FFVII R Episodes

[maybee]

How do you think the Episodes are going to go and how many and why ?


Episode 1 : Midgar. 2020 PS4.

Episode 2 : Kalm/ Cloud Flashback, Junon, Yuffie, Costa Del Sol, Gold Saucer, Corel Prison and Dyne. Ends with Chocobo race and the news about the "Black Materia".

2022 PS5

Episode 3 : Buggy, Cosmo Canyon, Nibelhiem, Vincent Valentine, Cid Highwind, Gold Saucer Date, Temple of the Ancients. Aerith Leaves. 2025 PS5.

Episode 4 : Aerith. Northern Crater. Black Materia. 2027 PS5- PS6 ?

Episode 5 : Junon. Cloud's inner mind. Return to Midgar. Hojo. Final Dungeon. 2029-2030. PS5-PS6 ?

[fat_moogle]

I don't know, but I really hope it won't span three console generations. By all means release a complete collection on PS6 but I'm really hoping that the whole FFVII Remake Saga will be available to play on PS5.

[Fynn]

Episode 1: Midgar
Episode 2: Either up to Aerith’s Death or the Crater
Episode 3: Huge Materia and Final Battle

I honestly don’t know how else they could slice it if they want each game to be a self-contained narrative whole. Unless the rewrites are huge enough to get additional scenarios that would fill up space. Also, Midgar is not only huge but also very dense compared to the rest o of the game - having it be the first third of the complete story isn’t really outside the realm of possibilty

[Wolf Kanno]

Optimistically:

Episode 2: To the end of Disc 1
Episode 3: Disc 2 and Disc 3

Pessimistically:

Episode 2: Up to the end of Junon
Episode 3: Boat ride to Gold Saucer ~ Will be released for both PS4 and PS5
Episode 4: Zack's hometown up to Rocket Town ~ PS5 Exclusive from here on out.
Episode 5: Wutai to end of Disc 1
Episode 6: Icicle Inn to party escaping Junon ~ About here is when SE will launch the episodes along side their streaming services
Episode 7: Finding Cloud to his return
Episode 8: End of Big Materia quest
Episode 9: Showdown in Midgard
Episode 10: Final Dungeon to ending.

[Lord Golbez]

3 game scenario: Same as WK's optimistic.

4 game scenario: 2. Leaving Midgar to Nibelheim
3. Nibelheim to Crater
4. Escape Junon to endgame.

5-game scenario: 2. End at Gold Saucer after Corel prison
3. End at Aeris Death
4. End after escape Junon.
5. Huge materia to endgame.

I can't imagine dragging it out more than 5 games. Midgar is already probably a solid 20% of the original game and also surely has more sheer conceptual work to build on than most other areas. Going more than 5 would feel unbelievably padded. Even more than 3 is probably going to stretch it.

[Wolf Kanno]

I think it's possible they could drag this out farther, I mean, we all treat Midgard like its a huge part of the first disc, but it's really like the first quarter of it at best and you can get out of there in under ten hours if you just try to speed through it. So just trying to stretch that out to thirty some extra hours tells me they are going to pad the hell out of it. If so, why not the rest? I mean Junon is actually a pretty fun excursion and I could see that being drawn out further especially if they do a sequences where you play as each character individually trying to get into the place and leaving.

More realistically, I wouldn't be surprised if SE chose to make the chapters shorter and cheaper, turning this into an annual event like Ubisoft with a new installment being every spring for like $29.95 for the next ten years followed by the inevitable collections and special editions of next gen. Course it's really going to come down to how the do Chapter 1 and 2. For instance, if part of the reason Chapter 1 is so long is because they plan on just putting the Nibelheim flashback early and skipping Kalm all together then that could easily explain why they are stretching this part out, and thus Chapter 2 can start somewhere else. The other issue at hand that this first chapter is going to avoid by sticking to Midgard is seeing how SE handles the world map. They could easily ignore it and have each chapter placed in a particular location. I mean I could totally see Episode 2 opening with Cloud and the crew riding down a highway as they pass Fort Condor with Barret and Red XIII exchanging the info about the place and then have the actual game portion start once the crew reach Junon and turn it into a multi-party segment where you move back and forth between Cloud's escapades we know about and watching the rest of the team do their own thing. Junon is a big sprawling city, would make level design easier and we can avoid doing any open world stuff. Likewise, Gold Saucer is pretty huge and largely goes into Barret's past, so I can see that also getting expanded on.

