Maybe this might be a little general, but isn’t pretty much any dub of anime/Japanese media filled with these grunts/gasps? I’m not a huge fan but at this point I just kinda accept it as a trope of Japanese media.
Like, I don’t see it as any more egregious as the Metal Gear Solid games, for instance.
the whole point of shinra in the original game is that they’re obsessed with pumping for mako and have made the entire world dependent on it, if shinras just going around blowing up their own reactors for Literally No Reason then their entire motivation makes no sense because they’re just doing shit for pointlessly evil reasons. the whole reason they drop an entire plate on avalanche is as excessive retribution for daring to stand up to them, it’s meant to be grotesquely evil but calculated and not Haha You Fell Into My 8th Dimensional Logic Trap Idiots
It kind of looks like that Avalanche wanted to destroy the central mechanism, not cause a catastrophic explosion that damaged nearby area and possibly hurt civilians. Maybe Shinra wrote off that pump and decided to cause a massive explosion to damage the nearby area then run a PR campaign condemning Avalanche and use the mayhem against them. Or possibly try to kill them in that explosion.
Or maybe the writers mucked up. We’ll find out in a month!
but even that completely misses the point, why would you bomb a power plant if it wasnt to make the whole thing explode? the game confronts you straight away with the short-term repercussions of destroying something people depend on so much explicitly to make you wonder if avalanche’s cause is righteous because its a central component to barrett’s character arc. his return to corel is all about how he feels guilt about how his actions might mirror what shinra did to his hometown. if the entire resolution to that is “oh dont worry shinra did it actually” then whats the fucking point?
avalanche are terrorists they’re not protestors. you’re meant to side with them BECAUSE they feel bad about causing so much collateral not because they’re being wile e coyote’d by the megacorp
Hmm that wasn’t the impression I got when I first played it. The explosion at the Reactor was Comically small but in the original I don’t remember it causing massive collateral damage. The point of blowing up the plant was to just disable it’s ability to suck Mako out the planet right? I don’t recall the game turning much an eye on the people’s struggle as a result of indicating that the upper plate did struggle.
It was something I actually struggled to remember from the original game. Was Shinra blowing up their own reactor in the original game or was that a tweak?
personally, I loved the demo. I never really got in to FF7 (I’m a The Legend of Dragoon man myself…where’s my remake?), so I’m excited to experience the game through fresh eyes
The original explosion is pretty big. Doesn’t ever imply collateral damage but you see a shockwave over the whole city.
And no, there’s nothing to indicate that Shin-ra sabotaged their own reactor or in any way were ahead of AVALANCHE at this point.
There is a later point in the original game where a character from Shinra calls out Barret for not acknowledging the kind of damage AVALANCHE caused in their fight. It’s absolutely intentional in how it confronts him with the result of his actions that he’s been denying to himself.
You literally walk outside and the entire city block is destroyed.
Haha yeah I suppose I had completely forgotten that in the years I’d played of it. With the way things have played out in the demo it does paint Shinra as a greater evil and kind of absolve Barret of this moral quandry.
Hmm I do wonder how this will pay off down the line, it just makes me more curious as to what style they’ll take with this self-sabotage angle of Shinra. Maybe one of avalanche is a spy? These little variations in the plot from the original are so enticing.
The demo alone gave me flashbacks to some of FFXV’s later bosses where you’re spending several minutes hammering the attack button on a health sponge while tanking hits with a practically limitless supply of healing items.
I don’t think that the turn-based combat system of 7/8/9 had the tactical involvement of something like Persona, but this feels very shallow compared to those older games. I wish they would step away from trying to make a playable version of Advent Children.
I’m a massive supporter of traditional turn-based combat and will fight to the death for its merits. I will almost always prefer a good turn-based JRPG to an action one. But I think I actually prefer the remake’s combat to the original.
