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DeathChicken posted:I imagine the same thing that happened to Sephiroth when they did this fight in the original game. He died. Did you really think Sephiroth was in danger of dying in that final Remake cutscene? Honestly?
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Apr 25, 2020 10:58
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Necrothatcher posted:FFVIIR and DMC are on the same anime-inspired continuum, but I care about the FFVIIR characters way more than I do about the DMC characters. I mean, part of that fight is memorable - I actually liked Cloud's fwip-fwip-fwip! moves, implying he's moving faster than the eye can track, and there are some very pretty shots of them clashing swords and mean-mugging at one another. This just also appears to be the part of the fight you didn't like. I'm not sure what's supposed to happen when Cloud hits anything with the Buster Sword, because it somehow didn't kill the Shinra guards brow-beating Johnny, while also he uses the same sword to cut apart Gipsy Danger from Pacific Rim outside of Reactor 5. This is not really a defense, in that a little more internal consistency would be appreciated, it's more that I don't grok why the ending specifically triggers this reaction in people. Other than it looking like Advent Children and sparking a PTSD episode, which honestly I can appreciate, I almost got there myself. e: Like, and again I'm being completely sincere here because I actually think you and Schwartz have valid points: what the gently caress is Cloud's powerset even supposed to be, precisely? What is the line for "okay, that is a move I believe he can do" and "nope, that's bullshit"? I'm not asking rhetorically because I genuinely don't know. Hence why I don't think this is, like, a defense or whatever - the game probably should explicate what its characters can do, precisely, so that we can get a better handle on the stakes without having to lean too hard purely on narrative. Great fight scenes tell a story with what is happening on the screen with the choreography, not strictly with what the fight, like, means. guts and bolts fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 10:58
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I, personally, do not see how the Nail Bat could possibly not snap upon the weight of a motorcycle being put upon it
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Apr 25, 2020 10:58
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Necrothatcher posted:Did you really think Sephiroth was in danger of dying in that final Remake cutscene? Honestly? 
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Apr 25, 2020 11:03
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guts and bolts posted:I mean, part of that fight is memorable - I actually liked Cloud's fwip-fwip-fwip! moves, implying he's moving faster than the eye can track, and there are some very pretty shots of them clashing swords and mean-mugging at one another. This just also appears to be the part of the fight you didn't like. It's not an Advent Children thing for me. I give media poo poo about this when I see it in general. See: Solid Snake running up a missile being shot at him in the remake. Video game developers have a tendency to go overboard to make scenes AWEEESOME to the point where I find it has the opposite effect and makes scenes eye-rolling. guts and bolts posted:e: It was more consistent in the original, actually. The added scenes with the motorcycles really kind of blurred just how superpowered Cloud is. In the original game, falls basically never kill anyone, so the fall to Sector 5 was whatever. Other than that, he did not have superhuman powers. He was just strong as poo poo, mostly exemplified by the fact that he could swing around a sword 1-handed that probably weighed about 200 lbs. The Remake seems to make him generally more agile and acrobatic in addition, but that's pretty much it. And honestly, the more "human" a character is in their limitations, the easier it is for the audience to identify with them and feel like there are "stakes"- like this person is vulnerable and risking their life. If they can teleport and leap 100 feet in the air, and get punched through walls and stand right up, well, now they feel like invincible superheroes and it just becomes a case of a child smashing their action figures together. Schwartzcough fucked around with this message at 11:09 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 11:03
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Schwartzcough posted:It's not an Advent Children thing for me. I give media poo poo about this when I see it in general. See: Solid Snake running up a missile being shot at him in the remake. Video game developers have a tendency to go overboard to make scenes AWEEESOME to the point where I find it has the opposite effect and makes scenes eye-rolling. I can dig that to a point. I think what I'm trying to say is that FF7R tap-dances back and forth over that line throughout the entire runtime of the game; it doesn't just crop up at the end. And again everyone's personal threshold is different! Maybe some of it is how contrived it feels? Like if you, the audience, can tell the developers were trying too hard to sell the scene to you, it comes across more like pandering? I remember hating The Twin Snakes quite a bit, and I, again, found Advent Children kind of hollow and ridiculous. But I also think that Chris punching a boulder to death in Resident Evil 5 kicked rear end, so maybe it just comes down to context. edit: quote:It was more consistent in the original, actually. The added scenes with the motorcycles really kind of blurred just how superpowered Cloud is. In the original game, falls basically never kill anyone, so the fall to Sector 5 was whatever. Other than that, he did not have superhuman powers. He was just strong as poo poo, mostly exemplified by the fact that he could swing around a sword 1-handed that probably weighed about 200 lbs. The Remake seems to make him generally more