I'm still unreasonably mad that they marketed the first game as a remake - even literally titling it 'FF7 Remake' - and then it turns out it isn't a remake at all, it's some poorly-written Kingdom Hearts nonsense about how bad it is to be restricted to telling the story you're fated to tell and how you need to break free from the shackles of destiny. I can't imagine a bigger "fuck you" to fans of the original game. If they hated the idea of having to remake the original story so much, then they should have just not made it!
It should have been called Reimagination to set expectations for existing fans. FF7 original is probably my favorite game of all time (tie with FF6) and I still did not play Remake (lost interest waiting too long and then asking price on Steam is 80 Euros, fuck you SquareEnix!).
But you know, I am not entirely opposed to changes in story and character handling, if its done well. They even changed up the battle system. To me this is an opportunity to re-live the game, to experience it with new perspective and see details I could not before. If it was exactly the same game with better graphics, that's just playing the same game again. But the Remake... ahem, I meant Reimagination, is different. And you know what, I kinda like this idea. But off course, I still did not play and don't know how bad it is. And oh god, I hope they don't change the important story line in part 2... this would be a huge fuck.
It would have been nice to have a proper Remake but this is not bad per se, though I'm not a fan of how much it's being dragged out, and that Vincent and Cid still won't be playable still.
The other annoyance I have is stories getting further and further divided to “build up lore”.
I still feel a good story is told in a single package. With good writing, they can plan to expand with sequels without harming their first narrative, but messes like Kingdom Hearts where you’re constantly hyped for a conclusion should be shamed as sequel bait that they are.
Granted, I have fallen afoul of this in my own writing, but only after discovering I’d breached an expected word limit. JRPGs, meanwhile, seem to work to stuff as many extraneous, irrelevant scenes as they can to justify one package that barely contributes to a narrative.
A shoutout to Ace Attorney - while they’ve built up little character threads through the series, they’re still pretty dedicated to starting and ending an arc in one game.
Oof. You’d think if they wanted to surprise people with twists and turns they’d just make a new game instead of altering the plot of a remake (unless I’m misunderstanding).
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