Final Fantasy VII - "Remake"

Soldato
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"Is the map open world?

Kitase: “We cant’ say anything yet, but we don’t plan on fussing about whether it’s a so-called open-world or sandbox. But since Nomura is more focused on the creation of the scenery, we want to express an environment character actions affect the scenery.”


http://gematsu.com/2015/12/final-fa...ng-scenes-mini-games-more#k73FoKvUqjQpHlc6.99

Translation: "Dont expect an overworld map. As new generation Square, we are insistent on ruining this game for the hardcore fans of the series as much as possible and will remain willfully ignorant to why anybody ever wanted this remake to happen. Please be excited."
 
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It's more than 15 years since I played FFVII, but wasn't it the case that the open world wasn't really open for quite a long time?

You had to get out of Midgar first, then you could only really travel to one or two places until you got a means of transport (was it the chocobo first?) then a bit more with the flying thing etc.

To that extent, I can see some form of episodic delivery working. Would prefer it not to be so, of course.
 
Soldato
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It's more than 15 years since I played FFVII, but wasn't it the case that the open world wasn't really open for quite a long time?

You had to get out of Midgar first, then you could only really travel to one or two places until you got a means of transport (was it the chocobo first?) then a bit more with the flying thing etc.

To that extent, I can see some form of episodic delivery working. Would prefer it not to be so, of course.

But then when you completed the game you could go everywhere.

So you're correct in that the map opened in stages but I would still say it was open world.
 
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Other than breeding chocobos for the final materias you find in the four caves, and destroying emerald and ruby, there wasn't much else you could do in the open world other than fight weak monsters (bar northern cave in some parts)
 
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Other than breeding chocobos for the final materias you find in the four caves, and destroying emerald and ruby, there wasn't much else you could do in the open world other than fight weak monsters (bar northern cave in some parts)

Well I'd love to see how there going to do those parts the submarine, the highwind without the over world. If you cant even fly the highwind then they can count me out. If they dont get how important that part was then what other parts will it be missing.

Besides it appears they've only just started development from what Nomura says. It's going to be over ten years before then finish this thing with how haphazardly the function.
 
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I doubt 10 years, more like episode one at the end of next or 2017. They wouldn't bundle up all this hype to make people wait this length of time.
 
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Well I'd love to see how there going to do those parts the submarine, the highwind without the over world. If you cant even fly the highwind then they can count me out. If they dont get how important that part was then what other parts will it be missing.

Besides it appears they've only just started development from what Nomura says. It's going to be over ten years before then finish this thing with how haphazardly the function.

I'm pretty confident the new one will be just as open as the old one.

"open world" does, however, conjure up a different expectation on modern games than with mid-nineties PS1 titles. Would a modern game with FFVII's roaming actually be called an open world game? I don't think it would.

I think that's the reason behind their lack of commitment to the Open World description. Plus, they haven't made the thing yet. The vision is still somewhat fluid
 
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I'm pretty confident the new one will be just as open as the old one.

"open world" does, however, conjure up a different expectation on modern games than with mid-nineties PS1 titles. Would a modern game with FFVII's roaming actually be called an open world game? I don't think it would.

I think that's the reason behind their lack of commitment to the Open World description. Plus, they haven't made the thing yet. The vision is still somewhat fluid

People know what open world means in the sense of FFVII.
 
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I doubt 10 years, more like episode one at the end of next or 2017. They wouldn't bundle up all this hype to make people wait this length of time.

That's what I mean it sounds like the first episode will be in 2017 and the rest god knows when. If the first game is just Midgar after 2 years then I wouldn't trust the whole thing to be finished in a very long time(ten years is my estimate).

I mean they announced it in 2013 and seemingly have only just started development now. Square loves hype, they live for hype. When they first announced it the must have just had the CG trailer and perhaps a few outlines and assets. What's the point of announcing it then, what's the point of even announcing it now if it's at least 2 years away?
 
Soldato
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It's more than 15 years since I played FFVII, but wasn't it the case that the open world wasn't really open for quite a long time?

You had to get out of Midgar first, then you could only really travel to one or two places until you got a means of transport (was it the chocobo first?) then a bit more with the flying thing etc.

To that extent, I can see some form of episodic delivery working. Would prefer it not to be so, of course.
It was a different sort of open world. Open world doesn't always mean you can go absolutely everywhere right away. It generally just denotes a large overworld or expansive, interconnected areas that give you freedom to move about locations manually.

But I do think my love for open world games can be traced back to the classic FF games, with their overworlds that really gave a great sense of exploration and discovery. Taking that part out of FFVII would be a travesty. Worse than replacing the combat system, personally speaking.

Of course it's still possible that it is in, and it's not impossible to work with episodic releases. After all, the game originally came on several discs anyways, with each disc representing a different stage of the game rather than just being several discs all adding up to one large file structure.

But them being unwilling to confirm there will be an overworld is very worrying. My guess is that they wouldn't want to do a 'classic' style overworld because it's not modern enough. So if they can do a more western-style open world, they'll probably just make it something like FFXII or XIII-2. Which isn't awful, again, just like the combat system, these things can work, but it's just NOT Final Fantasy VII.
 
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I mean they announced it in 2013 and seemingly have only just started development now.
It was announced at E3 this year. And it has been in development for a year already. You dont get to the stage of the gameplay trailer shown if they only just started on it. Of course, a good percentage of that time will have started out with pre-production and planning and whatnot.

I'd say late 2016 is not impossible for the first episode, but of course Square's time management skills are about on par with Valve's, so I'd still expect 2017.
 
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It was announced at E3 this year. And it has been in development for a year already. You dont get to the stage of the gameplay trailer shown if they only just started on it. Of course, a good percentage of that time will have started out with pre-production and planning and whatnot.

I'd say late 2016 is not impossible for the first episode, but of course Square's time management skills are about on par with Valve's, so I'd still expect 2017.

I think he may be confused with them announcing the FFVII upscale of the original on PS4 but I thought that was 2014.

The depressing thing is, I know I'm going to buy this regardless, which is exactly the reason they can get away with it.
 
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Yeah sorry must have got confused with the dates. I still think when they first announced it they must have had nothing just the trailer, and the first game is at least still two years out, just going by what Nomura was saying.
 
Soldato
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As long as they give you large areas to thoroughly explore then I wouldn't be too bothered about a world map. My main problem with Final Fantasy since X is that the areas are mostly just linear paths with one or two branching paths that lead to a treasure chest which makes the game feel linear as a whole.
 
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They should just release the whole game and call it a day. Everyone knows the stroyline for FF7 already.

Can this been spread out along multiple console generations if its going to be full-scale game instalments.
 
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This screams cash cow imo, Each episode the size of a full game the size of one FF13 game.

FFVII-1 - £40
FFVII-2 - £40
FFVII-3 - £40

I can't see it selling for anything less, but on the flip side it should make it a massive game.
 
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Interesting one, Each Episode is going to be "size of a full-scale game, on par with installments of the Final Fantasy XIII sub-series"

Its going to be massive if that's the case? all 3 13 games were quite big.

IGN FF7 Article

I had hoped that these would be the sizes of the "episodes". Maybe my expectations are different since it'll never replace the original for me but the chance to explore Midgar, Golden Saucer, Nibelheim,Rocket Town etc with shiny new graphics? I'm up for that.
 
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