agile and acrobatic in addition, but that's pretty much it. This is maybe a tangent but I wonder how much of that was a product of the limitations imposed on the developers by the level of technology extant at the time. I guess it also comes down to a degree of ludonarrative dissonance, or if you believe the story and the gameplay to be fully integrated. In OG FF7 Cloud can summon a meteor shower from thin air to pummel his opponent into peanut butter. I don't know why but I've always sort of excluded Meteorain when considering Cloud's "power set," but it's pretty explicitly there, really. I got less of a "Captain America" vibe from him in either FF7 or FF7R, and more of a... okay so my frame of reference with Japanese media was really limited when I was younger, so this is probably a stupid analogy, and it could've just been the hair!, but I always read Cloud as basically being like Super Saiyan Trunks from Dragonball Z. He can do all sorts of crazy poo poo, but relative power/strength seems to be all over the place. quote:And honestly, the more "human" a character is in their limitations, the easier it is for the audience to identify with them and feel like there are "stakes"- like this person is vulnerable and risking their life. If they can teleport and leap 100 feet in the air, and get punched through walls and stand right up, well, now they feel like invincible superheroes and it just becomes a case of a child smashing their action figures together. Oh 2000%. I think I might be tired but I also think we kind of agree. FF7R could do better by its characters to more carefully consider how fights are supposed to work and by reining in impulses to be excessive, particularly because you still want the characters to feel vulnerable. The sticking point to me, and I think I illustrated this poorly from the get-go, was that I don't think the ending really breaks any trend from that; it frustrated me that my good buddy basically said the ending was bullshit because "the powers were out of whack," when for me the powers have always been out of whack? It seemed like an excuse to express anger at the ending, which you and Beef and Necro don't appear to be doing. So I was curious! guts and bolts fucked around with this message at 11:24 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 11:07
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guts and bolts posted:I can dig that to a point. I think what I'm trying to say is that FF7R tap-dances back and forth over that line throughout the entire runtime of the game; it doesn't just crop up at the end. And again everyone's personal threshold is different! Maybe some of it is how contrived it feels? Like if you, the audience, can tell the developers were trying too hard to sell the scene to you, it comes across more like pandering? I remember hating The Twin Snakes quite a bit, and I, again, found Advent Children kind of hollow and ridiculous. But I also think that Chris punching a boulder to death in Resident Evil 5 kicked rear end, so maybe it just comes down to context. I think the difference between them is how much you're expected to emotionally engage with the characters. As entertaining as Chris Redfield is in RE5 I don't really care about him, so whatever, punch a boulder, it's funny poo poo. But after 40 hours of FF7R (and on top of my memories of the original game) I'm invested in these characters. What happens in the FF7R ending just feels disconnected from the rest of the game. Aerith in particular pretty much has a completely different personality after Motorball. It feels like they wrote the ending early in development and then worked towards it and the characterisations don't quite match up. Necrothatcher fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 11:20
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Necrothatcher posted:I think the difference between them is how much you're expected to emotionally engage with the characters. As entertaining as Chris Redfield is in RE5 I don't really care about him, so whatever, punch a boulder, it's funny poo poo. Maybe it's just cognitive dissonance on my end. I'm -- hm. I'm not as emotionally engaged with Chris in RE5 as I am with Cloud and the Gang, but I was invested in that story and excited to see it through. Ditto stuff featuring some crazy anime action like Devil May Cry 5's final battle, or a particularly crazy (and hard!) battle late in the game of NieR:Automata. I had rooting interests. I was locked in. quote:But after 40 hours of FF7R (and on top of my memories of the original game) I'm invested in these characters. What happens in the FF7R ending just feels disconnected from the rest of the game. Aerith in particular pretty much has a completely different personality after Motorball. It feels like they wrote the ending early in development and then worked towards it and the characterisations don't quite match up. So was it the action and relative power of the characters that bothered you, or the depiction of those characters in the ending, or both? I think I see your point where Aerith may appear to have an abrupt increase in Crypticness™, but upon replay I've noticed that she's pretty cryptic and fatalistic throughout the game. The ending is supposed to be her finally reckoning with herself, her attitude toward the ordained end that this is all supposed to come to, and deciding "Nah, we're gonna anime battle Sephiroth instead of just accepting that one day I will die, you will all be wrecked by that, and then a meteor is gonna almost kill everyone on the Planet." With regard to the emotional stakes contrasting with the... strength, I guess, of the characters in that final gauntlet, I don't think the gap between what Cloud does at Destiny's Crossroads and what he does at various other points in the game is all that wide. He's also the lens through which you experience the game, so him having the most consistency helps a lot for me, personally. I'd have to re-watch the ending (again) to be sure but if I saw Tifa busting those moves out I'd cock an eyebrow probably. I don't know.
