7:31 AM
@ShadowKeepsSocialDistance There is some potential. Problem is that I don't know HOW it will be used.
You see, back in the SNES era, little before the PS1 came... Squaresoft still claims that two games came from similar sources, to the point that sometime there are rumors that cut elements from one where reused in the other.
> Planning sessions for Final Fantasy VII began in 1994 after the release of Final Fantasy VI. At the time, Final Fantasy VII was planned to be another 2D project for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. According to Tetsuya Nomura, the series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi originally "wanted to do a detective story" with the first part involving a "hot-blooded" character named "Detective Joe", in pursuit of characters after they had blown up the city of Midgar.
Odd claims right? I am not sure I fully believe the "detective Joe" part. Furthermore, there is that little detail Squaresoft hate to mention, IE the tech demo of a FF6 remake in 3d style - why should it mater?
Well, FF6 basically mentions Mako energy, an equivalent of the Materia system (to the point that the retcon of Summon Materia being "spirits of entities that merged with the planet energy and that you call forth to aid you is basically what happened in FF6), characters that seems quite mappable to FF7 ones and so on.... Sometime I think that FF7 was actually FF6 part 2, but Square dr…
Well, FF6 basically mentions Mako energy, an equivalent of the Materia system (to the point that the retcon of Summon Materia being "spirits of entities that merged with the planet energy and that you call forth to aid you is basically what happened in FF6), characters that seems quite mappable to FF7 ones and so on.... Sometime I think that FF7 was actually FF6 part 2, but Square dr…
Both games share common element - a creature from the space, destroyer of world, and a party that tries to stop it.
Chrono begins in a doomed scenario. The future is already lost, the planet destroyed, the survivor live in a "Future Trunks" like scenario (it is probably worth saying that Akira Toriyama, Dragonbal author worked on Chrono Trigger characters design). The focus is defying that doomed future, change history.
The characters had no real motivation to save the world, they lived in year 1000, "Day of Lavos" is in year 2000.... they could just continue their lives and forget about a future so far form them. Instead, they fight. The "Chrono Trigger", the device that gives the game its name, is something that can "change destiny" to rewrite what already happened.
A character dies in the game to save the rest of the party in an epic battle, he is brought back by the Trigger.
Thus, Chrono Trigger is the perfect example of Shonen anime principles: thru Friendship and Effort, the party reach Victory (what sometime is called the F.E.V. principle). They reach the "happy ending", everyone is happy, the future is changed, nobody is lost.
Characters, both playable or secondary but very important to the story (Bigs/ Wedge, Zack etc, Barret old friend).... all around you people die. And apparently this was deliberate because Squaresoft claimed this was a game about loss. About unneeded deaths.
They specifically wanted to avoid having characters sacrifice themselves to save others like in the previous games (example: FF5 Galuf, the one that managed to win a fight while having 0 hp by pure determination... I think Toby once said that Undertale ending took some inspiration from that)
They specifically wanted to avoid having characters sacrifice themselves to save others like in the previous games (example: FF5 Galuf, the one that managed to win a fight while having 0 hp by pure determination... I think Toby once said that Undertale ending took some inspiration from that)
Apparently, they wanted the player to experience the pain of a sudden death without reason, giving them a likeable character and then pulling it away with no warning. Enter "Aerith" (odd, it is an anagram of "I, Earth" - Earth being the English word for "Terra".... how was FF6 protagonist called? The one that was an "ancient" in that game, an "Esper"?)
FF7 cheats a lot to make the player like Aerith. The whole dating mini-event is rigged in her favor so most player will go on a date with her while in the Golden Saucer (Barret is basically just a fail back, Yuffie is basically possible only if you abuse a repeatable dialog while on a ship and Tifa.... while technically at fair odd with Aerith, if you play a kind character and try to be kind to both, Aerith still has a little initial advantage in the inner calculations the game uses)
Aerith is also probably one of the few characters in FF history to have a spell that grants you total invincibility... Nuff said, too good to be used all the game.
In the end, the game tries to make the player into the idea that if she didn't meet her fate, she wouldn't have been able to call Holy, and that is what saved the world. Only problem the world isn't even saved really.
