Take a shot every time I say asinine. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 - Introduction 3:32 - Chapter 1 - Remake Does a Lot Right Though 8:59 - Chapter 2 - The Midgar Design Problem 14:26 - Chapter 3 - Padding and Filler Content 16:57 - Chapter 4 - Boring NPCs and Side Quests 30:37 - Chapter 5 - Where Art Thou, Character Development? 42:22 - Chapter 6 - Pulling All the Punches in Sector 7 51:51 - Chapter 7 - Strange Bedfellows - AVALANCHE and Don Corneo 57:13 - Chapter 8 - The Lazarus Problem - Barret and Wedge 1:05:54 - Chapter 9 - WTF Happened to Final Fantasy VII? 1:23:23 - Chapter 10 - Conclusion and Future of FF7 Remake
Yes, fuck media, I also didn't find bad reviews b4. Currently playing it and EXACTLY THE POLITICALY CORRECT STORY IS FUCKING GARBAGE. The writing seems to be done females, I m sure they are deleting bad reviews from internet. Or humanity is just fucking fake nowadays.
Its hard to publicly talk about this game for what it is if you disliked it because modern square fans are abundant and very use to this new direction for the franchise. So they will aggressively go up to bat to defend it. But yeah, theres also a lot of people who jumped ship after 9 or 10. Myself included. and so remaking 7 should have been a way to draw people like me back to Final Fantasy and also show the developers what truly worked back in 1997 vs today. Instead we get this unfaithful awkward universe B game that is self serving to modern Square and its fanbase. Its a game that decieved fans into buying what they think is a true remake only to get a Nomura fanfic. And its personally a total insult to preserving Hironobu Sakaguchis original vision for this story. Again, this is all hard to come forward and say because there is so much push back whenever we say it. So I appreciate you taking the time to stick your neck out to give the game some much needed criticism
@@Vthd7604 Yes, but it comes with consequences. I hang out on "positive" pro-remake channels, and it feels like being outnumbered 40 to 1 (even if at least 20 are silent pro people). There are people that have been bullied for not liking the remakes direction and the game has started a war on what a remake is and most people seemingly take the side that remakes should just be whatever the developers want rather than an industry term to convey a message of what the intent with the game is (and some just want to be lied to). There is freedom of speech ofc but majority rules and can exile, silence and send mobs with justification for harm. So to many it is not worth trying to stay in the fan base or they have to feel the choker getting tighter and tighter.
It's unfortunate, cancel fanatics everywhere. People will fanatically defend everything until death. The game was perfect. But Chapter 18 definitely gutted it.. such a shame. Pointless stuff added into a game, the epitomy of bad writting and ham fisted attempts to change an already perfect story to begin with like introducing some weird plot ghosts or crazy parallelworlds, creating artificial hype and changing the main theme of the game which is loss and bringing back the death. This game has Nomuras signature (which is style over substance) all over the place at the end, you can feel it if you have experienced some of his work. Maybe I am wrong, I really hope I am to be honest and they pull a 180 and surprise us. But this game is between being a sequel and a remake at the same time, what the fuck. I thought it would be faithful to the original, but they absolutely lied when they said that they want to keep it close to the original.. close enough? Damn I am not happy with the direction this game is taking, or the world and industry as a whole. Again I wish I am wrong..
So...something that doesn't get brought up a lot but for the entirety of the Midgar section in the original game, you don't know if Sephiroth is a friend or foe. I don't think he's even mentioned until you get to the Shinra building and find his sword sticking out of Shinra. At that point the player's response is like "who is this guy? Is he friend or foe or what?" For the entirety of the Midgar section, Shinra is presented as the primary antagonist.
Sephiroth is mentioned by Cloud during the water tower flashback because Cloud says he wants to be like him, and this is very early when you encounter Tifa. This is making us think Sephiroth is a good guy. He is then mentioned when you encounter President Shinra in reactor 5 who says that Sephiroth was perhaps too brilliant. Then when we get to the shinra building Cloud acts really hostile towards mentioning Sephiroth and the reason he stays on the roof to fight Rufus is because he says neither Rufus nor Sephiroth should have the promised land. They are the real crisis for the planet. So even if Sephiroth killed the big bad guy he is also on the same level of bad as Rufus who is portrayed as someone that does not even want to bribe or negotiate his way into power, he wants to control by fear. So the build up for Sephiroth as something of a great hero to understanding he is probably not good at all has a natural buildup, before even going to Kalm.
That part of the Shinra building mission is just masterful writing. I remember as a kid, thinking the same "friend or foe" thought but feeling uneasy because, he's clearly more powerful than your team and the only way to find out whether he is on your side or not is to follow the bloody footprints he left behind from the massacre he just executed. As a kid playing it, if I could've went any other route, I would've. Then the relief from realizing I didn't have to deal with him yet. Moments like that I'll never forget and and build a story in a way that's difficult to replicate any other way.
Its a 4 to 8 hours plot of the original played and finish the ff7 remake (ps free) its meh tbh the reason why it was 30hours long because they did a good job of the map design like squeezing through wall and walking through a steal beam which makes the game longer and its grindy as fk if you finish the game once you dont even max the half of uour marteria and aerial combat for melee characters like cloud and tifa sucks ass
@@marcosantiago8821 i beat original ff7 without grinding even once, it's not grindy af lol. and many will disagree with you thinking the og is "meh" because if it's meh remake is utter garbage
@@seanmills7586 like it or not episodic games are complete garbage they ruined the OG why the fk they would make game episodic that has already a complete story square is milking the shit out of this tired of BS business practices like this
I will say that I observed the characterization of Biggs, Wedge and Jessie in the original a bit differently. Instead of underdeveloped, they always came off to me as "kids trying to play soldier" and honestly out of their league. There was an obvious difference between their capabilities in comparison to Tifa and Barret and honestly felt like they were being "used" (which lended heavily to Barret's flaws and development). Biggs was LARPing as a soldier, Wedge seemed to be there because these were his only friends and Jessie didn't come off as flirty so much as too kind to be a terrorist. It felt like when Barret started recruiting the slums for Avalanche, these three thought it seemed "fun." That is why when Shinra dropped the hammer (or plate), it made me sad for them because they didn't stand a chance and likely shouldn't have been involved in the first place.
I feel they were all out of their league, Cloud being the exception. Look how fast they all got caught and ended up getting sector 7 destroyed. The whole game was a hot mess. They really should've just made the original with updated graphics.
This is the thing the video game, and movie industry don't really get about old things, and by extension, the mainstream audience. Even though the originals are outdated as far as graphics and visuals, there's something very poignant about simplicity. Like for example going off what you mentioned, one of the reasons I love the way Zack is portrayed in the original is because he's definitely an important character, but his unceremonious and realistically portrayed death makes it sadder. He didn't get some anime action movie last stand like in that stupid Crisis game, he was ruthlessly gunned down by grunts like a dog right as he was so close to freedom, and Cloud wasn't even considered worth killing because he just seemed so broken. There was no cliche last-minute words before Zack slowly bled out and talked to Cloud, he was just *dead*, and that's perfect. It really doesn't need to be over complicated, and that's the whole problem with the remake's attempt to tell the story of the original *badly*. Avalanche's whole tragedy was indeed that they were really just kids trying to play war with toys. They had no idea what they were getting into, and when they finally gained the attention of Shinra, nearly all of them paid for it.
@@qazxsw13 Exactly. You can tell that they're trying to do the Hollywerid nonsense with the game too with the corny dialogue and over the top scenes. It's just ruining the atmosphere of the game. Personally I won't be playing the remake any further until it's complete but I guess we're just gonna have to wait and see which way they're going with the game.
I viewed them very similarly. Barret was a hard core militant, the others seemed like young ones looking up to him. They bought into his ideology and it saw them becoming involved in shit they were not trained or really capable of seeing through.
I hated the fact that they took out all the suspense in the game. Way too much sephiroth too soon. Plus seeing Zack took away that part too. The whisper thing was the stupidest idea ever in my opinion
Agreeeeeeeed. It's a huge attempt at being mysterious and cool, but it's just fluff. I think Shinra building looked very cool and the graphics were amazing. Aerith was an improvement, but the side quests were boring... Like jump rope and pullups? Lmao. There's no suspense and Nobuo Uematsu's mako reactor theme is Wayyyy more haunting, like Chernobyl (the remake was great for a battle theme though). The dialogue in this game is laughable with Cloud just grunting all the time and crying about Sephiroth. The Hell house was fun, combat was a great part I'll agreed. The boss fights were great, though I still can't stand the weird new plot Sephiroth. It feels so cliched and tries too hard to be interesting. Just no. Outside of Shinra, the plot hurts it.
@@Nerevarine420 The Developers bringing Zack in at the end of the games ruins the original games greatest and most important plot twist. Newer players who never played the original will wonder who that guy is and look into it, thereby ruining Cloud's most important character building moment.
I remember receiving two VHS tapes in the mail forever ago when I was a kid. It was a prerelease FFVII interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi and included cutscene cinematics. One of the things Hironobu said during the interview during the making of Final Fantasy ( I forget if it was VI or VII) his mother passed away. He mentioned resulting from his loss he was focused on life. Final Fantasy VII has a very special undertone here. Professor Gast/Ifnala, Aerith/Stepmother, Aerith as an ancient, Aerith/Cloud, Aerith/Sepiroth, all above/lifestream. There is a very unique undertone that brings the story together which we as players observing respond emotionally to. These rewrites do not have the same emotional brushstrokes. Sakaguchi had a life milestone whi h impacted the emotional storytelling of these characters. SE should have done a 1:1 remake. Square/Squaresoft and their original talent their dream team is no longer in house sans a few members. Tetsuya Nomura is not Hironobu Sakaguchi, and the quality of Final Fantasy took a nose dive when Sakaguchi left Square. Lost Odyssey in my opinion, was the last great Final Fantasy.
George RR Martin recently said: "Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and “make them their own.” It does not seem to matter whether the source material was written by Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen, or… well, anyone. No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it. “The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own. They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse."
I just hated how they tried to flesh out characters who served zero impact on the story. Then they decided for whatever wack reason to show Sephiroth early in the game, which absolutely destroyed the hype behind the character. On top of that, they then decided to keep zack alive.
@@KoKoYoung It's mostly crisis core brain rot fanatics. Zack literally serves no purpose past crisis core, it's embarrassing what they're doing with this franchise. I don't mind that they are trying to change the story for the remake but they should've just kept the OG cast in and left the past characters behind for good.
@@elizabethchint2391 it’s tetsuya Nomura man he made advent children too so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just making this game to make advent children make sense
@@witcherjohn3440 it’s Square ENIX mate, all they care about is money and what’s the biggest money maker for them? FF7. If you want to maximise profit and milk as many “fans” as possible you’d market the game as a remake and then also have fan favourites from the compilation including Zack living to keep the shippers and CC fans happy and willing to pay for the next episodes. The other plus for them is that they can now remaster and resell the whole compilation to everybody again, new players will also buy it as they feel they may need to know the story of each to make the remake story make more sense. Notice how they’ve literally released a shit tonne of FF7 stuff all at once including crisis core? It’s all a money making scheme and always has been. SE are creatively bankrupt because they don’t want risk taking they want to make easy money and that’s exactly what they’ve achieved.
🌸😹To be honest, I was not bothered the side quest all that much and found them entertaining. I was more disappointed with following. - How far off the rails the ending went. - The consistent spoilers to the original title littered throughout. - Biggs and Wedge not being killed (it takes weight away from the sector 7 plate collect). - The fact Zack survives within an alternate timeline (robbing Cloud of character). - The overuse of Sephiroth. - The fact that replicated final battle of the original so early shot for shot. - That we even fought or saw Sephiroth so early. It is clear to me the “Remake Portion” of FF7 Remake is over. What we get in the future will be reimagined. It should be called FF7 Reimagined.😹🌸
Tbf even an interview with Nomura back in 2015, he specifically stated that the plot will change so idk why ppl are upset that it's not just a graphical update.
There is nothing more intellectually and creatively bankrupt than the idea of an alternative universe/multiverse. I'm half expecting to see Spidey and Dr. Strange making an appearance and teaming up with Cloud to stop Sephiroth.
What's bizarre to me is the people that think the rest of the games are just going to be the rest of FF7. The entire point of this game is to say they're going to do something completely different. And if they aren't, then how are they going to justify going to another dimension to fight the manifestation of fate during the first 10% of the games story? That'd be like if Luke fought Darth Vader and The Emperor at the same time on an even bigger Death Star, trying to get off tatooine in episode 4. They've raised the stakes too much, too early. Also, Barret: "Anyone who's an enemy of the planet is an enemy to us!" 10 min ago: Kills a manifestation of Fate, created by the planet to make things go the way the planet wants.
I really wanted to like this “remake” but the whispers is just a no from me. And the over use of Sephiroth in cut scenes just didn’t hit right with me. The original had it so u didn’t know about sephiroth till further into the game. He’s suppose to be this powerful mythical creature but in the remake i feel like they cheapened him. All the “cool” points of his character seem meaningless now. Graphically, yes its amazing but it came at a cost of destroying and splitting apart everything that made the story telling of the original worth the 100’s of hrs to finish.
Also people like sephiroth because he's an interesting villain with an understandable motivation. But ever since Advent children he's always portrayed as if fighting cloud is all he cares about(which made sense in the context of advent children, but nowhere else), which is the same in the remake. He just shows up to annoy you, as if he hadn't anything better to do
Once you introduce concepts that were never part of the original such as time travel and whispers that fuck around with key events it’s no longer a remake it’s a reimagining and to many people fail to understand the difference
If you really, truly understood the story, FF7 Remake is not a re-make, but a sequel. FF7 Remake is not a description of what the game is, It's what's happening in the story. Things are getting re-made. And by the future Sephiroth in where he would win,and that's why he shows up early in the story, to derail cloud's party from doing what they did in the original timeline. So yeah technically this is a sequel to advent children.
@@kaitokid9 That doesn't make it a good Story though. I understand that it's a Sequel, and i've watched plenty of videos explaining what a "genious and complicated plot" it is but a) i actually wanted a Remake, not a Sequel and b) I think the Plot is just downright bad. Just because it's complex doesn't mean a plot is automatically good, and other than the fact that you can spend hours trying to find connections and hints in the game, it doesn't have anything going for it, imo.
What pisses me off most about this game is the way it teeters between being a literal "remake" that attempts to rewrite and do things very differently, while also masquerading behind all these nostalgic moments that people actually always wanted and came for. For every piece of content or sequence that attempts to recreate something faithfully from the original that people actually know, there's an equal opposition where the game pretends it's presenting some genius meta-commentary about how it's breaking free from the chains of the original game and free to do its own thing. Never mind that I'm pretty sure what most people wanted was for Final Fantasy 7 to be remade in the same spirit as the original. This equilibrium is like the perfect excuse, because it gives Square the ability to pretend like they're making something faithful while at the same time doing the opposite. And proponents of the game are gullible enough to not see through it, so you have people stupid enough to make excuses and offer extremely odd justifications of any criticism to the structure and writing. Some people say we should wait and see before making judgements, and that since it's episodic, it's not safe to make judgements until it's all out, but I'm not dumb enough to let Square take me for a ride. This is a cash cow they're making, and they're going to milk it for every last drop.
Honestly, another series that has come to blame fans. Just make a new game, don't promise to redo old ones if you just don't want to. Isn't that the point of that transaction? Fans of ff7: Do a remake! Nomura and crew: Sure but like "remake" or "remix"? Fans: Remake? Nomura and crew: Well we wanna do new stuff so we'll change the shit you love but its your fault if it doesn't work bc you dont give us freedom.
@@Limbergem @Savashti B Kh1-2 (the ones I've played heavily) will always hold special places in my "heart" To the point that I was sad to see what happened with 3 and the overall lore. But yes I fucking love kingdom hearts
@@jonathanferguson7791 hehe, I'm surprised to see a KH lover that didn't like FFVII Remake. They felt so similar to me with the story direction. I couldn't get into KH, it just felt like such a sloppy attempt to draw in as many fan bases as possible with clumsily strung together franchises. Also the giant human feet weirded me out. 😂
Most dogshit “remake” EVER they ruined virtually everything that made FF7 such a classic. Probably the most disappointing game I’ve ever played in my life but not really surprising considering square has been garbage for nearly 20 years
I saw this coming a mile away. You could tell from the initial trailer they were going to take a lot of liberties with the story. Then when it came out, everyone ate it up like lemmings. Even some so-called FF VII fans were saying it was a mastapiece. Those of us who sought a faithful adaptation of FF VII's story will likely feel somewhat disappointed. But on the other hand, the people working on remaking an old game are people too, who probably want some creative license to play around a little. I just wish it wasnt the way it happened. Multiverse shenanigans with weirdo ghosts and convoluted explanations that only seem to make sense to the most open of minds.
All they had to do was stick to the original plot and people wouldn’t have any problems, because newcomers wouldn’t complain since they didn’t know the original to begin with and the old fans would of gotten what they wanted as well (both sides happy). I was not a huge fan of the combat but I stuck it out thinking I would get to see the story in higher fidelity until shit started making no sense plot wise. I’m happy for those who enjoy it but I’m getting off this train. Thank god I got free with PSplus so I ain’t even mad, because for sure I will save $60-$70 from not buying the next episode.
It baffles me that Square Enix managed to bungle the remake. Most of the hard parts were done. The story, pacing world building, music, characters, atmosphere…people loved all those things. It’s a proven commodity. Why would you mess with such a delicate recipe? It’s so hard to get those right, and lord knows they haven’t been able to do a good job of those things in more than a decade, at least. I can’t say I’m surprised though. Could see this coming a mile away. I lost faith in them as a company long ago.
@@JustinC721 it’s just my opinion, I know many will disagree. From a commercial perspective, I’m sure it was a big success, but I don’t necessarily equate that with quality
@@Brian-lk5fxI don't either, but I'm sure there is a connection between sales figures and quality. Regardless, I wouldn't call a commercial success a 'failure' in any regard.
@@Brian-lk5fx I'm not the one calling a game a failure despite positive sales figures which persist two years after release. Last time I checked, people buy games that they like. That said, there is nothing wrong with not liking something. Many of the criticisms in this video and the comments are due to lack of understanding of FFVIIs lore. On that note, there is nothing wrong with not being able to understand something. What is important to note here is that inability to comprehend something says more about the person than it does the material.
My guess would be the latter. But with the larger companies doing the usual paid reviews, it doesn't really matter what their "opinion" on the game might be. The positive PLAYER reviews are the real mystery. 😁
I'd say they never played the original, and most people praising the game also didn't. Because this game isn't a remake at all, and its disappointing for that.
Reviews are bought nowadays. I know it is true and yet it is still hard to accept that there is a large percentage of players who rave about this game. I just can't understand how people are happy that they are taking the story in an all new direction when 90% of the new material was bad.
I am not what you would call an OG final fantasy fan as I started ff on ff8 which by then I was barely waking up to story in games. I didnt even play ff7 till roughly 2009 when I was living on my own and in the army and had time to splurge and check out games I missed out on. One thing that continued to grow on my part is understanding and appreciating stories told to us and that stays strong today which is why even though I never played it ff7 when it originally came out ff7 remake absolutely ruined the fuck out of the story and missed the point. And this is coming from someone who was in middle school liked advent children but as I got older and understood the original ff7 story better I realized how bad advent children was and disservices the original in a lot of ways. Along with pretty much the entire ff7 compilation bullshit that Nomura basically had a hand in. By god team four stars abridged version was more faithful than the remake.
@@tobaccojacko Actually, fate was the mastermind behind it and thus carry more responsibility. So Sephiroth was kinda just a puppet. At least that is what FF VII remake tells us with what Red says the whisperers are. If you do not buy that then at least consider that the plate fell because the whisperers intervened, so Shinra was just puppets in wanting it down, but Fate planned it and made it happen and this applies to every large and small thing.
@@vincentgraymore Yeah, but the only thing we basically know is that zack is alive, unless if part 2 is telling us otherwise I think nibeihelm will be untouched
@@tobaccojacko Yes, but in a memory in FF VII remake the whisperers do exist and enact their will. So if we see a memory or are told about a past event, that is an event where fate ruled (clumsy) with an iron fist. So Sephiroth was either observed doing the correct thing as in line with fate or the whisperers nudged him to, and if it had happened any other way, Nibelheim would have been swarmed by whisperers. I do not think most people will think like this, but I will remember the developers narrative devices and during the iconic Sephiroth burning Nibelheim video, which we already saw one version of in remake, I will think "well that was meant to happen so blame the planet just as much for your town, Cloud". Unless they go the route that the whisperers defeat was true all time spanning and thus include their own birth and then also existence. Basically wiping themselves out from even all encounters with them. The writers could also change/"expose" what the whisperers actually were/are in line with theories that so many believe in and do not simply take Reds explanation at face value and think it is negative lifestream or Jenova etc. But even so they still enact "fate" as in driving what events should and would happen, thus changing context and context matters.
Final Fantasy 7 turned into Disney Star Wars on us and I'm not trying to deal with the fans. But the main reason Aerith and Zack won't die is to negate the romantic triangle that was from the earlier game and simplify it. I've see it get a lot of heat, online, by the female fans and Square is not trying to take a hit this time around.. Zach is going to be with Aerith, Cloud with Tifa, and Sephiroth with Genesis 🤣🤣🤣. Angeal only one not coming back...as he just said the same thing, over and over, and would completely drown out any party members outside the top 4 (Tifa/Cloud/Zack/Aerith as Barret was useless, story wise, after Corel). They're trying to pack the hell out of this game, but what happens is trying to set up these alternative stories will take forever
My main gripe is the mysterious specters. They’re literally just a representation of the developers going “Hey, remember this part? We’re fucking ruining it.” And with sephiroth already being the final boss of the game? Remember running for your life/dying to Zolom just to go back later and see it fucking piked by sephiroth? I remember thinking if he can kill THAT how am I supposed to stand a chance!? And now they ruined that too 😭
Also when the spirits are swarming the shinra builing: Tifa: ...What...are they doing? Aerith: Who knows?...(Developer: But its gonna look cool. Who cares if it makes sense or not? They are not really doing anything, nor does it make any sense in the story, so lets have the characters reference this same conversation we had about not knowing what they are doing.)
