#( i have been dragged into the world of ffvii with the new remake )

[silver-wield]

Read the ask from the previous anon and I don't understand why people believe that just because FFVII:R is a remake, that it necessitates a different conclusion from the original to capture the audience's attention. The Dead Space Remake is a prime example to refute that line of logic since it makes several additions to the story and expands the world-building(and even fixes continuity errors with the sequels and other supplemental material), yet the general plot and ending are still the same.

Con'd - When people were clamoring for a FFVII remake a decade ago, they didn't do so because they expected or wanted a different ending. They just wanted a game with voiced dialogue, updated graphics and gameplay, and the Remake gave them all that and more. If Nojima, Nomura and Kitase went with Anon's opinion and drastically altered the story, we would be left with a *very* polarized fandom. Though, I suspect Anon only said this out of sentiment because they want Aerith to live.

I get the shitty translation muddying context, and the updated and expanded everything has confused some people, but the devs have been very clear the main story beats are identical. All Nojima said was he wanted to include some locations from CC and that some events will be moved around to make the order run smoother.

At no point have they said the story is different to OG.

A remake isn't a remaster, otherwise it'd be called a remaster. It's not a sequel or an alt timeline blehdibleh. It's a remake. And a remake doesn't just upscale and drag out the tired old script that doesn't work as a voiced piece, which Nojima even said when he talked about the script.

I agree anybody saying it's a new story, fate changed, whatever, just want Aerith alive for shipping reasons and don't want to admit it.

[thirdrootwriting]

Fics I want to Write - FFVII edition

Babysitting AU

Cloud and Aerith time-travel back into their 6/7 year old selves, WITH the caveat that though they have their adult memories, they have the planning skills, abilities, and emotional regulation of a 6/7 year old. (i.e. not great)

Note: still willing and able to cause SO many problems, but unable to actually fix anything with their short arms and baby brains.

Should feature: Vincent (no memories) actually solving all plot points in the bg by going off what the these weird babies and Chaos are saying

Tseng freaking out, bc he think aerith has been kidnapped. Possibly teaming up with Vince, recognizing him, and freaking out more.

Genesis freaking out bc a DEMON dropped off BABIES in Wutai, told him and his friends to babysit, and now Angeal is getting bossed around by the tiny brunnette while Sephiroth refuses to put down the tiny blonde that keeps threatening to stab him.

-

Here’s how Healthy Polyamory Representation Could Have Saved the Timeline

Fudging Crisis Core timeline a bit, but Zack starts dating Cloud and Aerith back b4 shit hits the fan re: Crisis Core. Obviously bc, he loves and looks up to Angeal, he introduces his new bf and gf to his mentor. Zack also mentions how nice it was to have, like, a good role model also in a poly relationship.

Angeal (aware on some level that his personal relationships are trash fire disaster): haha, thanks.

Later, that day angeal bursts into his apartment ready to drag his husband and boyfriend to couple’s therapy by the roots of their over-producted hair if he must.

Genesis: we don’t need that. We have a perfectly healthy relationship with great communication

Sephiroth (genuinely surprised): We’re dating?

Genesis: .... fine, we might need it a little.

IDK, these three idiots get kicked out of a LOT of therapists’ offices. but they do eventually communicate and problem solve. meanwhile zakurith(?) are cute in the bg.

-

Time Travel for the Temporally Orientated

Sephiroth, time travels back to pre-Crisis Core; he is too busy dealing with severe mental whiplash (can’t decide if Jenova’d him was right or if now-him was right; really disorientating to be un-hiveminded and not kinda-dead) to solve or cause any problems. Fortunately(?) he is acting so goddamn weird anyway that he accidentally makes the timeline better whilst navel-gazing. A comedy of errors featuring:

Picks up cloud as an apprentice, but makes zack train him because 1 of the few things Seph can make up his mind about is that he respects/misses older cloud and thier fights. To literally everyone else though, it looks like Seph picked an apprentice he dislikes? why? thoughts vary

Genesis is DETERMINED to get to the bottom of this. he does not. But he does (1) make friends with cloud, (2) become Intense Magic Rivals with Aerith, (3) become frenemies with Zack, much to Angeal’s displeasure

Tifa and Zack become frenemies too, via being pseudo pen-pals to best friends in law. This version has Tension though, bc they kinda want to smooch each other’s SO

Side note, Aerith is having a great (and very bi) time; she is constantly texting Cloud pics of Zack and Tifa’s latest arm-wrestling/lifting/pull-up battles with heart emojis and thirst captions

Zack is putting off having a bisexual crisis, bc he dislikes Genesis too much to admit he’s hot and Cloud is busy being taken. He’s. putting. it. off.

