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SyntheticPolygon posted:Sounds like Cloud and Tifa when you put it like that. The most damning thing I can say is that as little as Cloud's relationship with Tifa is based on, they at least have some history and go through some things. Aerith knew Zack for like nine seconds half a decade before the game starts. And it's teenage to early twenties years that he was gone for, you leave a twenty-something alone for a weekend there's every chance they've hooked up with like five people. Let alone five years. They aren't a love story, they aren't even a tragedy exactly. Their relationship is like Aerith's role in general. Pointless, meaningless cruelty cuts her life short, just like it cut their relationship short. They aren't lovers, they aren't anything. They never got a chance to find out what they were. It's the particular strain of tragedy FFVII goes for, lives cut short for selfish greed. The most interesting thing about the Zack moment is that Zack has his own Cloud with him. And if that Cloud wakes up, he's probably not going to be acting like Cloud-as-Zack. Who would Cloud be without the pressure to act like someone he's not? What would Zack and Aerith have ended up as if he wasn't captured? There's a chance we may get to see some of that.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:08
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Why do you keep saying 9 seconds when none of your other numbers are exaggerated like that? It was like a least a week or two, I think? I don't know how much time passed in Crisis Core but it was more than 9 seconds. Edit: Unless this is meant to be a statement about how Crisis Core is absolutely non-canon because it annoys you.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:10
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The fact that Aerith and Zack were so young when they met kind of explains why she feels strongly about it, though. Every set-back feels like the end of the world when you're a teenager, and for all the mystical bullshit shaping her life, Aerith is a good character because she is basically a typical young woman who has relate-able emotions. As a brief aside on characters and their youth, the fact that Cloud remembers his promise to Tifa without prompting in the remake is a very sweet change and was one of the first signs to me that I was gonna like the remake's characterizations of the cast.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:19
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:This game would be like 500 hours long if they expanded everything to even a fraction of the degree this one did lol. Crowetron posted:As a brief aside on characters and their youth, the fact that Cloud remembers his promise to Tifa without prompting in the remake is a very sweet change and was one of the first signs to me that I was gonna like the remake's characterizations of the cast. They also gave him some adorable moments, too, such as the "Nailed it" line or the little smile he gives when Jessie is obviously impressed by his anime jumps during the first reactor mission. He seems significantly less miserable and morose all the time compared to what we see of him in virtually every other non-FF7 work in the mini-franchise, and I cannot overstate how big of an improvement it is.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:35
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DrNutt posted:Barret singing a song about adventure and finding treasure that sounds pretty much like DMX's "singing," Everytime Barrett says his short "YAAA!" I want him to do this while shooting his arm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI8PDrrTU4M&t=31s
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Apr 16, 2020 09:35
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Yeah I think Cloud's only real jerk moment is with that one sidequest where he tells some old man it's 3000 gil or something to deliver a message so the old man harrumphs and goes to do it himself. Which is still 'jerk with a purpose'.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:38
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Cloud is also consistently sympathetic to low level Shinra employees who are "just doing their jobs" which gets other people angry at him sometimes.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:40
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I honestly think remake Cloud might be my favorite FF protagonist now. Or at least tied with Zidane.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:45
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ApplesandOranges posted:Yeah I think Cloud's only real jerk moment is with that one sidequest where he tells some old man it's 3000 gil or something to deliver a message so the old man harrumphs and goes to do it himself. Cloud is very passive aggressively doing a nice thing, because he thinks hes way too cool to do it earnestly.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:46
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ApplesandOranges posted:Yeah I think Cloud's only real jerk moment is with that one sidequest where he tells some old man it's 3000 gil or something to deliver a message so the old man harrumphs and goes to do it himself. My read of that scene is that he does that because he wants the old man to keep the key so he can go and visit his dead wife, even though he claims he can't.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:48
