Last week Square Enix reiterated as soon as once more that regardless of the lengthy radio silence Final Fantasy 7 Remake will still release as multiple games. That leaves a query: simply how do you break up FF7’s story?
As we proved final week we love little bit of hyper-nerdy Final Fantasy speculation right here on VG247 – and so I figured I’d have a bash at analyzing a number of the completely different choices for methods to break up the sprawling story of Final Fantasy 7 right into a multi-part launch. Needless to say, when you’re new to the game this text comprises spoilers for all the unique Final Fantasy 7, begin to end. If you need to go into the remake clear, don’t learn on.
The resolution to separate FF7 up in any respect was certainly tough, however one can simply see why it is likely to be mandatory. It’s a large game but in addition paradoxically not as prolonged as its scope suggests. You can completely beat the unique in under thirty hours, whereas taking within the overwhelming majority of content material ought to clock in nicely beneath sixty. But it additionally burns by way of expansive and thus costly areas and property with reckless abandon. It’s a product of 1997, when a random concept like a unusual enemy may simply be thrown in on a whim, however in 2019 such an apart has important prices related to it.
Thus Square Enix has a condundrum. To recreate FF7 with out stripping a number of the unique game out can be prohibitively costly. To reduce heaps and butcher the game can be worse. Splitting it up subsequently looks as if the pure answer – and it’s the one they’re going with.
“It will essentially be a full scale game for each part of the multi-part series,” FF7 Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase told Game Informer in 2016. Kitase goes on to recommend that followers ought to look to Final Fantasy 13, which had two sequels, for an concept of what to anticipate. Based on these feedback, a trilogy appears seemingly.
“If we’re just looking at each of these parts, one part should be on par with the scale of one Final Fantasy 13 game,” he stated.
This isn’t an answer with out danger. The unique FF7 has typically sturdy pacing, and splitting the narrative up might simply harm that. The narrative as-is additionally in all probability isn’t sufficient to fill two or three games of FF13 size – so there’d need to be new eventualities added all through. There’s additionally a enterprise danger, after all: every half can be costly, however the FF13 collection noticed important gross sales drop-off with every subsequent entry.
Let’s be sincere: it’ll be extremely straightforward for them to mess this up. For a crash course in how breaking a narrative up in bizarre methods can annihilate it, look no additional than The Hobbit movies and Lindsay Ellis’ excellent YouTube essay on how that each one went improper. But assuming all of those issues are correctly resolved, what’s one of the best ways to separate the unique story up? Fans have concepts.
Splitting Meteor: fan theories on methods to flip FF7 into a number of games
It’s not as if this specific discourse is all that new. Final Fantasy followers have been debating and predicting precisely FF7 Remake’s construction since its preliminary 2015 announcement. Over the years, I’ve seen a couple of theories rise to the highest as essentially the most recurring:
- The game can be break up in line with the PS1 discs. This appears to be the primary breakdown many consider, however when scrutinized extra rigorously it doesn’t actually match. Yes, FF7 on PS1 is three discs and it does look as if the remake may ship as three games, however the discs don’t actually match as much as any three-act construction. Furthermore, the ultimate disc is threadbare certainly – it’s numerous facet content material and the ultimate dungeon of the game, partly as a result of the ten-minute ending FMV takes up an enormous chunk of the PS1 disc house. The third disc wouldn’t work as a stand-alone game with out being very considerably modified.
- The first half might be simply Midgar. I agree with this one, by the way, and the truth that all the footage proven of the game thus far is from Midgar appears to assist this principle. Midgar is by far essentially the most dense space in FF7’s world and will simply be considerably expanded – and already has been in some spin-off materials. Standing in opposition to this principle is how little of FF7 Midgar truly makes up. Despite being large geographically, it’s actually solely round 5 or 6 hours of the game.
- The game can be break up in two: the primary continent, and all the pieces afterward. This is an attention-grabbing proposition, and virtually stands as a twist on the Midgar-only first game concept. After you permit Midgar there’s a brief tour of the encircling areas – a Chocobo Farm, a mini-dungeon, a few cities and a bigger metropolis. The suggestion right here is that the primary a part of FF7 Remake would conclude with the occasion setting out on a cargo ship to a different continent for the primary time, a journey which culminates with a primary encounter with the evil alien Jenova. This principle holds some water, as by way of content material that is in all probability precisely across the one-third level in FF7 – however the Jenova encounter isn’t the strongest finale and the remainder of the game feels prefer it’d be an excessive amount of to suit right into a single sequel.
