What do you want to see in Episode 2?

[Lord Golbez]

No way you're getting all of his students, but you might get one or more other students besides Tifa, which would be nice.

1/35 Soldier is self-explanatory, if a bit unclear at first blush. They're just 1/35 scale models of a SOLDIER - toys, basically. Still it would be nice to get a clear look at them.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I suspect Yuffie (and Vincent, whenever we get to him) will not be optional characters this time around. They'll be included in the full narrative of the story, and I'm looking forward to that.

[Oaktree]

I'd like to play as Zack (SPOILER)(even if it is on an alternate reality) and Red XIII (which will probably happen either way), at some point I would also like to ride chocobos (more than mere fast travel mechanics)… More important still, the equipment and materia menus need adjustments (something like «remove all equipped materia» would be awesome, and different tabs for the different types of materia too)… While we are at it, I'd love seeing more CGI too — it doesn't have to be Hideo Kojima-ish though!

That's all I can remember for now…

[Mercen-X]

A "walk" button, damn it.

Also, reference some of the following characters:
1) SOLDIERLuxiere, Angeal, Genesis (not just "G"), Sebastian, Essai, Weiss, Azul, Shelke
2) TurksCissnei, Emma, Elena
3] Avalanche/WROElfé, Shears (Cutty was a total fakeout), Shalua Rui
4) CloniesKadaj, Yazoo, Loz
5) Others:Denzel, Lazard, Argento (my idea to make the DGS character one and the same as BC Turk "Legend")

Also, I want the Scissors character in the Crater to more greatly resemble the demon folkmonster Manangal.

[JJ Strife]

I'm mostly looking forward to see how they manage to create the world map, and whether it will be open-world like FFXV style or more a kind of segmented pseudo-open environments like FF12 style.

Either way I want to see lots of exploration and sidequests out in the world, with places Kalm and the Chocobo Farm expanded to include more things to do. They're both so brief in the original game. Kalm especially feels like it was underused, cos it was quite a nice quaint little town, but then it's just used for the flashback scene in the Inn.

[Mercen-X]

I always was a bit disgruntled on the fact you could obtain Vincent's Peacemaker in Kalm. When you finally get V, you have no reason to use his init.eq. Quicksilver even a minute because you already have a better weapon. Obviously, that's no longer the case with Remake as Quicksilver and Peacemaker likely will have unique weapon skills to learn. Still, I think it'd be great for Cloud to "find" it only to say something like "A decent weapon, but I don't collect guns."

[Lord Golbez]

That doesn't seem terribly abnormal to me. There's plenty of FF games/characters where multiple equips are available from the start or near enough. It's also not that different from the situation of multiple weapons becoming available at a shop at once with one being clearly more powerful than another, which often happens in RPGs. If you didn't pick up Peacemaker earlier, you use the initial equip. If you don't have enough money, you buy the cheaper, weaker weapon. Seems like about the same concept to me. There's no guarantee of a particular weapon being useful, but for some players it could be.

[JJ Strife]

I always was a bit disgruntled on the fact you could obtain Vincent's Peacemaker in Kalm. When you finally get V, you have no reason to use his init.eq. Quicksilver even a minute because you already have a better weapon. Obviously, that's no longer the case with Remake as Quicksilver and Peacemaker likely will have unique weapon skills to learn. Still, I think it'd be great for Cloud to "find" it only to say something like "A decent weapon, but I don't collect guns."

I always liked that sort of thing actually. It made it feel more realistic. Like why on earth would the shops around the world happen to conform to who you have in your party at any given point. They wouldn't. If guns are a common weapon in this world, they'll be available everywhere. It's just good world building.

[Lord Golbez]

On the flip side, it's a bit weird that shops in most places carry weapons for each character even if they have unusual weapon types. Like why do most shops carry weapons for Red XIII or Cait Sith? Why would any weapon shop even recognize a megaphone as a weapon, when it's pretty much particular to Cait Sith? Did Reeve work out some kind of deal with weapon shops throughout the world and, if so, why did he set it up so some shops would get weak megaphones and some would get stronger ones?

