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icharchivist · 2 years ago

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I apologize for busting in your askbox Icha, but I saw you and an anon discussing the FF7 remake and I am so so curious as to know what did they change/leave out? I have heard it wasn't as good a remake as most were hoping for, and am just curious what changed. 👀 (If you don't have the time or energy though then no worries! 💖)

All the best for you, always, Icha! 💕

you're all good no worries <3333

And ahh yeah the big question huh!

The thing is that the remake isn't actually a remake and they lied about it being one, so that's kind of the big of the issue in a sense?

The major difference is completely related to Sephiroth (king of causing problems on purpose).

The remake is actually a sequel set in a timeloop only Sephiroth, and it's implied, Aerith too, are aware is happening, seemingly provoked by Sephiroth himself, as the Sephiroth we see during the game is from the Future.

More details under the cut and it will mention a few major plot beats spoilers from the 1997 game the remake hasn't really touched on yet (but since you mentioned reading Sephiroth's wiki page it should be okay?)

(also more salt 😭)

(and i got long ✌️)

The remake was set to be cut in multiple parts, the first part covering the Midgar portion of the game which takes about like, 6 hours to complete max? before you leave to the open world that is the rest of the game. The first part wanted to extend on Midgar, so those first 6 hours of content were extended and padded in, for better or for worse.

Problem is? Sephiroth doesn't appear at all in this portion of the game. In the Original game, Sephiroth is built in very slowly, first by hearing him being name dropped a lot, then learning he caused a massacre in the Shinra HQ, and then, once you leave Midgar, Cloud will actually tell you about who Sephiroth used to be and why now they have to find him. Still after that, in the OG, you spend a very long time following a trail of murders committed by Sephiroth before ultimately meeting him in Junon, which is about 10 hours into the game. And, notable, Sephiroth doesn't care about nor notice Cloud until their run in in Junon, where Sephiroth even first is startled in meeting him bc he doesn't put together right away who Cloud is.

But the first part of the remake only covers the Midgar part of the game, the first 6 hours. And they didn't want to do this part without Sephiroth.

So they came up with another plot instead:

the remake is set in a timeloop of the story happening over and over again, except that Sephiroth From The Future cheated his way into coming here at the beginning of the game and starting to haunt Cloud on purpose.

Basically, anything you see about Sephiroth in the remake pt1 isn't in the OG. His dynamic with Cloud also is straight up pulled from post-game canon's dynamic, so no longer the slow build up to how Sephiroth actually took some time to start obsessing over Cloud and ruining his life.

Sephiroth spends all of his moments in the remake making sure to taunt Cloud about the history about to repeat itself. He taunts him about how he's going to kill Aerith before Cloud even knows who Aerith is. He taunts Cloud also by throwing back words Zack once told him, he appears at random specifically to spite Cloud, it's an overall mess.

His involvement in the plot also creates a whole new type of enemies which are called the Specters. They're sort of ghostly figures who, we learn, are actually "keeper of the canon", trying desperately to make sure the timeline happens exactly as it happened in the original game. (for example, there's a scene where Hojo takes a look at Cloud and, suddenly puts together that he has met him before and almost says it aloud. The specters appear and take Hojo away so he doesn't finish his sentence because in the Original game, Hojo doesn't realize who Cloud is until way into the 3rd act, and Cloud can't know why Hojo knows him. It's actually important for Cloud's storyarc that Hojo doesn't spill the deeds until that point.)

Aerith is originally the only one being haunted by the Specters and it's implied she is seeing visions of her death. Cloud is also seeing vision of her death once he gets in contact with the specters.

The game ends after a battle with Sephiroth (again, he's not supposed to be here) which also ends up destroying the Specters, with the implication that from now on, the characters have the free will to not follow the path of canon. Aerith herself, again, who's hinted to know she's going to die, makes a speech about how the future isn't set in stone and they have to move forward.

The remake also ends on an alternative timeline playing at the exact same time, as the Specters have been destroyed into every timeline ever, where the Specters aren't there to make sure Zack dies shortly before the plot of the remake starts. So we get to see an alternative timeline where Zack has lived, but, since his death is the cataclysm in Cloud getting out of coma, Cloud is still in coma.

We're still unsure where it's going to go.

The major problems I have with the remake is basically this whole thing. There's stuff the remake do differently as it adds on to the game (like adding a full sidequest to flesh out Jessie, which isn't in the OG). Some of those however, imo, are not really good, but at least it's just mostly an interpretation choice.

One thing that bugged me with the remake for instance is that, as you're probably aware, ff7 follows a group of eco-terrorist, Avalanche, who try to take down an immoral company, Shinra, that is abusing and killing the earth. In the OG, the act of terrorism actually do cause a lot of damage and death, and it's actually left ambiguous in the game if those are actually on Avalanche's hands, or if Shinra is actually framing them by overblowing the damage they caused.

