster

(Mama an Easter Egg behind you!)

Our hacked (hackneyed?) retelling of FF7 continues with AIRBUSTER. Also, a portentous flashback featuring Tifa…

You know the drill: story scenes in front, fight scenes at the back. Turn on CC to read the dialogue.

[Chapter 07] Scene 09

I just switched around two shots here and cut a little bit out of the music, starting the track later and ending it earlier. I sourced a heartbeat sound for that OG feel.

Scene 10

The establishing shot here is me playing with camera paths again, it took a few takes to run blindly up to the reactor core instead of coming into frame on the diagonal or not at all haha. The dialogue exchange between Cloud and Barret in OG has been replaced in 7R by a wordless gesture. The cut dialogues are:

Cloud: ”I know. You’re my watch, right?”

Barret: ”Damn straight. Tifa’s old friend… that ain’t good enough.” [gives him the bomb]

Scene 32-33

As the jump in scene number implies, 7R’s expanded journey from the core has been cut or moved to the previous episode. Lots of fun, with an incredible score! Snip snip.

There’s another shot with another preset path while I run up the stairs. Shots like this will probably become standard in the Episode-Episodes, now that I can do them! The scenery porn I used in Ep 003 — that I anticipated for all the dungeons — will likely be moved to Deleted/Extended-Eps.

Scene 34-35

The gods-blasted button puzzle just had to be included, uweeheeheehee. There is a sneaky cross-fade here as well, did you notice it?

The door-opening shots were done by approaching the doors, freezing the game, yeeting Cloud out of frame (and into the stratosphere), unfreezing and taking the shot. I’m sure there’s a better way, but I’m juuust proficient enough in juuust enough aspects of this to get it done with just a team of me.

Another preset path shot while Barret and Tifa run (serendipidously) center-frame. I was controlling Cloud… he was supposed to be running with them, but I must have run into a wall or something. Ah well, at least I didn’t biff the shot.

Scene 36

I really tried to find a way to get President Shinra to show up in person like he does in the OG. Unfortunately it’s not possible in-engine… at least, not with my abilities. If I ever find the time to fully re-create the original scene in Blender, I’ll do so. As it is, this is a mostly cosmetic change that doesn’t impact the story very much… except that it includes high tech drones and hologram-telecommunication, which the OG story lacks.

The music here is Shinra Inc from EC, chosen for its clanging synth lead and choral refrain — however, the first few seconds also include 7R’s version of Shinra Inc underneath, because that first D♭ from the EC version lacks the sonorous bass that is needed to sell the key change.

Tifa's line: "What's the President doing here?" has been cut... not only because it's kind of a dopey question, but also, because the President is not, in fact, here.

Scene 37

Airbuster!! 200+ shots and several hours of useable footage is cut down to 50 shots across 2 minutes. The first phase of this three-phase fight is all we need; in Remake this is a delightfully epic fight. Snip snip.

The music track here is the Black Mages recording of the FFVII boss battle music, Those Who Fight Further. I chose the Black Mages version, ironically, because it has the least amount of live electric guitar! The wailing synths that give this prog rock jam its texture are performed by none other than the maestro himself: Nobuo Uematsu!

Now that I have more of a handle on storyboarding, filming, and editing combat footage, I’m doing more combat storytelling than I thought I would be doing in this series, and it’s actually taking longer — weeks, in fact — but I think the results are better.

I hummed a bit on how to intro this fight, then I thought it might be fun to try and re-create the battle effects from OG. The swirling was done frame-by frame in a free photo editing program, I manually rotated and zoomed in. I then rendered the sequence into a file. I then overlayed it on top of itself with the second version starting on a delay and being 10% slower and blurred to high heaven with the exposure cranked up. It worked! The black curtains were made by blurring, pixellating, then blurring again the black bars, and pulling them apart. The establishing shot was a preset path while I controlled Cloud's basic attacks.

Heidegger's hologram is flying around this fight in 7R taunting us, and he ruined many good shots. It's a wonder I scraped together so many good looking takes.

At the climax, we showcase Cloud, Tifa, and Barret’s Limit Breaks — Cloud’s Braver has been demoted in 7R from Limit Break to basic move, but here it gets its due. I tried to mimic the limit break camera zoom with a preset path, and the timing was nice but I played the framing a bit safe - better than him bowing out of frame!

To get Barret and Tifa’s limits, I had to play through the chapter twice more, solo-ing the final fight with each character – to draw Airbuster’s big attacks (filling their limit gauge) as well as making sure that my allies’ attacks didn’t move the fight into the next phase before I had a chance to execute the limit break. For Tifa’s, I filmed it twice because the first take clipped through the wall. The second take also erred, but at the beginning, so I used the front half of one and then switched - see if you can spot the edit!

Final Thoughts

Kaboom!

