New VII Remake Ultimania reveals SE doesn't know how long the remake will be.

[Wolf Kanno]

Some of the early translations from the new Remake Ultimania shows that the heads of the project are not so sure how long the Remake is really going to be (https://www.siliconera.com/final-fantasy-vii-remake-ultimania-reveals-rufus-and-the-turks-ages-devs-talk-multi-part-release/). Kitase and Nomura have said it will depend on whether the team goes with a fast turn around time between Episodes, saying that if they choose to release the games sooner, the Episodes will be shorter and there will likely be more of them, whereas delaying episodes for a later release guarantees the episodes will be longer in content.

I guess the question is what would the fans rather see?

[Mercen-X]

My preference: "Just hurry the f- up SQEX."

One possible bonus to them releasing the next title faster is they won't devote so much time and energy that there's nothing left for fixing the problems existing in Part 1.

Anyway, unless they plan to change the gameplay mechanics, I don't think it would be wise to make the game longer. As an ARPG, I felt R was plenty long enough. Hell it felt longer than KH 1&II combined.

It's not length that concerns me, just content. I just want what's there to pull me in.

Also, I was tempted to vote Reagan-omics, but I don't what it is, and I'm not looking it up because I don't care.

[Mr Gashtacular]

i'd rather a complete story than have them peter off and get canceled or something. also, i don't want to be here in ten years time playing the 3rd or 4th "episode" and still only be on disc 2 in the timeline, or something stupid like that.

[Fynn]

I’d rather just have three episodes (1 being Midgar, the second being the rest of disc one, and then part 3 is the rest because despite it being two discs there actually isn’t a lot of content there) with longer breaks in between. Of course, I’m pretty sure I’m wrong on the number, but I’d rather they make the episodes big and expensive and just have us wait longer because we’re all already used to that lol

[Aulayna]

Yeah I'd rather have it in fewer parts with a longer wait (3 years or so). I feel like they've set the bar for themselves with Part One and should learn the necessary lessons from it (adjust pacing, make side quests meaningful) and continue with that formula and meet or exceed the bar.

I don't think they can maintain interest if they release more parts that are smaller in nature, interest will teeter off after a while and my worry there is we'll just get a repeat of the breakneck on-rails of the original XV's final acts.

Although holy hell if they haven't decided this stuff after 3 (5+ if we count before it was rebooted internally) years of dev, they need to hire some better project managers...

[Oaktree]

Yeah I'd rather have it in fewer parts with a longer wait (3 years or so). I feel like they've set the bar for themselves with Part One and should learn the necessary lessons from it (adjust pacing, make side quests meaningful) and continue with that formula and meet or exceed the bar.

I don't think they can maintain interest if they release more parts that are smaller in nature, interest will teeter off after a while and my worry there is we'll just get a repeat of the breakneck on-rails of the original XV's final acts.

Although holy hell if they haven't decided this stuff after 3 (5+ if we count before it was rebooted internally) years of dev, they need to hire some better project managers...

My thoughts exactly!

[Shiva95]

I'd prefer to have 3 episodes, even if it takes more time (2-3 years) between each entry.

[Mercen-X]

I don't want to be here in ten years time playing the 3rd or 4th "episode" and still only be on disc 2 in the timeline, or something stupid like that.You're still gonna be waiting 10 years to play the 2nd or 3rd installment if they take longer to release them. This shit is logic-based.

I don't think they can maintain interest if they release more parts that are smaller in nature, interest will teeter off after a while.Interest in FF14 hasn't petered out, how the hell do you think 7 will fair much worse?

[Lord Golbez]

Maybe, but at least you're only spending 180 total instead of 240, 300, or who even knows? That shit is logic ba$ed. !!!$$$$$$$$

[maybee]

3 episodes seems perfect.

FFVII Remake

FFVII Reunion

FFVII Re-Birth


Or something like that.

[Aulayna]

Interest in FF14 hasn't petered out, how the hell do you think 7 will fair much worse?

Because XIV is an MMORPG with a subscription model that consistently drops a new expansion every 2 years, which is a very standard business model for that genre. It's also a genre which relies a lot on social connections to maintain interest and as a result a stream of steady income for the company via subscription fees, optional services, and microtransactions. They also haven't really made any missteps since relaunching the game, nothing as divisive as say... the ending to part one of FF7R. They have a formula that works and they produce more of the same. And for the most part FFXIV doesn't require expensive hardware to play.

And also, people fall in and out of MMORPGs all the time. The people I play FFXIV with today are very different to the ones I played with back in ARR.