Heck, whose locker has that megaphone in Shinra HQ? Is it Reeve's? If so, why didn't he just equip Cait Sith with that weapon from the start?

I mean, it's fine to hand wave it and say that's just game mechanics, but if you're going to praise one aspect of weapon availability as world building, then it definitely opens the whole subject to criticism on what kind of crazy world did you just build.

[Mercen-X]

I always liked that sort of thing actually. It made it feel more realistic. Like why on earth would the shops around the world happen to conform to who you have in your party at any given point. They wouldn't. If guns are a common weapon in this world, they'll be available everywhere. It's just good world building.

Don't mistake me. It never bothered me it was there. It bothered me that Cloud took it with him. Just earlier at the Shinra building, Cloud left behind a megaphone because he would "have no use for it". Now he takes this gun despite the fact no one in his group has any use for it. If he's thinking he could just sell it, he could have reasoned the same of the megaphone.

I can't help feeling that though you were meant to find Peacemaker in Kalm that, like the megaphone, Cloud was just supposed to leave it there and you come back for it later when you had Vincent like "oh, I know where there's a gun" and you'd have at least been using V's Quicksilver for a hot minute while you trekked back to Kalm.

This comes down to either a mistake or lazy game design/narrative.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'd say it's a mistake. Very likely a hold over from an earlier draft of the game when Vincent was still being envisioned as a Occult Detective working in Midgar. He may have been intended to have already joined the party by this point, at which point it would make sense he would be seeing a new weapon. When they scrapped that story idea for him and changed it to the version we know, they may have forgotten about it and probably kept it as a hint of his existence since he got relegated to optional status by that point.

[Lord Golbez]

Except a megaphone and a gun are not equal. Cloud saying he has no use for a megaphone makes perfect sense, because a megaphone generally does not register as a weapon. Cloud saying "I can't imagine what possible use I could have for this gun" while they traverse the world fighting monsters and Shinra troops is not so credible. Even though none of the party members can equip guns (except Barret who equips customized guns) because it's not their preferred weapon type, presumably they can pull the damn trigger in a pinch.

Whether that makes it worth carting around might be a different question, but since they apparently have access to hammerspace, why not?

[Example]

(SPOILER)I'm looking forward to seeing how they will integrate the alternate timeline stuff into the game, maybe have us switch between alternate timelines like FF8 did with its flashbacks by having Cloud be the main character of the primary timeline and Zack the main character of the secondary timeline, and what happens in one timeline affects the other like in Chrono Cross.

I expect Biggs, Wedge and Jessie will be making more appearances, maybe even joining up with other AVALANCHE factions around the world.

I'm expecting Yuffie to make an appearance early on, maybe by having her steal the party's materia to justify the power reset, and for Vincent to appear later on.

The one thing I DO NOT want to see is Genesis forcibly retconned into the plot again, which unfortunately probably will happen after Hojo referenced G-Type SOLDIERs.

[JJ Strife]

I think that's a combination of Golbez's point about a megaphone not naturally being a useful weapon.

Also, the megaphone in Shinra HQ is Cait Sith's ultimate weapon. So they wanted you to remember it so you could return for it later. That's not true with that gun you find in Kalm. It's a mid-level weapon that you'll very quickly throw away for something else. So remembering it might not be useful.

[Mercen-X]

And yet, again, it didn't have to be written that way. Maybe instead of Peacemaker, this could have been a more powerful weapon like Cerberus or Death Penalty. Or the Peacemaker could have the weapon whose power level is just below Death Penalty. You know what other location would have made sense to have a gun lying around..? JUNON! Of all the weapons you can purchase in Junon, they mysteriously offer up no handguns. And you can buy Peacemaker here... on Disc 2. But why?
Considering the criminal element, wouldn't make sense to find a gun at Corel Prison? Maybe one of the bandits' drops or stealable...

You know what would have been a neat unique skill for Vincent, to set him apart from Barret as "ranged guy", let him wield two guns.