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ApplesandOranges posted:Yeah I think Cloud's only real jerk moment is with that one sidequest where he tells some old man it's 3000 gil or something to deliver a message so the old man harrumphs and goes to do it himself. Clarste posted:Cloud is also consistently sympathetic to low level Shinra employees who are "just doing their jobs" which gets other people angry at him sometimes. Side note: anyone else get strangely hit in the gut by the "AVALANCHE!" cheer and ensuing conversations after Barret tells Cloud he's not coming on the second bombing mission? That scene does a fantastic job of making you feel really left out and maybe even a little resentful of the others, which makes Cloud's dourness and (seeming) willingness to take up Corneo's goons on their offer more effective.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:53
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guts and bolts posted:Yeah, he gives the old man the graveyard key and refuses to return it to Moggie unless he is given 5000 gil, which is obviously him trying to get the old man to continue visiting the grave. That and the "I'll do it for three gil" segment with the kids are my favorite bits of Cloud's characterization in Sector 5. In Sector 7 Tifa basically tries to placate Cloud and promises money, so Cloud reacts accordingly and adopts a pretty mercenary attitude while he's there, even if I don't think he was serious about selling out Barret for 300 gil. Every job there is him just doing a job, even if he's being helpful, and he is ever-mindful of being paid or increasing his likelihood of being paid. Aerith, on the other hand, essentially volunteers her time to the community for nothing and thinks that doing good feels good, and as a result Cloud takes after her example (to a point) and is much more kind-hearted toward the people there. Like I don't think he actually speaks to Betty at all when doing the Find The Cats mission, and even though he admits to Biggs later that he doesn't like kids he is literally inducted into the kids' of Sector 5 secret club for being so helpful. The fact there's this whole huge conversation you're just not apart of, and trying to talk to anyone essentially has them brush you off to continue it.
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Apr 16, 2020 09:57
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Speaking of which, do you ever get a chance to visit their secret underground meeting room?
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Apr 16, 2020 10:00
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No.
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Apr 16, 2020 10:01
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The evolution of Barret and Cloud's relationship is handled very well. Barret can't stand this dude he sees as a corporate goon and Cloud thinks Tifa's new friend is a blowhard likely to get himself killed. Then they both soften and bond through a series of rough tragedies. And really I think Cloud hanging out with Jessie and the boys paves the way for that. I can't wait for them to have their date at the Golden Saucer. It was also pretty funny how Cloud getting paid for the reactor job always happened just out of frame because they didn't want to figure out what exactly gil looks like.
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Apr 16, 2020 10:01
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guts and bolts posted:Side note: anyone else get strangely hit in the gut by the "AVALANCHE!" cheer and ensuing conversations after Barret tells Cloud he's not coming on the second bombing mission? Too busy laughing at Jessie of all people calling Biggs and Wedge "thirsty boys" in that scene
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Apr 16, 2020 10:01
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Onmi posted:The fact there's this whole huge conversation you're just not apart of, and trying to talk to anyone essentially has them brush you off to continue it. Clarste posted:Speaking of which, do you ever get a chance to visit their secret underground meeting room?
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Apr 16, 2020 10:02
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Being unable to see the meeting room seems to tie into this analysis, tbh:guts and bolts posted:
I'd rather play darts anyway.
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Apr 16, 2020 10:03
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MoaM posted:I'd rather play darts anyway. I just finished replaying Yakuza Kiwami 2 back in February so when I saw that dart board I was like "Lemme at that bad boy, Nomura!"
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Apr 16, 2020 10:06
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Clarste posted:Why do you keep saying 9 seconds when none of your other numbers are exaggerated like that? It was like a least a week or two, I think? I don't know how much time passed in Crisis Core but it was more than 9 seconds. Exaggeration is used as a tool of emphasis. Like your correction isn't making the point different, you get that right? A seventeen year old had a couple of meet-cute moments with a guy, and then he disappeared out of her life totally, and then another five years happened. That's their story, in totality, exactly that detailed. And Tifa's and Cloud story is "They kind of grew up together, and weren't close, but there was this one moment where he went after her when she was climbing a mountain, and that's about it". That's what Tifa has to work with for the majority of the story. That's bare bones as it is, and *that* is still many times what Aerith and Zack had. And the fact it's so bare bones is the point. It's what gives pathos to the loss.