It's a totally different situation to a AAA single-player title (that is far more expensive in terms of resources) being chunked up and spread across multiple entries which are one-time purchases. Especially when there's likely going to be a hardware generation jump in there somewhere too. I think many people will be outraged at the idea of spending $60 every 1-2 years for 10 hours of gameplay, and it will lead to more people just waiting it out for the "complete collection." If interest starts waning on those it becomes a lot harder for them to remain ROI-positive. Heck, even Ubisoft realised that frequent releases don't maintain interest which is why (among other things) they increased the wait between Assassin's Creed releases. The only titles that really manage it (the CODs and FIFAs of the world), manage it largely because of the competitive online community moving over to the newest entry and the FOMO it causes.

Like really, it was around what - March 2017 that SQEX pulled development of FFVIIR to be completely in-house following a turbulent relationship with CyberConnect 2. So the bulk of Part 1 was made in 3 years. Now that they can re-use some of the assets, and have all the engine work and systems in place, I can see them doing a Part Two of similar style in 2 years, 3 max. I'll happily wait 2-3 years for a qualitative title with hours of gameplay in it, than have something smaller rushed out every 1-1.5 years (even though I suspect the bean counters at SQEX will push for it to be as frequently as possible) to placate the impatient.

[Mercen-X]

Well, if today's society truly enjoys balancing on their heads instead of walking on two feet, there's nothing I can do about it. Personally, it's been my opinion since the release of FFXI (or maybe since Blizzard's Warcraft) that any game you have to pay a monthly subscription for is not a game... it's a gamble. I don't go to casinos and I don't shell out monthly fees to enjoy the same game for years on end.

It seems to me that paying a straight up fee of $70-80 dollars per installment of a game with a set length and set release is more appealing than continuing to pay out for a game you have no guarantees as to whether it might continue to be worth playing in the long-run.

People are different. Some people enjoy wasting their money. I don't. So give me my next installment on the f-ing double.

[Fynn]

3 episodes seems perfect.

FFVII Remake

FFVII Reunion

FFVII Re-Birth


Or something like that.

No they need to follow the Sailor Moon naming conventions!

Final Fantasy VII R
Final Fantasy VII S
Final Fantasy VII Super S
Final Fantasy Stars


It’s the only way

[Mr Gashtacular]

I don't want to be here in ten years time playing the 3rd or 4th "episode" and still only be on disc 2 in the timeline, or something stupid like that.You're still gonna be waiting 10 years to play the 2nd or 3rd installment if they take longer to release them. This trout is logic-based.

your ability to miss the point is spectacular, and your style of avoiding the curse word filter is obnoxious, you daft :bou::bou::bou::bou:.

[Fynn]

Guys. Be civil or I’ll call the mods. I have Shauna on speed dial.

[Shauna]

Yes let's stop evading the swear filter guys. And also let's not insult people!

[Mercen-X]

I apologize

[maybee]

3 episodes seems perfect.

FFVII Remake

FFVII Reunion

FFVII Re-Birth


Or something like that.

No they need to follow the Sailor Moon naming conventions!

Final Fantasy VII R
Final Fantasy VII S
Final Fantasy VII Super S
Final Fantasy Stars


It’s the only way


Only if Cloud does a Magical Girl change before he fights bosses now. :lol:

[Aulayna]

Only if Cloud does a Magical Girl change before he fights bosses now. :lol:

When you and the homies have been cosplaying until 9:59 but gotta save the planet at 10:00

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWv6MmJXQAIg_te.jpg

[Oaktree]

Tifa and Aerith should've fought Don Corneo's goons with the dresses! Better yet, the three of them should've fought Abzu with the dresses and only change after beating him!

[maybee]

Better yet, the three of them should've fought Abzu with the dresses and only change after beating him!

I'm hoping that we get some clothing DLC soon or better the PC community does that for us by modding it in.


Still mad that we never got Drag Cloud in Dissidia.

[Shadowdust]

I am more for fewer episodes with longer periods of development. With that said, I do believe that between each release, they may want to release a DLC mini episode for each game that helps us get through some of the more insignificant parts so it's not wasted on the major releases. For example, a DLC for traveling from Midgar to Junon since there's not a whole lot of content for that portion that does any real character or story building other than Cloud's flashback. They've been mixing that in through other means so it's not like they necessarily need to do it in Kalm anyway. At the very least, let's get past the Midgar Zolom if nothing else.