In keeping with the “you can skip ahead once the combat starts,” pledge, we’ll leave the resolution of this battle for next time, and end the episode on a cliffhanger.

You know, despite the obvious departure of a giant glowing President Shinra, this is one of the more faithful sections in all of 7R; aaaand despite that, I didn’t even realize how different it was until I started making the episode. Fun to make, and I continue to outdo what I did last time. Happy.

[tactical-mode]

Final Fantasy VII - Episode 011

Break Through!

This 7-minute episode comprises most of Chapter 5, all of Chapter 6, and the first half of Chapter 7. That’s roughly 3 hours of Remake distilled into 7 minutes, and despite the added bits of scenes it is shorter than even the OG!

I almost put this entire episode in the Deleted Scene category as well, except for that the striking visual of the Plate’s underbelly and the iconic battle theme are part of Final Fantasy VII’s identity, its texture. That said, this episode is very skippable if you are not a fan of the Zack Snyder’s 300-esque combat sequences. 

On the Music

90% of this music track is the track Break Through! Which combines Those Who Fight and Bombing Mission and even a bit of Shinra’s Theme. It’s a tremendous track that never fails to have me grooving and hyped as all get-out – and yet, even here did I make an edit. The climax of the song has been swapped with a combination of Let the Battles Begin! from EC and The Hideout from Remake - the cherry on top is a live flute performance by Julio de Flice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q53HEZHTx5k

Why did I go to all that effort? Well, actually it was all just to remove a LEAD violin and french horn lick that appears in almost every version of the 7R Battle Theme. The arrangement is lovely, but the fact that it consistently leads the climax (and the flute is never given its day) is just boggling to me. Really? We never, not once, not with dozens of versions of the song, get a straight orchestration of the original?

I’m not thrilled that the EC version (a version without the extra lick) gives the flute part to a trumpet - it got to me so badly that at one point I was trying to use Pontus Huglren’s orchestration instead (https://youtu.be/oBnIKaafPHY?si=-yWDz_vsHamqqznZ ) but its bpm is ever so slightly different… As are Crab Warden nor Abzu, two nearly-faithful versions of the track. What’s a girl to do? Enter the Julio de Flice recording, which was a solo performance and easier to line up with the rest of the orchestra.

[Chapter 05] Scenes 12-36

I had a ball filming these fight scenes. I did one pass-through  just filming what I could, improvising with the fly-cam, then I took a few core shots that I really wanted to show, and built a storyboard around them. I actually did a first pass for several more fights, including with a giant grashtrike and a new crab mech from Remake. In the end though, I went with a brisker pace that covers more of the story in a shorter amount of time.

I also finally learned how to control both the camera and Cloud at the same time, which allowed me to get those few shots where Cloud is running while the camera is panning or pushing along. 

Chapter 06

Cloud, Barret, and Tifa make their way under the Plate towards the edge of Midgar! The Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie content is pulled from Remake’s Chapter 4, employing two mods (Semi-Playable Jessie Over Cloud by Crandifff, and Invisible Buster Sword by Jujub) which allowed us to get the trio doing heist stuff together, which I tought would be a fun touch. In OG, they are running around under the Plate with you, and can give you items if you catch them. Here, they’re planning for the backup plans Barret mentioned last episode - Biggs is the one they will run into.

In this section, I played around more with the Unreal Engine Unlocker and programmed in some crane shots which I used when moving into the path of the fan (I really like how that looks, Cloud is basically blown in the frame) and to transition from the underbelly into that blue hallway in a 2-second flythrough.

The dialogue in the Biggs scene is mostly from 7R, or approximated to match the mouth flapping. The grappling guns are also an invention of 7R, but they help adjust to the visual change of the Plate being an extra 250 metres up (foreshadowing!)

[Chapter 07] Scenes 01-14

Another nice crane shot here as I controlled Cloud descending a ladder. The fight with the grunts occurs later in Remake. 

I learned how to “clone” actors, since the fight showed our crew slaying red-suited grunts left and right, and there’s technically only one. So I made two more, tried to hide the fact that they’re T-Posing, and place them in two early shots to make the whole thing seem like too many enemies to count. 

Musically, this is the big climactic release of Those Who Fight, and moreover this is the climax of a lonnnng episode. Initially I had planned for something pretty spectacular: setting up multiple fights throughout the reactor, and showing them all concurrently! 

The idea was to have each movement of the score to showcase a particular vibe (“Tifa kicking ass” or “Our crew narrowly evading danger”) and cutting between the different fights. This ‘great idea’ turned out to be not very fun to watch, so I returned to what I have been doing so far, which is loosely arranging shots to give the suggestion of a combat narrative (eg. Tifa gets shot, Barret heals her, she leaps back into the fray, etc.)