Everything you said I felt deeply. I loved the little they expanded the story, I wanted side quests that went further - what is avalanche all about, especially the splinter groups - what is avalanche doing to convince the hearts and minds of ppl? - what are the other sectors like? - what about gwen? - what about that shinra employee at the beginning that tifa talks to? - could even have had little things like the Turks doing things to infiltrate/investigate avalanche or find out about hojo taking Undercity ppl for their experiments idk I also LOATHED the fact that there was no lore! What are the tanks in sector 5? And the ruined town around the church? What’s that Talagar factory? Also Why are the slum towns so far from the stations? I kinda felt there should be some middle town between stations and slums but idk. The game left me wanting more, as all square games do now tbh
if they wanted to change the plot, fine, but they should've just done it instead of adding the weird whispers shit, the generic "WE NEED TO KILL FAAAAATE" from bad JRPGs, the weird timeline zack shit... also i'm super worried they're going to find a way to keep aerith alive and bring zack back, because some JRPGs are scared of having any consequences because they cant sell waifu dolls or whatever
Not only that, but with that level of athleticism every enemy encounter in the game should end in one strike. Cloud is damn near a Shonen jump protagonist at this point
Tifa and Aerith struggling to save Cloud with the Rod in the swamp (almost falling into a pool of water.. wow), and some hours later Tifa with one hands grab a steel rope with Cloud and Barrett weight on it with literally no effort.
I've yet to play FF7 remake (and I'm not sure when I ever will considering I don't have a PlayStation) but I've played the original, and this video is fucking hilarious. Every stupid "plot twist" you went through at the end just put me into more hysterics. Then you said Zack was alive and I just lost it. I genuinely can't believe what I just witnessed, wtf Square.
The part of Final fantasy 7 to gather the Huge materia had nothing to do with Holy, Areith's white materia was the only thing that had to do with Holy, the huge materia was Shinra's plan to destroy Meteor. Also, there was 4 Huge Materia, one for Magic, Command and Summon, plus one more that you get Bahamut Zero from.
Avalanche, were devasted by the end of the Midgar intro and were essentially RAN out of Midgar into the wider world with no allies waiting behind for them go to back to, you only had yourselves to rely, you were all that was left. It was stark, yet you pressed on regardless and it was utterly compelling. All lost in the remake.
Actually, the best examples for meaningful side quest come directly from the original final fantasy 7, where most side quests add a whole lot more to the lore and character background. Just thinking that characters as cool as Vincent come from sidequests make you appreciate these sidequests and have so much fun with them.
Vincent isn’t that deep in the og game and the fact that he and Yuffie are locked behind side quests is actually not great. As evidenced by the fact that they’ve pushed them to be canon in every media following the game.
@@garethcousins5008 yeah better lock yuffie in a shitty "dlc" (cause that shit is basically a dlc locked to thr ps5 version) for example, a dlc in an episodic game smh
@@diegosotomiranda4107 she’s not locked behind dlc, they’ve given you no reason to believe she won’t be in the next part of the full game regardless. There’s optional dlc where you can play as Yuffie, stop sensationalising your hatred honestly
Everything fell apart at chapter 18. It ruined the experience by trying to be advent children fighting Sephiroth. Also Zack being alive removes all character definition for Cloud. And don’t get me started on the harbinger and the timeline stuff. That really was some Kingdom Hearts bullshit. I don’t expect future parts to be any better.
I liked the end actually and the OG is my favorite game of all time (played it when I was about 13). I do agree to an extent with making Zack be seemingly more prevalent... Because that has muddied things for people concerning Cloud, which does suck. But I do think there is potential to flesh that out in a good and discernable way. I also feel like remake has opened Sephiroth to have more depth/layers as an Antagonist compared to OG where he was bent to Jenova's will. In particular, the ending and how Sephiroth seems a Bit more pre-Nibelheim in his personality. Personally think the whole Harbinger ordeal has more than meets the eye to it. I got some vibes that paralleled FF10 in the last chapter especially. Also, I thought the voice acting was really great and the subtext and scoring was done excellent.
Introducing Zack so early into the remake compilation ruins and spoils the major plot twist of the game. I feel bad for the new players who are unfamiliar with anything FF7 related who probably won't be able to appreciate the conclusion of Cloud's character arc.
@@LordMalice6d9 that’s me. My first exposure to FF7 was the Remake, so I naturally wanted to know who this Zack guy was. I’m currently playing the original FF7, but I’m genuinely sad that I won’t be able to be properly surprised by the plot twist
@@aeaf123 what kn the fuck are you on about? Sephiroth was already an antagonist with a lot of depth to him. The whole point was that you as the player gets to know about sephiroth from the perspective of how how he was built up and you get his ambitions. Why do you think even to this day he's still stands above all the other antagonists that came after him
The terrible story writing aside through the whispers and the idea of defying fate bullshit you can not keep Zack alive and have Cloud's character not be harmed, Zack has to die to give Cloud his traumatic and screwed up mind that makes him the character his at the start of FF7
Nothing grinds my gears more than companies retelling previously gripping, consequential or interesting stories to be safe, hokey snoozefests. Recent example would be the ratchet and clank remake.
I loved the remade parts, hated the remake parts. Definately not grabbing part 2. I dont trust Kitase after this, and KH3 made me not trust Nomura in the slightest. The new storyline is hot garbage.
My hope is that one day the excited delirium about this game will fade and people will start recognizing the serious issues this game has. I am with you on the writing--especially the ending which has effectively killed my interest in the other entires into the remake series.
I love that you have a mourning dove as your image, that's probably my favorite animal. I also pray that more of the long term fans begin to recognize this abomination of a remake for what it is.
@@illmikumikuyou3661 LOL it's you that don't actually like FF7. You like it so little that you accept all kind of distortions of it, because you're focused on stupid and silly aspects of it, like Cloud' jumps, Sephiroth smiles, Zack and Aerith fucking, etc while totally being uninterested in the story. And he's right, the bullshit started with spinoffs (let's not forget dirge of cerberus).
@@5c0rpi0_d_d_p Wow, are you actually serious do you realise how stupid and childish you are, there's no way you're actually an adult so I'm not going to talk with you anymore. Clearly not worth my time in the slightest. Get a life.
When the first Remake episode ended before we even got outta the city i was like WTF, they must be making like 20 more episodes to finish it all at this rate.
Heh I'd say 3, 4 at most The group leaves Midgar by around the middle of CD1, so I it's possible Rebirth could go up until Sephiroth gets the black materia and then part 3 until the end of the game Assuming the story stays somewhat close to the original structure
The more I think about the story...the more it doesn't make sense.. Sepheroth wants to defy destiny.. because somehow he knows he is destined to lose.. So our heros shouldn't be trying to defy destiny too...they should be trying to keep in line with destiny as much as possible.. because that's the only way they can guarantee they win...it makes no sense for them to actively defy destiny
@@cucumberjoe6824 o..ok..I don't think that's the case Areith and Sepheroth basically knows how things go..so they know meteor doesn't kill everyone.. Which is why sepheroth is trying to defy destiny.. This story reminds me of final fantasy 13.....the main antagonist wants the heros to do a thing so he can win...and the heroes decide to defeat the antagonist by doing exactly what he wants
FF7 is a story about band of rebels, who has their own personal problem, overcome their differences, topple the corrupt mega corporation, only to find out that Shinra is not the main threat, and then save the planet. FF7R is a story about FF7.
"Masterpiece", many review sites wrote. I knew next to nothing about FFVII before purchasing the remake (I played FFX, FFX-2 and FFXII only), just finished a few hours ago. I felt totally confused and disappointed at the end of the game. I'm honestly shocked. NOTHING is even remotely properly explained of the story/plot, and then there's all the problems you mentioned as well. Who is Sephiroth? How does Aerith suddenly know about Sephiroth and what's going to happen after they "cross the point of no return"? And why couldn't she explain more, if she knew? Besides learning about Jessie and her father, there is next to ZERO character development of the main cast - their back-stories, their motivations - some cryptic flashbacks with no actual storytelling. We get more from Leslie than Tifa, Barret, Biggs or Wedge, even arguably Aerith. Then Biggs and Jessie "die" and it's supposed to be emotional and impactful, except nobodies dies in the end. With the Whispers situation: I didn't know it was not a part of the original - so they introduced a change in the game whose sole purpose is to enforce that there are no changes in the game compared to the original - only for the characters to defy Fate and change things anyway? WTF? The combat was mostly awesome and visuals were pretty good, particularly character animations (some odd low res textures here and there), and also the music was excellent, but I reached the end feeling that the story presented here does not work AT ALL in this game. And from what was shown here, it makes no sense compared to the original either. One of the most baffling review situations I've ever seen.
It's a tragedy how far down the drain Gamespot's reputation has fallen for giving this game a 10 out of 10 , It's nowhere NEAR close. Gamespot used to be one the review sites where a 10 truly was rare and you took that seriously because It most likely was justified and they had real hardcore gaming journalists. Nowdays all the rating systems are dumbed down and simplified to make games seem better than they really are , and reviews aren't trustworthy. This was not the remake that actual day 1 fans (1997 launch day pick up) asked for. Square got greedy , none of this was an accident It wasn't made for the OG fans as much as It was to heavily appeal to newer fans and modern trends for maximum profit. None of the changes or the multiple discs releases were necessary , just excuses.
This. This right here is why people who say newcomers to FF7 having a choice to play the original or the Remake are absolutely stupid. There's so many references to the original game that are cryptic and out of place. And that's saying a lot considering that for half the game, Cloud's mind and memories aren't all there or reliable to begin with.
i suggest you forget about the remake completely and play the original with an open mind towards the graphics. Maybe play it on your mobile phone. The story is great and completely butchered in the remake.
This is exactly my thoughts. They explained nothing in terms of the story, or left everything way too vague. I never played the original, and by the time I beat sephiroth in the remake i still had no idea who he was supposed to be. And the lack of characterisation and backstory (as you mentioned) for the main cast really bummed me out. Personally enjoyed FFXV a lot more, the storytelling was a lot more enganging and the relationships between characters + backstories were explored a lot further.
Play the 1997 version, then you know everything plus forget the "new" story... The graphic of the 1997 is by now shit, but what they did in the remake is to exchange the Graphic Story (Now graphic is very good, but the story is shit). Even calling this remake sucks, when i say i like FF7 by now i have to say "i like the original/1997 version"...
😅 i remember when this video had more dislikes then likes.... I think people are really coming to their senses with this remake... It's such a bittersweet experience for fans that really cared for the OG story and understood why a 1997 game with blocky graphics still to this day is still being played. It WAS the story... It's like a old childrens story... No matter how many times its told...you still wanna hear the same story that you loved...NOT some other bullshit... Like seriously Barret dies in the remake just to come back to life 1 min later...like WTF...the story is a mess now...
Yeah people are losing their rose tinted glasses. What I find is alot of people need a ton of time to process info. But other like us process info quickly and see the problems. We also see where this is going with next game, how many things will be effected
@Curly Que It looks like the whole concept of sephiroth disrupting the timeline, and the whispers correcting the timeline completely went over their heads.
Lol, I can't see dislikes anymore. RUclips is protecting me from hate and negativity I guess...but yeah, I hate the remake. The graphics, music and most voice acting was lovely but it takes more than that to actually deserve the title of masterpiece and this remake is a far throw from that. How many dislikes does this video have?
When I played Remake for the first time I didn't want to enter that portal into "freedom". I kind of started to see where they were going with the story but the shit storm after that went way beyond my fears and gave me depression after nearly 15 years of waiting for the remake release.
31:27 I actually want to say something about this: Cloud straight up does NOT give a f*** about Biggs, Wedge, or Jessie dying. Barrett loses his s*** when the plate collapses and becomes very emotional when he thinks Marlene is dead Tifa mentions to him that Aerith said she is safe and that gives him hope. What does Cloud do though? He says "Sephorith..." and then runs off leaving Tifa and Barrett behind. The ONLY thing Cloud cares about is finding out of Sephorith is alive. Literally emotionless at the deaths of potentially thousands of innocent people.
Regarding news outlets and websites praising the game to no end - I think some of the worst of it is actually on social media. There are tons of walking billboard/PR content creators online that do nothing but regurgitate the same hype posts for the series, and many of them are invited to events. If they were to say anything that could be taken in a negative light they'd likely be backlisted or passed up for any sort of collaborations and promotional material.
I didn't mind the game up until a certain point. I thought the characters were beautifully written, acted, and rendered. The game also looked and sounded great. The gameplay and combat were hit and miss, I definitely had to force myself to get through some sections. It was that last hour or so when I felt almost sick with shock and disappointment, never would I have thought I would end fighting against antagonists that were just analogous concepts like 'fate' and 'destiny'. It was so ridiculous it shattered all my immersion and connection with the game, its characters and its world. Then the final gut punch was, these aren't even the characters I know and love, this is a hack alternate timeline story that may as well be fanfiction and gives the writer an excuse to change and manipulate the world of FF7 as he sees fit from here on. The game was at its best when it was sticking close to the source material, at times it was almost perfect, but then it was all undone.
it was almost like the developers self inserting themselves in the game to say we made big changes, lol all of it felt so fake that even me who never played the ps1 ff7 could tell none of this could be in the original
Big dan gaming: "biggs wedge and jessie's deaths didn't have much of impact in the original story" Me my whole childhood: "😭😭😭😭dammit biggs, dammit wedge, jesssssssie!😭😭😭😭😭🥺"
To be fair, my pain about them wasn't individualized, except for Jessie as she seemed a bit nerdy and sweet (especially dressed as a dude and showing us the Midgar sub map). I did feel their loss after the plates fell, but had pretty much forgotten about them once I entered the Shinra building. You might have felt it in the moment, but I'll wager it didn't last because the rest of the game was so good.
See for me their death had a massive impact but not because I was attached to them and I don’t think that was the purpose either. It was that moment that cemented how much of a threat shinra actually were and a stark reminder that your small group were pretty much out of their depth which really raised the stakes of the scenes to come.
SE: We want to create something entirely new, and not be tied down by the past. Sales for FF7-2 are down 60%. SE: We're going to faithfully recreate the original from the ground up for the fans we love so much!
I think it's already too late for that. They won't use ressources for that and they're already talked about remaking 8 and do a sequel to X-3. They have to cash down the remaining nostalgia
Not sure if you've realized this yet, especially with interviews and bits and pieces leaked of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, but many of your questions are answered thus: 1. It's a sequel, using the remake as a backdrop, and a gateway to get people to buy it, due to the demand for the sequel. Bait and switch would be fairly accurate. 2. Extended universe content underwrites everything from the original game. EVERYTHING. They're using all of that content, especially certain obscure writings from Nojima, and Advent Children (the final fight scene between Cloud and Sephiroth is a verbatim frame by frame replay at least in terms of the FMV moments, of the Advent Children fight). 3. Infinite money printing machine (in their eyes). Especially given their likely shock at how well received 15 was. 15 was like bad fan fiction conceived by an 8 year old. Had innumerable plot holes. Content that was almost pure exposition. Unnecessary and needless sacrifice and death with limited explanations. Similarly with much of this game. There were plenty of plot holes in 7's narrative, but they can be forgiven as the general writing is better, the exposition is handled well, and the overall events actually help develop the characters (you missed the point of Walmarket and Cloud's development which was critical to the original in breaking his shell, especially as he was the one who decides to carry along Aerith's crazy plan, but in this version he's carried along a river and sent from one place to another always at the behest and control of everyone else, and has no agency and no growth). This stems from #2, as in #2 Sephiroth's return is as a split personality God similar to Lavos (which incidentally was a core inspiration for Jenova), becoming the time devourer in Cross. Nojima reapplied that application through Advent Children and further writings based on his AC machinations. Everything we're seeing here is built around the concept of various forms of Sephiroth. Primordial with unknown motivations and goals, a version that is based on a mirrored reflection of Cloud's vision of him, which has an attachment akin to brotherly love for Cloud, and a version hell bent on carrying out his goal in the original game. So Nojima is also basing this shit on the FF7 script and ideas as written by Tetsuya Takahashi, which were scrapped (though elements were used for the Jenova project clones and Cloud's split personality), and rehashed in Xenogears. Only now Sephiroth is also Fei Fong Wong. So essentially he's an infinite existence with multiple layers, who can exist on multiple layers of time and space, and is both physical and ethereal. So essentially they can do FUCK ALL with the script now as a result of knowledge and understanding of those writings by just continuously creating games that are now "cannon" within the FF7 universe, and hell, why not even create an FF10 spinoff where Sephiroth traces the Al-Bed ship that brought the first humans, created by a Shinra, to Spira? Then we have Seymour Guado merge with Sephiroth or something? Why the hell not? Sephiroth can now be cannon in every FF script! Though a lot of the story contrivances are VERY reminiscent of Nomura as well. Nojima is a decent writer, but Nomura by all interviews, was the overriding guide to development and the critical idea man. In between his contributions was Kitase. So who knows what of the convoluted nightmare of a mish-mash paddywack storyline was born from any of the three. Except to say a lot of those crazy elements are almost verbatim ripped plot points and character development arcs from KH, especially KH3. Then again Nomura was working on both at the same time, so it makes sense he would be carrying over the same concepts and methods of presenting scenarios (like Biggs, which I'd wager is still alive...no seriously, I'd bet he is despite that final scenario). The whispers feel like a rework of the heartless, especially as presented in KH3. One of the issues as well, is certain interviews related to this development, Nomura wanted to outdo the Guch. I don't think he realizes that Sakaguchi, for all his creative pitfalls, fully comprehends story structure and character arcs. He was the literal glue that allowed the complexity of FF7's original game to come together. It's his way of handling FF6's complex storyline that helped Kitase develop into a good writer, leading to Kitase meshing all of the contributions for Chrono Trigger into a single narrative. Though unlike FF7, the way that split idea system worked was very different, and he only had to add in connecting points and fill in the gaps between them. === Anyway, excellent breakdown, though I think you missed or glossed over a lot, probably due to time limitations and wanting to highlight certain points that really stood out to you. It's tragic what they're doing with this game, and frankly I think their plan will ultimately fail, but they'll make bank for awhile. However the sheer volume of core fans of the original who have given the middle finger? I wonder if Rebirth will hit FF13-2 sales or 10-2 sales figures? Or dive bomb well below them? === Oh right, one last thing. I was actually completely fine with the expansion of Midgard, and very excited at first. Why? Consider HOW much content was in the original game? How many story rewrites they did? How many idea men they had adding elements? That Midgard with Detective Cloud was the original vision (though Midgard was more like Gotham than what it became). How many elements of that story would be left in notes? I was hoping we'd see some of those ideas tossed back into it, to flesh things out. Tweaked to fit the final narrative of the original game. Plus there was a LOT of story holes related to the planet, Buggenhagen, the nature of the ancients, how the Cetra really died, that were compelling but poorly explained. If you read into the old interviews over the game, it sounds like they cut out about 80% of the original planned script, and between the Guch and Kitase, managed to weave a single narrative together. Especially given how proactive Sakaguchi was in general game development, despite being a producer at the time (reading those interviews, he was producer and director in truth, with Kitase acting as like a sub-director, or co-director with less influence). I wonder what FF would have turned into had Sakaguchi only resigned from VP, but stayed in the company as the core head of their main game division? Anyway, cheers.
The combat system wasn't good. It's heavily flawed. Blocking is delayed, blocking doesn't cancel out your attack, you can only summon once in a battle, items n magic require 2 battlefield currencies to use, aerial combat is atrocious for how many aerial enemies you'll fight, being interrupted while using a spell wastes both ATB and MP, enemies can move away from you after you use a limit break even though it pauses the action, and some characters' dodge doesn't even travel far enough to dodge attacks. That's an 8 times flawed combat system and that's not even considering hard mode where you can't use items and rest points don't restore MP which actually creates another 2 flaws revolving around the MP restore materia. You only get one and it restores less MP than the attached spell costs in MP. There's only 2 things good about FF7 remake and those are graphics and music, and one could argue that the music is bad because it doesn't fit the tone of FF7 most times. Meaning that the graphics are literally the ONLY objectively good thing in the remake.
@@hoyschelsilversteinberg4521 And even then the graphical fidelity is also lacking in some aspects. I remember going to Aerith's house and having a great impression on how well they made the garden look. Then you go into the House proper and the pots and pans are all hexagons. There are a lot of examples like that. Where things look good one moment and the next you stumble into PS2 tier stuff.
@@alevasdiox Haha no way. It is so obvious this was "remade" because there is a bunch of loyal fans wanting it, the creators obviously didn't play it or enjoy it on the level the fans did. I doubt they even played 10 minutes of the game.