Since the world map is more or less extinct, I would be okay with there being some measure of point warping dungeon, town, dungeon, etc. Hopefully not as convoluted as some of the dungeon crawling in Midgar though.

[Wolf Kanno]

Honestly, I can see them doing a whole lot for the next Episode, with the team going to Kalm for the full flashback, reaching the Chocobo Ranch and dealing with Midgar Zolom. Turning the Mythril mines into a bigger dungeon and battle against the Turks, perhaps letting Elena fight. Fort Condor will likely go through a major change and likely be a full dungeon/town scenario. Then have a whole sequence where Yuffie is introduced with a dungeon revolved around catching her in some forest hideout, only for the whole second half of the game to take place in Junon and the game ending on the boat ride to the western continent.

I honestly just don't imagine they are going to reach the western continent before Episode 3, and they will milk this remake as long as they can. I mean they already took a sequence that average around seven hours and pushed it into a 30+ hour game, it is not hard to imagine they can do that for every sequence afterwards.

[Aulayna]

Further translations from the Ultimania reveal that they are only in planning stages for Part 2 and don't really know where they're going with it:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXGO8NbUMAEByTN.jpg

(From: https://twitter.com/aitaikimochi/status/1256943001726681088 - I'd recommend following her as she's translating a lot of the Ultimania)

[Wolf Kanno]

The translation seems to imply what a few of us were thinking about how they may be fretting over how to deal with the world map aspect of the game. I imagine they're going to not bother with an open world format, and instead turn it into a more tunnel scenario in order to not hurt the narrative, so I keep imagining the "world map" will be closer to FFX/XIII than say FFXII or XV.

[Fox]

Game developers translation: they are prototyping a bunch of approaches, have a rough plan for each but haven't made a decision on which way to go yet.

[Depression Moon]

I really hope this ends up as only 3 parts and that the story doesn't go into crazy town.

[Mercen-X]

If the next installment ends at the Shinra Boat with the fight against Jenova Birth, expect more than three installments. If we want this thing wrapped up in three Parts, the next episode likely has to end after the battle with Jenova Death, where Cloud finds out "he's a puppet". This would probably include a bonus battle against Ultima Weapon before the closing credit scenes.

There is a theory that each episode will feature Jenova as one of it's final bosses, but if they scrapped the naming theme, possibly we've already face Jenova Birth in the form of Dreamweaver. Meaning not only that there are just two three forms left (Life, Death, Synthesis), but we don't know when they'll be fought.

[Wolf Kanno]

I really hope this ends up as only 3 parts and that the story doesn't go into crazy town.

I personally feel that ship has sailed considering the state of the Remake.

[Fynn]

Wait, hold up.


Motomu Toriyama was responsible for Midgar? I.e. the single best part of FFVII? Are you fucking kidding me?!

[JJ Strife]

The main part that worries me is that they haven't even decided this stuff yet.

Kinda feels like they should have. I worry it'll end up as a Disney Star Wars situation where the end product feels like there's no real continuity between any of it.

Whereas I would love something that you can actually marathon all in one go, once the whole thing is done. In the way people marathon watch like the Lord of the Rings movies.

[Fynn]

Eh, I don’t think there’s any reason to be worried in that regard. The Disney sequels ended up bad because Disney clearly had them made for purely financial reasons, with director changes happening ad hoc, as well as adjusting the content of the movies to make up for fan backlash, making for an ultimately soulless product that doesn’t really have an identity of its own. It’s not necessarily the idea of pantsing a story is bad. Meanwhile FFVII is helmed by those involved in the original specifically because they wanted to do it. Wherever their road is taking them, they’re still adapting a story rather than making a new one and they’ve clearly doing it out of a place of fashion. So even if the end product ends up stupid, it definitely won’t be as hollow a finale as Star Wars. Or GoT for that matter.

[Aulayna]

they’ve clearly doing it out of a place of fashion.

Please no more belts Nomura. NO-MORE-A.

[Fynn]

God damn you autocorrect! :p

[Loony BoB]

I reckon WK will be right, or else it'll end at Nibelheim - the latter just because it would allow them to use what will essentially be a very similar Nibelheim 'map' in both the Kalm flashback and the actual (re)visit. But it would rely on them not expanding too much on what we already have. While Midgar did have a HUGE amount of room for expansion, I'm not so sure the rest of disc one does. Junon was already a pretty long session for a place we end up going back to, and while I'm sure they'll flesh it out a bit for environment sake, I don't see the story being a huge deal longer. Fort Condor will be interesting for sure.