The original FF7 game ending depicts a scene that happens many years after your final battle. A barren world, that is just now recovering from Meteor. Red XIII somehow survived all those years, but the original implications of the ending - implications that once were CONFIRMED by Squaresoft in official side material to the game, before retconing those again - were that mankind slowly died off.
So... no happy ending. The planed was saved, but the "parasite", humanity, the ones that drained the life energy of the planet, were wiped to.
Chrono, showing that you can change fate, fight against what others tried to shove on you to make everyone happy. And FF7, a tale of struggling to just survive, a tale of getting revenge on someone, facing loss... and in the end losing anyway.
Sometime.... sometime I even wonder if the authors of FF7 didn't do that out of pure spite against Chrono. Take all what Chrono is and twist it. Seems insane, but yet.... Chrono Cross, what is called the "Chrono Trigger sequel" is one of the worst example of Cerberous Retcon in gaming history, almost like someone wanted to take revenge on Trigger plot. But I am again losing myself
What matter is that Chrono Trigger is still a fairy tale, of heroes who save the world, of "and they lived happily once after".
FF7 is... not a fairy tale. While even previous FF games had steampunk elements (FF6 magitek for example) they were always something very fantasy themed. On the opposite, FF7 seems almost scared to be "Fantasy". First 10 hours you will spend in Midgard, a place that seems taken from Blade Runner....
Some executive producer must have though that "playstation players wants radical thing. They don't play Mario or kid games... they play Metal Gear."
And Tifa... Miniskirt, high kicks, combat camera that will focus a lot on showing you how that skirt isn't very covering during those high kicks.... you get me I guess.
FF7 is made to catch the eye of users that never played FF7. I can almost figure what those executive probably said "Give them fanservice, give them western style stories and above all DON'T GIVE THEM FAIRY TALES BECAUSE THOSE ARE FOR KIDS - Nintendo users are kids, not Sony's. We are RADICAL!"
I played FF because it was epic. Because it was fantasy. Because it was a fairy tale. Because I could make the happy ending.
FF7 is not Fantasy. Is not what FF was. And it focus was on destroying everything that FF was for me.
Long gone was that magical ability of alternate serious moments with very cozy ones (a magic that is most evident in many anime, think for example One Piece). No longer you will see something like Galuf epic sacrifice... and then the characters arguing during the night about Faris being a boy or a girl.
(BTW, @Shadow, considering Galuf focus on discovering Faris gender, and the fact he was a wizard, you could consider switching your name :P )
It played with the player character, giving you an identity that is then revealed fake, making you feel attachment to characters that then were took away and probably never were real in the first place (was Cloud and Aerith fellings real or those were just ZACK memories that the game tricked on you?).
And it is evident that there is some Nomura influence in the rewrite. He is one of the minds in Kingdom Hearts (a game that kinda refused the concept that Aerith shouldn't really be in Traverse Town...)
In one scenario, the remake becomes the fairy tale the original never was. It will reach a different outcome, the world will be truly saved without "materia illness" or "random Sephiroth clones" in a future Advent Children Remake. Zack, Aerith, they could even live in the end.
And the other one.... it is an even bigger punch in the face. Giving you the idea you can change the course of the original game, only to show you that every change brings an even worse outcome until you have to accept that the only option is to leave Aerith die to "save" (if that can be called saving) the world.
Basically, and forgive me for the word here, a gigantic "insult" pointed at every player that wanted a different ending for the original game.
Telling them in the worse way possible that they have no place in the plot, that this is not "their story" to write, and that their hopes are nonsense.
I... I somehow hope this is not the case. I hope this remake will rewrite FF7 into a fairy tale. But I know that some fans of the original wouldn't like that too, and Square knows that so my hopes are not that plausible.
And I fear... I fear that they will go for the second approach. The "who you think you are to tell us how the game should end" one.
FF XII multiple paradox endings were basically a "from bad to bad" chain of attempt to change the final outcome. To see the final ending for the game, the canon one, you have to 100% the game. And then the final boss basically taunts you for the effort since it was wasted to change nothing.
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