Final Fantasy VII: Remake (Discussion and Speculation)

Multiple battle themes in a game as big as FF7 are practically a must. Sure there was the Jenova theme and a few other times when danger music carried over into battles, but the traditional battle theme was still prevalent throughout, and it got tiresome (as good as it was) after a while. Look to SMT Nocturne or the much-maligned Shadow Madness for examples. Nocturne varied its battle music by area (world map, dungeon, town, Labyrinth of Amala), and it seems like the SM composer decided to pretty much have a different battle theme for each dungeon you were in.

One need only look at Xenosaga to see that variety is the spice of life. Games need more than one battle theme.

As for the visuals, it'd be neat to see it in HD, mostly because so many environments looked like the designers wanted to go into insane detail but couldn't for lack of GPU muscle and the constraints of SD output. I hope they bring back their old character designer, though, as I really dislike Nomura's style. His obsession with blurring gender lines irritates the living piss out of me, and Gackt has no fucking place in the post-apocalyptic FF7verse. Long hair or not, Sephiroth still looked distinctively masculine. The same cannot be said for more recent *cough*Vaan*cough* characters.

Gameplay-wise, FF7 remains a very mechanically easy-to-play game. The battle engine is straightforward (but lose the fake realtime bullshit), and the menus are easy to navigate. It kept things simple while still allowing for flexibility.

As for sound, I demand English voice-overs, as well as facial reanimations. I don't care what kind of fandom you have; you're marketing a product to an English-speaking audience, ergo you record dialogue in English. Not everyone who buys your product is an anime fan. Of those who are, not all of them are subtitle fans. Throw in an option, fine. If you're using Blu-ray/HD-DVD then you're going to have the space for it anyway. But do NOT force your customers to experience the game in a foreign language. While some consider it authentic, others WILL see it as a barrier to immersion and/or believability. And as for facial reanimation: again, look at Xenosaga. The dialogue and VO quality were good, but there is no excuse for that kind of sloppiness. People's mouths moved a good 2 seconds after they finished talking in that game. You have the technology to relatively easily change facial animations. Use it.

Personal nitpick: if FF7 is supposed to be such a dark and mature game, which it definitely feels like they tried for with the profanity, creepy bloody-floor scenes, and death of you-know-who, would it be too much to ask for some real-time blood in battles? Might as well go for broke, and I'd love to see a more realistic portrayal of the results of Omnislash. I'm not saying you have to achieve "Soldier of Fortune" gore levels, but at least something like RE/SH blood pools on dead enemies. And don't tell me that's "Not the J-RPG style." Shadow Hearts FTW.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Jonathan Ingram

Oh, you mean the old character designer for FFVII, who was... NOMURA (and if you mean Amano, then you have no reason to complain about blurring gender-lines)! And Vaan wasn't designed by Nomura, nor has any main FF character been since FFX.

Waitaminute...You're shitting me. Why did FF7's characters look so different from the more recent zipper-laden KH and FFX/X-2/XII characters then?

And hey, Amano could draw pretty characters well (Ayami Kojima of "Castlevania" fame, anyone?) He had the classical style down to a science. Nomura draws like a DeviantArt reject.

Either way, whoever the hell is responsible for Vaan and the unceremonious defiling of Setzer's design in KH2, keep him far the hell away from...well, anything, but at least far from this remake.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

NOMURA RAPED SETZER
NOMURA RAPED SETZER
NOMURA RAPED SETZER
Nomura raped Setzer
NOMURA RAPED SETZER
Nomura raped Setzer

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.