The one sequence I do expect some major changes to from the original will likely be the return to Nibelheim, which in addition to probably having Vincent's recruitment be mandatory and likely changed around a bit to be less... video gamey. I also imagine the idea of talking to the fake villagers and uncovering what's going on there will be changed to have more story basis to it with Barret making a bigger deal about Cloud's story, Cloud running off to discover the truth with Aerith running after him, and Tifa revealing more about her uncertainty of what really happened. That whole place could easily be turned into a large mystery section with more foreshadowing about Zack and what not and Sephiroth and his shadows playing mind games on Cloud.

Granted, it's too soon to say of course, so we'll have to wait until the first chapter gets released to get a better assessment of what episodes are going to be like, though I feel like Episode 2 is going to be the better baseline entry since that will be the point we reach content that can easily be cut from the game. I'm still feeling like "two blu-ray discs worth of content" isn't going to be as much as SE PR wants players to think it will be, and most of that space is going to be just fitting all these scaled vistas within Midgard and the graphics into a game because SE forgot how to cut corners. I wouldn't be surprised if the second disc was entirely the Shin-Ra Building and escaping Midgard. Nor would I be surprise if the game comes in under twenty hours of pure story content and the other thirty hours is just new quest like trout to kill time with.

[Lord Golbez]

20 hours of story content isn't that little, especially for an ARPG. That's a decent "full game" length, especially if it's not counting optional material. I'm more concerned about whether the extra length will be of any interest than how much extra there is.

I also tend to think you're either underestimating the length of Midgar or overestimating the length of other portions of the first disc. Especially given how text heavy Midgar is. The other places probably have more length coming from random battles and walking. Take Junon. As you've noted, it's a pretty huge place, though not so much compared to Midgar. However, not much happens there on your first time through. It's pretty much just another waypoint along the way. The section from leaving Midgar to leaving Junon is much shorter than Midgar (less than half I'd argue) and probably almost half of that is the Kalm flashback, which you've predicted will be moved to the first game. The only dungeon type area in that section is Mithril Mines and that's an extremely short one that's probably briefer than the opening bombing mission and more on par with the train graveyard. It get a little longer if you throw in the Fort Condor battles, but that's completely optional at that point of the game. You'd probably have to go at least to end of Barret's story in the desert prison, maybe Gongaga (which is also optional in the original anyway) or Cosmo Canyon before you've equaled the length of Midgar. I reckon somewhere around Nibelheim is probably the halfway point of the game, not counting endloading grind/side questing that tends to stretch out the post disc 1 parts a bit, and if they expanded it, it could be a good place to end the second episode.

[Wolf Kanno]

Junon has a bit more going for it than you seem to remember. First you have to save the little girl to get the dolphin to be friends, then Cloud has to pretend to be a soldier and practice for the march, then you get to explore the town a bit which is probably the third largest city in the game only behind Midgard and Gold Saucer, Then you have to do the mini-game for Rufus and finally you get on the boat, which I would count as part of the chapter as I feel the Jenova battle is a good stopping point. My reasoning for Junon though is that as I pointed out, there is a lot of stuff that can be expanded on here. You're mostly stuck as Cloud for the whole thing in the original and if they wanted to make Junon its own chapter there is enough potential content to do so if they simply expanded the scenario to explain what everyone else was doing at the time.

There are a lot of locations like this throughout the game and depending on the story to game ratio of each episode, I don't feel its out of the realm of possibilities this series will be longer than people think it will be. I would say Four Chapters is a reasonable number but that's assuming the games drop certain locations, quests, and the world map to make up for all the expanded scenario stuff and minimize backtracking. Personally I feel six or seven episodes may be more likely for the project, not simply because of a cynical cash grab, but because there are a lot of lore rich parts of this game that seriously under-peformed in the original, and if they want to fix those in the remake, they have plenty of space to do so. If they can get the games released on a annual or semi-annual basis, then I don't feel it will be a problem for fans depending on the quality and price range of future installments. The real big x-factor in all this is whether they're going to be forced to retool the game engine due to feedback. Serial chapter installments work best if the core gameplay is good but if there is some major flaw or fan backlash to some element of it and they try to fix it down the road, it will likely cause delays.

I feel you're overestimating how long Midgard really was. I mean Reactor 1 attack, return to sector 7 to meet Tifa and get some backstory, next Reactor mission, meet Aerith and escape the Turks, cross-dressing event, Sector 7's destruction, break into Shin-Ra, get captured, break free and meet Rufus, big escape. Midgard is pretty dense in story, but its also incredibly linear and there isn't as many areas in the original since you do backtrack quite a bit but its never a big deal since you can get from Aerith's church to the back end of Wall Market in under ten minutes. The longest section itself is actually the cross-dressing mini-game and the Shin-Ra tower, but even with a little level grinding, it really should take you less than ten hours to complete Midgard in normal play for the original game. It's one of the few decently paced parts of the game.