The great saga of what seph’s phone background should be

Who is more Tired (TM) at any given time?: angeal vs. cloud

-

My take on Remake Fic

Sephiroth and Aerith argue from the lifestream / great-beyond via changes to the timeline.

Zack chapters: Saving a soul via compassion / Dying alone bc you couldn’t save anyone

Genesis chapters: Almost a good person, after a knock on the head (ft. cloud does in fact bite) / So much rage, I’m burning the world down around me

Tifa Chapters: Courage to Believe in Promises / Fear to Lies to Hatred

Cloud Chapters: Let me fully elaborate on my 2 am thoughts that Aerith and Seph mean parallel things to Cloud on an X axis and Tifa and Zack mean parallel things to Cloud on a Y axis

[amrefevr]

i apologise for not being round here much , i haven’t much felt up for writing aziraphale , but i haven’t abandoned this blog ! i’m just giving time so muse can build up for him again.

meanwhile , i’m over here. if you so wish to interact still. no pressure to however , & thank you to those who have been so patient with me. i hope to be back more fully on here soon. 

[cateringisalie]

My list of bearable Binal Bantasy VII tags is thinning...

But seriously. Being skeptical of Tifa’s narration of past events is not without merit. By the time the Lifestream scene rolls around she has been through three comas and some grevious injuries. The Lifestream scene is as revelatory for her as it is for Cloud.

The new assertion she was in any way actually friends with Cloud is not only in conflict with the OG’s portrayal but counter to Cloud’s development, her development, the growth of their relationship as adults and why (in general) people have them stay together post game.

Its unnecessary, frustrating and further damaging Tifa’s character who is spinning off further from who she was.

That Tifa and Cloud were not actually childhood friends does not mean they do not have a relationship in FFVII. It does not mean they cannot be together. Tifa “falling in love” with Cloud at the water-tower does not for a second make their later relationship any more meaningful.

All this new ship information does is make the relationship have longer longevity than previously assumed. As if whichever relationship has lasted longer is betterer and stronger. As if this should automatically undercut any other relationship Cloud or Tifa can possibly experience.

(in fact - and darkly cynically - this feels a lot more like enforcing that Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith operate in near exactly the same way. The pairs fall in love in record time (two years prior to the Nibelheim incident both times as far as I’m ware), the boys go missing and the girls never move on with their lives. I get the boys have gone missing without a shred of explanation or closure, but now for both of them people are willing to wipe out a quarter of their lives waiting. Teenagers are resilient you know? They will be inconsolable if this happened but they would bounce back a lot faster and cleaner than they would expect. The approval of the never moving on this is purely to keep the shipping uncomplicated. There can only be one pairing for Tifa, there can only be one pairing for Aerith. And if you think otherwise you’re wrong in canon. And who wants to write or read about a non-canon ship? Unless its yaoi/yuri in any case. I am so tired)

Childhood friends incidentally is not, however much some insist, a common trope of the series - unless you stretch it a fair amount and it encompasses a trivial number of the pairings. And none of the big ones (you know; Squall/Rinoa or Tidus/Yuna).

Could Tifa do with more backstory? Of course. Did Tifa’s mother deserve a name? Absolutely! But not like this. Not when Cloud helping round up cats in Remake is now tied to finding Tifa’s cat in a new authored backstory. This speaks again to the constant magpie-ing of existing imagery and moments from older parts of FFVII to feed the present. The retconning in of importance by changing the meaning of otherwise unimportant moments.

Tifa is not and never was under any obligation to like Cloud as a child. She did not bully him, but neither should she expected to involve him in anything she did. I understand the book has muddied this gloriously, but for what effect?