Chocobo stables would be somewhat redundant if we can't catch them in the wild, so I think we should still see some "world map" action on some level... although I can see it being that they just make it so that you ride in maps that exist as FFXII-style corridors between other locations. I'd settle for that, but hope for an FFXV world map combined with enterable cities that don't share the same map, a la original FFVII and Skyrim.

They've also taken some tidbits of the other later game and put them into the remake's part one, so they don't have to go into as much blunt detail later on which might hopefully save some development time. Maybe. Hard to say. But just Kalm, Mines, Fort Condor, Junon feels... too little. At the same time, adding in Costa del Sol, Reactors, North Corel, Gold Saucer, Gongaga, Cosmo Canyon and Nibelheim (re)visit would feel like too much. So in short, I don't have a clue and I can see why they're in this predicament of decision to make. If it's a full priced game again, personally I hope it'll take us further than Junon, but I'm confident no matter what we get, I'll enjoy playing it. I'm excited to see if we get to see Red XIII as a playable character in the future, and how they'll have him move around in a sailor outfit. xD

[JJ Strife]

Eh, I don’t think there’s any reason to be worried in that regard. The Disney sequels ended up bad because Disney clearly had them made for purely financial reasons, with director changes happening ad hoc, as well as adjusting the content of the movies to make up for fan backlash, making for an ultimately soulless product that doesn’t really have an identity of its own. It’s not necessarily the idea of pantsing a story is bad. Meanwhile FFVII is helmed by those involved in the original specifically because they wanted to do it. Wherever their road is taking them, they’re still adapting a story rather than making a new one and they’ve clearly doing it out of a place of fashion. So even if the end product ends up stupid, it definitely won’t be as hollow a finale as Star Wars. Or GoT for that matter.

Yeah it's not the best analogy really. I just couldn't think of a good one.

Disney's main problem was not agreeing on its overall story ahead of time, and then swapping between directors and writers with completely incompatible styles and ideas. I think if JJ Abrams had done the whole trilogy, it might've been quite good. That seemed to be driven by the fact (like you said), the people making the decisions just didn't care that much about the story. They cared about just turning it into a permanent Disney property.

At least that won't happen with FF7. I think there are probably other risks with FF7 though, that come from not having a clear roadmap for the releases. It could end up getting spread out into like 5 or 6 games, which I think would be too many (I'm hoping for a maximum of 4 parts). They could end up completely killing the pacing of the larger story, with all of the new stuff they add, and the fact that they've already overused Sephiroth in my opinion.

The biggest risk is probably just that they lose the audience over time. That does tend to happen with ongoing series quite often. The FF13 trilogy being an obvious example. The first game sold like 7 million. The third game sold under 2 million I think. Lol. And I thought 13-2 was just as good a game as the first one, so it's not just a quality issue.

[Mercen-X]

Part 2 Antagonist: Genesis (constant flashbacks to Crisis Core help us understand why he's a thing).
Part 3 Antagonist: Weiss and the DGS (just because they can and also destiny)
Part 4 Antagonist: Sephiroth again, I guess (if not then his Advent Children)

[JJ Strife]

Oh god I'd rather the damn whispers come back than Genesis, Lol

[Mercen-X]

As I've read yet another article which doubts VII's ability to maintain interest over the years it will take to develop its sequels, I feel the need to reiterate a statement I made earlier. I fail to see how a player-base can continually spend money on an online game monthly for content that does not change but every couple of years and yet would not be willing to shell out between $40-80 every few years for a product they know will add new content. I'm being serious. It is a failure of my imagination to be able to reconcile a world of people to be so gullible and detached from the value of their currency. Socializing online should be a free market and you should only have to pay for new content. That's essentially my world-view. But I guess I'm just naive.

[Fox]

VII Remake is simply too good to put Genesis in lol

[Lord Golbez]

As I've read yet another article which doubts VII's ability to maintain interest over the years it will take to develop its sequels, I feel the need to reiterate a statement I made earlier. I fail to see how a player-base can continually spend money on an online game monthly for content that does not change but every couple of years and yet would not be willing to shell out between $40-80 every few years for a product they know will add new content. I'm being serious. It is a failure of my imagination to be able to reconcile a world of people to be so gullible and detached from the value of their currency. Socializing online should be a free market and you should only have to pay for new content. That's essentially my world-view. But I guess I'm just naive.

I don't play MMOs and I'm sure there's a substantial portion of FF7's player base that either doesn't play MMOs or only subscribes long enough to get through new content and then drops it.

