FF7 remake being released as a "Multi part series"

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It's been revealed that the highly anticipated Final Fantasy VII remake will be released as a "multi part series" with each offering a "unique experience"

This may come as a blow to fans if this means the whole story of VII won't be available immediately. The announcement has yet to be properly clarifled.
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Pedeadstrian

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That being said I understand people being miffed at the announcement however is this definitely episodic in a telltale way? I mean could this not end up episodic in a ffxiii or mass effect way.
The developers didn't use the term "episodic," people here did. I assume it's because a lot of people equate the term "episodic" with games that suck, are disappointing, take forever to finish, etc. Heck, Telltale game episodes are anywhere between 1.5-3 hours long. There's absolutely no way in hell it'd be "Telltale Games episodic." That'd result in dozens of episodes. I imagine it'll be anywhere between 3 and 5 episodes long.
 

Risingdawn

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The developers didn't use the term "episodic," people here did. I assume it's because a lot of people equate the term "episodic" with games that suck, are disappointing, take forever to finish, etc. Heck, Telltale game episodes are anywhere between 1.5-3 hours long. There's absolutely no way in hell it'd be "Telltale Games episodic." That'd result in dozens of episodes. I imagine it'll be anywhere between 3 and 5 episodes long.
I think they did use some sort of 'Episodic' terminology in the press release, I just think the Japanese take on episodic might be very different to what everybody seems to have automatically assumed it will be like.

I can quite imagine this game released as a trilogy, it would probably be the only way to truly do it justice, I think people should stop assuming they know the ins and outs.

I'm hoping something got lost in translation and it turns out to be more like a series, I would love multiple full length ffvii games, imagine 60hours of midgar content now that's my idea of ffvii heaven..
 

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I think they did use some sort of 'Episodic' terminology in the press release, I just think the Japanese take on episodic might be very different to what everybody seems to have automatically assumed it will be like.

I can quite imagine this game released as a trilogy, it would probably be the only way to truly do it justice, I think people should stop assuming they know the ins and outs.

I'm hoping something got lost in translation and it turns out to be more like a series, I would love multiple full length ffvii games, imagine 60hours of midgar content now that's my idea of ffvii heaven..
You had an opportunity to say "7th heaven" and yet you didn't take it. Disappointing.

Seriously though, there's no way that'll happen. 20 hours, sure, but not 60.
 

Risingdawn

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You had an opportunity to say "7th heaven" and yet you didn't take it. Disappointing.

Seriously though, there's no way that'll happen. 20 hours, sure, but not 60.
Yeah 20 hours sounds about right to do it justice without overstaying the welcome, I only hope they change the gold saucer music
 

tbb043

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Yeah. This way, they get to patch 2 flaws the original game had at once:

- The easily exploitable materia system

-The fact that you would only pay once

How is exploiting the materia system a flaw anyway? If you don't like exploiting it, don't do it. It's not like it's a competitive game.
 
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My biggest hope as far as the release schedule goes is that FF7 original is released as a whole, complete game but graphically this looks really expensive so it'll probably be cut up some. I'd really like for the initial release to be the original FF7 story in full followed by the other stories/games that elaborate on it like Crisis Core & Advent Children. I fully admit to disliking modern SE compared to OG Squaresoft and being extremely pessimistic, but I'll have a more definitive opinion once SE reveals more details about the potential episodic nature of this remake. I don't think they're stupid enough to release it in 5 hour chunks or something ridiculous like that but I am concerned that they'll release it in say, 15 hour chunks and charge $60 for each episode which would be a deal breaker for me.

I'm not real big on FF7 being turned into an action RPG but if they battle system is tight, refined and polished it also has the potential to be really awesome so I need to see more gameplay. We need more details regarding the episodic nature of its release though, and I hope SE doesn't ruin it by cutting it up too much and charging full price(or close to it) for each chunk.
 
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Saiyan Lusitano

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They're trying to pull a Telltales but while making episodic-games isn't exclusive to Telltales this still doesn't feel right since FF7 was previously released as a whole game.
 

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They're trying to pull a Telltales but while making episodic-games isn't exclusive to Telltales this still doesn't feel right since FF7 was previously released as a whole game.

My sentiments exactly; well put. The original was in many ways a revolutionary game that set the bar for cinematic effects and sheer scope in videogames and it would be a shame to see the original FF7 story chopped up into bits, because in my mind that would make the remake inferior to the original. FF6 is my favorite FF but I have a lot of love for the original FF7, and if you're gonna remake a classic, do it right and give us a complete game. After the abomination known as FF6 mobile, it's very hard to have faith in SE but VII is the sacred cow of the series and they know it.
 