Eagle-eyed viewers will spot Barret bouncing around the battlefield. It is really hard to get all three characters and all three enemies to stay where I want them, since I only have control of one character at a time. Not just hard - actually impossible.

I quite love the shot that leads into the song’s bridge (the flute) I had programmed it for a different sequence I hoped to capture, but that didn’t work out so I just restarted the camera track a few more times while taking control of Tifa and punching those guys to high heaven. I kind of like that you see her boots fly through the frame and then it reveals that she was cartwheeling herself into a flying punch!

Final Thoughts

Not much in the way of plot, but one of this series’ goal is to celebrate the game’s art and design, and I would be remiss if I didn’t include the grunt, grashtrike, blugu, and terpsicolt enemies, and of course – front and center – the score. The time spent with Cloud, Tifa, and Barret on their adventure is going to make what comes next even more exciting.

For the next episode I have to consider whether I’m going to let a big change in 7R stand, or if I can find a way to de-make it…

[tactical-mode]

Episode 010

(Remember to turn on CC for the dialogue!)

This episode is full of departures from the OG, although nothing so drastic as 7R. In many cases, dialogue has been tweaked to suit the blocking. It’s my opinion that these tweaks - mostly from Remake - suit the characters and the flow, but you can be the judge.

[Chapter 04] Scene 37-40: Morning in the Slums

Tifa joins the party while Barret’s Theme pleases the ear. This is actually the original midi track from the 1997 game but put through some modern samplings. Later in the episode, you’ll hear the orchestration by modder Neo Faizan, which can be used in your Remake playthrough, I heartily recommend it!

OG fans may notice that I’ve changed this scene somewhat. In the old game, the dialogue introduces a materia tutorial. Since this is in movie-style, that's nixed. I thought about planning some overlay text to show our loadout, like so:

(I gave Tifa an advanced purple materia here because she’ll be roundhouse kicking giant robots soon and I don’t want her to break her leg.) The overlay idea was scrapped.

Scene 41

This small scene on the train platform uses dialogue mostly from Remake, although in places I have swapped the new lines out for things that are covered in side-dialogue in the OG (such as SOLDIER being deployed).

In my initial concept for the series I wanted all scenes like this to go in the Extended Cut playlist only, as separate “deleted” scenes. So, why the change? Primarily because the music leads from one scene to the next, and without a clear break, I didn’t want to jank the flow.

[Chapter 05] Scene 01-03

Enjoy the music mod by Neo Faizan and the Train NPCs mod by FantasyRaiderr. These scenes are spliced in with scenes from Chapter 2. If you watch all the episodes in one sitting, you can see that I’ve filmed the same moment twice and used it in Episode 7 and now 10. Whoops!

There’s also a materia in the background of the emptied train car. It emits glowing particles that were chewing the scenery, so to film the scene I opened the engine .ini and removed all particle effects. Much less distracting!

In OG, Tifa is the one who breaks up the fight, prompting Cloud to very cooly say his line. In 7R, Tifa ain’t here and Cloud has a moribund expression to match a changed bit of dialogue (a more judgemental “You know you’re better than that.”).

Scene 04

Ah finally, a music track from Remake! Hurry! Is the name of the tune, and has several versions in Remake - this one brings the ticking clock noise, running synth, and morse-code-esque percussion  that most closely matches Uematsu’s score. 

The race against time from the OG sadly doesn’t happen in 7R, so we jump from the train straight away. There’s also no goodbye sequence with Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. The only indication they’re even on the mission is a single shot of them imported from Chapter 2.

Remake’s replacement for these scenes (killer drones that attack everyone on the train) was also cut, this time by me. It may explain why the party seems to be ready to fight something off screen, and why the passengers seem less afraid of Barret that they are of Tifa (hint: they’re actually afraid of the killer drones behind her).

One final change: in OG, Barret jumps from the train last, boasting that a leader always stays until the end. I lament the change here, but I couldn’t edit my way out of him jumping first. Ah well, at least we get a nice little romantic moment here. My multi-shipper heart soars.

Scenes 05-15

Several combats are cut here. The music track is Lurking in the Darkness from EC. Also, if you play through 7R, this scene is likely cluttered with crates and pylons, as a combat full of exploding interactables happens just before it. To reset the crates so they aren’t bouncing around the scene, I had to save in the quick moment between the fight and the cutscene, then reset the game so that the interactibles appeared back in their default position. Clever girl, eh?

Barret going off about Plans B to D as well as the railway map is an invention of 7R. I liked it, so I kept it, clipping where I could to keep it brisk. It allows the song to play out, shows us some tasteful character interactions, and serves as a tidy plot button for the end of the episode. It is thus saved from becoming a deleted scene, purism be damned!