I mean, I know where the desperation to make Cloud and Tifa childhood friends stems from. I know why you want Cloud to have fallen in love with Tifa at like age 5 or something and for Tifa to fall in love with him at 13. And I rail against it all the time that its not necessary. Being first does not mean better.

Maybe I am old, cynical and exhausted, but I kind of like watching Cloud and Tifa grow closer in FFVII. I like watching Cloud and Aeris grow closer in FFVII. I like to experience these things where I can... experience them? I don’t like reading books which assert things in blunt statements that clarify exactly what the writer intended. I certainly don’t have the patience to wait for a later book to clarify what happened on-screen when I have drawn my own conclusions based on my preferences. Especially as this is all contributing to that continued sense that the OG is a smelly, badly designed embarrassment we would rather tiday away for the crime of being graphically inferior (never mind it was championed on its looks on release) and “goofy” (and apparently unable to run the gamut of emotions I remember from serious to comedy, to silly, to tragic, to pessimistic and quietly optimistic and moving).

I’m coming back to this point to stress it - I want to see the relationship growth. Remake gave me that for Aerith and Cloud even if the details aren’t to my taste. First meeting is awkward because hey, random stranger/Cloud is tired. Cloud gets involved and spends more time with Aerith. And the high-five thing is used as a clumsy/awkward/eh but clear metaphor for how their relationship develops over the course of their time together.

To the point that yes, it makes sense for Cloud to want to rescue her. Less sense for Elmyra and Tifa to be “Well they might not vivisect her” and then delay for two full chapters, but the whole thing flows.

And here’s where I get accused of being a fake fan: I don’t like how Cloud and Tifa’s relationship develops in Remake. Flirting. Tifa being mildly fazed by Cloud claiming its been five years. Scared when he almost kills Johnny. Maybe hurt depending on your resolution scene (hey podcast people! No Gold Saucer multiple dates because too expensive? How are there branched resolution scenes in Remake then?). But there isn’t growth. They seem to fit into each other’s lives without worry, bit of flirting, strange super-intense moments jammed into inappropriate sequences (the train roll, climbing the plate, Cloud remembering the promise unprompted, Tifa not actually engaged with Avalanche’s plans). There’s no sense anything has changed between them, the missed five years has done anything to them.

And I’m sure some would take this as proof of correctness. But... somehow Remake is better for realism despite a lot of new clumsy, but this relationship is not dinged for being implausible? No way does that five year gap not seriously impact any prior relationship to say nothing of developing from scratch.

See this was a neat thing about the OG; while Tifa seemed to have an edge over Aerith by knowing Cloud longer, he was in effect meeting them at the same point in his life and more or less starting from scratch with both. Both ships are valid, and even if Cloud is with Tifa come the end, it doesn’t mean he can’t have romantic feelings about both women.

Oh, but Nojima has changed his mind/always intended it this way. And? I can change my mind about liking what he’s written - and my patience and tolerance of Nojima has waned massively since 1997. To the point where his involvement invokes a pained groan from me.

Plus the hilarious attitude that this is from the same people who insisted “the OG will always be there, stop moaning about Remake”. Well guess what? I don’t like Remake and I don’t really want it around. The OG is better.

Yes, Tifa is under-served and sure, it could be clearer about shipping (but the apparent hostility to ambiguity and personal interpretation is deeply distressing. These things can mean something to you and don’t have to mean the same thing to everyone. Interpreting the romancs - again - not a competition).

BUT

I will take the OG version of Tifa where she believed in the cause, where she had friends (again, yes, the relationship between Tifa and the rest of Avalanche is not well depicted, but it was better than actively curtailing it), where she ran a bar THAT ACTUALLY OPENED AND SERVED CUSTOMERS, where she hated Shinra, where she didn’t know how to treat Cloud because she had only really talked to him once in her life and DESPITE THAT that they great closer and spent their last night before THE END OF THE WORLD together over the Remake.

Where Tifa is wary of Cloud for about 5 seconds, twice and then defaults to constant flirting. Where Cloud is near smothering Tifa every second they’re together and she doesn’t tell him to fuck off once. Where she’s allied with Avalanche but hates their methods (and the pacifists are in a shop around the corner and she is not with them because...?). Where she has some absurd contrived plot about medical bills and buying Seventh Heaven for Barret and Marlene.