I'm honestly more interested to see how they'll approach the back half of Disc 1 and all of Disc 2 since I feel like the locations get less and less time spent there once you leave Cosmo Canyon. As I mentioned before, not a whole lot actually happens in Nibelheim outside of the optional Vincent recruitment quest, but I really feel like that's going to be a place where we're going to see some more heavy handed changes. Rocket Town is short, Wutai is optional and then we're just wandering around looking for the Temple of Ancients which is basically the last traditional dungeon on the disc before we get to the big boo-hoo scene. I still feel like we may see them skip over places. I feel Kalm will likely get dropped as well as the Mythril Cave. I can also see them skipping over Fort Condor and just introducing it when they do the Big Materia quest because that place is basically just a mini-game hell hole to begin with. I also feel like Mideel will be a place you see in cutscenes, but never actually explore. I still imagine Yuffie will be recruited before Junon. I also don't see the whole Big Materia quest will be a one disc deal since Cloud's true backstory is a giant momentum killer in the middle of the quest and will likely be stretched out a bit longer as well. Oddly, I feel the one really major change from the original I can see happening is dropping the Northern Crater as the final dungeon and simply have Sephiroth either manifest in Midgard to face the party and get a front row seat for Meteor or simply have the party use Midgard as the entrance way to face him. Midgard is so iconic to the game, I could see them making it the sight of the last battle and it gets around one of many minor plot holes about his plan.

[Lord Golbez]

Yes, Midgar should take less than 10 hours. On the other hand there's absolutely no reason other than level grinding that getting to the boat should take you more than 5 from there. Even if you do all the Fort Condor battles (I think there's like 3 in that portion of the game) and recruit Yuffie, it should take less than 5. I really don't understand why you're trivializing the missions in Midgar while overemphasizing the activities in Junon. Most of those missions might be short but there's more to them than play a few mini-games and fight one boss in Junon. Sure Junon has a little more to it than most non-Midgar towns but one flashback town, one short dungeon, and a pretty big town with some more plot than a typical town really doesn't compare to the opening in Midgar at all. So let's compare.

Dungeons: 1. First reactor
2. Second reactor
3. Sewers, Train Graveyard, Climbing up the plate for sector 7 - sure count this as one if you like. They're each quite short on their own but there's no question that combined they're bigger than Mithril Mines as are all others in the list.
4. Shinra HQ - This should honestly probably count as 2 or 3 dungeons given the different stages, but whatever.

Vs.

1. Mt. Nibelheim in the flashback (sort of, even though this is practically on autopilot)
2. Mithril Mines.

Pretty clear when you consider the extent of these dungeons that Midgar has more than double the content here.

Bosses: 1. Scorpion
2. Robot SOLDIER (forget that actual name)
3. Sewer boss
4. Reno
5. Hojo's experiment
6. Elevator bosses
7. Rufus
8. Escaping Midgar boss

Vs.

1. That boss in the beach in Junon. That's it. Unless you want to count grinding to beat Midgar Zolom.

This one is just so lopsided. They'd have to add a whole lot more in the way of bosses to flesh this out. Probably fight the Turks in the Mithril Mines for starters

Town areas to talk to people:
1. Sector 7 slum
2. Train
3. Sector 6 slums
4. Wall Market
5. Multiple floors of the Shinra HQ building

Vs.

1. Kalm
2. Flashback Nibelheim
3. Chocobo farm
4. Fort Condor
5. Lower Junon
6. Upper Junon

This one is more even and I might even give a slight edge to the second one on this given the size of Junon. However if we went purely on story text Midgar would take the lead for sure.

Mini-games/Miscellaneous:
1. Barrels with Aeris
2. Cloud Cross-dressing - technically multiple mini-games including Honeybee Inn and squats.
3. Batteries to get up to Shinra HQ
4. Motorcycle

1. Chocobo catching
2. Fort Condor
3. CPR
4. Dolphin
5. March
6. Poses

I'm not sure where to go here. I'm half inclined to make the numbers even by counting guessing the Mayor's password and going through the vents to get items in Shinra HQ, but those could be considered part and parcel of dungeons. I definitely wanted to count the barrels, however brief, because I didn't count the church as a dungeon. Also CPR and dolphin are arguably as brief. Honestly, the only real contenders here are cloud crossdressing and fort condor. Everything else is probably a wash. Doing all 3 Fort Condor battles is most likely longer, but it is optional.