They are definitely not keeping the game the same as they've kept Zack alive, introduced Sephiroth way too early and added a new bad guy. This is not the FF7 we played as children. WTF.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Kingdom Hearts level convoluted multiverse timetravel garbage. Lets take something near perfect (original ff7 story) have an opportunity to expand on it and bring more life to characters and locations and take a shit on it. Its honestly so disappointing. The graphics, music and even part of the combat systems were awesome but the story just makes me so angry. Being in shinra hq and seeing the blood in the hallways with the eerie music playing in the background then finding the president with the sword in his back was an absolute masterpiece of storytelling and how the game had some great horror suspense elements to it. Leaving all that out and saving everyone from the plate falling and nobody dying just makes it feel like some elementary school cartoons. There is no weight to the story. If everyone lives??? Whats the point? Where is the consequence? Thats such a huge part of the character development in the original. They have to deal with the fact that their actions could have influenced shinras decision to drop the plate. I mean they are partially responsible in the original and them dealing with that is big in the character development. i agree with most of what you said in this video. Glad im not the only person extremely disappointed in this new game?? I guess
What you stated is exactly the main reason for Barrets character development during the Midgar chapter in the original game. At the beginning he behaves like Clouds boss and always wants to be the leader and in control but after the death of Wedge, Biggs and Jessie he realizes that his actions had consequences and that he might not be cut out to be a leader and Cloud should do it.
that doesn't mean they still don't die. why make a game the same as the original. that'll be stupid. l like how they doing it. why? so it can blow your mind when they switch up.
@@youngrydah4374 Then don't advertise and sell it as ''Final Fantasy 7 REMAKE''. It just show poor business practice from square. If they called it FF7-2 (or since it's Nomura, FF7.9), there wouldn't be so much outrage toward this shit. The amount of coping and bad faith justifying is through the roof with you all.
Really great Review, just putting out some thoughts of mine: 1. If they want to make a new plot, just make a new story, and don't replace the plot to make a meta message that you want to change the story, but then don't actually write a good plot. I would have loved to see the remake have like different endings, and multiple ways the plot can play out, that would give it great replayability. But instead we get railroaded into a single lazy story. 2. I think its especially weird how they put a ton of filler in the game, and then cut out the prison scene in the Shinra HQ, which was there in the original. I really like that scene, because you have a moment where the pacing slows down before Sephiroth is revealed, as well as giving a great motive as to why Red 13 joins the party(jailbreak buddies, and not brainwash by Aerith). Also it makes Shinra seem less useless. I mean, if you can waltz into their literal HQ and stomp all security, why the hell should i ever take them serious as enemies in any future part of the game? (i do like the implementation of a jenovah boss though, that's actually a good point to have one in the first part.) 3. I hate how they butchered the motorcycle scene, because you get at least 2 deus ex machinas within this single minigame. I nearly lost my will to finish the game at that point, because it made the group look beyond incompetent and useless. 4. Also on the point of less impact: In the beginning you don't actually blow up the reactor, making you innocent, and THEN give you the walk through the streets to see the damage you caused. the latter is such a brilliant idea, to make you think about your actions, but at the same time they just clear you of the crime, so its not actually your fault and you don't have to feel bad about it.
Johnny wasn’t a new character... he’s standing next to the honey bee establishment in the original ffvii. I just started replaying ffvii the original and the only thing I can think is they are actually remaking the game with a new story rather than just doing a remaster.
Best review I've seen for FF7 Remake yet. You really hit the nail on the head. Only things I disagreed with: 1. I liked that they made Jessie a flawed character. It adds some depth to her, and a little interpersonal drama. It's a little fan servicey, but compared to the game's other fan service, it's pretty tame. 2. Earlier in the story it's explained that Avalanche HQ and Barret's team don't get along very well, despite being on the same side. This could explain why they were hesitant to reach out to HQ for help when trying to get to the upper levels of Midgar. Still, they should have made that clearer in the writing, and you'd think they'd at least try to get their help.
The argument between Cloud and the old man who wound up with the graveyard key was basically Cloud's sneaky way of getting the old man off his ass and fired up since it was implied that he basically lost the inner spark that he had earlier in life. Cloud helped get him moving while maintaining the appearance of a cold bastard. I thought all of that was obvious, given the ridiculously exorbitant amount that Cloud tried to charge the old man, especially knowing damn well that no one in the slums had that kind of gil to spare. Oh, and Biggs does get mentioned when you visit the orphanage.
You took the words from my own mouth .. all your points are exactly what i shared with my friends when they asked me on my opinion on ff7 remake .. the difference here is that my friends totally agreed with me but they liked the game never the less !!!
I m in same boat. Agree a lot but i love this game and now playing on hard. Wish it was perfect though. It had the potential to be an unparalleled masterpiece
@@mowntainmann2567 It was so easy to do it too: don't change the story! Everything else about the game was already great: gameplay was fun, graphics look amazing, exploration okay, sense of scale palpable. But the story, script, and VA...oooffff.
@@NikkoTanGoogle well the VAs aren't bad, especially the Japanese ones of course. The only VA i don't like is Sephiroth's english VA just because Newbern was so good nothing comes close imo
This was my first time experiencing FF7. The ending has killed any interest I have in this Remake saga. It was so rushed and unnatural and catastrophically written I could not understand WTF happened to this game. And I instantly knew that whatever the fuck I was seeing it was not in the original game because if it was then FF7 would have never gained such praise and fame. Fuck this brain-dead garbage.
The amount of stuff they added to the ending made almost no sense unless you take advent children that really atrocious movie into consideration and then you realize that this game is basically just a sequel that takes place in the alternate universe. But honestly just play the original if the graphics are an issue you can upscale them with so many other mods it takes like 5 minutes not even
Of course the story is a mess. This is what happens when Tetsuya Nomura is put in charge. I am looking forward to FF XVI, because it seems to be going back to its fantasy roots, and Nomura isn't anywhere near it. With his track record of taking a decade to get anything out, I expect we will have the complete FF7 remake as a launch title for the PS7
Barret's death was an interesting twist and it gave me a glimmer of hope that the story might get interesting... but then they bring him back to life immediately after, like they did with everyone else that "died". There are no consequences to anything bad that happens and the writers don't commit to anything, that's so lame dude.
My favorite part about this game is the rabid fanbase of people under the age of 18, who have tried repeatedly to gaslight me into thinking I didn’t actually play the original, despite playing through it 4 times. Any criticism I have towards this new game is met with a bombardment of blind fanboys white knighting to defend it. I’m apparently “nostalgia blind” over a game I just played for the first time last year. Oh well, you can’t win anymore with people.
Playing FF7 for the first time, the part where the party gets out of captivity was great, especially with the foreshadowing and build up that is being done. I went to look at how it looks in the remake and I was mind blown by how fanfictiony everything was. FF7R is to FF7, what Kingdom hearts is to Disney movies. Thanks for making the video.
This is going to go the way of the Star Wars movies... they are just cashing in on nostalgia and will likely make it a trilogy. Each game worst than the last. And "I'll withhold judgement and play the next one" is exactly what they are counting on.
It’s a shame the story went from well paced and compelling to asinine and plodding. How can anyone take it seriously now with the plot ghosts and lack of suspense or stakes? The original is still the definitive version. The writing in this game is about the same level of terrible writing as in 10-2 and the 13 trilogy.
It's trashy writing by and for people who've spent too much time reading shitty comics/manga/fanfics, watching bad television/anime, and haven't spent nearly enough of their lives interacting with real human beings or engaging with worthwhile books/movies/shows. What's worse is how, nowadays, sheltered/aloof people like this seem to always think that introducing more and more batshit sci-fi cliches like time-travel, clones, or multiple universes is somehow a failure-proof way to improve their stories. With it's ultra-detailed graphics/textures/music/sound, FF7R would lead any reasonable person to believe that they were about to experience a deep/nuanced story about deep/nuanced characters, but it will almost instantly become clear that isn't going to happen and that all the money went towards graphics/combat/sound.
As a fan of the og FFVII, I utterly agree with you. FFVII Remake is a desecration of the og game and don’t deserve the praise it gets from the media at all. Edit: I hate the combat system.
Xenogears had a good sewer level IMO Also, surprised you didn't mention the lack of blood and absolute butchering of the trail of blood scene as well as the fight with sephiroth making NO sense thematically. How TF is cloud strong enough to even TOUCH Sephiroth, let alone hurt him? Midgar Zolom makes no sense now edit: 10/19/22 Also i'm just now noticing at 17:59 why do random kids have a sword in replica of the buster sword when they have never met cloud before and have no reason to idolize him. Also the buster sword was custom made, so it isn't just something anyone would have on hand design wise...What store is selling those?
They have met Cloud, he and Aerith go into their little secret hideout so they can rescue the other kids who got attacked by monsters. Then the follow up quest where you have to go find them around town (where this scene is from) is literally after that.
Theyve been getting away with it for more than 15 years now because the current fanbase is brain damaged kool aid drinking kingdom hearts children and sicko coomers.
It's Motomu Toriyama and Tetsuya Nomura bullshit. Those 2 are the bane of Square Enix at this point. Nomura always feels like an edgelord, and overplays his storytelling skills even though it's shit. And Motomu Toriyama is straight up a shitty writer; probably responsible for the shit script (coupled with Nomura's cringe voice acting direction, is a recipe for disaster).
Omg did they not proofread the plot??? Cloud and Avalanche: we must defy fate to defeat Sephiroth Aerith: (I want to defy fate because I want to live, yolo) Sephiroth: join me Cloud. Let us defy fate together. 😈 Cloud: NO! That would be bad!
Having watched a walkthrough of this game and having just finished watching you review I realized something. This has ALL THE MAKINGS of being an exact repeat of the _Star Wars_ sequels. In fact, it's _already_ happening! Remember when TFA first came out and how it split the fandom almost 50/50? There were those who singing praises while others were criticizing for numerous and logical reasons? Then there were those who were really worried about the future of _Star Wars_ and everyone just ignored them? Harassed them? Remember how Disney tricked everyone into believing that "Star Wars is back!" only to give us what was essentially a poorly disguised remake of ANH? Yet the fandom was totally fine with it. Then came _The Last Jedi_ and remember how that went? It didn't just the ruin franchise, it _broke_ the fandom. Even the most devoted fans of TFA couldn't defend it. That's how bad it was. And by the time _The Rise of Skywalker_ came out nobody cared. The damage TLJ made was so extensive that nobody cared about _Star Wars_ anymore. With _Final Fantasy VII Remake_ it's the exact same situation. Right now we're in the TFA stage. The fandom is split almost 50/50 with those singing it praises being the dominant voice. On the other hand you and several others have pointed out this game's serious flaws and have voiced your legitimate concerns going into the future and yet you're being harassed and ignored. The majority of the fandom is totally fine with this remake. Square-Enix has managed to get away by tricking the fandom into believing this is the greatest thing ever. Well, I very much imagine that when the second part of this remake comes out it'll be TLJ all over again. Just like with _Star Wars_ the second part will not just ruin the legacy of _Final Fantasy VII_ it will also break the fandom, and those who defended the first part not be able to defend the second one no matter how hard they try. Now, it is possible that _maybe_ it won't go down that path and _maybe_ they won't permanently change the story that we all know and love. But... like you said, I don't see how that's possible. In fact, I don't think they can because they've already done it! They have written themselves into a corner and now have no choice but to go through with it. And the results, I predict, are going to be _devastating._ If the second part of this remake does become another TLJ and sales significantly drop as a result then Square will end up doing one of three things. Either they cram whatever's left into a third game(four if we're lucky) without bothering to polish it and it'll an even bigger mess, they'll delay the third game again and again for whatever reason they can come up with because they don't know what to do, or they might just make the smart decision and cancel the game altogether in order to save themselves from further humiliation. However, it won't matter what they do. The damage of the second game will be so great that nobody's going to care about the third game. It won't be enough to save this remake series as a whole. Whatever the case, I just don't see _Final Fantasy VII Remake_ ending on a good note. I know the future is unpredictable but after what we went through with _Star Wars_ in recently and seeing all the similarities in regards to this, I'm not about to get my hopes up. We'll just have to wait and see and hope for the best. But... like they say, history has a way of repeating itself.
I hope to return to this comment after the second part is released to check back on your prediction, but I agree with you. I feel like we have been tricked by marketing and the game itself... Marketing: shows only the nostalgia elements of the "remake", hides all of the retcon parts and altered story etc. We think we are getting a modern re-imagining of the original. The game itself: at the start it was a carbon copy of the original, the opening FMV was the same, the intro sequence through the reactor was the same. But as the "remake" progressed it start to diverge. The game tricked us into thinking we were playing a remake but gradually became a different game and by the time it ended the remake had nothing to do with the original except for sharing characters. With the next part I think it is going to continue to diverge, continue to add in DLC that retcons things and at some point we are going to realise that they haven't given us loving fan service but instead have given us as many opportunities to buy games and DLC disguised as FF, similar to how star wars was a shallow husk of what it should have been, but they released movie after movie after side movies after television show after game which were all bad (except Rogue One and Jedi: Fallen Order). Final fantasy 7 is getting two releases on mobile: 1 battle royale game (so they are making Final Fortnite 7) and a remaster of the original that is free to play, this means it is going to be packed with those micro-transactions. These mobile games are clearly just a cash grab using the FF7 brand and is a good indication of the direction Square plans to take the FF7 franchise. I feel like it has already been ruined but I still have my original copy of the game and a console to pay it on and the best thing about games released 25 years ago is that square can never release DLC or content for it that change the game in any way. So long as I have those three discs I will always have access to the best Final Fantasy 7 experience square has ever, and will ever, produce.
I completely agree with you..but there's one ray of hope for Final Fantasy Remake...Numora has been taken off part 2 and they said they heard some of the backlash about part 1..so part 2 will be sticking closely to the og story they have an outline of a good story to follow.. so as long as they dont pull a Ryan Johnson and try to tell their own story with part 2...it has a slim chance to be good
@@86lanzo How can they retcon all of the retcons that Nomura threw in? He already changed many story critical things that deviate and altar the story greatly.
Given that SE just wants to make money, no matter what, i'm still hoping that they realise that they could release this game again but without all the whisper stuff, to sell the game twice, because then i could have the game i wanted.(sure, there would still be flaws, but i could live with them if it was the original plot)
@@darthslackus499 so you wanna buy PS1 graphics 1:1 HD Remaster 4k 60fps DISC1-3 for $59.99? well there is there in steam just mod here and there. done 100gb has the compromised for all things graphics cutscene animation high fidelity. look at that Advent Children quality game and theres many OST its like 8 + disc. this is 40+ hours single player game and pack of added content wdym bro? for the story this is sequel to the og , hate it or like it this is also key main team and writer who make the original ff7 they do it for the best as they can.
And this game does certainly not warrant a giant sized 100 gb install, it's not a giant open world game filled with 4k textures and hundred thousands assets.
My reaction to this game was “thanks, I hate it.” I’m still trying to convince myself that future installments might be good but I don’t think so. These are the same people who made Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus. Even Crisis Core isn’t that great. I was so excited for this game. I thought “Finally! A return to what made Square great.” Their last few games in the FF series and KH series have been terrible. Unfinished stories with stupid plots. FFXV had potential but fell flat. I thought with FFVII, they at least had a good story base and could have proper setup and payoff. And then they’re like, we’re changing shit. Even if by some miracle the plot stays intact, the story is completely different. It goes from themes of dealing with loss to themes of fighting against loss. And I hate it. I really hate that this game puts yet another barrier between me and newcomers to the story. I hate being the one to say, “the original was better”
@@jakobdueck7491 yeah, the maps suck. There is so much padding in the game. Dungeons get even worse. They make you go through boring ass sewers twice! If you haven’t played the original and can stand to play old 90s RPGs, I do recommend giving it a shot.
well said. In ff7 you go through sacrifice and see the significance of life and death, and you feel that really early on with the fall of the sector 7 plate killing everybody. In the remake you slowly evacuate everybody out and no one got hurt, yay! What a joke. Even though I like the combat of 7R a lot, the dungeons are repetitive and a slog to go through.
@@jewii3824 the combat was one of the few things I enjoyed. I actually was wanting random encounters back so the monotonous maps could be broken up a bit.
"I always thought was 'Team Tifa' and felt Jessie made him unfortable" Dude, he was uncomfortable around Tifa and Aerith as well. Hell, is there anyone Cloud is comfortable around? 🙄🙄🙄
Thank you for this. I'm tired of all these 9/10's 10/10's even 8/10's. Original ff7 was amazing for its timeline. However, this version didn't work other than combat. It was just boring...devoid of what the original achieved.
What did the OG part 1 FF7 achieve. Part 1 was always trash and boring and the only interesting thing to come out of it was Cloud's "headaches" and when you find the mayor dead.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH POP FILTER. This is what happens when you let a guy who is more concerned with M. Night Shymamalan levels of nonsensical plot twists and fan service take over as head of a project. Fully knowing the convoluted nonsense that is the Kingdom Hearts franchise.... The best screwup of all in this game was their redesigned zipline. In the OG game it was a wire they used to swing out form under the plate that was fixed somewhere still standing. In this game, it's a zip line attached to the tower you are on that blows up and collapses... so everyone should immediately fall to their death. But then again this game is so poorly designed that people being crushed under a plate somehow end up just fine and on top of it.
FFVII is a ongoing series and FFVII Remake has been confirmed as a sequel (they really shouldn't have called it a remake) and any actually fans who cares for FFVII lore would know this and later on The Ultimatum goes into explaining that to fans who are not into the lore of the game. Final fantasy VII (ps1) is a loop the ending mirrors the beginning of the game which mirrors this one as aerith is trying to save everyone.The Ultimatum explains FFVII is a bad ending as Jenova has already won the moment it came to earth using sephiroth as puppet which in turn using cloud as one to finish her plan. All of mankind is dead at the in of FFVII even advent children goes into the fact the livestream is planning to wipe out mankind and Jenova, Aerith has prayed to the livestream to give her time, that humans can change for the better etc. "Geostigma" livestream/Earth made it to kill humans as there the cause of all this. The livestream believe this is the only way the ancients believe this is the only way even though jenova has already infected the livestream with the help of shinra. The horrible realization of Jenova was told a wise old man in cosmo canyon bugenhagen which explain when the earth dies all the livestream will go into the Ultima Weapon (who is the guardian made by Earth when it dies) The ultima weapon takes the livestream through space to a new planet to begin a new but with jenova. Who is infecting everything as Ultima finds a new planet.
@@ChromosomeExcel yes FF7 universe is a loop and away remake it self if you are not a lore gamer you never know that FF7CC is actually a sequel game to FF7OG by in lore to the game universe standpoint, but if you just look only Story point of view it gonna be just a prequel game to you.
Max gets paid to act that way. Hes smarter than he lets on he knows exactly what hes doing. He knows square enix is a dogshit company dude is getting paid.
@@walmartian422 The fact that people can even come up with these conspiracy theories is actually mind boggling to me. Max has explained that he has loved FF7 since he was a kid and no, he isn't completely accepting of everything in the 7 series, for instance; anything involving Dirge of Cerberus, Genesis or the new characters from Advent Children. I frankly agree with Max on how the story is being handled; they're taking things from the compilation and making them better; Nero was absolutely fantastic in the DLC simply because he was handled how he should've been from the start, he's a bloodthirsty soldier who enjoys seeing his enemies suffer and that's all he ever needed to be. Max has also made it completely obvious that he isn't blindly optimistic about the future of the series, he's worried that it could go very wrong within the next games and that the story of Remake can either be completely terrible or amazing or anything in between, it all depends on where the series goes next.
This is my 3rd attempt to sit down and play this since launch and Its just so disappointing. Honestly it just seems like Nomura is using the original’s name and legacy to tell his own story. Which isn’t a remake. Dont piss on me and tell me it’s raining
I have to say this was an interesting review and I see your point about the game. I was really confused with Remake's ending considering if Zack is alive there are a lot of things that it affects to story, especially in Cloud himself. Though I recently found this theory video by a user named Sleepezi that talks about Remake answering some of the questions in the FF7 compilation and It all feels connected in the end, but that being the case we're supposed to see Remake as some sort of sequel/alternate timeline thing. At least for me it made me see remake in a different way but the whole thing is like a 3 hours long essay.
Today i finished this Remake and holy shit man after the seventh chapter i hated everything. Bad pacing, bloated, bad and boring characters, cringe Dialogues, to much anime moaning, combat gets boring very quickly, Enemies are bullet sponges, shity side quests, corridor and ladder simulator, fights are not difficult but they take tooooo long. Good that i didn’t pay anything for this
Dude yes! I mean it wasn't perfect but towards the end, I was more disappointed. I actually took a brief break before resuming the side quests, just so I don't feel like I miss out on anything (which I didn't). Lmaoooo the anime moaning, hilarious! I said the same thing to myself. It's like they couldn't think of any real dialogue so they just had random shit happen and all the grunting/hard emotions without any actual backstory or Anything. They basically marketed a whole lot of nothing and the fake fans are eating this bs up like it's nothing.
Huge plot point missed by everyone. Sephiroth is guiding the party to enter the portal and kill fate. At the end though it is obvious that he is toying with cloud and could easily defeat him. Why doesn't Sephiroth just go and destroy fate himself?
Japanese Game companies has become a cash grab companies. They've lost The Creativity and the Artistic things about Video games. We lost Konami and Now Square Enix.
@@luc7478 I wouldnt say that. Square has divisions, and the division that keeps making these creatively selfish and annoying mistakes is Creative Business Unit 1 (CBU1). You still have other division inside SE that are doing great work (like CBU3 responsible for FF14, CBU2 for Dragon Quest and Nier, Octopath). If anything, CBU1 is the division that keeps wasting Square Enix resources track record-wise (aside from the FFXIV 1.0 debacle from CBU3), and FFXIV is currently the most profitable product SE has and is probably funding much of SE projects right now lol. I wouldn't lose hope on SE yet. CBU1 though, I don't raise hopes when they release projects. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin looks like dumpster fire story-wise.