In the remake, it's pretty much confirmed it's all propaganda and Avalanche has been doing things cleanly and it's only another violent branch of Avalanche we aren't related to that causes crimes.

It removes a nuance and it will also therefore makes Barret and Reeves's confrontation later in the game a bit more hollow, because the whole thematic of "are you willing to accept the collateral damage of the extreme action you're forced to take" is lessened by the approach of Avalanche not having done anything actually harmful. the OG has more nuances over it, ultimately siding with Avalanche and Barret, but genuinely addressing that there's still a responsibility they have for all of this.

At the same time they also paint Rufus Shinra in a better light than the OG did, trying to make it look like he's actually trying to do some good, which i'm dubious about.

But, at least, on that point, it's expanding on the original game and adding context, whenever this context is good or not.

In the same level but that i don't mind, it also explores Tifa being conflicted about being a terrorist more.

Some additions that makes sense but end up being a little bugging on the long term are related to Cloud's mental health in general (or, more likely, complete lack of.)

I need to mention more about Cloud first but basically:

Cloud has something Seriously Wrong going on with him and you don't know what it is most of the OG because he always tells you with perfect confidence that things are fine. He has hallucinations, he has mental breakdowns, something is haunting him. He's supposed to be an Ex-Soldier, but no one who should know Soldiers seem to recognize him or know who he is. He recalls the Nibelheim incident in details to Tifa at some point and Tifa is unnerved without telling us exactly what's up. Aerith mentions she sees her ex in Cloud a lot.

(anything else i'm going to mention forward aren't covered in the remake yet, so the exact handling of it all is left for debate, but i think it's relevant to how some things are handled in the remake pt1)

If you bring Tifa and Aerith to Zack's house in the OG Zack's parents will ask Cloud if he knows about Zack, and Cloud will say he knows nothing about him, which will really unnerve both of the girls who are going to start saying cryptic things to Cloud that he doesn't manage to interpret, mainly Aerith trying to press Cloud into if he's SURE he doesn't know Zack (which is when she mentions it's her ex.)

in the OG, it all built up as Sephiroth starts to mind control Cloud as a puppet, nearly have him kill Aerith during one of those puppet moment (before killing her the moment Cloud manages to break away from the mind control), and then make him see a vision of the Nibelheim incident that doesn't show Cloud at all, instead all the moments Cloud remembers doing seems to be done by Zack. Cloud finds it stupid, thinks Sephiroth is lying, and asks Tifa to back him up, which is met with Tifa's silence as she herself has a breakdown, because the vision Sephiroth is showing them is what Tifa actually remembers. Cloud was never there during Nibelheim and she's been doubting her own sanity the whole time because Cloud's recollection of the event is too precise, so it must mean SHE remembers it wrong right?

But when Sephiroth forces them to see the reality, it breaks the two of them, and then he breaks Cloud further by telling him that all of this is only because Cloud himself doesn't exist, but instead is a failed Clone of Sephiroth, who was always meant to be him, and that it's why Cloud has memories only Sephiroth would know about, and that he belongs to and with Sephiroth. This is why no member of Shinra they ran into seems to remember Cloud at all. He never existed. This is the last straw in breaking Cloud's spirit completely, and he becomes Sephiroth's little plaything, that ends up helping Sephiroth triggering the apocalypse.

But Tifa is Cloud's childhood friend. she doesn't remember him being there during the Nibelheim incident, but they were still friend before that. At this point of the game we switch MC and play as Tifa as she tries to understand what's wrong with Cloud because clearly Sephiroth is lying, yet he DOES have a control over Cloud and he's right about Nibelheim so, what is going on?

and bc of some magic i won't enter into details to, we get to learn the truth: Cloud is actually Cloud, not a clone. He was there during Nibelheim, but not as a soldier, but one of the infantry working under Zack, who also was a friend and a mentor to him. He was so ashamed of coming back home without making it to Soldier he hid his face the whole time. So the whole thing is his recollection of Nibelheim. after Sephiroth tried to kill them and Cloud managed to get rid of him for a time, Tifa, Zack and Cloud were all mortally wounded, and while Tifa was taken away safely by a friend, Zack and Cloud were recovered by Shinra's scientist (Hojo), who did experiments on them by infusing them with Sephiroth's DNA. It didn't take in on Zack, but it ruined Cloud's mentally and brought him into a catatonic state. Zack manages to get them to escape a few years later and spend the rest of his life trying desperately to protect Cloud, so much so that he will die trying to protect him. This is when Cloud manages to wake up, and the last trauma of having Zack dying for him and giving him his sword, mixed to the experiments and everything, messed with Cloud's mind. He got amnesia out of it and started to take elements of Zack's life as his own, imitating him, confusing memories of Zack as himself doing those things, stuff like that.