In part because I don’t think FF7’s combat is a particularly great example of turn-based combat. The ATB system always felt like an awkward attempt to make turn-based combat feel more real time, but only ended up slowing it down. Doing the reverse and adding the ATB bar and turn-based elements to an action game however makes it feel far more tactical and interesting than it otherwise would. The way the systems combine feels good, and being able to freely swap between party members works well and is not something action games do often or well. Of course, this is all just a small snippet of the game, it could all fall apart as we see more, but I think at it’s core it’s very solid and probably by far their best attempt at an action/RPG hybrid to date.
Granted, I am in the camp of merely liking, but not loving the original FF7, so I’m more open to changes than some people. I still have my expectations and critiques (characterizations and portrayals are still a concern of mine), but I think FF7 had plenty of room for improvement and I’m more interested in those changes than a faithful remake.
Oh, and as for Shinra sabotaging the plant themselves, that seemed to me like they wanted to use that explosion to blame and scapegoat Avalanche down the line. They need it to be devastating enough that the public would accept any retaliation against them. I don’t know how that will play in down the line, but it felt pretty Shinra to me in the moment.
Hmm perhaps but considering the resources at their disposal, surely it’d be easier to assassinate Avalanche quietly without destroying their own resources? I don’t deny it’s not out-of-character (given how they drop a whole part of the city later) for them but the change makes me wonder if there is more to it in this version.
Considering they had dozens of soldiers and a giant death robot that couldn’t take them down would it really be that easy? My assumption was that they were hoping to kill them off there with their forces, but if that failed making the explosion catastrophic was their backup plan. That way they had something to use against them later.
Hmm possibly but I don’t think the forces defending the reactor were anything special. Not considering they’ve got the SOLDIER squadron and Turks at their disposal as well. Plus they were able to take out Jessie, Biggs and Wedge without too much difficulty.
But why even bother scapegoating someone for something they literally did? its unnecessary and convolutes the actual plot of the game with a conspiracy subplot so stupid that it actively makes the rest of the existing story worse
Because there’s a huge difference between a minor localized explosion and a massive catastrophic one that causes direct damage to the surrounding area and people.
Avalanche can make an argument for their cause if they’re only really harming Shinra, but once it extends to innocent people they’re just terrorists that Shinra can easily turn the public against.
Does that change make the story better? I don’t know. I’ll have to see what they end up doing with it. But I really don’t think it’s as absurd as you seem to think. Frankly I find it more believable than them bringing down the whole fucking plate to get rid of a couple terrorists. Shinra has always been a barely believable evil corporation that does absurdly over the top evil things because they’re evil.
I think it’s hard to call it stupid when we’ve yet to see what they do with it. Like folks have mentioned, there’s a fair possibility the remake will have its own little twists and turns that differ from the original and make it more of its ‘own’ thing.
I agree it’ll probably deprive Barret of actual guilt over his actions when that sabotage comes out but I do hope it feeds into a grander plan than “mwahaha, let’s frame Avalanche.”
I didn’t realize there was a demo. I’ll probably end up trying it, but I don’t know if I will buy until the game is on sale at a lower price, or until the next game is out. Having played through FFVII too many times as a kid, Midgar became my least favourite part. I’m more interested in the bigger world.
More importantly, however, I have mixed feeling about the character models. For instance, one character used to have a certain anatomy which was much bigger, rounder and sexier, but the redesign when for something a little more physically fit. I think we all know who I am talking about: Heidegger. Where’s that big Heidegger belly shaking with that big ol’ Heidegger laugh?
Also, Tifa’s design (what I have seen of it so far) bugs me. When I was young I kinda wanted to be Tifa, but in this version she is so weirdly slight in build. It’s fine for Aerith (maybe even Yuffie, later on), but Tifa is a trained martial artist, presumably fairly elite to be taking on trained soldiers. Not saying she has to be super bulky, but I’d expect her to look more in line with MMA fighters. More definition in the arms legs. It’s weirdly immersion breaking for me.
Yeah Heidigger looks downright menacing now! I kinda love it.
As for Tifa, it’s hard for me to tell if she’s slighter from stills. She looks pretty much the same as she did in AC or Dissidia from what I can tell. Would make sense for her to be bulkier but I imagine that would have incurred more outrage than people already had over her slight changes as is.