Thanks so much for making this. It's annoying how RUclips hid the more critical analysis videos of this game from my recommends/searches. I remember finishing the game shortly after its release and trying to see if anyone else who found similar issues I had with the game. But everywhere I went, all I saw were people singing praises. Like you, I feel there are some great moments in this game and the combat system is INCREDIBLE. The character personalities are also consistent to the ones I grew up with (up until the last annoying chapter, that is) and the graphics look amazing. Still, I can't help but feel it was a very SHALLOW experience. Epic battles, especially against Sephiroth, and important story beats never felt EARNED. And whereas the original game encouraged gamers to explore the world and unlock additional/optional content, the Remake's world was VERY linear and limited. You'd think the opening chapters at Midgar City would've allowed us to explore some of those downtown buildings and engage with NPCs to obtain extra goodies/content. Instead, it's a very 'Go to Point A and reach Point B' path. The only time this formula deviated was during Wall Market (which made me want to explore that shady nightlife world). But I think the worst offense this game committed was how it ruined the original game's core themes: death, sacrifice, and learning how to move on from a terrible loss. FF7's original themes really spoke to the human experience, which is why we still celebrate it today. No one was spared from death and even good people like Aerith and Zack died. Given that humans exploited Mako for personal self gain (even without Shinra's meddling), it stood to reason Midgar City WOULD be sacrificed - it was karma. Unfortunately, the Remake wants to have its cake and eat it too. The new Aerith expects to save the world without making ANY sacrifices, thereby avoiding death and its valuable lessons altogether. My other major pet peeve with the game was how it no longer has gray shades of morality; everything is very black-and-white - good versus bad. In the original, there was plenty shades of gray. Avalanche fought for the Planet but still harmed people. Their bombs caused the destruction of reactors and any buildings/people within their facility. In the Remake, the game goes out of its way to conveniently minimize Avalanche's damage, all to make them the clear-cut 'good guys'. This same thing 'black/white' mentality carries over to the most important relationship in this game: the relationship between the Planet and Sephiroth. In the original game, the Planet took NO SIDES. In fact, Bugenhagen reminds everyone the Planet was fated to die anyway, whether today or tomorrow. This explained why it took on such a passive response to the crisis at hand. We also can't dismiss the fact that the rise of Sephiroth inadvertently brought an end to Shinra (the more IMMEDIATE threat to the Planet, since they are the ones actively exploiting mako and giving birth to Sephiroth in the first damn place). This would also explain why the Planet didn't get rid of Sephiroth while he was vulnerable and rebuilding himself in the womb of the crater. It wasn't until Aerith used the white materia that the Planet finally acted (even then, the prayer wasn't guaranteed to work if the Planet chose not to answer it, as Bugenhagen warned Cloud and the party). All signs point to the Planet letting things fall their natural course and resigning itself to its intended fate. But it was Aerith's sacrifice, along with the hardships Cloud and his party went through, that ultimately caused it to change its mind and save itself (and the people). In the Remake, however, the Planet outright condemns Sephiroth - Aerith makes it EXPLICITLY CLEAR it denounces his actions. This means the Planet now takes sides. It also views Sephiroth as a threat that must be destroyed first, despite the fact he's the one to jumpstart the downfall of Shinra (starting with the assassination of its President). The Planet is now the 'good guy' instead of it being this neutral entity Aerith and Cloud have to win over through their selfless and courageous actions. I feel like that last sentence is worth repeating. Whereas the Remake is all black/white (meaning, there can only be 'right' and 'wrong' answers), the original game's gray perspective on characters and circumstances make the outcomes of certain deliberate decisions more impactful. It's all about free will and personal choices (the choice to stand back and let things be, or take a stand even if it means making a sacrifice). The victory feels more earned when Aerith and Cloud and everyone else PROVE to the Planet why they should continue existing instead of resigning themselves to an inevitable fate. The Planet's neutral stance also means there WILL be consequences if things don't change. By having the Planet act as this judgmental entity the Remake now paints it to be, it leaves me to wonder why it didn't snuff out Sephiroth when it had to chance, especially with its Planet Weapons on standby. Or why it allowed Shinra to continue exploiting its mako.
I’d like to add that Cid described the Planet as being like “a little kid, sick and alone in a huge universe.” Of course, this is just his interpretation, but I feel that the Whispers undermine the Planet itself as a “character.” Just like you said, if the Planet sent out these Whispers with the goal of preventing it’s destruction… why didn’t they just throw a pregnant Lucrecia down the stairs? Or why didn’t they prevent Gast from finding Jenova at all? Why was Shinra even allowed to be built when these ghosts could have just pushed him off a building (like they do with Wedge)? Is it stupid? I can’t believe they managed to character assassinate *the entire Planet.*
There are a few more issues with FF7 Remake that somehow went over the Remake fandom’s heads: 1. In several cutscenes, Cloud switches between a powerful, but fundamentally grounded soldier, to Superman at random. In one moment, he’ll be able to fight relatively well with the bonus of his relatively superhuman strength and speed. In another, he’ll be able to jump 50-100ft in the air. In the next, he’ll do that, and do mid-air flips to slash his sword at a motorcycle that’s travelling 200 miles per hour. In the next, he can do all of the above, plus his Buster Sword can now cut through trains because anime logic. Makes you wonder why he needs anyone’s help when he can just go full anime and chop down the Shinra building like it’s an oak tree. 2. In addition to Sephiroth appearing way too early, you also hear Cloud say, “You’re not real, you’re dead. I killed you with my own-“. Say goodbye to that false memory plot, I guess. One of the few good amnesia plots is now a pipe dream. 3. Square Enix somehow believes “sexually attracted to anime boy” is character development, which is why more than half of all non-NPC characters want to ride him like a jet ski.
Alright. This is coming from a someone who had background knowledge on the game from barely playing the OG and not being able to beat it but vaugely knew the story until a few days ago when I re watched it after finishing the remake. This Remake is a good standalone game that captures the aesthetic of Final Fantasy 7. But it is NOT a Good FINAL FANTASY game. As a stand-alone or something else that was more out there with a different world it could work. It was much better when it was grounded and when it was not all these god like beings. I will admit I somewhat liked how they made new players gain an attachment to midgar but they focused on the wrong thing because unless Midgar is an essential point to the story it wouldn’t matter because there was essentially no message behind it. I will say it does a really good job of illustrating and introducing the characters more and making you like them, but not really UNDERSTAND some of them yet because the story hasn’t really progressed that far. Cloud hasn’t gone through any major character development in game other than losing his cold exterior and character flaws from the start but he didn’t grow yet he only lost a few bad things about his character. But to be fair he hasn’t had the time to and that’s nothing wrong with the character but it’s something more to blame on Square Enix’s end for making the game Midgar only because it severely limited the characters ability to develop without cramming it into 1 section. Now for the ending. That was the biggest bullshit I’ve ever seen, they didn’t even know what they were doing with the arbiters of fate at that point. Multiple times during the story, I thought they were linked to Sephiroth but it turns out it was just a shitty plot device to further save bad writing. They didn’t need to end the game in such a grandiose over the top fashion because that’s not what Final Fantasy 7 is. It’s about battling a evil and also battling the struggles that come with life and moving foward. This completely destroys that theme by basically saying “Just press the reset button”. That’s not Final Fantasy 7 nor is that what it’s portrayed as, It was pretty grounded and even characters like Barret didn’t know what was going on and didn’t expect that to happen. Final Fantasy 7 wasn’t and isn’t a game about changing destiny, fighting fate and outer dimensional other worldly issues. It was about saving the world and fighting through your own struggles. Now I consider this a completely bigger issue than the Ending itself even though they are connected; Sephiroth. I have a fucking Kingdom Hearts profile picture If I wanted to play a game about time travel and a retarded yet entertaining story I would fucking play that because it’s more fictional and more understandable for that type of game especially with Xehanort and his character. That’s why it works because Time Travel is a Xehanort thing and Kingdom Hearts thing that barely works there. But to make Sephiroth an Almighty All Knowing character doesn’t work because his whole character is about trying to get smarter, learn about his past, go crazy, then directly affect the main character and Zack (which I’m gonna get onto later) and bring about the end of the world. You can’t just completely introduce a villain that’s already developed to us and expect to see him as anything other than just a final boss who kept taunting us during the game instead of explaining why he is a villain and antagonist to Cloud, not an antagonist to Aerith lmao. He isn’t as scary as he used to be, if they really wanted push the whole Sephiroth thing they should’ve just kept him in Flashbacks and Flashbacks only, not making him the literal final boss of the game with only 1 chapter of build up and a couple drops of him in the beginning and middle of the game lmao. In the OG you barely know about Sephiroth until later on in the game when he’s more involved. It just doesn’t make sense to bring him into the game this early especially where nothing is going down. Time Travel or presumably Time Travel just made this story immeasurably more complicated for no reason at all then to not kill 1 character. Zack: He cannot be brought back, He is the whole reasoning for Cloud and the way he is, Without Zack you cannot have Cloud. Bringing him back completely destroys Cloud’s character because that literally is his character. Square Enix: It literally makes no fucking sense to market this game as a “Remake” in a literal sense when it’s obviously not just a Remake but a Reboot. I payed 60$ for this assuming that It would be the Final Fantasy 7 story. A better name for this game would’ve been Final Fantasy 7 2020. Long story short: the game was going in a good direction until the end when they ruined it with that Destiny and Fate thing.
I mean, to be fair to the Zack thing, Cloud never actually checks his body. Not in the old version, not in the animations made for last order, never. And even if he did, he was literally just coming out of a coma and could have very likely missed signs of him being alive and just unconscious. Now ultimately we know Zack DID die in the old version and stays dead into Advent Children, but it would be remiss to not acknowledge that there is still a way to give Cloud his growth but keep Zack alive as it is with the older version. For the new one, Zack could win his fight with Cloud still in his coma, take coma Cloud somewhere safe, need to leave for one reason or another before Cloud wakes up but leaving his sword behind for Cloud to use in order to keep him safe (explaining why he has it in this scenario. Cloud wakes up from his coma suffering amnesia and sees the Buster Sword which jogs memories of Zack, but because his mind is disorientated he misremembers the events either making him believe Zack is dead leading to that same mental break he had originally, or alternatively his mind could be so muddled that the memories genuinely blend together and are literally blended to the point he doesn't know which ones are his and which are Zack's stories, leading Cloud to think he was a SOLDIER First Class but not know where Zack is or if he's still alive. It's a *lot* more complicated, but the openings are still there.
"We're not drastically changing the story and making it into something completely different than the original." Bro, you already did! Why would anybody believe this?
This game...I can't fully describe the mix of anger and disappointment... but this summary hits a lot of nails on a lot of heads. Only thing I disagree with is that I think the combat system is also shit. A chaotic flashy mess with clunky mechanisms that is neither "fun" not gratifying. The lack of party AI, the stagger system, the particle effects overload. It's just as much fun to fight as to do a goddamned "sidequest" in this game. This game... for f's sake... how could they get this so wrong...
Fanbois probably - I lost hope for Square after they merged with Enix and so far its true, since the merge they just putting out shit, its almost 20 years. So I didnt had high hope for the remake
To second the post above me: the game influencers, or whatever: HMK, Gamersjoint, NSP.... I don't know if SE endorses them -- though they probably do -- but they literally hype up every game the company releases with very little criticism and doubt towards the upcoming product. As a result, like with most influencers, their opinion sways the general public and no one stops to question anything themselves. These youtubers will tell you they don't agree with everything SE does. But they never have anything negative to say about them except maybe the occasional post on Twitter, but usually when they have to backtrack on something for damage control. Now some people genuinely enjoy the remake. But from what I've seen, it's mostly those whom never played the original because they were either too young when it released, or they hate old school games because "the graphics suck".
*Just like some fans don't understand Zack's death WAS Cloud's character development!* Cloud is a character you have fully trust and confidence in THEN it's all taken away when you start realizing he is scared now, he becomes the the most scared person in the crew after the Temple .... That's when you start to feel emotional for him...THEN when he gets his memorys back.... You now meet the real him....NOT the cocky asshole from the midgar section .... Aeris kept telling Cloud... *I want to meet you* ...Tifa kept saying *Cloud, you are really you right?* .... Aeris & Tifa was putting two & two together silently with him in the OG game...they secretly knew Cloud was a victim of Shinra's experiments and didn't want to tell him ... With Zack being alive... All of that drama is GONE... Zack can now hold his hand threw the story...
You would have a good point.... if you understood that Zack is still dead in the primary timeline and that the Zack we see survive is a split timeline where Cloud doesn’t become the hero by taking his place.
You my friend live in factlandia for sure. All the points you made the good and bad are spot on. This in my humble opinion is a very, very honest review of the game. Too many people rode the hype train on this garbage of a story. All the fans asked for was a remake, not a retelling or whatever garbage kingdom heart cringe fest this was. I really wanted to love this game as a whole and as soon as they brought these "whispers" or plot ghosts I hated it. Some additions were good like jesse's backstory, but the other additions like the flashy soldier on a bike, like who tf is that and why.
Video is spot on. Square Enix is creatively bankrupt, completely out of touch, and lacks the talented employees that elevated it to greatness. I genuinely wonder if it's current roster of employees have even played the games that put the company on the map to begin with
So… I just finished the steam release version and I watched the whole video, and in short, as an OG ff7 mega-super-duper fan ( I’ve played ff7 from 1997 to today almost annually, lol), I couldn’t agree with you more. I started the game with the biggest smile on my face, seeing the reimagined midgar but by the end…. Well, you said it, it was hot garbage. Now I had a feeling since the teaser that the game wouldn’t be the same, and there would be changes, but not this. This game doesn’t have an audience. OG fans that know the OG story are told that the story you know and love is being nonsensically protested and changed by the protagonists and new players have absolutely no context as to what is going on. Even with major changes to the plot, I would have been okay with it if it made any sense… but no. And I’d like to add some points to this because I don’t have any friends that are big fans of ff7 to vent to. In the OG game, I’m pretty sure everyone wanted Aerith to live or come back to life yet they accepted that without her death, the game wouldn’t be as great and impactful as it was (Btw, it was both the Holy materia and the lifestream that saved the planet from meteor, not just the lifestream). Same with Zach and Avalanche. With all of them alive, it’s just meaningless. Also, in the OG FF7, the deaths of Biggs, Wedge and Jessie had a much bigger impact, despite having very little interactions with them because of how Barret reacted to it. As a player, we were Cloud and through his perspective, we didn’t care about them. But Barret’s reaction and pain was evident in the writing and impactful on the player. It was also horribly handled in the remake (I was expecting tears and stuff from Barret and I don’t know if I can blame the voice actor). Also, I may have misunderstand in your video but Johnny is not a new character and was a very minor character in the OG ff7. But that leads to the point that this game seems very PG, avoiding death at all costs…which was a huge theme of the original game. Even for a little kid, death and loss had a huge impact on how the game was experienced. The reactor bombings and the resulting casualties were because of Avalanche, not Shinra sabotaging their own reactors for a rhetoric that doesn’t make sense (Unless Wutai got seriously buffed in this new story and are actually a major threat, didn’t really lose the war, and that war got even more relevant). But the wall market scene/part was the beginning of my disappointment. It really took away from Aerith’s character that she didn’t come up with the playfully mischievous plan to get Cloud to dress up in drag. The worst part is that all the aspects you normally would have gone through to get into Corneo’s were in place but they were completely ignored. And you basically covered all the other BS alterations made. Even the best aspects of the game were also not fully realised. I feel like the time between the first and second reactor bombings was the best time to expand the world of midgar and allow us to explore the other sectors and slums and perhaps have a more open world experience (and go out on the town with Tifa and perhaps the rest of the crew). Instead, we got the same areas in a larger, more realistic scale but nothing really new. The combat was fun but the whole time I was thinking about the rest of the game and the insane, out of the box, combos you could construct with the material system. It all felt unfinished, especially since there was only one “all” material and no rebirthing of materia. It would’ve been ok if we were expecting the story to follow the OG story and we’d import our game onward. However, it just felt lackluster. I will say that IMO, the best part of the game were the weapons, their evolution, and their persistent relevance during the game (I actually finished with the buster sword). The fact that you had to use the weapon to learn the unique skill, even for just one fight, made them much more interesting than a simple linear upgrade. My disappointment in this aspect is that you had to switch characters to use them to their full potential, as opposed to being able to make them use their unique alternative attacks through the command menu. Also, unless I missed something in the tutorial, I wish we could tell a party member to focus on one target. I could go on, and this video could be at least 4 hours, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels so strongly about this story and game. At least I didn’t pay full price or buy a playstation for this game alone (still feel robbed lol).
Take a shot every time I say asinine.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Introduction
3:32 - Chapter 1 - Remake Does a Lot Right Though
8:59 - Chapter 2 - The Midgar Design Problem
14:26 - Chapter 3 - Padding and Filler Content
16:57 - Chapter 4 - Boring NPCs and Side Quests
30:37 - Chapter 5 - Where Art Thou, Character Development?
42:22 - Chapter 6 - Pulling All the Punches in Sector 7
51:51 - Chapter 7 - Strange Bedfellows - AVALANCHE and Don Corneo
57:13 - Chapter 8 - The Lazarus Problem - Barret and Wedge
1:05:54 - Chapter 9 - WTF Happened to Final Fantasy VII?
1:23:23 - Chapter 10 - Conclusion and Future of FF7 Remake
or contrived
or plot armor
or deus ex machina
Yes, fuck media, I also didn't find bad reviews b4. Currently playing it and EXACTLY THE POLITICALY CORRECT STORY IS FUCKING GARBAGE. The writing seems to be done females, I m sure they are deleting bad reviews from internet. Or humanity is just fucking fake nowadays.
48:53 - We shall not we shall not be moved
I certainly feel like they got Sephiroth and Tifa wrong
MegaHam Tifa? Why?
Its hard to publicly talk about this game for what it is if you disliked it because modern square fans are abundant and very use to this new direction for the franchise. So they will aggressively go up to bat to defend it.
But yeah, theres also a lot of people who jumped ship after 9 or 10. Myself included. and so remaking 7 should have been a way to draw people like me back to Final Fantasy and also show the developers what truly worked back in 1997 vs today.
Instead we get this unfaithful awkward universe B game that is self serving to modern Square and its fanbase. Its a game that decieved fans into buying what they think is a true remake only to get a Nomura fanfic. And its personally a total insult to preserving Hironobu Sakaguchis original vision for this story. Again, this is all hard to come forward and say because there is so much push back whenever we say it. So I appreciate you taking the time to stick your neck out to give the game some much needed criticism
Say it anyway. Your entitled to your opinion just as much as they are.
@@Vthd7604 Yes, but it comes with consequences. I hang out on "positive" pro-remake channels, and it feels like being outnumbered 40 to 1 (even if at least 20 are silent pro people). There are people that have been bullied for not liking the remakes direction and the game has started a war on what a remake is and most people seemingly take the side that remakes should just be whatever the developers want rather than an industry term to convey a message of what the intent with the game is (and some just want to be lied to).
There is freedom of speech ofc but majority rules and can exile, silence and send mobs with justification for harm. So to many it is not worth trying to stay in the fan base or they have to feel the choker getting tighter and tighter.
It's unfortunate, cancel fanatics everywhere. People will fanatically defend everything until death. The game was perfect. But Chapter 18 definitely gutted it.. such a shame. Pointless stuff added into a game, the epitomy of bad writting and ham fisted attempts to change an already perfect story to begin with like introducing some weird plot ghosts or crazy parallelworlds, creating artificial hype and changing the main theme of the game which is loss and bringing back the death. This game has Nomuras signature (which is style over substance) all over the place at the end, you can feel it if you have experienced some of his work. Maybe I am wrong, I really hope I am to be honest and they pull a 180 and surprise us. But this game is between being a sequel and a remake at the same time, what the fuck. I thought it would be faithful to the original, but they absolutely lied when they said that they want to keep it close to the original.. close enough? Damn I am not happy with the direction this game is taking, or the world and industry as a whole. Again I wish I am wrong..
@@Lyu-Phy unfortunately you are right about the future. Nomura is going to destroy this game, with his nonsensical bullshit. Bad dialogue and story.
What was wrong with 10?
So...something that doesn't get brought up a lot but for the entirety of the Midgar section in the original game, you don't know if Sephiroth is a friend or foe. I don't think he's even mentioned until you get to the Shinra building and find his sword sticking out of Shinra. At that point the player's response is like "who is this guy? Is he friend or foe or what?"
For the entirety of the Midgar section, Shinra is presented as the primary antagonist.
Sephiroth is mentioned by Cloud during the water tower flashback because Cloud says he wants to be like him, and this is very early when you encounter Tifa. This is making us think Sephiroth is a good guy. He is then mentioned when you encounter President Shinra in reactor 5 who says that Sephiroth was perhaps too brilliant. Then when we get to the shinra building Cloud acts really hostile towards mentioning Sephiroth and the reason he stays on the roof to fight Rufus is because he says neither Rufus nor Sephiroth should have the promised land. They are the real crisis for the planet. So even if Sephiroth killed the big bad guy he is also on the same level of bad as Rufus who is portrayed as someone that does not even want to bribe or negotiate his way into power, he wants to control by fear.
So the build up for Sephiroth as something of a great hero to understanding he is probably not good at all has a natural buildup, before even going to Kalm.
That part of the Shinra building mission is just masterful writing. I remember as a kid, thinking the same "friend or foe" thought but feeling uneasy because, he's clearly more powerful than your team and the only way to find out whether he is on your side or not is to follow the bloody footprints he left behind from the massacre he just executed.
As a kid playing it, if I could've went any other route, I would've. Then the relief from realizing I didn't have to deal with him yet. Moments like that I'll never forget and and build a story in a way that's difficult to replicate any other way.
