Casual stroll through carnage

[Jiro]

Final Fantasy VII Remake has a lot of forced-walk moments through damaged parts of Midgar, and I really appreciated it. The entire game feels like it was designed to put more weight into the circumstances but actually moving through the destruction post-No.1 reactor and listening to Jessie struggle with the level of destruction was pretty powerful. Did anybody else feel like these sections were actually quite good? Or were they a bit forced?

[Psychotic]

I can only repost what I said in another thread:

Wow. The panic and the horror of the bomb attack, listening to terrified people wondering where their family and friends are and just how they're going to get home felt more real, more human, than any Final Fantasy game location has yet.

I only wish that the revelation from the Demo that Shinra made it worse was revealed a little later or didn't happen at all, as it would've felt like even more of an emotional gutpunch. As an audience we get a free pass that our characters don't.

[Jiro]

I definitely agree that knowing exactly the role that ShinRa played in the reactor explosions does take some of the heft out of it. I guess it's supposed to make Jessie a more tragic character, or to make Barret's constant anger (what he says to President ShinRa towards the end of the game) feel more reasonable? Like, if I'm wishing I could tell Jessie it wasn't her fault or smack Heidegger in the face, then maybe I'm meeting one acceptable emotional response Square Enix intended.

[Loony BoB]

I really appreciated this kind of thing when they walk around the place, such as after meeting Aerith and on the way to Wall Market, when they have talked about seeing the sky and how that's because a part of the plate fell onto some low population area, and then again seeing the destruction just before the playground made it way more notable. There's also the talk on the way to meeting Biggs for the second major mission where they talk about the sun lamps and how they operate, and how turning them off impacts the people that was interesting too. Little things like this really add a lot to the game.

[Aulayna]

Yeah I can't think of an elegant way they've could revealed it later. I do think showing us what happened is to make us feel for Jessie as she doubts herself and make her more tragic as a character, plus also make us, the player, more angry toward Shinra when the propaganda wheel starts turning. I do think there was a bit of a missed opportunity after the Reactor 5 to develop Jessie even further. After all she went through the trouble of getting weaker blasting agent to avoid a repeat of Reactor 1. So surely she would have similar doubts if Reactor 5 went up the same way. I guess they could maybe have dropped the revelation before the Air Buster fight after starting the remote detonator on the bomb - Heidegger could've gloated about it being just like Reactor 1 again. But then I dunno if that would have lessened the impact of Jessie's arc before that point or not.

[Mr Gashtacular]

I think I mentioned in another thread that I was worried about the guilt aspect of the bombing being glossed over, so I'm really pleased with how things turned out in that regard. I only just entered Wall Market so I'm looking forward to jesse's reaction to some kind of big reveal of shinra's machinations

I kind of like how certain things from the original game that were just strange scenery features are now present and explained. I remember every time I went through Sector 6 I would be like "what on earth is that giant hand claw thing?" and now not only is it present in the remake, it has some kind of explanation of why it is there.

I also really liked the sun lamps, and Tifa commenting on them and how much mako they must use - she is almost acknowledging that those under the plate really need those reactors, too, despite how much it kills the planet.

As for forced walking, in some games it's a vanity thing ("look how beautiful we made this game, slow down and take a look"), but here it seems to fit quite well.

[Nice]

Final Fantasy VII Remake has a lot of forced-walk moments through damaged parts of Midgar, and I really appreciated it. The entire game feels like it was designed to put more weight into the circumstances but actually moving through the destruction post-No.1 reactor and listening to Jessie struggle with the level of destruction was pretty powerful. Did anybody else feel like these sections were actually quite good? Or were they a bit forced?

I hated every single forced walk moment in the game. It was overdone.
The first few times I was ok with it, but then it started happening more and more. Perhaps if it were reserved for a few significant moments I would be ok with it, but the developers did it too much. It was like driving a car down a freeway and then you realize that your passenger is a driving instructor and they hit the brakes every five seconds. My thought every time it happened: For the love of Christ!

[Mr Gashtacular]

Yea, having played another day I might need to reverse my opinion. I had a forced walk yesterday that seemed totally out of place, and like you said, felt like the brakes were slammed on.

luckily, they're usually very short, although distracting

[Aulayna]

Yeah I agree that they over used it. There are some particularly frustrating cases where the game wants you to walk forward to initiate the next conversation, but if you want to double back to check for anything you either a) can't or b) have to walk to an invisible marker before it lets you jog again. In some cases it was really well used, in others I think it was a "trick" to give time for the hi-res textures from the upcoming cutscene a chance to load in.