[JJ Strife]

As I've read yet another article which doubts VII's ability to maintain interest over the years it will take to develop its sequels, I feel the need to reiterate a statement I made earlier. I fail to see how a player-base can continually spend money on an online game monthly for content that does not change but every couple of years and yet would not be willing to shell out between $40-80 every few years for a product they know will add new content. I'm being serious. It is a failure of my imagination to be able to reconcile a world of people to be so gullible and detached from the value of their currency. Socializing online should be a free market and you should only have to pay for new content. That's essentially my world-view. But I guess I'm just naive.

Well it's because the social aspect of MMOs keeps people invested, even when there's no new content. It's kinda self-generated content between groups of online people. It becomes part of their routine. So when a new bigger piece of content comes along, they don't really need to 'get back into it' in any way.

The difference with standalone single player stuff is that people have to 'get back into it', and so you're bound to lose some people, who either didn't like the previous game that much, or just happen to not be in the mood for that type of game. Or maybe they're busy with something else at the time the next game is released. Whatever the reason is, if it's a continuous series where you need to start at the beginning, the number of people who play the 2nd game is nearly always going to be lower than those who play the first. Almost no-one is going to play the 2nd game but not the first. Whereas plenty will play the first but not the second.

[Fynn]

Then again we can look to Kingdom Hearts as a counter argument. It’s an ongoing story that’s had pretty infrequent release. Sure a lot of people missed out on the non-numbered games thinking they’re just spinoffs, but it was honestly the multi platform aspect that hurt the player base the most here. Had they all been release on the same console line, I imagine there would be way more people who played all the titles in succession. But even without that, a lot of people have held on to the games and many have jumped on just due to the brand. I imagine FFVII is so embedded in the gaming consciousness that I think it’s pretty unlikely interest will be lost.

[JJ Strife]

Lol Kingdom Hearts just lost most people with it's insane story, so the same rule about continuity no longer applied, and no-one played it for the story.

I remember my brother playing KH3 and complaining that it made no sense. I had to point out that he'd missed 2 handheld spinoffs and tech demo prequel to the game. He didn't even know any of them existed. He just thought it went KH1->KH2->KH3

[Fynn]

That said, there was enough interest there for the story to continue.

The argument here isn’t “KH continued so FFVII’s story will be coherent”, the argument is “SE has made a long-running series of games with a continuous story that sells super well, and since FFVII is a big brand it’s very unlikely it’ll get canceled in the meantime”

[Mercen-X]

he'd missed two handheld spinoffs and tech demo prequel to the game. He didn't even know any of them existed. He just thought it went KH1->KH2->KH3

Admittedly, that could pose problems for FF7 if the team continues to inject content from the Compilation with no explanation.

[Jessweeee♪]

I reckon WK will be right, or else it'll end at Nibelheim - the latter just because it would allow them to use what will essentially be a very similar Nibelheim 'map' in both the Kalm flashback and the actual (re)visit.

I was thinking it would be kind of neat if they just dropped you right into the flashback at the beginning of part 2, I like the idea of them beginning and ending in Nibelheim.

[Lord Golbez]

It makes sense to me. There's nothing significant about the journey from Midgar to Kalm and the only reason to include it at all would be if there's a world map. Either way though, it doesn't seem like a terribly good place to start the game. Starting with the flashback makes the most sense.

[Mercen-X]

The only other way I could imagine it playing out is to skip the flashback until you reach Nibelheim physically and then interweave the memories with the present-day story which would allow for a kind of post-traumatic, pre-psychotic break in Cloud as he struggles to decipher what's real due to the fact that Sephiroth really is in Nibelheim as the group tries to find answers to his ultimate goal.

[JJ Strife]

That said, there was enough interest there for the story to continue.

The argument here isn’t “KH continued so FFVII’s story will be coherent”, the argument is “SE has made a long-running series of games with a continuous story that sells super well, and since FFVII is a big brand it’s very unlikely it’ll get canceled in the meantime”

Yeah Kingdom Hearts is certainly an unusual example. My only plausible explanation for that is that people just didn't care about the story-side of things at all. None of the handheld games sold very well, relative to expectations anyway. But yet KH3 sold about on par with the original, or slightly more.

I do think (if that's the reason) the same is less likely to apply to FF7. FF7 is more likely to be akin to FFX/FFX-2 or FF13/13-2/LR, where each successive game sells less than the previous, and the only question will be how much less.