You're trapped in Midgar for an eternity. Ugh.
President Shinra also briefly mentions Sephiroth when he confronts the party in the No. 5 Reactor.
I hope you all *DON’T SUPPORT REBIRTH* that game will be empty dry bones, charged double the price for having 2 discs.
"We're not going to change the story"
*Changes the story*
Its a 4 to 8 hours plot of the original played and finish the ff7 remake (ps free) its meh tbh the reason why it was 30hours long because they did a good job of the map design like squeezing through wall and walking through a steal beam which makes the game longer and its grindy as fk if you finish the game once you dont even max the half of uour marteria and aerial combat for melee characters like cloud and tifa sucks ass
@@marcosantiago8821 i beat original ff7 without grinding even once, it's not grindy af lol. and many will disagree with you thinking the og is "meh" because if it's meh remake is utter garbage
@@seanmills7586 lol i meant the remake is meh
@@seanmills7586 like it or not episodic games are complete garbage they ruined the OG why the fk they would make game episodic that has already a complete story square is milking the shit out of this tired of BS business practices like this
@@marcosantiago8821 "meh" is being generous lol, remake is utter trash in my opinion
I will say that I observed the characterization of Biggs, Wedge and Jessie in the original a bit differently. Instead of underdeveloped, they always came off to me as "kids trying to play soldier" and honestly out of their league. There was an obvious difference between their capabilities in comparison to Tifa and Barret and honestly felt like they were being "used" (which lended heavily to Barret's flaws and development). Biggs was LARPing as a soldier, Wedge seemed to be there because these were his only friends and Jessie didn't come off as flirty so much as too kind to be a terrorist. It felt like when Barret started recruiting the slums for Avalanche, these three thought it seemed "fun." That is why when Shinra dropped the hammer (or plate), it made me sad for them because they didn't stand a chance and likely shouldn't have been involved in the first place.
I never thought about it that way... Interesting 🤔
I feel they were all out of their league, Cloud being the exception. Look how fast they all got caught and ended up getting sector 7 destroyed. The whole game was a hot mess. They really should've just made the original with updated graphics.
This is the thing the video game, and movie industry don't really get about old things, and by extension, the mainstream audience. Even though the originals are outdated as far as graphics and visuals, there's something very poignant about simplicity. Like for example going off what you mentioned, one of the reasons I love the way Zack is portrayed in the original is because he's definitely an important character, but his unceremonious and realistically portrayed death makes it sadder. He didn't get some anime action movie last stand like in that stupid Crisis game, he was ruthlessly gunned down by grunts like a dog right as he was so close to freedom, and Cloud wasn't even considered worth killing because he just seemed so broken. There was no cliche last-minute words before Zack slowly bled out and talked to Cloud, he was just *dead*, and that's perfect.
It really doesn't need to be over complicated, and that's the whole problem with the remake's attempt to tell the story of the original *badly*. Avalanche's whole tragedy was indeed that they were really just kids trying to play war with toys. They had no idea what they were getting into, and when they finally gained the attention of Shinra, nearly all of them paid for it.
@@qazxsw13 Exactly. You can tell that they're trying to do the Hollywerid nonsense with the game too with the corny dialogue and over the top scenes. It's just ruining the atmosphere of the game. Personally I won't be playing the remake any further until it's complete but I guess we're just gonna have to wait and see which way they're going with the game.
I viewed them very similarly. Barret was a hard core militant, the others seemed like young ones looking up to him. They bought into his ideology and it saw them becoming involved in shit they were not trained or really capable of seeing through.
The original game taught me how to cope with losing someone. The remake taught me how to cope with losing interest with the franchise moving forward.
True words
Well said fook nomura
My feelings exactly.
As soon as I heard it was going to be a trilogy I lost interest. Now the story involves the multiverse somehow.
Moving forward has too positive a connotation to describe SE since FF13
I hated the fact that they took out all the suspense in the game. Way too much sephiroth too soon. Plus seeing Zack took away that part too. The whisper thing was the stupidest idea ever in my opinion
Yup stupid ghosts no imagination... Nomura signature all over
The whispers thing remind me of that flying robots that helped in ruining matrix reloaded and revolution.
Zack is alive in
Agreeeeeeeed. It's a huge attempt at being mysterious and cool, but it's just fluff. I think Shinra building looked very cool and the graphics were amazing. Aerith was an improvement, but the side quests were boring... Like jump rope and pullups? Lmao. There's no suspense and Nobuo Uematsu's mako reactor theme is Wayyyy more haunting, like Chernobyl (the remake was great for a battle theme though). The dialogue in this game is laughable with Cloud just grunting all the time and crying about Sephiroth.
The Hell house was fun, combat was a great part I'll agreed. The boss fights were great, though I still can't stand the weird new plot Sephiroth. It feels so cliched and tries too hard to be interesting. Just no. Outside of Shinra, the plot hurts it.
@@Nerevarine420 The Developers bringing Zack in at the end of the games ruins the original games greatest and most important plot twist. Newer players who never played the original will wonder who that guy is and look into it, thereby ruining Cloud's most important character building moment.
I remember receiving two VHS tapes in the mail forever ago when I was a kid. It was a prerelease FFVII interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi and included cutscene cinematics. One of the things Hironobu said during the interview during the making of Final Fantasy ( I forget if it was VI or VII) his mother passed away. He mentioned resulting from his loss he was focused on life. Final Fantasy VII has a very special undertone here. Professor Gast/Ifnala, Aerith/Stepmother, Aerith as an ancient, Aerith/Cloud, Aerith/Sepiroth, all above/lifestream. There is a very unique undertone that brings the story together which we as players observing respond emotionally to.
These rewrites do not have the same emotional brushstrokes. Sakaguchi had a life milestone whi h impacted the emotional storytelling of these characters. SE should have done a 1:1 remake. Square/Squaresoft and their original talent their dream team is no longer in house sans a few members. Tetsuya Nomura is not Hironobu Sakaguchi, and the quality of Final Fantasy took a nose dive when Sakaguchi left Square. Lost Odyssey in my opinion, was the last great Final Fantasy.
Word.
It wasn't just Sakaguchi a lot of talent jumped ship from 1999 to 2004.
George RR Martin recently said:
"Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and “make them their own.” It does not seem to matter whether the source material was written by Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen, or… well, anyone. No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it. “The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own.
They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse."
Story was the only aspect of the game I really cared about and so you can pretty much tell what my opinion of the game is
I just hated how they tried to flesh out characters who served zero impact on the story. Then they decided for whatever wack reason to show Sephiroth early in the game, which absolutely destroyed the hype behind the character. On top of that, they then decided to keep zack alive.
Keeping Zack alive pissed me off and seeing fans hyping for Zack's existence somehow pissed me off even more.
@@KoKoYoung It's mostly crisis core brain rot fanatics. Zack literally serves no purpose past crisis core, it's embarrassing what they're doing with this franchise. I don't mind that they are trying to change the story for the remake but they should've just kept the OG cast in and left the past characters behind for good.
@@elizabethchint2391 it’s tetsuya Nomura man he made advent children too so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just making this game to make advent children make sense
@@witcherjohn3440 it’s Square ENIX mate, all they care about is money and what’s the biggest money maker for them? FF7. If you want to maximise profit and milk as many “fans” as possible you’d market the game as a remake and then also have fan favourites from the compilation including Zack living to keep the shippers and CC fans happy and willing to pay for the next episodes.
The other plus for them is that they can now remaster and resell the whole compilation to everybody again, new players will also buy it as they feel they may need to know the story of each to make the remake story make more sense. Notice how they’ve literally released a shit tonne of FF7 stuff all at once including crisis core? It’s all a money making scheme and always has been.
SE are creatively bankrupt because they don’t want risk taking they want to make easy money and that’s exactly what they’ve achieved.
@@ItsSVO oh yeah without a doubt
🌸😹To be honest, I was not bothered the side quest all that much and found them entertaining.
I was more disappointed with following.
- How far off the rails the ending went.
- The consistent spoilers to the original title littered throughout.
- Biggs and Wedge not being killed (it takes weight away from the sector 7 plate collect).
- The fact Zack survives within an alternate timeline (robbing Cloud of character).
- The overuse of Sephiroth.
- The fact that replicated final battle of the original so early shot for shot.
- That we even fought or saw Sephiroth so early.
It is clear to me the “Remake Portion” of FF7 Remake is over. What we get in the future will be reimagined.
It should be called FF7 Reimagined.😹🌸
Well said. I like FF7R when it doesn't concern main plot. But the story really sucks ass.
Think they're calling it rebirth or some shit
@@MrConnstar That's the second part not hard to remember
Indeed. 🍻
Tbf even an interview with Nomura back in 2015, he specifically stated that the plot will change so idk why ppl are upset that it's not just a graphical update.
There is nothing more intellectually and creatively bankrupt than the idea of an alternative universe/multiverse. I'm half expecting to see Spidey and Dr. Strange making an appearance and teaming up with Cloud to stop Sephiroth.
What's bizarre to me is the people that think the rest of the games are just going to be the rest of FF7. The entire point of this game is to say they're going to do something completely different. And if they aren't, then how are they going to justify going to another dimension to fight the manifestation of fate during the first 10% of the games story? That'd be like if Luke fought Darth Vader and The Emperor at the same time on an even bigger Death Star, trying to get off tatooine in episode 4.
They've raised the stakes too much, too early.
Also,
Barret: "Anyone who's an enemy of the planet is an enemy to us!"
10 min ago: Kills a manifestation of Fate, created by the planet to make things go the way the planet wants.
I really wanted to like this “remake” but the whispers is just a no from me. And the over use of Sephiroth in cut scenes just didn’t hit right with me. The original had it so u didn’t know about sephiroth till further into the game. He’s suppose to be this powerful mythical creature but in the remake i feel like they cheapened him. All the “cool” points of his character seem meaningless now. Graphically, yes its amazing but it came at a cost of destroying and splitting apart everything that made the story telling of the original worth the 100’s of hrs to finish.
And the whispers being boss fights was just a huge cop out for me too. The whispers just feel like filler to pad out the first episode.
Also people like sephiroth because he's an interesting villain with an understandable motivation. But ever since Advent children he's always portrayed as if fighting cloud is all he cares about(which made sense in the context of advent children, but nowhere else), which is the same in the remake. He just shows up to annoy you, as if he hadn't anything better to do
Once you introduce concepts that were never part of the original such as time travel and whispers that fuck around with key events it’s no longer a remake it’s a reimagining and to many people fail to understand the difference
If you really, truly understood the story, FF7 Remake is not a re-make, but a sequel. FF7 Remake is not a description of what the game is, It's what's happening in the story. Things are getting re-made. And by the future Sephiroth in where he would win,and that's why he shows up early in the story, to derail cloud's party from doing what they did in the original timeline. So yeah technically this is a sequel to advent children.
@@kaitokid9 That doesn't make it a good Story though. I understand that it's a Sequel, and i've watched plenty of videos explaining what a "genious and complicated plot" it is but
a) i actually wanted a Remake, not a Sequel and
b) I think the Plot is just downright bad. Just because it's complex doesn't mean a plot is automatically good, and other than the fact that you can spend hours trying to find connections and hints in the game, it doesn't have anything going for it, imo.
What pisses me off most about this game is the way it teeters between being a literal "remake" that attempts to rewrite and do things very differently, while also masquerading behind all these nostalgic moments that people actually always wanted and came for. For every piece of content or sequence that attempts to recreate something faithfully from the original that people actually know, there's an equal opposition where the game pretends it's presenting some genius meta-commentary about how it's breaking free from the chains of the original game and free to do its own thing. Never mind that I'm pretty sure what most people wanted was for Final Fantasy 7 to be remade in the same spirit as the original.
This equilibrium is like the perfect excuse, because it gives Square the ability to pretend like they're making something faithful while at the same time doing the opposite. And proponents of the game are gullible enough to not see through it, so you have people stupid enough to make excuses and offer extremely odd justifications of any criticism to the structure and writing. Some people say we should wait and see before making judgements, and that since it's episodic, it's not safe to make judgements until it's all out, but I'm not dumb enough to let Square take me for a ride. This is a cash cow they're making, and they're going to milk it for every last drop.
I agree, the justifications for the changes are weird to me and challenging them has awarded me with labels like: toxic, nuanced and old.
Honestly, another series that has come to blame fans. Just make a new game, don't promise to redo old ones if you just don't want to.
Isn't that the point of that transaction?
Fans of ff7: Do a remake!
Nomura and crew: Sure but like "remake" or "remix"?
Fans: Remake?
Nomura and crew: Well we wanna do new stuff so we'll change the shit you love but its your fault if it doesn't work bc you dont give us freedom.
@@jonathanferguson7791 don't forget the:
PS: I hope you all love Kingdom Hearts as much as you love FFVII.
@@Limbergem @Savashti B Kh1-2 (the ones I've played heavily) will always hold special places in my "heart"
To the point that I was sad to see what happened with 3 and the overall lore.
But yes I fucking love kingdom hearts
@@jonathanferguson7791 hehe, I'm surprised to see a KH lover that didn't like FFVII Remake. They felt so similar to me with the story direction. I couldn't get into KH, it just felt like such a sloppy attempt to draw in as many fan bases as possible with clumsily strung together franchises. Also the giant human feet weirded me out. 😂
Most dogshit “remake” EVER they ruined virtually everything that made FF7 such a classic. Probably the most disappointing game I’ve ever played in my life but not really surprising considering square has been garbage for nearly 20 years
Did you really expected an one-to one remake :D?
@Koichó LOL :D
I saw this coming a mile away. You could tell from the initial trailer they were going to take a lot of liberties with the story. Then when it came out, everyone ate it up like lemmings. Even some so-called FF VII fans were saying it was a mastapiece. Those of us who sought a faithful adaptation of FF VII's story will likely feel somewhat disappointed.
But on the other hand, the people working on remaking an old game are people too, who probably want some creative license to play around a little. I just wish it wasnt the way it happened. Multiverse shenanigans with weirdo ghosts and convoluted explanations that only seem to make sense to the most open of minds.
Agreed. Almost everyrhing related to FF or KH lately had terrible writing.
Not cpmpare Kingdom Hearts to this garbage
All they had to do was stick to the original plot and people wouldn’t have any problems, because newcomers wouldn’t complain since they didn’t know the original to begin with and the old fans would of gotten what they wanted as well (both sides happy). I was not a huge fan of the combat but I stuck it out thinking I would get to see the story in higher fidelity until shit started making no sense plot wise. I’m happy for those who enjoy it but I’m getting off this train. Thank god I got free with PSplus so I ain’t even mad, because for sure I will save $60-$70 from not buying the next episode.
I’m glad not everyone is wearing rose tinted glasses
It baffles me that Square Enix managed to bungle the remake. Most of the hard parts were done. The story, pacing world building, music, characters, atmosphere…people loved all those things. It’s a proven commodity. Why would you mess with such a delicate recipe? It’s so hard to get those right, and lord knows they haven’t been able to do a good job of those things in more than a decade, at least. I can’t say I’m surprised though. Could see this coming a mile away. I lost faith in them as a company long ago.
How did they bungle the Remake?. It sold and continues to sell well.
@@JustinC721 it’s just my opinion, I know many will disagree. From a commercial perspective, I’m sure it was a big success, but I don’t necessarily equate that with quality
@@Brian-lk5fxI don't either, but I'm sure there is a connection between sales figures and quality. Regardless, I wouldn't call a commercial success a 'failure' in any regard.
@@JustinC721 lmao that makes no sense whatsoever, but you do you bro
@@Brian-lk5fx I'm not the one calling a game a failure despite positive sales figures which persist two years after release.
Last time I checked, people buy games that they like. That said, there is nothing wrong with not liking something. Many of the criticisms in this video and the comments are due to lack of understanding of FFVIIs lore.
On that note, there is nothing wrong with not being able to understand something. What is important to note here is that inability to comprehend something says more about the person than it does the material.
I think it's more the journalists are either caught up in the presentation or just never played the original.
My guess would be the latter.
But with the larger companies doing the usual paid reviews, it doesn't really matter what their "opinion" on the game might be.
The positive PLAYER reviews are the real mystery. 😁
I'd say they never played the original, and most people praising the game also didn't. Because this game isn't a remake at all, and its disappointing for that.
Reviews are bought nowadays. I know it is true and yet it is still hard to accept that there is a large percentage of players who rave about this game. I just can't understand how people are happy that they are taking the story in an all new direction when 90% of the new material was bad.
@@snickle1980 1. Buyer’s remorse
2. Zero critical thinking ability
3. Goldfish attention spans
I think unfortunately they're scared of being bullied. Square Enix fanboys are terrifying.
I am not what you would call an OG final fantasy fan as I started ff on ff8 which by then I was barely waking up to story in games. I didnt even play ff7 till roughly 2009 when I was living on my own and in the army and had time to splurge and check out games I missed out on.
One thing that continued to grow on my part is understanding and appreciating stories told to us and that stays strong today which is why even though I never played it ff7 when it originally came out ff7 remake absolutely ruined the fuck out of the story and missed the point. And this is coming from someone who was in middle school liked advent children but as I got older and understood the original ff7 story better I realized how bad advent children was and disservices the original in a lot of ways. Along with pretty much the entire ff7 compilation bullshit that Nomura basically had a hand in. By god team four stars abridged version was more faithful than the remake.
Advent children was cool,and takes place 2 yrs later, so actually it shouldn't have any influence on the main story.
@@inyahuahitrustmd9114 Advent Children is not good, it is not cool, and aged like fine milk.
If Zach is alive, Cloud has no beef with Sephiroth. Same for Aerith.
Didn't sephiroth killed clouds mum and burned down his village?
@@tobaccojacko Actually, fate was the mastermind behind it and thus carry more responsibility. So Sephiroth was kinda just a puppet. At least that is what FF VII remake tells us with what Red says the whisperers are. If you do not buy that then at least consider that the plate fell because the whisperers intervened, so Shinra was just puppets in wanting it down, but Fate planned it and made it happen and this applies to every large and small thing.
@@vincentgraymore Yeah, but the only thing we basically know is that zack is alive, unless if part 2 is telling us otherwise I think nibeihelm will be untouched
@@tobaccojacko Yes, but in a memory in FF VII remake the whisperers do exist and enact their will. So if we see a memory or are told about a past event, that is an event where fate ruled (clumsy) with an iron fist. So Sephiroth was either observed doing the correct thing as in line with fate or the whisperers nudged him to, and if it had happened any other way, Nibelheim would have been swarmed by whisperers. I do not think most people will think like this, but I will remember the developers narrative devices and during the iconic Sephiroth burning Nibelheim video, which we already saw one version of in remake, I will think "well that was meant to happen so blame the planet just as much for your town, Cloud".
Unless they go the route that the whisperers defeat was true all time spanning and thus include their own birth and then also existence. Basically wiping themselves out from even all encounters with them. The writers could also change/"expose" what the whisperers actually were/are in line with theories that so many believe in and do not simply take Reds explanation at face value and think it is negative lifestream or Jenova etc. But even so they still enact "fate" as in driving what events should and would happen, thus changing context and context matters.
@@vincentgraymore no
Final Fantasy 7 turned into Disney Star Wars on us and I'm not trying to deal with the fans. But the main reason Aerith and Zack won't die is to negate the romantic triangle that was from the earlier game and simplify it. I've see it get a lot of heat, online, by the female fans and Square is not trying to take a hit this time around..
Zach is going to be with Aerith, Cloud with Tifa, and Sephiroth with Genesis 🤣🤣🤣. Angeal only one not coming back...as he just said the same thing, over and over, and would completely drown out any party members outside the top 4 (Tifa/Cloud/Zack/Aerith as Barret was useless, story wise, after Corel). They're trying to pack the hell out of this game, but what happens is trying to set up these alternative stories will take forever
My main gripe is the mysterious specters. They’re literally just a representation of the developers going “Hey, remember this part? We’re fucking ruining it.”
And with sephiroth already being the final boss of the game? Remember running for your life/dying to Zolom just to go back later and see it fucking piked by sephiroth? I remember thinking if he can kill THAT how am I supposed to stand a chance!? And now they ruined that too 😭
Yup the spectres are probably the worst addition.
Well it's a good thing the whispers are gone then, isn't it?
@@RedheadButNotReally Doesn't matter if they're gone NOW. They should've never BEEN in the first place.
Also when the spirits are swarming the shinra builing:
Tifa: ...What...are they doing?
Aerith: Who knows?...(Developer: But its gonna look cool. Who cares if it makes sense or not? They are not really doing anything, nor does it make any sense in the story, so lets have the characters reference this same conversation we had about not knowing what they are doing.)
@@RandomGBystandersadly, they aren't gone.
Everything you said I felt deeply.
I loved the little they expanded the story, I wanted side quests that went further
- what is avalanche all about, especially the splinter groups
- what is avalanche doing to convince the hearts and minds of ppl?
- what are the other sectors like?
- what about gwen?
- what about that shinra employee at the beginning that tifa talks to?
- could even have had little things like the Turks doing things to infiltrate/investigate avalanche or find out about hojo taking Undercity ppl for their experiments idk
I also LOATHED the fact that there was no lore! What are the tanks in sector 5? And the ruined town around the church? What’s that Talagar factory?
Also Why are the slum towns so far from the stations? I kinda felt there should be some middle town between stations and slums but idk. The game left me wanting more, as all square games do now tbh
Dont worry about it, youll definitely get your answers in butchered episodic DLC like FF15 😂
To leaving yo wanting more in the form of unanswered questions is the point.
if they wanted to change the plot, fine, but they should've just done it instead of adding the weird whispers shit, the generic "WE NEED TO KILL FAAAAATE" from bad JRPGs, the weird timeline zack shit... also i'm super worried they're going to find a way to keep aerith alive and bring zack back, because some JRPGs are scared of having any consequences because they cant sell waifu dolls or whatever
Cloud can cut building with sword but is need key for open the door.🃏
Final fantasy remake is full of plot holes.