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I'm just gonna wait to see how the 1st part of the game will be. Some of you guys are making it sound like the game will be short per release, just will have to wait and see instead of throwing out major unrealistic misinterpretations. SE probably did this on purpose to give it way more attention than it already has with the announcement of the remake.
 

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Judging a finished (or better yet in game world finished and patched up with all the expansions and patches 1 year after street date) product is a good plan. However I do not appreciate having marketing bullshit shoved at me and SE are not doing themselves any favours here and have been kind of skating by on a reasonably good name for years at this point.
http://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=3521 reckons 40 hours for the campaign if you move at a normal clip and I do not know many that would argue too far otherwise. Such a thing was reasonably big back in the day, though hardly a groundbreaking length, and farted out by loads of companies these days and is not the kind of super mega game that would benefit from a split.
 
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Judging a finished (or better yet in game world finished and patched up with all the expansions and patches 1 year after street date) product is a good plan. However I do not appreciate having marketing bullshit shoved at me and SE are not doing themselves any favours here and have been kind of skating by on a reasonably good name for years at this point.
http://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=3521 reckons 40 hours for the campaign if you move at a normal clip and I do not know many that would argue too far otherwise. Such a thing was reasonably big back in the day, though hardly a groundbreaking length, and farted out by loads of companies these days and is not the kind of super mega game that would benefit from a split.
The time it takes for the "average" (and by average I mean the people polled, but 214 out of millions of players is hardly a worthy sample size) player to finish the game isn't the only metric to judge game size. Square Enix wants to do FF7 justice by giving it detail that it sorely missed in the original version that often had as many "areas" as was necessary, leading to things like a mansion having as many explorable "areas" as a major city and military base. Like you said, judging a finished product would be the best way to go, but your "Not the kind of super mega game" logic is that they'll have the same scale as the original, and that's not going to be the case. Apparently you'll be able to traverse the individual streets of Midgar, which is a huge change. We don't know how big of a scale they're talking about so we can't say that FF7:R, which they've said over and over again is not a remaster, does not need or is not worth a split.
 

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I do not know if that is quite "if you believe that then I have a bridge to sell you" territory but I certainly can not take them at their word and nothing I have seen would suggest otherwise. I can not rule out SE making this end up something that would amount to the kind of person that writes FF7 fan fiction's wet dream (for that some kind of shenumue level detail scaled far upwards, maybe to Just Cause levels, and mashed with something from Bethesda before being sent through the filter of Tri Ace at their finest) but reality would have to set in for me as that would be obscenely expensive to do, though at the same time that could be a justification for the split.

On samples I could happily see debates as to the merit by virtue of them being self selected but as a sample size that is better than a lot of far more important things. I will take the concepts of scale discussion though as that gets fun, however to say FF7 was not padded out would be absurd and that means I can not lend as much weight to the "mansion having as many explorable "areas" as a major city and military base" thing as you might like.
 
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Saiyan Lusitano

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What is this, fucking Telltale? I betcha they'll charge $60 for each part, but people will buy the shit out of it because of hype. This is the same strategy that movies like the Hunger Games are using, double the parts = double the money and half the plot at a time :o
Have to disagree with you. Telltale Games' do the whole episodic-games correctly and it's worth waiting for but this kind of method isn't for any developer/publisher to be using it carelessly. As SE will be doing.
 

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I do not know if that is quite "if you believe that then I have a bridge to sell you" territory but I certainly can not take them at their word and nothing I have seen would suggest otherwise. I can not rule out SE making this end up something that would amount to the kind of person that writes FF7 fan fiction's wet dream (for that some kind of shenumue level detail scaled far upwards, maybe to Just Cause levels, and mashed with something from Bethesda before being sent through the filter of Tri Ace at their finest) but reality would have to set in for me as that would be obscenely expensive to do, though at the same time that could be a justification for the split.

On samples I could happily see debates as to the merit by virtue of them being self selected but as a sample size that is better than a lot of far more important things. I will take the concepts of scale discussion though as that gets fun, however to say FF7 was not padded out would be absurd and that means I can not lend as much weight to the "mansion having as many explorable "areas" as a major city and military base" thing as you might like.
Trust me, I have as much disdain and pessimism for Square Enix as the next guy, but as a proud agnostic atheist, I believe anything (even the extremely unlikely things, like God existing or SE making a good FF7 remake) is possible. I just can't stand the arguments of people who say that FF7:R being split into episodes (which is even more annoying when people assume it's in Telltale-sized episodes) is completely unnecessary and solely for profit. I would probably agree with them if all SE did was make the game HD and nothing else, and then sold the episodes for $100+ total, but SE has said that's not what they're doing and to assume that everything they've said is a lie is rather silly. From their wording, it seems as though they're adding much more content than they're removing. We won't know until we see the actual product.