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Apr 25, 2020 11:37
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I still can't work out why Barret would decide to step through a mysterious portal and potentially never see Marlene ever again. It's clear that someone else realised this as they give him a small scene where he promises he'll be back, but how could he possibly know that? But I guess they've already finished rendering the final cutscenes so he's going through that portal regardless of what makes sense.
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Apr 25, 2020 11:42
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Necrothatcher posted:I still can't work out why Barret would decide to step through a mysterious portal and potentially never see Marlene ever again. It's clear that someone else realised this as they give him a small scene where he promises he'll be back, but how could he possibly know that? But I guess they've already finished rendering the final cutscenes so he's going through that portal regardless of what makes sense. That's a super valid point. My personal take on that situation is that Barret is actually a really bad loving dad. He loves Marlene a lot, but also sends her away whenever it is convenient for him to do so, leaving her in a stranger's care (granted, Elmyra seems pretty nice!) or telling her to wait outside in a slum until Jessie arrives at some indeterminate point in the future while he and the gang talk turkey in their secret pinball hideout. This comes up more than once, as Barret is also a really bad Team Dad; when Jessie gets hurt by the Whispers before your run at Reactor 5, Barret uses it as an excuse to go on another zealous tirade, and it's Cloud that has to actually pick up the wounded Jessie and move her indoors. Every time he's met with a setback, he blames Shinra and uses the incident as emotional fuel for his volcanic anger at the company while also doing basically nothing to help anyone else hurt by that same incident. Consider how the President accurately calls him out for being more concerned with the public's perception of Avalanche (embodied, now, almost exclusively by Barret himself) than with actually achieving anything of value and that gets to the heart of Barret's character flaws, to me. I still love him as a character, but Barret kinda sucks sometimes.
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Apr 25, 2020 11:49
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I'm pretty sure that's explicitly Barrets character arc, he's finally honest about his feelings around the bonfire in Cosmo Canyon. Also, not necessarily to defend Advent Children (although I dont dislike it nearly as much as some of you folks) I always assumed their power levels were up there because they'd beaten Sephiroth, they were high-level characters. Also, I think a liberal application of Hodgson's law would help a lot of folks in this thread. Agents are GO! fucked around with this message at 12:05 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 12:02
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Agents are GO! posted:Also, I think a liberal application of Hodgson's Law would help a lot of folks in this thread. What's that? Google turns up pages of law firms.
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Apr 25, 2020 12:03
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"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts, just repeat to yourself 'it's just a show, I should really just relax!'"
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Apr 25, 2020 12:06
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I'd argue there's a difference between focusing on irrelevant inconsistencies and criticising bad writing and direction, but if this is how you want to approach media then all power to you.
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Apr 25, 2020 12:10
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I'm still rather frustrated that the consequences of these new developments have resulted in the discourse revolving around multiple timelines, parallel universes, potential time travel, and metafiction. To me, this all seems to just obfuscate the meat of the story and the emotional stuff that I actually care about. It's so overly complicated and distracting, and I don't really like how this draws the audience's attention from the real human drama. A lot of the Whisper poo poo reminds me of the Star Wars Special Edition, with these needless additions that conspicuously interrupt the pacing of scenes like a kid waving his hands at the camera. And meanwhile you've got this really compelling story that it keeps taking you out of. I'd be so much happier if they went in a different direction what with worrying about whether Aeris will live or die if there weren't so many disruptions and unnecessarily convoluted webs of intrigue and cryptic mysteries.
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Apr 25, 2020 12:18
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I'm not letting people talking about Tifa dying instead of Aerith or whatever distract me from the great character writing the game had and it's absolutely what i'd consider FF7R's biggest strength. And in any case, aside from this thread which was obviously going to gravitate to discussing the controversial spoilers I see a lot of talk about the other parts of the game too. I guess some people discussing the ending are the loudest because they're real heated about it but I really don't think it's the main thing people took from the game.
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Apr 25, 2020 12:46
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There's a fair takeaway here that if you have a problem with Cloud using Omnislash on Sephiroth at the end you can safely eject knowing that isn't going to be the last time by far.