That’s what I was thinking when we were looking for keycards
Not only that, but with that level of athleticism every enemy encounter in the game should end in one strike. Cloud is damn near a Shonen jump protagonist at this point
Tifa and Aerith struggling to save Cloud with the Rod in the swamp (almost falling into a pool of water.. wow), and some hours later Tifa with one hands grab a steel rope with Cloud and Barrett weight on it with literally no effort.
I've yet to play FF7 remake (and I'm not sure when I ever will considering I don't have a PlayStation) but I've played the original, and this video is fucking hilarious. Every stupid "plot twist" you went through at the end just put me into more hysterics. Then you said Zack was alive and I just lost it. I genuinely can't believe what I just witnessed, wtf Square.
The part of Final fantasy 7 to gather the Huge materia had nothing to do with Holy, Areith's white materia was the only thing that had to do with Holy, the huge materia was Shinra's plan to destroy Meteor. Also, there was 4 Huge Materia, one for Magic, Command and Summon, plus one more that you get Bahamut Zero from.
Yeah, I'm watching this and this dude seemingly didn't proof read his work cos there's quite a lot of inaccuracies.
Avalanche, were devasted by the end of the Midgar intro and were essentially RAN out of Midgar into the wider world with no allies waiting behind for them go to back to, you only had yourselves to rely, you were all that was left. It was stark, yet you pressed on regardless and it was utterly compelling.
All lost in the remake.
yes, this exactly. devoid of any true emotion
Actually, the best examples for meaningful side quest come directly from the original final fantasy 7, where most side quests add a whole lot more to the lore and character background. Just thinking that characters as cool as Vincent come from sidequests make you appreciate these sidequests and have so much fun with them.
Agreed! It still blows my mind when I think about Yuffie coming from a random encounter... plus her side quest where she steals all the gang's materia
Vincent isn’t that deep in the og game and the fact that he and Yuffie are locked behind side quests is actually not great. As evidenced by the fact that they’ve pushed them to be canon in every media following the game.
@@garethcousins5008 yeah better lock yuffie in a shitty "dlc" (cause that shit is basically a dlc locked to thr ps5 version) for example, a dlc in an episodic game smh
@@diegosotomiranda4107 she’s not locked behind dlc, they’ve given you no reason to believe she won’t be in the next part of the full game regardless. There’s optional dlc where you can play as Yuffie, stop sensationalising your hatred honestly
@@garethcousins5008 It’s entirely possible lol, that is pretty much what they did in FF15.
Everything fell apart at chapter 18. It ruined the experience by trying to be advent children fighting Sephiroth. Also Zack being alive removes all character definition for Cloud. And don’t get me started on the harbinger and the timeline stuff. That really was some Kingdom Hearts bullshit. I don’t expect future parts to be any better.
I liked the end actually and the OG is my favorite game of all time (played it when I was about 13). I do agree to an extent with making Zack be seemingly more prevalent... Because that has muddied things for people concerning Cloud, which does suck. But I do think there is potential to flesh that out in a good and discernable way.
I also feel like remake has opened Sephiroth to have more depth/layers as an Antagonist compared to OG where he was bent to Jenova's will. In particular, the ending and how Sephiroth seems a Bit more pre-Nibelheim in his personality. Personally think the whole Harbinger ordeal has more than meets the eye to it.
I got some vibes that paralleled FF10 in the last chapter especially.
Also, I thought the voice acting was really great and the subtext and scoring was done excellent.
Introducing Zack so early into the remake compilation ruins and spoils the major plot twist of the game. I feel bad for the new players who are unfamiliar with anything FF7 related who probably won't be able to appreciate the conclusion of Cloud's character arc.
@@LordMalice6d9 that’s me. My first exposure to FF7 was the Remake, so I naturally wanted to know who this Zack guy was. I’m currently playing the original FF7, but I’m genuinely sad that I won’t be able to be properly surprised by the plot twist
@@aeaf123 what kn the fuck are you on about? Sephiroth was already an antagonist with a lot of depth to him. The whole point was that you as the player gets to know about sephiroth from the perspective of how how he was built up and you get his ambitions. Why do you think even to this day he's still stands above all the other antagonists that came after him
@@hollyshock8400 that doesn't take the impact you should be feeling when you know his story and why his relevance is important in the original
The terrible story writing aside through the whispers and the idea of defying fate bullshit you can not keep Zack alive and have Cloud's character not be harmed, Zack has to die to give Cloud his traumatic and screwed up mind that makes him the character his at the start of FF7
Nothing grinds my gears more than companies retelling previously gripping, consequential or interesting stories to be safe, hokey snoozefests. Recent example would be the ratchet and clank remake.
I loved the remade parts, hated the remake parts. Definately not grabbing part 2. I dont trust Kitase after this, and KH3 made me not trust Nomura in the slightest. The new storyline is hot garbage.
My hope is that one day the excited delirium about this game will fade and people will start recognizing the serious issues this game has. I am with you on the writing--especially the ending which has effectively killed my interest in the other entires into the remake series.
I love that you have a mourning dove as your image, that's probably my favorite animal. I also pray that more of the long term fans begin to recognize this abomination of a remake for what it is.
Word. The bullshit started with Advent Children and Crisis Core. I kept hoping but alas, I'm out.
@@hectoreguiluz Yk there are other ways of saying you just don't like ffvii, like go play something else instead of ruining it for the people who do
@@illmikumikuyou3661 LOL it's you that don't actually like FF7. You like it so little that you accept all kind of distortions of it, because you're focused on stupid and silly aspects of it, like Cloud' jumps, Sephiroth smiles, Zack and Aerith fucking, etc while totally being uninterested in the story. And he's right, the bullshit started with spinoffs (let's not forget dirge of cerberus).
@@5c0rpi0_d_d_p Wow, are you actually serious do you realise how stupid and childish you are, there's no way you're actually an adult so I'm not going to talk with you anymore. Clearly not worth my time in the slightest. Get a life.
When the first Remake episode ended before we even got outta the city i was like WTF, they must be making like 20 more episodes to finish it all at this rate.
Careful, simps will call your manager.
Well theres 3
Heh I'd say 3, 4 at most
The group leaves Midgar by around the middle of CD1, so I it's possible Rebirth could go up until Sephiroth gets the black materia and then part 3 until the end of the game
Assuming the story stays somewhat close to the original structure
The more I think about the story...the more it doesn't make sense..
Sepheroth wants to defy destiny.. because somehow he knows he is destined to lose..
So our heros shouldn't be trying to defy destiny too...they should be trying to keep in line with destiny as much as possible.. because that's the only way they can guarantee they win...it makes no sense for them to actively defy destiny
@@cucumberjoe6824 what do you mean they'll die??
@@cucumberjoe6824 o..ok..I don't think that's the case Areith and Sepheroth basically knows how things go..so they know meteor doesn't kill everyone..
Which is why sepheroth is trying to defy destiny..
This story reminds me of final fantasy 13.....the main antagonist wants the heros to do a thing so he can win...and the heroes decide to defeat the antagonist by doing exactly what he wants
@@cucumberjoe6824 everybody dies though, we have a very limited natural life span.
@@cucumberjoe6824 but they don’t, the ending of the OG tells us this.
@@ItsSVOWiping out life itself is not the same thing. Jesus, rub your brain cells together.
FF7 is a story about band of rebels, who has their own personal problem, overcome their differences, topple the corrupt mega corporation, only to find out that Shinra is not the main threat, and then save the planet.
FF7R is a story about FF7.
"Masterpiece", many review sites wrote. I knew next to nothing about FFVII before purchasing the remake (I played FFX, FFX-2 and FFXII only), just finished a few hours ago. I felt totally confused and disappointed at the end of the game. I'm honestly shocked. NOTHING is even remotely properly explained of the story/plot, and then there's all the problems you mentioned as well. Who is Sephiroth? How does Aerith suddenly know about Sephiroth and what's going to happen after they "cross the point of no return"? And why couldn't she explain more, if she knew?
Besides learning about Jessie and her father, there is next to ZERO character development of the main cast - their back-stories, their motivations - some cryptic flashbacks with no actual storytelling. We get more from Leslie than Tifa, Barret, Biggs or Wedge, even arguably Aerith. Then Biggs and Jessie "die" and it's supposed to be emotional and impactful, except nobodies dies in the end.
With the Whispers situation: I didn't know it was not a part of the original - so they introduced a change in the game whose sole purpose is to enforce that there are no changes in the game compared to the original - only for the characters to defy Fate and change things anyway? WTF?
The combat was mostly awesome and visuals were pretty good, particularly character animations (some odd low res textures here and there), and also the music was excellent, but I reached the end feeling that the story presented here does not work AT ALL in this game. And from what was shown here, it makes no sense compared to the original either. One of the most baffling review situations I've ever seen.
It's a tragedy how far down the drain Gamespot's reputation has fallen for giving this game a 10 out of 10 , It's nowhere NEAR close.
Gamespot used to be one the review sites where a 10 truly was rare and you took that seriously because It most likely was justified
and they had real hardcore gaming journalists. Nowdays all the rating systems are dumbed down and simplified to make games seem better than they really are , and reviews aren't trustworthy. This was not the remake that actual day 1 fans (1997 launch day pick up)
asked for. Square got greedy , none of this was an accident It wasn't made for the OG fans as much as It was to heavily appeal to newer fans and modern trends for maximum profit. None of the changes or the multiple discs releases were necessary , just excuses.
This. This right here is why people who say newcomers to FF7 having a choice to play the original or the Remake are absolutely stupid.
There's so many references to the original game that are cryptic and out of place. And that's saying a lot considering that for half the game, Cloud's mind and memories aren't all there or reliable to begin with.
i suggest you forget about the remake completely and play the original with an open mind towards the graphics. Maybe play it on your mobile phone. The story is great and completely butchered in the remake.
This is exactly my thoughts. They explained nothing in terms of the story, or left everything way too vague. I never played the original, and by the time I beat sephiroth in the remake i still had no idea who he was supposed to be. And the lack of characterisation and backstory (as you mentioned) for the main cast really bummed me out.
Personally enjoyed FFXV a lot more, the storytelling was a lot more enganging and the relationships between characters + backstories were explored a lot further.
Play the 1997 version, then you know everything plus forget the "new" story... The graphic of the 1997 is by now shit, but what they did in the remake is to exchange the Graphic Story (Now graphic is very good, but the story is shit). Even calling this remake sucks, when i say i like FF7 by now i have to say "i like the original/1997 version"...
😅 i remember when this video had more dislikes then likes.... I think people are really coming to their senses with this remake... It's such a bittersweet experience for fans that really cared for the OG story and understood why a 1997 game with blocky graphics still to this day is still being played. It WAS the story... It's like a old childrens story... No matter how many times its told...you still wanna hear the same story that you loved...NOT some other bullshit... Like seriously Barret dies in the remake just to come back to life 1 min later...like WTF...the story is a mess now...
Not just story remember gameplay? Think back it's been a while since we've experienced it.
Yeah people are losing their rose tinted glasses. What I find is alot of people need a ton of time to process info. But other like us process info quickly and see the problems. We also see where this is going with next game, how many things will be effected
@Curly Que It looks like the whole concept of sephiroth disrupting the timeline, and the whispers correcting the timeline completely went over their heads.
Lol, I can't see dislikes anymore. RUclips is protecting me from hate and negativity I guess...but yeah, I hate the remake. The graphics, music and most voice acting was lovely but it takes more than that to actually deserve the title of masterpiece and this remake is a far throw from that. How many dislikes does this video have?
When I played Remake for the first time I didn't want to enter that portal into "freedom". I kind of started to see where they were going with the story but the shit storm after that went way beyond my fears and gave me depression after nearly 15 years of waiting for the remake release.
I feel that I went back to 13 cause I needed fun
@Fantasy Raider signed
@Fantasy Raider I signed that
@@jadecrystal2486 i love you
@@Lucira 0.o and i love you too random citizen :o
31:27
I actually want to say something about this:
Cloud straight up does NOT give a f*** about Biggs, Wedge, or Jessie dying.
Barrett loses his s*** when the plate collapses and becomes very emotional when he thinks Marlene is dead
Tifa mentions to him that Aerith said she is safe and that gives him hope.
What does Cloud do though? He says "Sephorith..." and then runs off leaving Tifa and Barrett behind.
The ONLY thing Cloud cares about is finding out of Sephorith is alive. Literally emotionless at the deaths of potentially thousands of innocent people.
Regarding news outlets and websites praising the game to no end - I think some of the worst of it is actually on social media.
There are tons of walking billboard/PR content creators online that do nothing but regurgitate the same hype posts for the series, and many of them are invited to events.
If they were to say anything that could be taken in a negative light they'd likely be backlisted or passed up for any sort of collaborations and promotional material.
I didn't mind the game up until a certain point. I thought the characters were beautifully written, acted, and rendered. The game also looked and sounded great. The gameplay and combat were hit and miss, I definitely had to force myself to get through some sections.
It was that last hour or so when I felt almost sick with shock and disappointment, never would I have thought I would end fighting against antagonists that were just analogous concepts like 'fate' and 'destiny'. It was so ridiculous it shattered all my immersion and connection with the game, its characters and its world. Then the final gut punch was, these aren't even the characters I know and love, this is a hack alternate timeline story that may as well be fanfiction and gives the writer an excuse to change and manipulate the world of FF7 as he sees fit from here on.
The game was at its best when it was sticking close to the source material, at times it was almost perfect, but then it was all undone.
it was almost like the developers self inserting themselves in the game to say we made big changes, lol all of it felt so fake that even me who never played the ps1 ff7 could tell none of this could be in the original
Big dan gaming: "biggs wedge and jessie's deaths didn't have much of impact in the original story"
Me my whole childhood: "😭😭😭😭dammit biggs, dammit wedge, jesssssssie!😭😭😭😭😭🥺"
Same. Never quite forgot their loss.
To be fair, my pain about them wasn't individualized, except for Jessie as she seemed a bit nerdy and sweet (especially dressed as a dude and showing us the Midgar sub map). I did feel their loss after the plates fell, but had pretty much forgotten about them once I entered the Shinra building.
You might have felt it in the moment, but I'll wager it didn't last because the rest of the game was so good.
See for me their death had a massive impact but not because I was attached to them and I don’t think that was the purpose either. It was that moment that cemented how much of a threat shinra actually were and a stark reminder that your small group were pretty much out of their depth which really raised the stakes of the scenes to come.
SE: We want to create something entirely new, and not be tied down by the past.
Sales for FF7-2 are down 60%.
SE: We're going to faithfully recreate the original from the ground up for the fans we love so much!
I think it's already too late for that. They won't use ressources for that and they're already talked about remaking 8 and do a sequel to X-3.
They have to cash down the remaining nostalgia
Not sure if you've realized this yet, especially with interviews and bits and pieces leaked of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, but many of your questions are answered thus:
1. It's a sequel, using the remake as a backdrop, and a gateway to get people to buy it, due to the demand for the sequel. Bait and switch would be fairly accurate.
2. Extended universe content underwrites everything from the original game. EVERYTHING. They're using all of that content, especially certain obscure writings from Nojima, and Advent Children (the final fight scene between Cloud and Sephiroth is a verbatim frame by frame replay at least in terms of the FMV moments, of the Advent Children fight).
3. Infinite money printing machine (in their eyes). Especially given their likely shock at how well received 15 was. 15 was like bad fan fiction conceived by an 8 year old. Had innumerable plot holes. Content that was almost pure exposition. Unnecessary and needless sacrifice and death with limited explanations. Similarly with much of this game. There were plenty of plot holes in 7's narrative, but they can be forgiven as the general writing is better, the exposition is handled well, and the overall events actually help develop the characters (you missed the point of Walmarket and Cloud's development which was critical to the original in breaking his shell, especially as he was the one who decides to carry along Aerith's crazy plan, but in this version he's carried along a river and sent from one place to another always at the behest and control of everyone else, and has no agency and no growth).
This stems from #2, as in #2 Sephiroth's return is as a split personality God similar to Lavos (which incidentally was a core inspiration for Jenova), becoming the time devourer in Cross. Nojima reapplied that application through Advent Children and further writings based on his AC machinations. Everything we're seeing here is built around the concept of various forms of Sephiroth. Primordial with unknown motivations and goals, a version that is based on a mirrored reflection of Cloud's vision of him, which has an attachment akin to brotherly love for Cloud, and a version hell bent on carrying out his goal in the original game. So Nojima is also basing this shit on the FF7 script and ideas as written by Tetsuya Takahashi, which were scrapped (though elements were used for the Jenova project clones and Cloud's split personality), and rehashed in Xenogears. Only now Sephiroth is also Fei Fong Wong. So essentially he's an infinite existence with multiple layers, who can exist on multiple layers of time and space, and is both physical and ethereal.
So essentially they can do FUCK ALL with the script now as a result of knowledge and understanding of those writings by just continuously creating games that are now "cannon" within the FF7 universe, and hell, why not even create an FF10 spinoff where Sephiroth traces the Al-Bed ship that brought the first humans, created by a Shinra, to Spira? Then we have Seymour Guado merge with Sephiroth or something? Why the hell not? Sephiroth can now be cannon in every FF script!
Though a lot of the story contrivances are VERY reminiscent of Nomura as well. Nojima is a decent writer, but Nomura by all interviews, was the overriding guide to development and the critical idea man. In between his contributions was Kitase. So who knows what of the convoluted nightmare of a mish-mash paddywack storyline was born from any of the three. Except to say a lot of those crazy elements are almost verbatim ripped plot points and character development arcs from KH, especially KH3. Then again Nomura was working on both at the same time, so it makes sense he would be carrying over the same concepts and methods of presenting scenarios (like Biggs, which I'd wager is still alive...no seriously, I'd bet he is despite that final scenario). The whispers feel like a rework of the heartless, especially as presented in KH3.
One of the issues as well, is certain interviews related to this development, Nomura wanted to outdo the Guch. I don't think he realizes that Sakaguchi, for all his creative pitfalls, fully comprehends story structure and character arcs. He was the literal glue that allowed the complexity of FF7's original game to come together. It's his way of handling FF6's complex storyline that helped Kitase develop into a good writer, leading to Kitase meshing all of the contributions for Chrono Trigger into a single narrative. Though unlike FF7, the way that split idea system worked was very different, and he only had to add in connecting points and fill in the gaps between them.
===
Anyway, excellent breakdown, though I think you missed or glossed over a lot, probably due to time limitations and wanting to highlight certain points that really stood out to you.
It's tragic what they're doing with this game, and frankly I think their plan will ultimately fail, but they'll make bank for awhile. However the sheer volume of core fans of the original who have given the middle finger? I wonder if Rebirth will hit FF13-2 sales or 10-2 sales figures? Or dive bomb well below them?
===
Oh right, one last thing. I was actually completely fine with the expansion of Midgard, and very excited at first. Why? Consider HOW much content was in the original game? How many story rewrites they did? How many idea men they had adding elements? That Midgard with Detective Cloud was the original vision (though Midgard was more like Gotham than what it became). How many elements of that story would be left in notes? I was hoping we'd see some of those ideas tossed back into it, to flesh things out. Tweaked to fit the final narrative of the original game. Plus there was a LOT of story holes related to the planet, Buggenhagen, the nature of the ancients, how the Cetra really died, that were compelling but poorly explained.
If you read into the old interviews over the game, it sounds like they cut out about 80% of the original planned script, and between the Guch and Kitase, managed to weave a single narrative together. Especially given how proactive Sakaguchi was in general game development, despite being a producer at the time (reading those interviews, he was producer and director in truth, with Kitase acting as like a sub-director, or co-director with less influence).
I wonder what FF would have turned into had Sakaguchi only resigned from VP, but stayed in the company as the core head of their main game division? Anyway, cheers.
The combat system wasn't good. It's heavily flawed. Blocking is delayed, blocking doesn't cancel out your attack, you can only summon once in a battle, items n magic require 2 battlefield currencies to use, aerial combat is atrocious for how many aerial enemies you'll fight, being interrupted while using a spell wastes both ATB and MP, enemies can move away from you after you use a limit break even though it pauses the action, and some characters' dodge doesn't even travel far enough to dodge attacks. That's an 8 times flawed combat system and that's not even considering hard mode where you can't use items and rest points don't restore MP which actually creates another 2 flaws revolving around the MP restore materia. You only get one and it restores less MP than the attached spell costs in MP. There's only 2 things good about FF7 remake and those are graphics and music, and one could argue that the music is bad because it doesn't fit the tone of FF7 most times. Meaning that the graphics are literally the ONLY objectively good thing in the remake.
You are godamn right. I'm playing through it now and every single fight is such a chore to go through.
lmao i agree holy shit
Graphics is the only thing going for this. Everything else is inferior by a huge factor.
@@hoyschelsilversteinberg4521 And even then the graphical fidelity is also lacking in some aspects. I remember going to Aerith's house and having a great impression on how well they made the garden look. Then you go into the House proper and the pots and pans are all hexagons. There are a lot of examples like that. Where things look good one moment and the next you stumble into PS2 tier stuff.
@@alevasdiox Haha no way. It is so obvious this was "remade" because there is a bunch of loyal fans wanting it, the creators obviously didn't play it or enjoy it on the level the fans did. I doubt they even played 10 minutes of the game.