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Apr 16, 2020 10:14
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Biggs should just turn into the story's Dion from FFL3 and should get a Uematsu remix of his kickass theme just as a celebration of square's poo poo
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Apr 16, 2020 10:19
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Crowetron posted:I just finished replaying Yakuza Kiwami 2 back in February so when I saw that dart board I was like "Lemme at that bad boy, Nomura!"  Mulva posted:Who would Cloud be without the pressure to act like someone he's not? One of the three Suits on the train that Barrett pontificates to.
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Apr 16, 2020 10:20
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Mulva posted:Exaggeration is used as a tool of emphasis. Like your correction isn't making the point different, you get that right? A seventeen year old had a couple of meet-cute moments with a guy, and then he disappeared out of her life totally, and then another five years happened. That's their story, in totality, exactly that detailed. And Tifa's and Cloud story is "They kind of grew up together, and weren't close, but there was this one moment where he went after her when she was climbing a mountain, and that's about it". That's what Tifa has to work with for the majority of the story. That's bare bones as it is, and *that* is still many times what Aerith and Zack had. And the fact it's so bare bones is the point. It's what gives pathos to the loss. "Meet Cute" is the basis of 99% of romance in fiction though? Aerith's relationship with Zack is still way more than her relationship with Cloud, and plenty of people play that up. I mean I don't think Aerith thought about Zack every day for 5 years, but he was still her first love and she still cares about that enough to subtly bring him up to Cloud. Downplaying it like you are just seems pointlessly contrarian to me.
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Apr 16, 2020 10:52
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mother fuckers why'd you gotta do wedge dirty like that at the end!!!!
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Apr 16, 2020 10:58
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souljas dont cry about their asses being burnt
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Apr 16, 2020 11:12
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Barret is like "I don't trust this Cloud fella one bit..." but at the end of the game he's like "I just love this new mysterious dog creature, I am gonna be his friend, I swear by it."
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Apr 16, 2020 11:15
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The difference between two dudes who snark horribly at Barret is that one is cuter, see.
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Apr 16, 2020 11:18
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Barret is just happy to have another macho dude on the crew.
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Apr 16, 2020 11:20
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Red XIII's voice acting was definitely really good and suited his character perfectly.
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Apr 16, 2020 11:22
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Find your soulmate Barret
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Apr 16, 2020 11:25
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Caesar Saladin posted:Red XIII's voice acting was definitely really good and suited his character perfectly. I have to re-iterate it's very weird hearing Ryuji from Persona 5 suddenly being the 'mature' one of the group.
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Apr 16, 2020 11:27
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I was thinking about how the Shinra Building sequence was probably the one part of the remake that I'd say is handled worse than the original, and I was wondering if anyone can make any sense out of the sequence of events involving Sephiroth, because it seems absolutely all over the place compared to the (more or less) straightforward nature of what happens in the OG. So my understanding is that Sephiroth (or clone #2) breaks into the lab and grabs Jenova, then walks over to the president's office (meeting no resistance along the way), pushes him over the balcony instead of killing him, turns invisible, hangs out in the room invisible for a while, changes his mind and decides he wants to kill the president after all, becomes visible again and starts stabbing everything in range, boss fight! Is that more or less it or did I miss something obvious that makes the sequence more coherent?
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Apr 16, 2020 11:37
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Sounds about right. That sequence was pretty dumb, yeah.