One last note here - in trying to force Barret and Tifa to run up to the map at the right time, I spent a lot of time freezing the engine, causing any the actors in motion to float far away. This forced them to backtrack towards their marker while I set up a shot. A shot I really liked of Barret reflected the OG's image of the train tunnel and I really wanted to use it, but I found it confusing as a viewer in terms of getting a sense of place.

Final Thoughts

This episode brings the series’ run-time up to about an hour. That’s on par with the original game. Comparatively, Remake’s version of the train escape happens around the 8-hour mark. Just some fun stats for you. I am hoping that this is one of the episodes in which I play the loosest with OG's script but there are some real hurdles up ahead. In the meanwhile, I get to kick back and enjoy some dungeon and combat for the next few releases.

[tactical-mode]

I made Eps 8 and 9 at the same time, out of a mosaic of scenes that occur across 2 Chapters (~5 hours) of Remake. Down to 10 minutes! I’m in there re-angling the camera because sometimes there’s daylight outside lol. I did more color correcting than ever, and I’m getting a little better I think!

[Chapter 3] Scene 1-5: Sector 7 Slums Here we see more NPCs altered by the “Train NPCs” mod by FantasyRaiderr. I use a low angle shot to try and evoke the iconic Pillar introduction scene from the OG. The music is On That Day, Five Years Ago from EC.

[Chapter 3] Scene 6-7: Seventh Heaven The music here is Tifa’s Theme from EC. There's a new mod, too: "Tifa Fitness" by VargrNekrodes.

The shots of Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie at the table are from a later scene in Remake’s Chapter 3 (Scene 26). You can see a continuity error in some of the shots (an empty hi-top in the background). I try to use the camera when I can to imply that there are two hi-tops, one empty, one with AVALANCHE. Let me know what you noticed!

Scene 8: Barret and Marlene All the shots of Barret walking here he is doing so while holding Marlene -- even when he's outside of the bar! I had to film around her, erasing her with **movie magic.** Barret and the pinball machine is actually from much further scenes in 7R (23/26).

An added line of dialogue (“See you down there, Cloud!”) helps with the illusion that Biggs and Wedge are using the pinball machine as well, but in 7R they never do.

Scene 23: Tifa and Cloud Jumping ahead in the chapter, there were a few shots in this exchange which are from (Scene 18, part of Remake’s extended content). Continuity errors include a randomized number of drinks in front of Cloud, between 0-2. Coverage for that final exchange was done using the worldstate in Scene 7, and since Cloud never uses the pinball machine in Remake, I cheated with a vertical pan.

Scene ???: The Secret Hideout!!! This scene couldn’t be filmed the way I would have liked, because the basement wasn't actually made in Remake. My options were to hand-animate it, or pan the camera across the scenery like it's Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Tifa’s blocking here is taken from Scenes 8 and 23, and the shots with a dynamic FOV were filmed using the camera for Scene 26.

The music here is a musical cue that plays in 7R when you approach Sector 7, I put it through some filters and applied a record crackle underneath, to make it seem diagetic, like it’s playing out of the jukebox or the radio.

On to Episode 009...

[Chapter 03] Scene 25 I loved this blocking from Remake - the bartender wordlessly downs a whole drink, then pours herself another, all in a tense silence. Great start to a dramatic argument.

If you rewatch this scene after learning the mystery behind Final Fantasy VII’s story, you may notice hidden tones and meanings. To facilitate all the foreshadowing here, I slowed the pace down.

[Chapter 04] Scene 16: The Promise In Remake, this flashback occurs during an expanded quest. I’ll leave 7R to be enjoyed in its proper context. Here, as in OG, the flashback serves as the climax of Cloud and Tifa’s fight, prompting his sudden change of heart. I’m using Remake’s Tifa’s Theme variation, where the piano takes the lead and the flute/oboe play around it. Gorgeous.

Otherwise, little is changed - I often used 7R's translation over OG's!

[Chapter 3] Scene 26: Cloud Gets Paid The usual reshoots, masking sunlight in the background. Coverage from scenes 7 and 8, and Tifa’s blocking behind the bar comes from scenes 18 and 23.

Final Thoughts These two episodes took weeks of constant toil. At times I wanted to give up or move to another project, but I powered through and I’m proud of myself! I dream that these episodes could be better, but I’m not the person who can do that. Yet. So I’m moving ahead towards the next episodes, which will be much more simple and fun to edit.

After completing the “pilot” (Episodes 1-7) I started planning out the rest of “Season 1” aka the part of FFVII’s story that can be produced using Remake. At this time it’s a planned 45 episodes, which means we are 1/5 of the way through! I’ve completed the preliminary filming for the whole season, and while the last ten episodes present several unique challenges, I am going to push to have the season completed by the end of 2025. Then I can look at remaking episodes using what I’ll have learned, or moving on to Season 2.