Which would lead to a whole other rant titled “Marle is the Worst” but this has dragged on quite long enough.

But seriously; if you argue that we can’t hate Remake because OG is always there, then you have to stop applying Remake back to OG and using it as proof. Which is exactly why many people bemoaned the Remake at all. OG is one thing, Remake is another. I don’t care for the latter.

And I know if anyone does read all this it will be about the meanie Cleriths who diminish Tifa for no good reason. And yes, they are indeed acting in bad faith. But what makes you think for a second evidence will convince these people?

In particular, the argument has raged so long and always will because if people do not like a ship they will not accept it as canon (if they care about this as a factor) NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. Literally. Look at Loki if you want the most recent example of this.

Canon is to many “what I want” and often does not tally with the general interpretation. And you know, if being “canon” or guessing right early wasn’t triumphed as such a vital thing, we might not get these really terrible and pointless arguments.

Canon is a prize but here’s the big secret: fandom - in general - does not care. FFVII is an excellent case example given Sefikura overwhelms the other ships (and I think AZGSC is close?). And that’s not canon. That’s not even in the ballpark of the Cloud/Tifa vs Cloud/Aerith arena (even give that the former is roughly twice the size of the latter, you already won, so please stop?). Canon is only important if you think its important - and you get some more official art of sequences you can gif. And maybe you get kissing/implied sex/marriage/kids, but most of all you get a smug sense of superiority. And the last is why I have no patience with this.

[i-mushi]

I finished FFVII Remake!

And I kinda want to pretend all the scenes from entering Hojo’s lab onward happened exactly like in the original.

Spoilers below the cut if you haven’t finished

Wh-what was the Kingdom Hearts final battle stuff doing in FFVII? The internet is blowing up with time travel theories of Sephiroth shooting his mind back in time and trying to change fate or somehow learning of his death because it’s sitting in the North Crater feeding off the Planet. But then why did the crew destroy fate if that’s the fate where they defeat Sephiroth? The only person gaining from the destruction of fate was Seph, not AVALANCHE. Was this just a transparent attempt to explain why the plot ahead will be different than original?

I’m not happy about any of that :(

Also, the mood was totally killed as Hojo’s lab dragged on and the trail of purple goo did not lead to the president stabbed in the back. That moment is seared into my memory from my first playthrough: the horror and shock thinking “wait, is there someone else worse than Shinra here?” and “I thought all this security was for me?” as I followed that grisly trail of blood. I get why they had to make that purple goo, it would have probably made it an M rating otherwise. (Also, how could we be denied Barret shouting “Where’s its fucking head?”????) But then there’s zero explanation for how President Shinra is stuck hanging off the balcony (the whispers? Sephiroth? WHY WAS NEITHER MENTIONED THEN) and that whole scene where the president basically proves he’s a sociopathic capitalist to Barret happens, which was unnecessary, we already knew that and that Barret is super upset about being blamed for the plate and hating Shinra (and we were robbed of the opera music while the plate fell too!! salt on the wound!). That tension of never getting the confrontation with the person we THOUGHT was the bad guy, only to realize it’s so much more than that vanished, and instead there’s Barret dying but not (I hate that, I hate every scene where they almost die but the whispers save them, it’s the most deux ex machina thing I’ve ever seen and I write fanfiction), then that super annoying fight with Rufus, and then ten more super annoying fights (MOTORBALL), and then a massive heartless of fate showed up. Oh, and Sephiroth, because apparently we can’t not fight him even though his set up as the arch-villian required an info dump from Aerith ten minutes before. New players lack ANY of the context of Cloud’s backstory with Sephiroth and without the full game get none of the amazing lead up to it, but then there’s also no explanation for why this is intensely personal, which must be kinda weird since no one is also exclaiming “Sephiroth? The guy who’s been dead for 5 years? WHAT IS HE DOING HERE?” 

Lastly, the Midgar Zolom shot where it’s been impaled on a tree is going to lose a lot of it’s oomph now. Chasing after the mysterious man in black was awesome, especially when you get there and realize holy shit this guy is insanely powerful how the hell am i gonna defeat him. Now it’s like, welp, already did that once, so I guess I could impale a dragon/snake on a stick if I wanted.