(side note, considering the fandom we know each other for: geez amnesia guy who is in this situation because he handled very badly the death of a loved one up on a hill in the last attempt of said loved one to save him? never heard that one before.)

It's only at this point of the game everything starts to make sense - the rest of the time, we're really served to "Cloud doesn't seem to exist", so when Sephiroth says Cloud is just his clone, we believe it the same way Cloud believes in it. It's a masterful manipulation moment in video game history imo because it really puts us in Cloud's shoes and have us believe Sephiroth as well because we've only ever had Cloud's POV on things, so we react the same way when Sephiroth starts to play with Cloud's mind.

*takes deep breath*

all of that to say that therefore the fact the remake actually hammers in a lot that a lot of people at Shinra recognizes Cloud actually totally undermine this reveal completely. When it's Hojo, it still can work because whenever Cloud is a clone or not, Hojo would have been involved. But some infantry men mentions recognizing Cloud because they used to work together. so like. already ruining one of THe major twist of the game don't we? (they literally mention that Kunsel (players of the prequel would know this guy as Zack's best friend back in the days) has been looking for Cloud. while the impact of that only really land if you know who Kunsel is, it still means Cloud's existence is known and has values inside of Shinra.)

but we ruin it even more by showing the alternative timeline where Zack survives.

Cloud still has mental breakdowns in the remake and i think its swell, but a few of them are far less subtle than the OG were, not to mention it's now also linked to flashforward to what is *supposed* to happen, to the fact Cloud feels like he's going to kill Aerith one day.

I genuinely don't think the "maybe he was a clone all along" fake reveal would work on the player at all with the way the remake is handling it. The moment they showed the Zack survives timeline, it was done and buried.

With the content of the remake itself, while Sephiroth acts in character, i do genuinely hate that we go straight to post-canon Sephiroth while he has one of the most interesting build up as a villain, especially with how slowly he started to pay attention to Cloud and his group before deciding he's going to make his life his unending nightmare.

The "Keeper of the canon" antagonists that have to be defeated so the characters can write their own fate has been bugging me for a while now, not being sure where the game is going. Like i mentioned lately, i don't think ff7 is a story that works when you make it about fate. Aerith especially is put in a really delicate situation because, as i was saying in a recent ask, her death is the catalyst of the core thesis of the game. And with the Zack's alt timeline showing that Cloud doesn't wake up if Zack lives, it means the remake can go one of two ways here: either it won't kill Aerith, for free will, and it will undo everything the plot is building itself around, or it will make her death unavoidable, punishing us by making sure we know Aerith is meant to be doomed and nothing else.

I've been on the fence about the ending of the remake for the past few years, not liking the way it was a "stealth sequel", not liking the way they decided to make Sephiroth the evil villain without showing us his nuances the way the OG did by bringing his most evil version directly from the start into the game. I had some grievance here and there but yeah.

But i've been trying to stay cautiously opened to it all.

The discussions those past few days have been because of the trailer of pt2 of the remake, Rebirth, teased to come out soon.

i'm linking the post here, but the long story short is that the trailer is doubling down on the whole "is fate going to be rewritten", but also on the absolute lack of subtility or care for the actual mystery that was raised by the OG.

Mainly, the Rebirth trailer has Tifa discuss with Aerith that she doesn't remember Cloud was here during the Nibelheim incident. The one thing that is supposed to be a major twist, completely done with. The shock the player has when Tifa doesn't back up Cloud when confronted to Sephiroth's recollection of Nibelheim? Misplaced, removed from its punch, hammering again in that there's something So Wrong with Cloud.

Worse: in the trailer Sephiroth taunts Cloud by telling him that Jenova (his alien mother) has the ability to change appearance and imitate people. And that Cloud saw Sephiroth "kill" Tifa. So "how can he be sure Tifa is the real her?"

So Tifa showing her doubt about the Nibelheim event is set up to have you doubt her.

And as i mentioned in the post, it makes sense for Post-canon Sephiroth to change his strategy in how to attack Cloud's psyche and manipulate him because at this point he knows Cloud relies on his friends to hold on to his sanity, so now he wants to remove the way he relies on them.

But i find it vulgar and uninteresting compared to the actual gaslighting going on in the OG. Also with how i feel like if Sephiroth starts to pull the OG's gaslighting at Cloud, it would be so weird after he already tried to pin him against Tifa, because he would sound like a tryhard who's changing his strategy lmao. idk his gaslighting worked on Cloud because Cloud trusted Tifa so fully. By having him doubt Tifa it changes the dynamic. And why would Sephiroth insists "no no actually remember i killed Tifa so you can't trust this Tifa" if his endgoal is "actually you're not real and you only have my memories xoxo" yaknow?