The VG247 Theory: how we’d break up the remake
The above are all good theories. But none is precisely how I might construction the remake if I had been in cost. If Square Enix is satisfied they need to break up FF7 to remake it, I do imagine that for higher and worse three elements is the best way to go. At this level FF7’s fairly conventional three-act construction must be used to determine the place every game begins and ends.
The narrative ought to drive the choice of the place to pause earlier than the subsequent game, as preserving as a lot of FF7’s pacing as attainable is essential. If you utilize FF7’s unique construction, that is what I feel you find yourself with:
Part One: Midgar (and past?)
As talked about earlier, Midgar is large, and far of it stays unexplored. In the unique game we see chunk of life ‘below the plate’, within the slums, however we by no means actually discover the opulent metropolis life-style above other than throughout the chaos of an AVALANCHE mission. We see rather more of above the plate in different FF7 spin-offs, making it an space ripe to develop into. Suspiciously, the 2015 trailer for FF7 remake seems to point out Cloud strolling round metropolis areas that look distinctly like they’re above the plate as proven in Crisis Core – areas not within the unique game.
It’d be straightforward to see these opening chapters of FF7 expanded just by having extra of Midgar open to discover, taking within the metropolis and tackling further quests AVALANCHE missions. Midgar is dwelling to the vast majority of this world’s inhabitants, so it is sensible that it’d be monumental.
Midgar making up the primary half is pure within the narrative, too: it’s exposition-heavy and has its personal villain of kinds who’s finally vanquished on the finish as your focus turns to Sephiroth. It culminates in an thrilling set-piece within the escape from ShinRa tower, and ends on a superb cliffhanger overlooking a wide-open world earlier than you, with the stark realization that all the pieces has modified.
As one of many theories above states, nonetheless, this slice might simply go a bit of additional within the narrative. After leaving Midgar there’s a brief collection of detours earlier than you depart for a brand new continent, chasing Sephiroth. These might simply be included with the game as a substitute reaching its climax aboard the cargo ship, however I feel that makes for a much less attractive cliffhanger and opening to half two.
Part Two: Flashbacks and Darkness
Generally talking conventional story construction accepts that the center chapter is the darker one. The apparent up to date instance of that is The Empire Strikes Back, and FF7’s construction completely compliments a trilogy becoming this.
After ending with the escape from Midgar, I’d envision a second game opening chilly into the Nibelheim flashback sequence. A younger, inexperienced Cloud is on his first mission (a super alternative to supply gamers refresher tutorials), and that is additionally a primary correct introduction to Sephiroth. This flashback units up the occasion’s mission for the remainder of the game, too.
From right here I’d have the game proceed as on PS1, expanded in locations, reaching its climax not at that demise however as a substitute with the second that Cloud arms Sephiroth the Black Materia earlier than disappearing. Here is your ‘dark middle chapter’ ending: you’ve been rocked by loss, and now the protagonist is lacking and the villain has the maguffin that can be utilized to destroy the world.
Part Three: An Open World
That ending for a second half offers you a hell of a gap for a 3rd game, too: Tifa (or Cid, however who picked him?) is immediately the protagonist and the stakes are larger than ever. Tifa can be new at main the occasion, which is one other nice likelihood for an in-universe-contextualized tutorial do-over. Also, most of FF7 up till this level is a street journey, linearly heading from place to position chasing Sephiroth. At this level the game can open up: certainly, if Square Enix needed, it might save a attainable open-ended world map for this entry.
This third half works for lots of causes, however primarily as a result of it saves some actual bombast for the ultimate chapter, together with a victory lap return to Midgar, the WEAPON raids and the ultimate reality of what occurred in Nibelheim, which presumably will this time round embrace further particulars established in Crisis Core.
Anyway. That’s how I’d break up it – however, FF followers, how would you? And how will Square Enix? With any luck we’ll get a touch in June, when the game is about to be proven in additional element.
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