THERE ARE SOME GOOD THINGS THOUGH

I love the world-building, the depth of Midgar, the way Biggs, Wedge, and Jesse were fleshed out (I wanted to cry when they died damnit, not see Biggs wake the fuck up), the Japanese voices were fantastic (I might play hard mode with the English for flavor), and the MAYOR OF MIDGAR EXPLANATION helped bolster the story enormously except for the Wedge part. I don’t feel like they needed a reason to go to the roof because they learned about the AVALANCHE helicopter ten seconds before finding the trail of not-blood, and Barret could have argued the president should pay for dropping the plate on thousands of innocent lives. Anyway, all the fighting systems were great, the music was insanely awesome, they did a great job hitting the nostalgia points, even the SAVE ICON WAS THE SAME. I was so hyped, I even liked Aerith’s painting on her wall even though I was like, wait a minute, this was way creepier when the doors just randomly became unlocked like a horror game. 

I guess this is both good and bad though. Bad because I didn’t love the ending and I’m worried about the next game, but good because nothing makes me write fanfiction more than fixing the fuck ups canon makes. So yeah, my summer is gonna be spent working on the rewrite. I’ve also been rereading a bunch of it and I think I’m only going to be rewriting the early chapters, probably through the SOLDIER Exam. Past that point my writing got cleaner and more concise, and there were less and less things I was making a note of editing. But the early chapters were written ten years ago and it shows.

BUT DON’T WORRY I’m not going to do what Nomura and Square did to FFVII. This rewrite will be 100% faithful to the original Green Dreams, nothing will change except things will be written more precisely. Honestly, it’s more a massive editing for flow than anything else.

[nikkxb]

7. Talk about me. :}

Unusual(ish) Asks || @uchihacollector

7. Opinion on Lady

Well, we start with the fact that you disappeared off the face of the earth and didn’t call or write or anything and now you pop back up as if nothing’s happened and completely glossed over the fact that I MISSED YOUR FACE AND I MISSED YOUR PRESENCE AND I MISSED JOKING WITH YOU. And I’m really not okay with the lack of Lady in my life so I need you to know that.

Also combined with a bit of aggravation because I spent last night with a group of friends who are all geeking over the FFVII remake. They promised one of the group to explain the entire backstory behind why Sephiroth only has one wing and to answer all of her questions. I, as the resident FFVII Noob™, was geared up to sit there and learn some things because I’m very new to the entire thing.

Only to realize that YOU DIDN’T TELL ME HOW MUCH LORE CRISIS CORE CONTAINS YOU ASS. So I’m actually answering these goddamn questions and filling out the lore that even someone who has been playing FFVII SINCE IT CAME OUT didn’t know because he never had the opportunity to play CC. I’m halfway through explaining how the Buster sword came to be and why it was so big and I’m not supposed to know this, I’ve played 30% of One game. But noooooo, the 3 1/2 hours of cut scenes you had me watch + the really good fanfic writers you recommended who actually built on the world HAD ME GIVING VALUABLE INFORMATION AND I AM NOT OKAY.

You’re a menace. You are an absolute menace who is never satisfied with having your friends on the peripheral of your obsessions and so you drag us in and get us hooked and then laugh and snicker and gallivant off into the sunset celebrating your wicked ways and I would never ever ever want to live a fandom life without you.

I love you dearly, I miss you muchly, and I will forever happily strangle you while also laughing over every little thing that amuses us. ❤️

[leathenorthernlight]

My experience with FFVII

My experience with FFVII is funny.

As I’ve stated before, 7 wasn’t the first FF I knew. 6 was the first one, it was the one I grew up with, the only one I’ve ever played, and I love it, I love it a lot. It’s my favorite FF for a lot of reasons. But, as I’ve said before as well, 7 is the one I’ve dedicated more time.

It might be because it has had a lot of content since the OG came out, so I’ve been more invested on the 7 world a lot more. Or maybe it’s because it’s the most popular one out there and I always end up finding something more about it. Or perhaps it’s because I really enjoy and like the themes and concepts that 7 handles. In any case, the fact is that FF7 is the one I’m more immersed in.