They are definitely not keeping the game the same as they've kept Zack alive, introduced Sephiroth way too early and added a new bad guy. This is not the FF7 we played as children. WTF.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Kingdom Hearts level convoluted multiverse timetravel garbage. Lets take something near perfect (original ff7 story) have an opportunity to expand on it and bring more life to characters and locations and take a shit on it. Its honestly so disappointing. The graphics, music and even part of the combat systems were awesome but the story just makes me so angry. Being in shinra hq and seeing the blood in the hallways with the eerie music playing in the background then finding the president with the sword in his back was an absolute masterpiece of storytelling and how the game had some great horror suspense elements to it. Leaving all that out and saving everyone from the plate falling and nobody dying just makes it feel like some elementary school cartoons. There is no weight to the story. If everyone lives??? Whats the point? Where is the consequence? Thats such a huge part of the character development in the original. They have to deal with the fact that their actions could have influenced shinras decision to drop the plate. I mean they are partially responsible in the original and them dealing with that is big in the character development. i agree with most of what you said in this video. Glad im not the only person extremely disappointed in this new game?? I guess
What you stated is exactly the main reason for Barrets character development during the Midgar chapter in the original game. At the beginning he behaves like Clouds boss and always wants to be the leader and in control but after the death of Wedge, Biggs and Jessie he realizes that his actions had consequences and that he might not be cut out to be a leader and Cloud should do it.
that doesn't mean they still don't die. why make a game the same as the original. that'll be stupid. l like how they doing it. why? so it can blow your mind when they switch up.
@@youngrydah4374 because it's an remake from the original fucking game, and not a brand new one.
@@youngrydah4374 Then don't advertise and sell it as ''Final Fantasy 7 REMAKE''. It just show poor business practice from square. If they called it FF7-2 (or since it's Nomura, FF7.9), there wouldn't be so much outrage toward this shit.
The amount of coping and bad faith justifying is through the roof with you all.
The whispers were an excuse and added in order to change the game and do what ever they want to it,and if anyone has a problem with it..”the whispers”
Really great Review, just putting out some thoughts of mine:
1. If they want to make a new plot, just make a new story, and don't replace the plot to make a meta message that you want to change the story, but then don't actually write a good plot. I would have loved to see the remake have like different endings, and multiple ways the plot can play out, that would give it great replayability. But instead we get railroaded into a single lazy story.
2. I think its especially weird how they put a ton of filler in the game, and then cut out the prison scene in the Shinra HQ, which was there in the original. I really like that scene, because you have a moment where the pacing slows down before Sephiroth is revealed, as well as giving a great motive as to why Red 13 joins the party(jailbreak buddies, and not brainwash by Aerith). Also it makes Shinra seem less useless. I mean, if you can waltz into their literal HQ and stomp all security, why the hell should i ever take them serious as enemies in any future part of the game? (i do like the implementation of a jenovah boss though, that's actually a good point to have one in the first part.)
3. I hate how they butchered the motorcycle scene, because you get at least 2 deus ex machinas within this single minigame. I nearly lost my will to finish the game at that point, because it made the group look beyond incompetent and useless.
4. Also on the point of less impact: In the beginning you don't actually blow up the reactor, making you innocent, and THEN give you the walk through the streets to see the damage you caused. the latter is such a brilliant idea, to make you think about your actions, but at the same time they just clear you of the crime, so its not actually your fault and you don't have to feel bad about it.
Johnny wasn’t a new character... he’s standing next to the honey bee establishment in the original ffvii. I just started replaying ffvii the original and the only thing I can think is they are actually remaking the game with a new story rather than just doing a remaster.
Yes, he is also in the Sector 7 slums at the start of the game, and leaves. He is also seen later in the game.
Omi someone with actual sense
Not a remake!
You just described fan fiction
Best review I've seen for FF7 Remake yet. You really hit the nail on the head.
Only things I disagreed with:
1. I liked that they made Jessie a flawed character. It adds some depth to her, and a little interpersonal drama. It's a little fan servicey, but compared to the game's other fan service, it's pretty tame.
2. Earlier in the story it's explained that Avalanche HQ and Barret's team don't get along very well, despite being on the same side. This could explain why they were hesitant to reach out to HQ for help when trying to get to the upper levels of Midgar. Still, they should have made that clearer in the writing, and you'd think they'd at least try to get their help.
U mean clearer than the characters saying it
The argument between Cloud and the old man who wound up with the graveyard key was basically Cloud's sneaky way of getting the old man off his ass and fired up since it was implied that he basically lost the inner spark that he had earlier in life. Cloud helped get him moving while maintaining the appearance of a cold bastard. I thought all of that was obvious, given the ridiculously exorbitant amount that Cloud tried to charge the old man, especially knowing damn well that no one in the slums had that kind of gil to spare.
Oh, and Biggs does get mentioned when you visit the orphanage.
But also pointless uninspiring story b
@@aarononeill3 That too 😉
It was done in a VERY DUMB and nonsensical way tho.
You took the words from my own mouth .. all your points are exactly what i shared with my friends when they asked me on my opinion on ff7 remake .. the difference here is that my friends totally agreed with me but they liked the game never the less !!!
I m in same boat. Agree a lot but i love this game and now playing on hard. Wish it was perfect though. It had the potential to be an unparalleled masterpiece
@@sameerhussain444 I do agree that it had the potential to be the spoken masterpiece. But without the same story, they down right failed.
@@mowntainmann2567 It was so easy to do it too: don't change the story! Everything else about the game was already great: gameplay was fun, graphics look amazing, exploration okay, sense of scale palpable. But the story, script, and VA...oooffff.
@@NikkoTanGoogle well the VAs aren't bad, especially the Japanese ones of course. The only VA i don't like is Sephiroth's english VA just because Newbern was so good nothing comes close imo
As a newcomer to the series I have no idea what happened in the story. So if it wasn't made for newcomers and not for fans, then who was it made for.
I will just stick to graphics and difficulty mods on the original ff7 on pc
This was my first time experiencing FF7. The ending has killed any interest I have in this Remake saga. It was so rushed and unnatural and catastrophically written I could not understand WTF happened to this game. And I instantly knew that whatever the fuck I was seeing it was not in the original game because if it was then FF7 would have never gained such praise and fame. Fuck this brain-dead garbage.
Same. The ending showed me that the butchery of the story will only get worse. I just cannot gloss over horrible writing.
The amount of stuff they added to the ending made almost no sense unless you take advent children that really atrocious movie into consideration and then you realize that this game is basically just a sequel that takes place in the alternate universe. But honestly just play the original if the graphics are an issue you can upscale them with so many other mods it takes like 5 minutes not even
Love false advertising, "remake" my fucking ass
The original is still a great game. I definitely recommend it. This remake was trash unfortunately.
@@Gamingnstuff131 People who only play games for graphic, they never ever gonna play old games...
Of course the story is a mess. This is what happens when Tetsuya Nomura is put in charge.
I am looking forward to FF XVI, because it seems to be going back to its fantasy roots, and Nomura isn't anywhere near it. With his track record of taking a decade to get anything out, I expect we will have the complete FF7 remake as a launch title for the PS7
Yoshi p is the true sucessor of sakaguchi
Barret's death was an interesting twist and it gave me a glimmer of hope that the story might get interesting... but then they bring him back to life immediately after, like they did with everyone else that "died".
There are no consequences to anything bad that happens and the writers don't commit to anything, that's so lame dude.
My favorite part about this game is the rabid fanbase of people under the age of 18, who have tried repeatedly to gaslight me into thinking I didn’t actually play the original, despite playing through it 4 times. Any criticism I have towards this new game is met with a bombardment of blind fanboys white knighting to defend it. I’m apparently “nostalgia blind” over a game I just played for the first time last year. Oh well, you can’t win anymore with people.
FF7: A tragic story about loss of life
FF7R: A three-ring anime devoid of consequence
Sounds like Trails.
What is a three-ring wrt anime?
Playing FF7 for the first time, the part where the party gets out of captivity was great, especially with the foreshadowing and build up that is being done. I went to look at how it looks in the remake and I was mind blown by how fanfictiony everything was.
FF7R is to FF7, what Kingdom hearts is to Disney movies.
Thanks for making the video.
This is going to go the way of the Star Wars movies... they are just cashing in on nostalgia and will likely make it a trilogy. Each game worst than the last. And "I'll withhold judgement and play the next one" is exactly what they are counting on.
The new Star Wars are doing the exact same thing: Changing/messing with established things from the original just for the sake of surprise.
It’s a shame the story went from well paced and compelling to asinine and plodding. How can anyone take it seriously now with the plot ghosts and lack of suspense or stakes? The original is still the definitive version. The writing in this game is about the same level of terrible writing as in 10-2 and the 13 trilogy.
It's trashy writing by and for people who've spent too much time reading shitty comics/manga/fanfics, watching bad television/anime, and haven't spent nearly enough of their lives interacting with real human beings or engaging with worthwhile books/movies/shows. What's worse is how, nowadays, sheltered/aloof people like this seem to always think that introducing more and more batshit sci-fi cliches like time-travel, clones, or multiple universes is somehow a failure-proof way to improve their stories. With it's ultra-detailed graphics/textures/music/sound, FF7R would lead any reasonable person to believe that they were about to experience a deep/nuanced story about deep/nuanced characters, but it will almost instantly become clear that isn't going to happen and that all the money went towards graphics/combat/sound.
@@junzeronido you anecdotes of these people?
people disliked the video because he told the truth
Well lucky for him youtube turned off the dislike.
As a fan of the og FFVII, I utterly agree with you.
FFVII Remake is a desecration of the og game and don’t deserve the praise it gets from the media at all.
Edit: I hate the combat system.
FF7 Remake looks amazing.
FF7 Remake sounds amazing.
FF7 Remake doesn't FEEL very good, though.
Xenogears had a good sewer level IMO
Also, surprised you didn't mention the lack of blood and absolute butchering of the trail of blood scene as well as the fight with sephiroth making NO sense thematically. How TF is cloud strong enough to even TOUCH Sephiroth, let alone hurt him? Midgar Zolom makes no sense now
edit: 10/19/22 Also i'm just now noticing at 17:59 why do random kids have a sword in replica of the buster sword when they have never met cloud before and have no reason to idolize him. Also the buster sword was custom made, so it isn't just something anyone would have on hand design wise...What store is selling those?
That's because the Midgar Zolom will be the final boss of the next part of the game just before a boring fight against fate and Sephiroth again.
Man the shinra hq trail of blood freaked me out as a kid genova didnt help lol
@@andrewz6986
But the relief of realizing Sephiroth already left the building so you don't have to deal with him yet? Priceless.
They have met Cloud, he and Aerith go into their little secret hideout so they can rescue the other kids who got attacked by monsters. Then the follow up quest where you have to go find them around town (where this scene is from) is literally after that.
So it seems they’re acting like buster swords are mass produced now
This kind of felt like playing a fanfic lol
oh my god you ripped the words right out of my mouth.
🤡
*A hate fic
@@getsuga7317 Shut up, plz
The problem with this game is that it's a freakin' bait and switch and frankly I don't know why fans allowed SE to actually get away with the BS.
Theyve been getting away with it for more than 15 years now because the current fanbase is brain damaged kool aid drinking kingdom hearts children and sicko coomers.
@@walmartian422 ???
It's Motomu Toriyama and Tetsuya Nomura bullshit. Those 2 are the bane of Square Enix at this point. Nomura always feels like an edgelord, and overplays his storytelling skills even though it's shit. And Motomu Toriyama is straight up a shitty writer; probably responsible for the shit script (coupled with Nomura's cringe voice acting direction, is a recipe for disaster).
Ikr, what a waste of all those years waiting
Omg did they not proofread the plot???
Cloud and Avalanche: we must defy fate to defeat Sephiroth
Aerith: (I want to defy fate because I want to live, yolo)
Sephiroth: join me Cloud. Let us defy fate together. 😈
Cloud: NO! That would be bad!
Having watched a walkthrough of this game and having just finished watching you review I realized something. This has ALL THE MAKINGS of being an exact repeat of the _Star Wars_ sequels. In fact, it's _already_ happening!
Remember when TFA first came out and how it split the fandom almost 50/50? There were those who singing praises while others were criticizing for numerous and logical reasons? Then there were those who were really worried about the future of _Star Wars_ and everyone just ignored them? Harassed them? Remember how Disney tricked everyone into believing that "Star Wars is back!" only to give us what was essentially a poorly disguised remake of ANH? Yet the fandom was totally fine with it. Then came _The Last Jedi_ and remember how that went? It didn't just the ruin franchise, it _broke_ the fandom. Even the most devoted fans of TFA couldn't defend it. That's how bad it was. And by the time _The Rise of Skywalker_ came out nobody cared. The damage TLJ made was so extensive that nobody cared about _Star Wars_ anymore.
With _Final Fantasy VII Remake_ it's the exact same situation. Right now we're in the TFA stage. The fandom is split almost 50/50 with those singing it praises being the dominant voice. On the other hand you and several others have pointed out this game's serious flaws and have voiced your legitimate concerns going into the future and yet you're being harassed and ignored. The majority of the fandom is totally fine with this remake. Square-Enix has managed to get away by tricking the fandom into believing this is the greatest thing ever.
Well, I very much imagine that when the second part of this remake comes out it'll be TLJ all over again. Just like with _Star Wars_ the second part will not just ruin the legacy of _Final Fantasy VII_ it will also break the fandom, and those who defended the first part not be able to defend the second one no matter how hard they try.
Now, it is possible that _maybe_ it won't go down that path and _maybe_ they won't permanently change the story that we all know and love. But... like you said, I don't see how that's possible. In fact, I don't think they can because they've already done it! They have written themselves into a corner and now have no choice but to go through with it. And the results, I predict, are going to be _devastating._ If the second part of this remake does become another TLJ and sales significantly drop as a result then Square will end up doing one of three things. Either they cram whatever's left into a third game(four if we're lucky) without bothering to polish it and it'll an even bigger mess, they'll delay the third game again and again for whatever reason they can come up with because they don't know what to do, or they might just make the smart decision and cancel the game altogether in order to save themselves from further humiliation. However, it won't matter what they do. The damage of the second game will be so great that nobody's going to care about the third game. It won't be enough to save this remake series as a whole.
Whatever the case, I just don't see _Final Fantasy VII Remake_ ending on a good note. I know the future is unpredictable but after what we went through with _Star Wars_ in recently and seeing all the similarities in regards to this, I'm not about to get my hopes up. We'll just have to wait and see and hope for the best. But... like they say, history has a way of repeating itself.
I hope to return to this comment after the second part is released to check back on your prediction, but I agree with you. I feel like we have been tricked by marketing and the game itself...
Marketing: shows only the nostalgia elements of the "remake", hides all of the retcon parts and altered story etc. We think we are getting a modern re-imagining of the original.
The game itself: at the start it was a carbon copy of the original, the opening FMV was the same, the intro sequence through the reactor was the same. But as the "remake" progressed it start to diverge. The game tricked us into thinking we were playing a remake but gradually became a different game and by the time it ended the remake had nothing to do with the original except for sharing characters.
With the next part I think it is going to continue to diverge, continue to add in DLC that retcons things and at some point we are going to realise that they haven't given us loving fan service but instead have given us as many opportunities to buy games and DLC disguised as FF, similar to how star wars was a shallow husk of what it should have been, but they released movie after movie after side movies after television show after game which were all bad (except Rogue One and Jedi: Fallen Order).
Final fantasy 7 is getting two releases on mobile: 1 battle royale game (so they are making Final Fortnite 7) and a remaster of the original that is free to play, this means it is going to be packed with those micro-transactions. These mobile games are clearly just a cash grab using the FF7 brand and is a good indication of the direction Square plans to take the FF7 franchise. I feel like it has already been ruined but I still have my original copy of the game and a console to pay it on and the best thing about games released 25 years ago is that square can never release DLC or content for it that change the game in any way. So long as I have those three discs I will always have access to the best Final Fantasy 7 experience square has ever, and will ever, produce.
I completely agree with you..but there's one ray of hope for Final Fantasy Remake...Numora has been taken off part 2 and they said they heard some of the backlash about part 1..so part 2 will be sticking closely to the og story
they have an outline of a good story to follow.. so as long as they dont pull a Ryan Johnson and try to tell their own story with part 2...it has a slim chance to be good
@@86lanzo How can they retcon all of the retcons that Nomura threw in? He already changed many story critical things that deviate and altar the story greatly.
@@benfubbs2432 my guess ..they wont retcon...theyll just ignore.. ignore all the trash in part 1..and make part 2 a faithfull adaptation
Given that SE just wants to make money, no matter what, i'm still hoping that they realise that they could release this game again but without all the whisper stuff, to sell the game twice, because then i could have the game i wanted.(sure, there would still be flaws, but i could live with them if it was the original plot)
Arieth :....Help me defi destiny
Cloud :....Ye Im down
Sephiroth : Cloud lets defi destiny
Cloud: NEVER
SMH
I love it when dev takes a 1.3gb game and blows it up to 100gb, and it's not even halfway completed.
And milk me $59.99 for each installments.
@@darthslackus499 Get Ready for them to start charging $69.99 now
@@darthslackus499 so you wanna buy PS1 graphics 1:1 HD Remaster 4k 60fps DISC1-3 for $59.99?
well there is there in steam just mod here and there. done
100gb has the compromised for all things graphics cutscene animation high fidelity. look at that Advent Children quality game and theres many OST its like 8 + disc. this is 40+ hours single player game and pack of added content wdym bro?
for the story this is sequel to the og , hate it or like it this is also key main team and writer who make the original ff7 they do it for the best as they can.
@@ryanindi96 you know damn well we weren’t ever asking for just the PS1 game with 4K models
And this game does certainly not warrant a giant sized 100 gb install, it's not a giant open world game filled with 4k textures and hundred thousands assets.
My reaction to this game was “thanks, I hate it.”
I’m still trying to convince myself that future installments might be good but I don’t think so. These are the same people who made Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus. Even Crisis Core isn’t that great.
I was so excited for this game. I thought “Finally! A return to what made Square great.” Their last few games in the FF series and KH series have been terrible. Unfinished stories with stupid plots. FFXV had potential but fell flat. I thought with FFVII, they at least had a good story base and could have proper setup and payoff.
And then they’re like, we’re changing shit. Even if by some miracle the plot stays intact, the story is completely different. It goes from themes of dealing with loss to themes of fighting against loss. And I hate it.
I really hate that this game puts yet another barrier between me and newcomers to the story. I hate being the one to say, “the original was better”
I made it to the part where you go through 3 or 4 of identical laboratory rooms where you have to find keycards. Deinstalled and sold it.
@@jakobdueck7491 yeah, the maps suck. There is so much padding in the game. Dungeons get even worse. They make you go through boring ass sewers twice!
If you haven’t played the original and can stand to play old 90s RPGs, I do recommend giving it a shot.
Almost everything was better then
well said. In ff7 you go through sacrifice and see the significance of life and death, and you feel that really early on with the fall of the sector 7 plate killing everybody. In the remake you slowly evacuate everybody out and no one got hurt, yay! What a joke.
Even though I like the combat of 7R a lot, the dungeons are repetitive and a slog to go through.
@@jewii3824 the combat was one of the few things I enjoyed. I actually was wanting random encounters back so the monotonous maps could be broken up a bit.
"I always thought was 'Team Tifa' and felt Jessie made him unfortable"
Dude, he was uncomfortable around Tifa and Aerith as well. Hell, is there anyone Cloud is comfortable around? 🙄🙄🙄
Sephoroath 🤣
I’m two years late, but the tropic Thunder reference for Barrett completely took me out and was spot on 😂😂 that was a nice touch 👌
Thank you for this. I'm tired of all these 9/10's 10/10's even 8/10's. Original ff7 was amazing for its timeline. However, this version didn't work other than combat. It was just boring...devoid of what the original achieved.
What did the OG part 1 FF7 achieve. Part 1 was always trash and boring and the only interesting thing to come out of it was Cloud's "headaches" and when you find the mayor dead.
@@emperorpalpatine4953 don’t yo srry they are remastering the oh game on mobile so there ya go yo u can not worry about the remake anymore.
I feel like nobody in this comment section knows the difference between a remaster and a remake.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH POP FILTER.
This is what happens when you let a guy who is more concerned with M. Night Shymamalan levels of nonsensical plot twists and fan service take over as head of a project. Fully knowing the convoluted nonsense that is the Kingdom Hearts franchise....
The best screwup of all in this game was their redesigned zipline. In the OG game it was a wire they used to swing out form under the plate that was fixed somewhere still standing. In this game, it's a zip line attached to the tower you are on that blows up and collapses... so everyone should immediately fall to their death. But then again this game is so poorly designed that people being crushed under a plate somehow end up just fine and on top of it.
Someone show Maximilian this video. He is the blindest fanboy of this stuff.
FFVII is a ongoing series and FFVII Remake has been confirmed as a sequel (they really shouldn't have called it a remake) and any actually fans who cares for FFVII lore would know this and later on The Ultimatum goes into explaining that to fans who are not into the lore of the game. Final fantasy VII (ps1) is a loop the ending mirrors the beginning of the game which mirrors this one as aerith is trying to save everyone.The Ultimatum explains FFVII is a bad ending as Jenova has already won the moment it came to earth using sephiroth as puppet which in turn using cloud as one to finish her plan. All of mankind is dead at the in of FFVII even advent children goes into the fact the livestream is planning to wipe out mankind and Jenova, Aerith has prayed to the livestream to give her time, that humans can change for the better etc.