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Apr 16, 2020 11:39
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I think a lot of people who are upset about the ending just don’t remember OG FF7 that clearly and also aren’t thinking with game design in mind. Ignoring the zack/Jessie/Biggs reveals because I think those could just be a red herring to add more dlc content between chapters without adding tons of new assets: the game needed a different ending if it was going to end at midgar. Killing the gestalt manifestation of the plot was certainly not the direction I expected but it opens the game up to a lot of rearranging for parts where the experience of the original really slogs. The first case in point is the segment immediately after midgar, kalm. Not only is the experience just a drag in the OG because you’re given world map access only to have it taken away by an hour long scripted sequence with no stat progression, but its entire point is to build up to a reveal that 99% of the people playing this remake don’t need to sit through another time. On top of this, kalm is problematic to telling a story in this format of game where the plot beats need to be clean in presentation and focus on cinematic effect. sure, the actual plot contained within kalm would be fun to peel back again with new presentation but we’re also living in a game world where yuffie and Vincent are going to be mandatory because no one is wasting AAA dev time on optional party members. Not only will these characters need to be clued into the plot somehow (which is hard to do if the kalm exposition happens before you meet them) but starting a second entry to a series with a multi-hour fakeout flashback as its tutorial is going to be kind of hard to pull off. Even more difficult from a gameplay sense where the vast majority of the party won’t participate for a large portion of tutorial gameplay simply to be dumped in your lap as playable characters right after. It’s doable for sure, it just sounds like a mess on paper. Following the whole kalm thing there are some really fun and cool plot beats in the zolom, Turks, and junon segments. Picking up yuffie before junon doesn’t make sense really because it’s going to be awful hard to explain to her why cloud is having seizures constantly and they’re fighting lovecraftian horrors on a cargo ship when she’s just a simple girl here to steal some materia. The OG really starts to lose pacing and purpose for the party right after the desert prison segment and closing the dyne arc. Having the party stop by cosmo canyon for red and because of barrett/avalanche plot reasons is a lot better than doing whole bit with the car breaking down. It would be easier to move the plot beats along by having yuffie sabotage the buggy post cosmo-canyon but before nibelheim for a few reasons: now the party actually has a reason to go to the place where cloud and tifa had everyone they ever know and loved murdered, cloud’s mental breakdown and the exposition he gives at kalm can be refocused here to inform yuffie/Vincent about the plot, and we get a nice little mirror of the sepiroth scene from the original when cloud starts freaking out in the mansion basement. Doing stuff like this also gives the party a reason to stop by rocket town other than “it’s in the way and maybe we can borrow a plane” and can be used to motivate the party beyond finding the next guy in a black cloak. For example, yuffie still needs to hit her plot beats in Wutai and it would make a lot of sense to resolve that right here and now because the game will need a change of pace from dreary/depressing stuff into something else entirely kind of how wall market breaks up the tone in this remake to give the player a breather. As other people have pointed out already there’s a LOT of build up given to the shinra/wutai relationship in the remake and redoing OG wutai in modern times is probably the most politically problematic thing in the game which is saying something. I think slotting a visit into wutai sometime after rocket town allows the game to show us “new” wutai and use the characters there like Godo to give us exposition about the city of ancients/white materia instead of buugenhagen who is cool as hell but gets used way too often to explain plot beats. Also, the gold saucer is cool as hell but going back there again to get the keystone is pointless in a remake that’s going to give you battle square access the instant you step in the door the first time. Once the plot has moved past “the scene” the plot beats start handling themselves a lot better and the crew has an actual purpose again anyway. Part two is probably ending at the black materia handover scene from the original which would leave very few new areas having to be designed from scratch and would significantly cut down dev time for the next installment. I say this because it’s going to be super hard to “redo” the aerith moment and have it carry significant emotional weight if that’s the literal game ending. Even if who lives/dies is changed that’s a HUGE moment that needs time to breath and ending the game with a jenova/sepiroth/weapon fight not only ends the game with a controllable spectacle but allows it to end on a cliffhanger down note when someone falls into the livestream. I don’t realistically see this being a four part game when the pacing works out logically in three acts and a lot of things post-aerith are either side content, reused and expanded areas, or relatively quick plot beats until you hit mideel. Realistically midgar is like 30-40% of the game’s plot beats that aren’t kalm or mideel, two segments the remake is already handling without physically visiting the locations. Unless you cut at midgar/black materia handover/endgame it becomes super hard to pace the game story and gameplay wise. Segment three can start with the gas chamber scene as its tutorial and then use finding cloud or whoever fell in the lifestream at the crater as its midway plot point. The story structure suffers a bit from breaking the game into parts because you either need to break it up into segments that have major plot beats capable of providing a proper “heroes journey” or you need to make entirely new poo poo up to make sure each chapter carries a succinct and emotional gutpunch or something equivalent. Giving themselves leeway with the plot was probably a mandatory decision by the devs because the story as told needs major changes to pace properly in an episodic format.
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Apr 16, 2020 11:43
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Actually I think it's way funnier if Yuffie has no idea what's going on and her dialog reflects this as she gradually starts to wonder what the hell she's gotten herself into.