Junon has some potential unexplored depth, but Midgar basically has 5 or 6 sectors that you don't explore plus the upper city of which you basically only catch a glimpse other than Shinra HQ.

Adding the boat and Jenova fight would even things out a bit more, but it would still be clearly more on the Midgar side.

[WarZidane]

Midgar is also so iconic and basically the center of FF7's world.

Given that, while we can't say for sure they won't expand the rest of the game as much as they did Midgar, it's still a reasonably safe assumption.

[Del Murder]

Seems like they'll draw out Midgar, especially since they have shown some scenes not in the original and no trailer up to now has shown any other location. It would be nice if they got a little further in episode 1 but that's fine since Midgar is the iconic location and has a lot that wasn't explored in the original.

I'm hoping that Episode 2 will be through the end of disc 1 (Aerith) and Episode 3 will be the remainder of the game. I'm not sure I'd be a fan if they broke this into more installments than three.

[Fox]

Intuitively I agree that more than 3 would really suck, however I haven't played the first one yet so who knows how they're going to handle it. All I will say for certain is that each installment has to stand on its own two feet and be a complete, satisfying narrative in itself. If they can do that, maybe I could cope with more than 3 for 20% of my overall life expectancy but I'd be surprised.

[Wolf Kanno]

@ Lord Golbez - You're missing my point here. Yes Midgar has a lot of potential stuff to see to get expanded on, but so do later sections as well which is really what I'm trying to emphasize here, and I feel Junon has a lot of potential since there are some serious gaps in the story here for pacing convenience. SE plans on dragging Midgard out to a full game length, but people talking about a 3 Episode series would mean they would largely play out the rest of the game with little changes when the first episode gives the impression we may be seeing more expansion to large parts of the game. That's my real point here, not whether Midgar is longer than Junon, yeah it is, but that doesn't change the fact that Junon has enough story/lore dense content that it also couldn't be expanded into a full 30 hour episode if the devs wanted to.

Three episodes feels unrealistic to me if we're going to take the first ten hours of the original and stretch it into a full length game. I can't imagine they wouldn't try that in other places. I mean the next ten hours after Midgard is everything from Kalm to the end of Gold Saucer and a lot of stuff between there could either be cut or expanded on. Kitase has said they have no idea how many chapters there will be, so my point is we can be seeing more than three and that five chapters isn't really a stretch. Course, this is all speculation, and we really won't know until we play Episode 1 and see how they handled it.

[Fynn]

Honestly, I’d say three episodes would work simply because there are three clear sections with a beginning, middle and end from a narrative perspective. Midgar itself works because it’s already paced like a pilot episode to a bigger thing already. It even has a final dungeon of its own in the form of the Shinra building. Ideally I’d want the second episode to end with Aerith’s death because that’s the second time the game really builds up the tension to a similar degree as the finale of the Midgar arc. After that it’s basically just a boss rush to the end, and starting the third game with Cloud disappearing would be refreshing.

But still, it’s hard to tell what else they’re gonna change. I’m hoping they’ll at least stick to one console generation though

[Fox]

I’m hoping they’ll at least stick to one console generation though

I assume you mean 'I hope it's finished before the PS6'? It's definitely going to be split over the current and next generation at the very least.

[Loony BoB]

I'm assuming by 'split' you mean 'available on both'?

I wonder if there is a way to maintain your saves across games they'll implement in some way. If they do progress saves towards new episodes, then will they allow that cross-platform? It'd suck getting all the way through episode one to discover PS5 is releasing and cross-platform saves won't work so if you want to play the rest of it on PS5 you'll have to buy it and play it all the way through again.

[Fox]

I suspect Part 2 will be available across gen, but maybe not beyond that, until they finish the Saga and release the 'Complete Edition' on PS5 with everything. I'd be very surprised if, multiple years into the PS5 lifecycle, they are still releasing new FFVII Remake games on PS4.

[Wolf Kanno]

I feel it will depend on how future installments are released. I always felt the first episode would get a physical release, but not so much the sequels outside of over-priced collector's editions. I still feel like most future installments would be purely digital and if that's the case, continuing on a new console will be pretty easy for them if PS5 just transfers a consumer's full PS4 account, games and all.

SE has already said Episode 1 will be compatible with the PS5, but I don't feel Sony is going to drop the PS4 the second the PS5 comes out, so SE may also just simply double dip and release the later chapters on both platforms. Assuming the game doesn't take a decade to be finished, its more likely VIIR may be the last thing released for PS4 before Sony officially pulls the plug on it.

Again speculation, and we won't know until we really see what Sony has planned for the PS5.