The Star Wars movies are another good example of that. In all 3 Star Wars trilogies, the first movie made the most money (and Revenge of the Sith is the only movie that out-earned the one before it, which can be explained by the huge jump in quality imo)

[Big D]

I think it's impossible to predict how many titles there are going to be, and how long it'll take to complete - if they ever finish them at all. The ending of the first part basically confirms they're going to make a up a completely new story from here on, and since they don't even have a speculative outline it sounds like they'll be making up that story as they go.

I don't believe there was ever a serious intent to remake Final Fantasy VII as such. They've remade one part of it, but concluded it with an excuse for why they can't or won't remake the rest.

[Fox]

I think it's impossible to predict how many titles there are going to be, and how long it'll take to complete - if they ever finish them at all. The ending of the first part basically confirms they're going to make a up a completely new story from here on

In the interviews in Ultimania Kitase says "We're not fundamentally changing Final Fantasy VII, the story will largely be the same." Or words to that effect.


and since they don't even have a speculative outline it sounds like they'll be making up that story as they go.

Where did you get that from? 'Part 2 is in the planning stages' =/= 'we have no idea how this is going to go'. They didn't end it like they did with no idea where they were going for it, if there's one thing you can say for sure about that ending it's that they very much have a plan for it.

[Big D]

I've heard about parts of those Utimania interviews, apparently conducted as recently as March, where key members of the remake team indicate that they aren't sure how - or if - the next part is going to handle the original game's open-world sections. One of them admits that he doesn't remember how that part of the original actually unfolds, and says he'll have to watch a play-through. If they had no clear idea of what they were doing only two months ago, then that doesn't offer much hope.

"Staying true to the original story" describes most of the first installment of the remake, but its ending seems to make it basically impossible for them to follow the original any further. The 'arbiters of fate' were trying to presevere history, and showed the heroes glimpses of what was "meant" to happen - including key scenes from throughout the original game. The whole point of the remake's ending is that the heroes now know what fate had in store, but they've fought against that and are going to make a new future for themselves. The "unknown journey", or however it's described in the final blurb. To me, that felt like an admission from the writers that they simply can't or won't try to retell the original story, so it'll be fanfic from here on out.

Other than that, the remake was doing pretty well until Sephiroth used his sword to open a time portal by chopping a hole in reality, unleashing a sequence of pure Kingdom Hearts bullshit of the highest order. Then again, things were already getting dubious when magic invisible time ghosts started intervening in events to prevent characters from learning too much or too little, or to ensure they got injured or stayed alive at the 'right' time.

[JJ Strife]

That was my original worry about the ending to Remake, and was the main reason I disliked it (I still largely dislike the ending, but not as much as at first). But that Ultimania interview does seem to be pretty clear they're still following the general story in the next game.

I think the whole defying fate thing will be a bit of a bluff (or triple bluff?). I just think they disliked the idea that everyone would know exactly how things play out in the future games, because there would just be no real tension or speculation from the fans. I think the ultimate reason for that is they want you to think that Aerith might not die this time, so that when it inevitably happens anyway (in a different time and place), it'll still be a bit shocking to us.

[Lord Golbez]

My reason for dislike is almost the opposite.of that. O don't care if they're making some changes to the story (okay I do care about some major changes), but I'm extremely pissed that they decided to metaplot the game by introducing changing the story into the story, which is just stupid and reeks of Nomura.

[JJ Strife]

Lol I dislike that too. They're not mutually exclusive!

I wanted them to either stick very closely to the original story, whilst just adding new sidequests and details.
OR
Make major changes from the start, and just tell it like a new story (maybe call it FF7 Retold or FF7 Reborn, or whatever), whilst being honest to us about the fact they're doing that.

[Fynn]

I can’t speak for the execution yet, but I feel like I’m in the minority who actually really likes the metanarrative thing on paper

[JJ Strife]

What do you mean by "yet"? Because you haven't seen the other games, or because you haven't finished this one yet?

Cos I'm not sure it really will be a "metanarrative" going forward.

[Fynn]

I haven’t played it at all because I don’t have a PS4 :(

[JJ Strife]

I thought everyone had one at this point. Don't newborn babies emerge from the womb with PS4 in hand?

[Fynn]

Well considering I have an almost-2-year-old, I can in fact confirm that no, they don’t

[Mercen-X]

Well, the PlayStation excytogenesis only began occurring last year so it seems you may have missed the window. My niece was born tightly gripping a PS4. :cool:

[JJ Strife]

Instead of cutting umbilical cord, you have to unplug HDMI.