And yeah, maybe the comparison to Shinra Mansion and Junon wasn't the best, but you can run across one side of Junon in what, 10 seconds? An increase in scale for every area (assuming that we even get to visit every single area that was in the original) would be a large undertaking, one probably necessitating being split up into multiple parts.
Have to disagree with you. Telltale Games' do the whole episodic-games correctly and it's worth waiting for but this kind of method isn't for any developer/publisher to be using it carelessly. As SE will be doing.
Again, "episode" doesn't necessarily mean "episodic" a la Telltale. One could argue that episode is just another word for sequel (especially when you take into account the language barrier), and SE could have easily meant episodes similar to FFXIII, FFXIII-2, and Lighting Returns.
 
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I'm not going to keep beating on Square Enix.

All I will say is this:

Expect the worst.


There's a reason why SE has not released a FFVII remake for this long. It is because it is possibly the biggest challenge they have ever faced. Not only will they be messing with a revolutionary classic, regarded by many as the best RPG in history, but also the absurd amount of work this requires.

This way, if SE screws this up, you won't be that disappointed. Don't create hype out of nothing.

If by some miracle, SE actually does a good job, then your expectations will be blown away and everybody wins.

Sorry for the long post. Here's a sassy Cloud I drew on some random app:


H8Q2KYq.png
 
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Hungry Friend

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I understand why SE is talking about making FF7:R episodic and while I'm probably in the minority here, I couldn't care less about super expensive pretty graphics. I mean make them good enough and make sure you have the best artists possible working on the game, but good art design is infinitely more important than resolution, polygon count and the technical stuff lots of people cream their pants over. I'd be fine with it being on the same level as the FFX upscale tbh or the old ass PS3 demo if sacrificing graphics means getting a complete game. The trailer is definitely beautiful, and Cloud even looks sickly which may or may not have been intentional, but story-wise he should look like shit.

Good art trumps super detailed graphics; it's all about smart, creative design. Plenty of old games(like FF6, Yoshi's Island, Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger etc etc) still look gorgeous today because they were beautifully designed despite being on incredibly primitive HW by today's standards. It's all about having a good story, fun gameplay and sound art design. I'm worried SE's gonna blow their wad on pretty graphics and sacrifice the more important stuff to make it look amazing.

Rambling aside, I need more details about the whole episodic thing because we really have no idea how this is gonna play out yet. I'm not particularly optimistic but SE surprised me with how good the DS FF4 remake was so they CAN make good shit when they actually try.

EDIT: Dual audio would be appreciated as well. SE games are notorious for having very bad English voice acting so I hope you can play it in Japanese with subs. Not a huge deal but it'd be nice.
 
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EDIT: Dual audio would be appreciated as well. SE games are notorious for having very bad English voice acting so I hope you can play it in Japanese with subs. Not a huge deal but it'd be nice.
Since FFXIII (I believe) has dual audio, it'll probably be available, since FFVII will be an even bigger release.
 

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I don't mind if they price each episode accordingly to be that all episodes combined to a full price game ala; telltale..


but if they charge 59.99 for one episode. ...

fuck
this.
noise.
 

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I understand why SE is talking about making FF7:R episodic and while I'm probably in the minority here, I couldn't care less about super expensive pretty graphics. I mean make them good enough and make sure you have the best artists possible working on the game, but good art design is infinitely more important than resolution, polygon count and the technical stuff lots of people cream their pants over. I'd be fine with it being on the same level as the FFX upscale tbh or the old ass PS3 demo if sacrificing graphics means getting a complete game. The trailer is definitely beautiful, and Cloud even looks sickly which may or may not have been intentional, but story-wise he should look like shit.

Good art trumps super detailed graphics; it's all about smart, creative design. Plenty of old games(like FF6, Yoshi's Island, Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger etc etc) still look gorgeous today because they were beautifully designed despite being on incredibly primitive HW by today's standards. It's all about having a good story, fun gameplay and sound art design. I'm worried SE's gonna blow their wad on pretty graphics and sacrifice the more important stuff to make it look amazing.

Rambling aside, I need more details about the whole episodic thing because we really have no idea how this is gonna play out yet. I'm not particularly optimistic but SE surprised me with how good the DS FF4 remake was so they CAN make good shit when they actually try.

EDIT: Dual audio would be appreciated as well. SE games are notorious for having very bad English voice acting so I hope you can play it in Japanese with subs. Not a huge deal but it'd be nice.

I wholeheartedly agree. One thing to bare in mind though:

Comparing an FFIV remake to an FFVII remake, is like comparing the complexity and immense size of a Particle Accelerator to a kids fake phone with a sticker for numbers.

So I think we all have reasons to be affraid of this.
 
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