"Geostigma" livestream/Earth made it to kill humans as there the cause of all this. The livestream believe this is the only way the ancients believe this is the only way even though jenova has already infected the livestream with the help of shinra. The horrible realization of Jenova was told a wise old man in cosmo canyon bugenhagen which explain when the earth dies all the livestream will go into the Ultima Weapon (who is the guardian made by Earth when it dies) The ultima weapon takes the livestream through space to a new planet to begin a new but with jenova. Who is infecting everything as Ultima finds a new planet.
@@ChromosomeExcel yes FF7 universe is a loop and away remake it self if you are not a lore gamer you never know that FF7CC is actually a sequel game to FF7OG by in lore to the game universe standpoint, but if you just look only Story point of view it gonna be just a prequel game to you.
I believe he knows all of this but is too much of a pussy to acknowledge it because of the backlash hed get
Max gets paid to act that way. Hes smarter than he lets on he knows exactly what hes doing. He knows square enix is a dogshit company dude is getting paid.
@@walmartian422 The fact that people can even come up with these conspiracy theories is actually mind boggling to me. Max has explained that he has loved FF7 since he was a kid and no, he isn't completely accepting of everything in the 7 series, for instance; anything involving Dirge of Cerberus, Genesis or the new characters from Advent Children. I frankly agree with Max on how the story is being handled; they're taking things from the compilation and making them better; Nero was absolutely fantastic in the DLC simply because he was handled how he should've been from the start, he's a bloodthirsty soldier who enjoys seeing his enemies suffer and that's all he ever needed to be. Max has also made it completely obvious that he isn't blindly optimistic about the future of the series, he's worried that it could go very wrong within the next games and that the story of Remake can either be completely terrible or amazing or anything in between, it all depends on where the series goes next.
This is my 3rd attempt to sit down and play this since launch and Its just so disappointing. Honestly it just seems like Nomura is using the original’s name and legacy to tell his own story. Which isn’t a remake.
Dont piss on me and tell me it’s raining
I have to say this was an interesting review and I see your point about the game. I was really confused with Remake's ending considering if Zack is alive there are a lot of things that it affects to story, especially in Cloud himself. Though I recently found this theory video by a user named Sleepezi that talks about Remake answering some of the questions in the FF7 compilation and It all feels connected in the end, but that being the case we're supposed to see Remake as some sort of sequel/alternate timeline thing. At least for me it made me see remake in a different way but the whole thing is like a 3 hours long essay.
Got the free ps4 download. Walked in blind expecting a fun jaunt down nostalgia lane. Instead o got dog shit.
Total crap in all respects. Shame.
Shut up
Agreed. Unbelievable disappointment.
Today i finished this Remake and holy shit man after the seventh chapter i hated everything.
Bad pacing, bloated, bad and boring characters, cringe Dialogues, to much anime moaning, combat gets boring very quickly, Enemies are bullet sponges, shity side quests, corridor and ladder simulator, fights are not difficult but they take tooooo long.
Good that i didn’t pay anything for this
Dude yes! I mean it wasn't perfect but towards the end, I was more disappointed. I actually took a brief break before resuming the side quests, just so I don't feel like I miss out on anything (which I didn't).
Lmaoooo the anime moaning, hilarious! I said the same thing to myself. It's like they couldn't think of any real dialogue so they just had random shit happen and all the grunting/hard emotions without any actual backstory or Anything. They basically marketed a whole lot of nothing and the fake fans are eating this bs up like it's nothing.
Huge plot point missed by everyone. Sephiroth is guiding the party to enter the portal and kill fate. At the end though it is obvious that he is toying with cloud and could easily defeat him. Why doesn't Sephiroth just go and destroy fate himself?
If the creators were clever, I’d have said they’re digging their own grave or something. But nah.
@@ceel4223 lol
That was after the party beat fate. Sephiroth then absorbed all of the arbiters. He wasn't strong enough until he absorbed them.
Can't imagine how you feel that you bought a PS4 just to play this game and they release DLC exclusively on PS5
Japanese Game companies has become a cash grab companies. They've lost The Creativity and the Artistic things about Video games. We lost Konami and Now Square Enix.
@@luc7478 I wouldnt say that. Square has divisions, and the division that keeps making these creatively selfish and annoying mistakes is Creative Business Unit 1 (CBU1). You still have other division inside SE that are doing great work (like CBU3 responsible for FF14, CBU2 for Dragon Quest and Nier, Octopath). If anything, CBU1 is the division that keeps wasting Square Enix resources track record-wise (aside from the FFXIV 1.0 debacle from CBU3), and FFXIV is currently the most profitable product SE has and is probably funding much of SE projects right now lol. I wouldn't lose hope on SE yet. CBU1 though, I don't raise hopes when they release projects. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin looks like dumpster fire story-wise.
@@NikkoTanGoogle I didn't Know about those Divisions. Thanks for the Info
Thanks so much for making this. It's annoying how RUclips hid the more critical analysis videos of this game from my recommends/searches. I remember finishing the game shortly after its release and trying to see if anyone else who found similar issues I had with the game. But everywhere I went, all I saw were people singing praises. Like you, I feel there are some great moments in this game and the combat system is INCREDIBLE. The character personalities are also consistent to the ones I grew up with (up until the last annoying chapter, that is) and the graphics look amazing. Still, I can't help but feel it was a very SHALLOW experience. Epic battles, especially against Sephiroth, and important story beats never felt EARNED. And whereas the original game encouraged gamers to explore the world and unlock additional/optional content, the Remake's world was VERY linear and limited. You'd think the opening chapters at Midgar City would've allowed us to explore some of those downtown buildings and engage with NPCs to obtain extra goodies/content. Instead, it's a very 'Go to Point A and reach Point B' path. The only time this formula deviated was during Wall Market (which made me want to explore that shady nightlife world).
But I think the worst offense this game committed was how it ruined the original game's core themes: death, sacrifice, and learning how to move on from a terrible loss. FF7's original themes really spoke to the human experience, which is why we still celebrate it today. No one was spared from death and even good people like Aerith and Zack died. Given that humans exploited Mako for personal self gain (even without Shinra's meddling), it stood to reason Midgar City WOULD be sacrificed - it was karma. Unfortunately, the Remake wants to have its cake and eat it too. The new Aerith expects to save the world without making ANY sacrifices, thereby avoiding death and its valuable lessons altogether.
My other major pet peeve with the game was how it no longer has gray shades of morality; everything is very black-and-white - good versus bad. In the original, there was plenty shades of gray. Avalanche fought for the Planet but still harmed people. Their bombs caused the destruction of reactors and any buildings/people within their facility. In the Remake, the game goes out of its way to conveniently minimize Avalanche's damage, all to make them the clear-cut 'good guys'.
This same thing 'black/white' mentality carries over to the most important relationship in this game: the relationship between the Planet and Sephiroth. In the original game, the Planet took NO SIDES. In fact, Bugenhagen reminds everyone the Planet was fated to die anyway, whether today or tomorrow. This explained why it took on such a passive response to the crisis at hand. We also can't dismiss the fact that the rise of Sephiroth inadvertently brought an end to Shinra (the more IMMEDIATE threat to the Planet, since they are the ones actively exploiting mako and giving birth to Sephiroth in the first damn place). This would also explain why the Planet didn't get rid of Sephiroth while he was vulnerable and rebuilding himself in the womb of the crater. It wasn't until Aerith used the white materia that the Planet finally acted (even then, the prayer wasn't guaranteed to work if the Planet chose not to answer it, as Bugenhagen warned Cloud and the party). All signs point to the Planet letting things fall their natural course and resigning itself to its intended fate. But it was Aerith's sacrifice, along with the hardships Cloud and his party went through, that ultimately caused it to change its mind and save itself (and the people). In the Remake, however, the Planet outright condemns Sephiroth - Aerith makes it EXPLICITLY CLEAR it denounces his actions. This means the Planet now takes sides. It also views Sephiroth as a threat that must be destroyed first, despite the fact he's the one to jumpstart the downfall of Shinra (starting with the assassination of its President). The Planet is now the 'good guy' instead of it being this neutral entity Aerith and Cloud have to win over through their selfless and courageous actions.
I feel like that last sentence is worth repeating. Whereas the Remake is all black/white (meaning, there can only be 'right' and 'wrong' answers), the original game's gray perspective on characters and circumstances make the outcomes of certain deliberate decisions more impactful. It's all about free will and personal choices (the choice to stand back and let things be, or take a stand even if it means making a sacrifice). The victory feels more earned when Aerith and Cloud and everyone else PROVE to the Planet why they should continue existing instead of resigning themselves to an inevitable fate. The Planet's neutral stance also means there WILL be consequences if things don't change. By having the Planet act as this judgmental entity the Remake now paints it to be, it leaves me to wonder why it didn't snuff out Sephiroth when it had to chance, especially with its Planet Weapons on standby. Or why it allowed Shinra to continue exploiting its mako.
I’d like to add that Cid described the Planet as being like “a little kid, sick and alone in a huge universe.” Of course, this is just his interpretation, but I feel that the Whispers undermine the Planet itself as a “character.”
Just like you said, if the Planet sent out these Whispers with the goal of preventing it’s destruction… why didn’t they just throw a pregnant Lucrecia down the stairs? Or why didn’t they prevent Gast from finding Jenova at all? Why was Shinra even allowed to be built when these ghosts could have just pushed him off a building (like they do with Wedge)?
Is it stupid?
I can’t believe they managed to character assassinate *the entire Planet.*
There are a few more issues with FF7 Remake that somehow went over the Remake fandom’s heads:
1. In several cutscenes, Cloud switches between a powerful, but fundamentally grounded soldier, to Superman at random. In one moment, he’ll be able to fight relatively well with the bonus of his relatively superhuman strength and speed. In another, he’ll be able to jump 50-100ft in the air. In the next, he’ll do that, and do mid-air flips to slash his sword at a motorcycle that’s travelling 200 miles per hour. In the next, he can do all of the above, plus his Buster Sword can now cut through trains because anime logic. Makes you wonder why he needs anyone’s help when he can just go full anime and chop down the Shinra building like it’s an oak tree.
2. In addition to Sephiroth appearing way too early, you also hear Cloud say, “You’re not real, you’re dead. I killed you with my own-“. Say goodbye to that false memory plot, I guess. One of the few good amnesia plots is now a pipe dream.
3. Square Enix somehow believes “sexually attracted to anime boy” is character development, which is why more than half of all non-NPC characters want to ride him like a jet ski.
Pandering. It’s called Pandering.
Alright. This is coming from a someone who had background knowledge on the game from barely playing the OG and not being able to beat it but vaugely knew the story until a few days ago when I re watched it after finishing the remake. This Remake is a good standalone game that captures the aesthetic of Final Fantasy 7. But it is NOT a Good FINAL FANTASY game. As a stand-alone or something else that was more out there with a different world it could work. It was much better when it was grounded and when it was not all these god like beings. I will admit I somewhat liked how they made new players gain an attachment to midgar but they focused on the wrong thing because unless Midgar is an essential point to the story it wouldn’t matter because there was essentially no message behind it. I will say it does a really good job of illustrating and introducing the characters more and making you like them, but not really UNDERSTAND some of them yet because the story hasn’t really progressed that far. Cloud hasn’t gone through any major character development in game other than losing his cold exterior and character flaws from the start but he didn’t grow yet he only lost a few bad things about his character. But to be fair he hasn’t had the time to and that’s nothing wrong with the character but it’s something more to blame on Square Enix’s end for making the game Midgar only because it severely limited the characters ability to develop without cramming it into 1 section.
Now for the ending. That was the biggest bullshit I’ve ever seen, they didn’t even know what they were doing with the arbiters of fate at that point. Multiple times during the story, I thought they were linked to Sephiroth but it turns out it was just a shitty plot device to further save bad writing. They didn’t need to end the game in such a grandiose over the top fashion because that’s not what Final Fantasy 7 is. It’s about battling a evil and also battling the struggles that come with life and moving foward. This completely destroys that theme by basically saying “Just press the reset button”. That’s not Final Fantasy 7 nor is that what it’s portrayed as, It was pretty grounded and even characters like Barret didn’t know what was going on and didn’t expect that to happen. Final Fantasy 7 wasn’t and isn’t a game about changing destiny, fighting fate and outer dimensional other worldly issues. It was about saving the world and fighting through your own struggles.
Now I consider this a completely bigger issue than the Ending itself even though they are connected; Sephiroth. I have a fucking Kingdom Hearts profile picture If I wanted to play a game about time travel and a retarded yet entertaining story I would fucking play that because it’s more fictional and more understandable for that type of game especially with Xehanort and his character. That’s why it works because Time Travel is a Xehanort thing and Kingdom Hearts thing that barely works there. But to make Sephiroth an Almighty All Knowing character doesn’t work because his whole character is about trying to get smarter, learn about his past, go crazy, then directly affect the main character and Zack (which I’m gonna get onto later) and bring about the end of the world. You can’t just completely introduce a villain that’s already developed to us and expect to see him as anything other than just a final boss who kept taunting us during the game instead of explaining why he is a villain and antagonist to Cloud, not an antagonist to Aerith lmao. He isn’t as scary as he used to be, if they really wanted push the whole Sephiroth thing they should’ve just kept him in Flashbacks and Flashbacks only, not making him the literal final boss of the game with only 1 chapter of build up and a couple drops of him in the beginning and middle of the game lmao. In the OG you barely know about Sephiroth until later on in the game when he’s more involved. It just doesn’t make sense to bring him into the game this early especially where nothing is going down. Time Travel or presumably Time Travel just made this story immeasurably more complicated for no reason at all then to not kill 1 character.
Zack: He cannot be brought back, He is the whole reasoning for Cloud and the way he is, Without Zack you cannot have Cloud. Bringing him back completely destroys Cloud’s character because that literally is his character.
Square Enix: It literally makes no fucking sense to market this game as a “Remake” in a literal sense when it’s obviously not just a Remake but a Reboot. I payed 60$ for this assuming that It would be the Final Fantasy 7 story. A better name for this game would’ve been Final Fantasy 7 2020.
Long story short: the game was going in a good direction until the end when they ruined it with that Destiny and Fate thing.
I mean, to be fair to the Zack thing, Cloud never actually checks his body. Not in the old version, not in the animations made for last order, never. And even if he did, he was literally just coming out of a coma and could have very likely missed signs of him being alive and just unconscious.
Now ultimately we know Zack DID die in the old version and stays dead into Advent Children, but it would be remiss to not acknowledge that there is still a way to give Cloud his growth but keep Zack alive as it is with the older version.
For the new one, Zack could win his fight with Cloud still in his coma, take coma Cloud somewhere safe, need to leave for one reason or another before Cloud wakes up but leaving his sword behind for Cloud to use in order to keep him safe (explaining why he has it in this scenario.
Cloud wakes up from his coma suffering amnesia and sees the Buster Sword which jogs memories of Zack, but because his mind is disorientated he misremembers the events either making him believe Zack is dead leading to that same mental break he had originally, or alternatively his mind could be so muddled that the memories genuinely blend together and are literally blended to the point he doesn't know which ones are his and which are Zack's stories, leading Cloud to think he was a SOLDIER First Class but not know where Zack is or if he's still alive.
It's a *lot* more complicated, but the openings are still there.
@Fantasy Raider I'll pass
"We're not drastically changing the story and making it into something completely different than the original."
Bro, you already did! Why would anybody believe this?
To cash down again on naive people
This game...I can't fully describe the mix of anger and disappointment... but this summary hits a lot of nails on a lot of heads.
Only thing I disagree with is that I think the combat system is also shit. A chaotic flashy mess with clunky mechanisms that is neither "fun" not gratifying. The lack of party AI, the stagger system, the particle effects overload. It's just as much fun to fight as to do a goddamned "sidequest" in this game.
This game... for f's sake... how could they get this so wrong...
How can people defend this remake trash?
Fanbois probably - I lost hope for Square after they merged with Enix and so far its true, since the merge they just putting out shit, its almost 20 years. So I didnt had high hope for the remake
@@MrPetschko Night Sky Prince... enough said. Before the advent of NFTs, he was just about fine with any game Square makes
To second the post above me: the game influencers, or whatever: HMK, Gamersjoint, NSP.... I don't know if SE endorses them -- though they probably do -- but they literally hype up every game the company releases with very little criticism and doubt towards the upcoming product. As a result, like with most influencers, their opinion sways the general public and no one stops to question anything themselves.
These youtubers will tell you they don't agree with everything SE does. But they never have anything negative to say about them except maybe the occasional post on Twitter, but usually when they have to backtrack on something for damage control.
Now some people genuinely enjoy the remake. But from what I've seen, it's mostly those whom never played the original because they were either too young when it released, or they hate old school games because "the graphics suck".
*Just like some fans don't understand Zack's death WAS Cloud's character development!* Cloud is a character you have fully trust and confidence in THEN it's all taken away when you start realizing he is scared now, he becomes the the most scared person in the crew after the Temple .... That's when you start to feel emotional for him...THEN when he gets his memorys back.... You now meet the real him....NOT the cocky asshole from the midgar section .... Aeris kept telling Cloud... *I want to meet you* ...Tifa kept saying *Cloud, you are really you right?* .... Aeris & Tifa was putting two & two together silently with him in the OG game...they secretly knew Cloud was a victim of Shinra's experiments and didn't want to tell him ... With Zack being alive... All of that drama is GONE... Zack can now hold his hand threw the story...
You would have a good point.... if you understood that Zack is still dead in the primary timeline and that the Zack we see survive is a split timeline where Cloud doesn’t become the hero by taking his place.
@@kl-nl3kv Completely unnecessary.
The sequels all make Cloud depressed too. Square need to replay the original game.
You my friend live in factlandia for sure. All the points you made the good and bad are spot on. This in my humble opinion is a very, very honest review of the game. Too many people rode the hype train on this garbage of a story. All the fans asked for was a remake, not a retelling or whatever garbage kingdom heart cringe fest this was. I really wanted to love this game as a whole and as soon as they brought these "whispers" or plot ghosts I hated it. Some additions were good like jesse's backstory, but the other additions like the flashy soldier on a bike, like who tf is that and why.
Video is spot on. Square Enix is creatively bankrupt, completely out of touch, and lacks the talented employees that elevated it to greatness. I genuinely wonder if it's current roster of employees have even played the games that put the company on the map to begin with
So… I just finished the steam release version and I watched the whole video, and in short, as an OG ff7 mega-super-duper fan ( I’ve played ff7 from 1997 to today almost annually, lol), I couldn’t agree with you more. I started the game with the biggest smile on my face, seeing the reimagined midgar but by the end…. Well, you said it, it was hot garbage. Now I had a feeling since the teaser that the game wouldn’t be the same, and there would be changes, but not this. This game doesn’t have an audience. OG fans that know the OG story are told that the story you know and love is being nonsensically protested and changed by the protagonists and new players have absolutely no context as to what is going on. Even with major changes to the plot, I would have been okay with it if it made any sense… but no. And I’d like to add some points to this because I don’t have any friends that are big fans of ff7 to vent to.
In the OG game, I’m pretty sure everyone wanted Aerith to live or come back to life yet they accepted that without her death, the game wouldn’t be as great and impactful as it was (Btw, it was both the Holy materia and the lifestream that saved the planet from meteor, not just the lifestream). Same with Zach and Avalanche. With all of them alive, it’s just meaningless. Also, in the OG FF7, the deaths of Biggs, Wedge and Jessie had a much bigger impact, despite having very little interactions with them because of how Barret reacted to it. As a player, we were Cloud and through his perspective, we didn’t care about them. But Barret’s reaction and pain was evident in the writing and impactful on the player. It was also horribly handled in the remake (I was expecting tears and stuff from Barret and I don’t know if I can blame the voice actor). Also, I may have misunderstand in your video but Johnny is not a new character and was a very minor character in the OG ff7.
But that leads to the point that this game seems very PG, avoiding death at all costs…which was a huge theme of the original game. Even for a little kid, death and loss had a huge impact on how the game was experienced. The reactor bombings and the resulting casualties were because of Avalanche, not Shinra sabotaging their own reactors for a rhetoric that doesn’t make sense (Unless Wutai got seriously buffed in this new story and are actually a major threat, didn’t really lose the war, and that war got even more relevant). But the wall market scene/part was the beginning of my disappointment. It really took away from Aerith’s character that she didn’t come up with the playfully mischievous plan to get Cloud to dress up in drag. The worst part is that all the aspects you normally would have gone through to get into Corneo’s were in place but they were completely ignored. And you basically covered all the other BS alterations made.
Even the best aspects of the game were also not fully realised. I feel like the time between the first and second reactor bombings was the best time to expand the world of midgar and allow us to explore the other sectors and slums and perhaps have a more open world experience (and go out on the town with Tifa and perhaps the rest of the crew). Instead, we got the same areas in a larger, more realistic scale but nothing really new. The combat was fun but the whole time I was thinking about the rest of the game and the insane, out of the box, combos you could construct with the material system. It all felt unfinished, especially since there was only one “all” material and no rebirthing of materia. It would’ve been ok if we were expecting the story to follow the OG story and we’d import our game onward. However, it just felt lackluster. I will say that IMO, the best part of the game were the weapons, their evolution, and their persistent relevance during the game (I actually finished with the buster sword). The fact that you had to use the weapon to learn the unique skill, even for just one fight, made them much more interesting than a simple linear upgrade. My disappointment in this aspect is that you had to switch characters to use them to their full potential, as opposed to being able to make them use their unique alternative attacks through the command menu. Also, unless I missed something in the tutorial, I wish we could tell a party member to focus on one target.
I could go on, and this video could be at least 4 hours, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels so strongly about this story and game. At least I didn’t pay full price or buy a playstation for this game alone (still feel robbed lol).
Just finished the game last night, that ending really hurt, so disappointed. We didn't get a REMAKE,...