The first playthrough I ever watched was around six or seven years ago. I liked the story a lot. I had troubles loving the characters, but that’s normal since I was not the one playing them, but it’s also true that I just wanted to know the story rather than being attached to the characters. And man, the story did not disappointed.

I already knew that Aerith would die, and the gamer said so a few times over the playthrough, so when the moment came, it didn’t leave the impression that it should have. Even so, I still thought it was a very important and shocking scene. I think that whole scene is pretty well done. It didn’t matter that I knew what was coming, it still was powerful. And the fight with Jenova with Aerith’s theme on the background was a punch right to the feelings. A very well done scene.

However, what ended up exploding my mind was everything after that. Everything that happen in the North Crater was something I did not expect. It’s true that we had clues about something being wrong with Cloud, but that was too much. It was as if everything I knew up until now wasn’t real. Which is awesome because that’s 7 main theme: reality vs. illusion.

Cloud’s breakdown, how he literally became a traitor giving the Black Materia to Sephiroth, Weapon awaking. Ugh, everything was amazing. One of my favorites parts in the whole game, no doubts.

Then, the revelation that Meteor has been invoked. At that moment, despair hit you with all its might.

Then, the scene in the Lifestream came and it was beautiful and we finally got to know the real Cloud, with his memories fixed. What is more, learning about the real role he played in the Nibelheim event was amazing. It never cross my mind that he was actually just a grunt and not a SOLDIER. One of the biggest reveals, I think.

Then, the rest of the game kept me at the edge of my seat. I wanted to know how everything would end. I wanted to know if the team would defeat Sephiroth, if Holy would stop Meteor, if there would be a happy ending after so much hopelessness. And I really think that ending with the Lifestream helping Holy and that little glimpse of Aerith at the end was perfect.

I really liked OG, which led me to search more about it. Actually, that first playthrough I watched was pretty complete, so I watched the secret scene with Zack after Cloud gets his memories back and you go to Shinra mansion. The gamer said that everyone who had played Crisis Core would know exactly who Zack was, so I went and looked for CC playthroughs, and I liked it a lot. Never mind Genesis who is the worst character ever created, but in general, I loved this prequel.

Thanks to CC I loved Zack like a maniac, I liked Aerith more, I warmed up to Cloud, I understood a bit more about Sephiroth and overall, it helped me to get a better picture of the world and lore of FF7. I really enjoyed the new perspective we had as Shinra workers. I might write about my experience with this in another time. Point is I liked it.

Then, searching FF7 related stuff on Internet, I found out there was a movie, so I watched it. I watched both versions: Advent Children, and AC Complete. I liked the Complete version more, but I enjoyed them both. They helped me to see how our characters were doing after the end of game and how the ghosts of their past weren’t as buried as they thought.

I also watched The Last Order OVA and I know it’s not canon, but I liked it anyway because I love Zack and I wanted more content with him. I haven’t had the chance to read the canon novels aside from some fragments here and there, as well as the Ultimanias. I haven’t watch any gameplays of Before Crisis nor Dirge of Cerberus, but I plan to do it, eventually.

I’ll admit that the Remake is what made me remember how much I love this game. I’ve also liked what they did with it, for the most part. I have some doubts, worries and disagreements about what the devs have done or plan to do, which I might talk about another time, but I’ve loved it overall.

I’m excited to see the next part. I just hope they don’t drag this out. They cannot do more than five parts or it would be a pain having to wait one part every two or three years… Although, if I’m honest, I’ll probably forget my passion about the game and will move to another thing until the second part is here. That’s me, alright.

Well, that was my experience with FFVII. I’m planing on writing a series where I’ll talk about the characters, my opinion and experience with them, as well as my feelings about Zerith and Cloti.

[metaknight]

thoughts on FFVII remake so far SPOILERS of course through the middle of Wall Market

These are my opinions god please don’t murder me and don’t read if you don’t want to hear about things that I really hated. 

The good

There’s some really nice character building (Barret my SON he loves to sing and read stories to Marlene) and some cutscenes that have expanded on the original story in a constructive way. Rly gonna hurt later on when bad shit happens to this good found family.