*TAKES A DEEP BREATH*

So that's my major issue with the remake, and ik it involves a lot of "oh this new thing they set up is going to ruin future things" so it can still be left for debate just how much this is actually a bad thing and how much i'm just building problems in my head, but yeah the issue really comes from the pitch itself that it's *not* a remake like they said it would be, but a sequel in a timeloop, and it has to be considered as such. And personally i'm genuinely not a fan of the concept.

on another just general notes elements that were changed/added in the remake that don't really matter on a major "plot is changed" level:

-There's whole new dungeons for sections that takes 5 minutes in game, which can go from "this is the most hollow and boring thing i've ever seen" (anything happening on the way to Reactor 5 once they leave the train), to "hey that's pretty good for character exploration actually" (the train graveyard being just a place you walk through, to exploring Aerith's fears and having her bond with Tifa)

-Fleshing out the slums era of the game. you don't spend a lot of time in Sector 7 or 6 in the OG but the game makes sure you see just how full of life those places are. It gets really long with some quests that aren't totally worth it, but sector 7 especially helps fleshing it out and it's really nice.

-Wall Market also gets a way longer quest which personally does bore me to death, but at least it did completely overhaul a huge part of the OG that didn't age well at all with the Honey Bee Inn, so that's nice.

-I mentioned a whole sidequest related to Jessie especially that's really nice, that have you spend more time with Biggs and Wedge in particular. I got a crush on Biggs and Jessie out of that while i never cared about them like this in the 15 years i've been invested in this game so i think it means something.

-The DLC is a full Yuffie centric campaign that is a completely new addition to even bring up in the game, but isn't specifically out of place. Nothing implies Yuffie would have gone through that in the OG, and i think it kinda pushes her on a more "mature" storyline than when we meet her, but considering Yuffie was an optional character who had her plotline cutdown in the OG to start with, i think it's fair enough.

This DLC also has Yuffie forced to face people from Deep Ground, which is a secret program we only learn about in the sequel video game called Dirge of Cerberus, which focus on Vincent and has Yuffie as a supporting character this whole time. With Yuffie being involved in this storyline later, i do think it's interesting to give her reasons to be involved with it in the remake to start with.

also DoC is a bad game (and honestly i wonder if they'll even remake it too bc of that lmao) but Deep Ground is a FASCINATING concept and i've been eating up every single way the rest of the saga has included Deep Ground into its plot, so i really do like that there's not only mentions of it in the remake but also a tangible proof of its existence. Maybe now we'll know what happened to Genesis! @ Remake tell us what happened to Genesis or so help me, we're like 5 people to be obsessed with him come ON.

and one thing i might be a bit iffy about:

-In the Original Game, you get to pick a lot of Cloud's dialogues, at least up until the point Cloud learns about his past, in which case you suddenly don't have control over him anymore. Fans have theorized for decades that as a result, you are the person influencing which is Cloud's persona we're putting forward. Are we playing up the way he's inspired by Zack by picking the flirty options? are we playing up this cold idea of a Soldier he has probably inspired by Sephiroth by the colder options? so on and so forth.

This ends up also playing on the fact there are different possible romance path option (including one with Barret) in the OG, which are reliant on those options.

Most of those dialogues have been revamped completely in the remake so that Cloud's characterization is completely reliant on the game's narrative, not on the player. You don't get to pick most of Cloud's dialogues. The romance paths also are revamped so you have completely different triggers to them instead. the options that would have Cloud unlock a date with Barret also have been completely removed from the remake, and instead we have a whole new romance path with Cloud being able to get a kiss from Jessie depending on how he does on one of the quest. how come a game from 1997 was more bi-friendly than a game from 2020 i swear.

For this later it's not something i have *particularly* strong feelings about in comparison to the main issue i have with the game, i don't care about the romance in ff7 to start with, but i'm a bit sad we lose the whole "the player is choosing Cloud's persona until the point Cloud remembers who he actually is" aspect the OG had.

SO THIS SHOULD COVER IT ALL.

So, the game has a lot of difference with the OG, and on the details it's not bad at all.

Unfortunately the major driving plotpoint of the remake is something that makes it a sequel rather than a remake and i find it Bad.

... sorry for the very very long answer but i'm really passionate about the OG, so i can't help but pick those stuff up 😭

Hope it gives you some insight into it!!

Take care!

#ichareply #ichafantalks fvii #ichasalty #moonmuffins

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