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Apr 25, 2020 13:06
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Necrothatcher posted:I still can't work out why Barret would decide to step through a mysterious portal and potentially never see Marlene ever again. It's clear that someone else realised this as they give him a small scene where he promises he'll be back, but how could he possibly know that? But I guess they've already finished rendering the final cutscenes so he's going through that portal regardless of what makes sense. Barret goes through the portal in large part for the same reason he's leaving Midgar - in fact because he has to leave Midgar. Shin-Ra have dropped a plate to kill him already and he almost lost Marlene and did lose, as far he knows, Jessie and Biggs. Shin-Ra will keep coming and now he knows there's nothing they won't do, the best way to protect his daughter is to not show up again until they're taken down. The Whispers are stopping him leaving Midgar, so he steps through the portal to take them on. What confuses me a bit about people's reactions is that the ending is so obviously opposed to Advent Children. When Sephiroth cuts up the building to throw at Cloud, someone else comes in and interrupts, saying this is stupid. For me, it was Aerith saying literally "Screw this!" - that's them clearly saying, to us, that they get what was bad about AC and they won't repeat the same mistakes. At the very last fight then, I wasn't worried about Sephiroth dying but I was concerned about what would happen to Cloud. That Sephiroth, the real one, is still so far above him that he can't touch him. One thing I miss from the original was Cloud giving tutorials. In one of them he explains to a girl in the Beginner's Hall that limits are literal powers in universe, the unleashing of all that pent up pain and anger. I thought that was fun, as well as cementing him as a badass who could teach these punks some lessons if they wanna jam.
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Apr 25, 2020 13:09
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Unlucky7 posted:Just beat the game. Well, the ending is dumb and literal. But it is totally my type of dumb and literal: A remake of a game that is figuratively and literally haunted by its own legacy, that ends with the Specter of Fate being punched in the dick so hard they need to throw in with the villain just to keep in things on track. The best thing about it is that if Aerith dies it will still come as a huge shock. People are down on the new direction but I love the crazytrain the remake has taken us on. It was brave as gently caress of the developers to attempt it especially with such a sacred cow and I'm glad they did it. They could have done a 1:1 remake like Twin Snakes or Resident Evil 2 and called it a day and everyone would have been fine with it, even if it had to be split into different games. But they went further.
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Apr 25, 2020 13:12
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Somehow the thing that hurt my immersion the most was Rude absolutely hosing the party down with a helicopter-mounted minigun during the pillar boss fight and the party takes scratch damage from it. Despite earlier cutscenes showing Avalanche guys getting absolutely slaughtered by said helicopter minigun. Yeah it looks cool in bullet time, but they could probably have just ... not used it in the fight. Perfectly believable since a weapon like that is going to have a serious risk of friendly fire in that situation. In a cutscene it rips people in half, in the boss fight immediately afterwards it's just there to look cool with a shower of 1s and 2s pinging off your party. Yeah the game is anime as gently caress but when you break cause and effect to that degree then there's no tension or investment any more. Sapozhnik fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 14:52
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***quietly hums the MST3K theme song***
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Apr 25, 2020 15:03
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I think we just have to accept that bullets are a minor annoyance at best in FFVII world.
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Apr 25, 2020 15:10
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Even at it's most basic, Cloud is swinging a 200lb sword and Tifa is punching robots to pieces. There is no Bridge Too Far here, just enjoy it. Edit: I honestly thing a lot of this is due to the more realistic graphics. It was a lot easier to accept with Lego people.
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Apr 25, 2020 15:22
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guts and bolts posted:e: Cloud seems able to pull off a few superhuman jump attacks and leaps that tends to be more plot convenient than anything. I'm willing to give the last section a pass because it doesn't seem to exactly be taking place in the real world and that always allows a few ridiculous things. They do go through a portal where Midgar is being ripped to shreds, so I could tell it wasn't actually happening in the material plane or whatever. At that point I could accept they're on the Anime Plane. It's really up to the next few games to keep things grounded again so it doesn't devolve into anime bullshit every time Cloud sees long grey hair. One thing I appreciated about the game is that they took a fair amount of care to have Cloud actually deal with the fact that he has a giant loving sword strapped to his back and his general animations, from walking around to sitting on a bench are all about him shifting it around so it doesn't run into things, even if they tend to cut most of it off-camera so you just end up using your imagination. I think to address your previous concern, what they should do is have cloud flip his sword sideways so he's thumping people with the blunt end, even if it'd look kinda dumb. Necrothatcher posted:I think we just have to accept that bullets are a minor annoyance at best in FFVII world. I like to think that Zack surviving is him having that realization during his last stand instead of just keeling over after getting shot for the millionth time. Dreylad fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 15:50
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Necrothatcher posted:I think we just have to accept that bullets are a minor annoyance at best in FFVII world. Oh yea? pulls a President Shinra and points a pistol at you
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Apr 25, 2020 16:38
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Oh yea? A gun! My one weakness!