Combat is OFTEN very fluid, you feel super cool and badass as any of the characters. Boss fights are OFTEN really well designed, especially certain duels (Rude aww yeah loved fighting him). Tifa wrecks shit go go go.

Some good puzzle areas, like the route to Mako Reactor 5 through the plate with all the moving bridges and shit. Loved that, tons of fighting and puzzles to get to good materia. Wall Market is also shaping up to be a cool puzzle area like the original.

The BAD

Too many cutscenes, or sequences where you have to walk slowly while the characters discuss nothing new but instead re-hash their already stated thoughts and feelings, and if you start getting too far ahead the game will put an invisible wall in front of you so that you have to go back and watch your party members WAVE AT A CAT so you can hear them rambling some more. It really does feel like a movie sometimes, in a bad way.

No one is normal in this game. All of the new minor characters or characters whose personalities have been expanded since the original - Roche, Johnny, Madam M, even the single fight sewer bandits - feel more at home in an over-the-top Kingdom Hearts setting than they do in FFVII. I KNOW FFVII has its silly side, I KNOW, but those strange moments in the original made you love the characters, even random npcs, more because it was a relatable silliness. It made the world more diverse. The FFVII remake versions of characters aren’t silly, they’re insane. They’re annoying. There is nothing even slightly relatable or charming about them. Chocobo stable guy is the only guy I’ve met yet who I found charming. 

Several segments where the game gives you NO indication what you’re supposed to be doing to move the story forward, so you’re stuck running endless circles trying to find the single action that will get things moving. It worked in a top-down world with fewer details, it does NOT work as well when there’s a hundred people to talk to in a fully fleshed-out slum. Examples - waiting in the bar for ages only to realize you’re supposed to play with the dartboard, waiting for Aerith FOREVER until you overhear the one conversation needed to get her to come out of that damn building.

There are a lot of mini games and puzzles slotted in to pad the game, and some of them are fun, but many are time-wasters - the hand crane puzzles in Aerith’s sewer shortcut, the INFURIATING don’t-wake-up-Aerith game that forces you through load screens when you fuck it up, etc. I’d take extra exploration/battle areas over these games any day. The second Mako reactor mission was an absolute treasure, please keep replicating it, Square.

The normal battles are pretty easy, which is fine cause it’s nice to breeze through them. Boss battles are appropriately challenging, but out of nowhere will come INSANE boss battles that are on a completely different level of challenge, and you’re supposed to be utilizing mechanics that were mentioned maybe once at the beginning of the game (Reno and the Punisher mode counterattack???????). There’s also the issue of dodge vs block - the game doesn’t appropriately explain to you that the dodge doesn’t have i-frames, so it should only be used against certain attacks while guarding is used for everything else. I was trying to play it like Bloodborne until I looked it up on reddit. Your main character is also very easily interrupted, even during their special abilities, spells and item usage, which not only wastes MP or an item, but also removes your full ATB gauge, forcing you to start up the hack-and-slash routine again. It’s a weird hybrid between turn-based and action-oriented that makes it VERY hard to adjust to sudden difficulty spikes.

The graphics are fine. I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about low res backgrounds/textures and our main characters being hyper detailed while all the NPCs are flat. It’s not that noticeable, and it’s to be expected for this gen of consoles. Love kicking those construction signs and tables around, reminds me of Soulsborne games.

THE SUMMARY (so far, I’m still only in Wall Market)

This is not the faithful remake that many of us were hoping for, and it does suffer from modern Square-Enix BULLSHIT and BLOAT, which should not have been surprising. 

The battle system REALLY works when it DOES work, it can be cool and fluid, but is often an exercise in frustration. Action games need a lot of polished mechanics to work, which isn’t exactly happening here.

The story is pretty overbearing. I don’t mind the linearity because yes, the Midgar section of the original is almost completely linear too. But the constant cutscening, walking segments and reiteration of already stated facts and feelings really drags the game down. While our main cast has become even more lovable, a lot of new and old characters are written in a way that makes me cringe.

Bottom-line: If you’re willing to sit through a lot of cutscenes, the battle sections are fun as hell even with their numerous issues. 7/10 will probably not play again, but still looking forward to its sequel.