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Apr 16, 2020 11:49
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ApplesandOranges posted:I don't think they'll expand all the sections either. Like yeah, they had to pad out Midgar a lot because it's normally a 3 hour section. But they don't need to make the Chocobo Farms or Costa del Sol like 40 minute treks. Original Midgar is only three hours long if you skip dialogue, cheat through combat and play at 3x speed.
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Apr 16, 2020 11:51
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Clarste posted:I mean I don't think Aerith thought about Zack every day for 5 years, but he was still her first love and she still cares about that enough to subtly bring him up to Cloud. Downplaying it like you are just seems pointlessly contrarian to me. Chuckles, pointlessly contrarian is you forgetting where this started. Someone was comparing Aerith and Zack to Elmyra waiting for her husband to come home. To which I replied "They spent almost no time together and never really had a relationship.". As opposed to, you know, a woman waiting for her husband. You don't seem to disagree, so I don't even know what you are arguing for or about.
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Apr 16, 2020 12:37
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Bland posted:I was thinking about how the Shinra Building sequence was probably the one part of the remake that I'd say is handled worse than the original, and I was wondering if anyone can make any sense out of the sequence of events involving Sephiroth, because it seems absolutely all over the place compared to the (more or less) straightforward nature of what happens in the OG. Sephiroth has a fairly deranged fascination with Cloud now imported in from the rest of the franchise, so instead of killing Shinra and leaving a message he decides to see if he can have some fun with his old buddy by properly doing it right in front of him and hell let's impale Barter for shiggles. Possibly Sephiroth actually thinks this is communicating something meaningful to Cloud but he's speaking in full on Kingdom Hearts monologues at this point so all that can surmised is that the escalation of horny in Midgar is affecting him as well.
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Apr 16, 2020 13:50
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guts and bolts posted:One of the testaments to FF7's staying power is that despite being a garbled mess in terms of its localization, the themes still resonated through the clunky dialogue, and this is low-key one of the best parts of the game. There's subtext here about how psychological conditions get worse in sneaky ways, and that even good friends can be entirely unequipped to deal with them for reasons that may seem fair but ultimately still make things worse. Tifa largely does not want to press Cloud too hard because she's terrified that he'll just leave; her dialogue in FF7R is littered with questions about if he's going to stick around and/or how long he's going to be in Midgar, and the first thing she does when you get back to Sector 7 is inform you that she got you an apartment. The one time she does challenge him about the intervening years since they last saw each other, he shuts down, and she basically drops the subject. It makes 100% sense for Tifa to not want to jeopardize her fragile reunion with Cloud, and she sacrifices any attempt at intervention into his obviously weird behavior as a result. I mean, I get Tifa's reasoning. I know people who've gone off to war from friends who were in Iraq/Afghanistan to a great uncle who was a WW2 vet. The common thread was that none of them really wanted to talk about their experiences because it's traumatic, even years later. Wars are traumatic and people with that on their soul want to move past it and not always be forced to ruminate on it. I think it's understandable that she's not wanting to push him on it and bring back something dark and unpleasant. Hell, she already told Cloud that he scares her when you go to rescue Johnny that first day after the first reactor bombing.
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Apr 16, 2020 14:05
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Mordiceius posted:This game goes through 9/45 sections. Exactly 20%. Unless things completely go off the rails and large swaths of the game removed/changed, that would put this as a 5 game series. Keep in mind that not all of those locations are equally plot-important or need to be expanded. A pretty big chunk of the game's actual story happens in Midgar, after which it starts getting spread out a good bit more for the rest of the game. It's also possible the next game(s) will be longer than this one. Part 1 is a pretty good-sized JRPG, with a 35-hour or so main story, but if part 2 had a 50- or 60-hour main story it wouldn't be too crazy by the standards of the genre, either. And then there's the fact that we don't really have any reason to assume the rest of the plot will follow the original's beat-for-beat--in fact, we should probably assume it won't, given what the ending of part 1 tells us. Because of all that I'm still sorta expecting three parts, with part 2 ending roughly where disc 1 of the original ended (I say "roughly" because who knows what the plot will look like now that it's guaranteed to diverge significantly) and part 3 finishing the story.
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Apr 16, 2020 14:23
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