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Apr 25, 2020 16:42
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Necrothatcher posted:A gun! My one weakness! Hey, that gun was gold, clearly that means it's a one hit kill.
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Apr 25, 2020 16:46
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 It's a video game where magic exists and a big Thing-like alien summons a meteor to explode the world, and also the game where one character dives into the sugary insides of the world and ends up in a weird mind-dimension of another's. Punching buildings is not the most egregious sin this game has committed. Final Fantasy 7 is literally the most anime Final Fantasy 7. You knew what you were signing up for by playing this game. Get the hell over it. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 17:44
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Oh yea? It was the gold gun from Goldeneye, Barret had no chance.
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Apr 25, 2020 18:07
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After reading this thread I realized I actually blanked on significant parts of the finale because it was 4am and I was half asleep so I rewatched it on youtube. The choreography of the final little Cloud vs Sephiroth cutscene that's clearly a callback to the end of FF7 is wonderful. Especially the part where Sephiroth starts casually resting his sword on his shoulders and still blocks everything.
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Apr 25, 2020 18:09
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Cloud is going to save Aerith from getting stabbed and Sephiroth is gonna be like "haha, that's exactly what I wanted you to do!" and then Rufus pops up and shoots her in the head while Cloud and Sephiroth are both looking on going "what the gently caress!" 
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Apr 25, 2020 18:14
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I just got Yuffie in the original and I forgot how hilarious her portrait is.  I wonder what they're gonna do with her this time around. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 18:16
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Yeah the ending takes place in the realm of forms and/or some astral plane, I didn't think of verisimilitude when fighting in there. Just imagine that what's really happening is philosophical introspection confronting the dilemma of predistination and free will like in a 60s European art film, but our puny human brains can't comprehend that so it manifests as "sword go brr"
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Apr 25, 2020 18:21
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Yeah the ending takes place in the realm of forms and/or some astral plane, I didn't think of verisimilitude when fighting in there. It's the opposite. Sword go brr manifests as a philosophical introspection confronting the dilemma of predistination and free will (and also some swords go brr)
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Apr 25, 2020 18:22
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I just think it would be funny if it was all another Jenova hallucination, and while Cloud and company think they’re having this giant mega-battle, an outside observer would just see them stumbling around shouting incoherently at the edge of an empty highway.
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Apr 25, 2020 18:24
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Pollyanna posted:I just got Yuffie in the original and I forgot how hilarious her portrait is. I'm playing through the original too and it's gonna be interesting to see how, exactly, she's going to join your party, given the really arcane mechanics of how to get her originally. Personally cannot wait for the mass spontaneous combustion that's going to happen when Vincent shows up.
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Apr 25, 2020 18:28
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In the original I believe Jessie says the plate is only 50 meters in the air. That's still an insane fall--a quick google says the ground hits you with about the same force as a car on a freeway--but it's more in line with a moderately enhanced super soldier than a 300m drop is. The plate being 50m up also gives the slums a much more claustrophobic feel. The plate isn't the sky, it's the ceiling.
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Apr 25, 2020 18:36
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50m just makes no sense. A bit over half an American football field. No way you'd fly a helio around a tower. Cloud's fall into the church would have been a few feet. Aerith would have been out watching them fight airbuster. Maybe a writing error in the original.
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Apr 25, 2020 18:54
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When they introduced the grapple gun before the Sector 5 reactor I thought, oh, this is how they'll justify Cloud surviving his fall into Aerith's church! Then nope, it breaks and he just plummets but he's fine because he landed on some flowers. Classic Cloud.
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Apr 25, 2020 18:54
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itskage posted:50m just makes no sense. A bit over half an American football field. No way you'd fly a helio around a tower. Cloud's fall into the church would have been a few feet. Aerith would have been out watching them fight airbuster. Maybe a writing error in the original. Could have meant the distance between the ground and the bottom of the plate I'm not convinced Midgar's engineering makes real world sense no matter how you fill in the numbers.
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Apr 25, 2020 19:00
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