[Lord Golbez]

I would argue the end of the crater (first time) is easily equivalent to leaving Midgar as an end to a significant stretch of plot. The only thing is it's a little close to Aeris death so both can't be used as episode endings unless there's more than 5 episodes or they stretch it out a lot. As it is, it's already a fairly lengthy section of sequential areas that's just battling punctuated by some story stuff. I don't know how they would expand it much without making it tiring.

[Fox]

Depending on how much they expand it I would put the end point for part 2 at either Nibelheim or, as you say, the end of the crater. I don't think they'll leave it at Aerith. I don't think they'll end that part on such a depressing note; the crater is a much better cliffhanger. Then you can pick up part 3 starting with Tifa and Barret in Junon, which would be perfect.

[Wolf Kanno]

I honestly see the battles with Jenova being good endpoints,barring of course the two practically on top of each with Aerith and the Crater and the one before the battle with Sephiroth. If they really expand the first continent segment and Junon, the battle on the ship would actually be a fairly decent stopping point since its the first technical encounter with what the party believes is Sephiroth and it opens up the new continent as a good starting point for a new title. This can especially work if they bother with a world map filled with content.

Nibelheim is also a pretty strong end point. Since the first disc had the most relevant story content, I can see it being split into three parts with expansions on the narrative. Crater would be a good stopping point, but I feel nostalgia may get the better of the dev and they'll end it with Aerith instead, which narratively works better due to the ending fatigue I feel waiting until the crater would do.

I'm honestly more curious to see what gets cut or changed. The most disappointing thing about the E3 trailer is we never got a hint of the cross-dressing segment, though Kitase says its still in the game. I'm more curious to see if the actual questline is still intact or if SE may change a few things since several of the game's more questionable elements that would cause some controversy are in this sequence. The bike chase is too iconic to lost, but what about the snowboarding and submarine sections?

[Lord Golbez]

But snowboarding was the best! They must keep it!

[maybee]

But snowboarding was the best! They must keep it!

Yeah, snowboarding was fun.

[Fynn]

Maybe just... don’t have it be the immediate next thing you do after Aerith dies?

[Fox]

Maybe just... don’t have it be the immediate next thing you do after Aerith dies?

Hey, if Cloud wants to process his grief by landing sick 540 tailgrabs then don't stand in his way

[Lord Golbez]

Maybe just... don’t have it be the immediate next thing you do after Aerith dies?

"Just act normal when this happens." - Aerith immediately after being told Barret's backstory about Corel, his wife dying, etc.

[Jarvio]

I've just finished replaying FFVII and I was thinking about this while playing it, how they will split the episodes.

Here's what I think if it is 3 episodes long:
Episode 1 - Midgar
Episode 2 - Kalm flashback to Aeris' death
Episode 3 - Disc 3 and 4

For a 4-episode scenario:
Episode 1 - Midgar
Episode 2 - Kalm flashback to Nibelheim/Mt Nibel
Episode 3 - Rocket Town to Aeris' death
Episode 4 - Disc 2 and 3

For a 5-episode scenario:
Episode 1 - Midgar
Epidose 2 - Kalm flashback to Nibelheim/Mt Nibel
Episode 3 - Rocket Town to Aeris' death
Episode 4 - Icicle Inn to Cloud finding himself
Episode 5 - Underwater reactor to final dungeon

I can't see it being longer than 5 episodes, but it is pretty hard to predict how this will turn out. It's hard due to appropriate 'end points' and 'start points'. For example, ending a part on Cosmo Canyon or the Dyne battle would not seem right at all. Great parts and all, but definitely not ending points. Starting points are also hard to decide.

Nibelheim seems a no-brainer for an ending point. It would be strong as a starting point too, but that can't work because that would make Cosmo Canyon an ending point.

Jenova Birth might be ok for an ending point. Which would make Costa del sol a starting point, which I think works.

Aeris' death is a no-brainer for an ending point, however, if they wanted they could stretch that same episode out to make cloud's disappearance at the crater the ending point instead.

So yeah, it's basically very hard to predict, especially when we don't know how many parts it will be.

And it also depends how much extra content they're adding. There must be A LOT of extra content for episode 1 Midgar, because when I replayed FFVII I was out of Midgar in no time.

[Jiro]

I'm expecting every single one of the flashback scenarios—Nibelheim, Corel, even checking the PC in Gast's place—to be fully playable sections. I think SE wants to do a 7-part remake, but I highly doubt that will come to fruition. We should almost certainly expect brand new sections and maybe even some of the unfinished / cut content to be completed if enough of the original team members are like "oh, hey, remember that idea we had".