Final Fantasy general

to be fair it seems like most people legit dislike the orphanage twist.

You will find few defenders of FFVIII's storytelling ability. Or its story in general. Don't get me wrong, XIII has horrid pacing but it still tells a far more logical, comprehensible plot than FFVIII ever managed. It also has characters actually worth a damn.

As for FFX not being subtle about Yuna dying....eh. Tidus is the guy who sniffed Auron when Seymour commented on him (Auron) having the "scent of the Farplane." So we have established he's an Idiot Hero.

Say, remember when I mentioned being interested by the idea of an option to save Aerith on New Game Plus in the FFVII remake? Having thought more about it, I have to say I've grown more negative toward the idea, even as a bonus feature. Because doing it, especially if she stays in the party, would require a gigantic rewrite, almost to "branching path" levels, and given that this is looking to be a pretty massive game already it'd use resources probably best allotted elsewhere. As well, I know of several games where you can spare characters' lives on a New Game Plus, but it hit me like a ton of bricks recently that this isn't usually a party member. You can save a party member in the Persona 3 remake but even then he doesn't rejoin the party, as he spends the rest of the game in the hospital.

Even so I expect that how-to-save-her rumors will be acknowledged somehow. They're too bitt a part of gamer culture not to!

edited 25th Jun '16 1:28:31 PM by HamburgerTime

I still think, given the redone combat of the VII remake where there's attack strings and such, Aerith should be possible to re-acquire as a physical ghost or such with it being made very clear she's going back into the Lifestream when Sephiroth is taken care of.

The only way it wouldn't work is if they get rid of all unique elements of the characters.

Aeris's limit breaks were unique and useful but never used properly as she died before they could be useful or even learned, everyone else just had 31 varieties of a big damage hit(s). Her death killed a lot of the complexity of the game had and would do so again unless they gave her more the Temporary Party Member treatment .

Getting her back for new game plus and such could allow for higher difficulties or allow more room to make all the characters more interesting and unique without giving it away.

edited 25th Jun '16 3:09:31 PM by Memers

There was a decent variety of Limit Break effects. Cloud's Finishing Touches was a status move, Red and Yuffie had a couple of buffs among theirs too, Barret had an MP damaging attack, Cait's did a wide variety of strange things, Tifa's could be stringed together through her slots, and Vincent's was basically a more streamlined version of Gau's Rages.

Even the big damage ones sometimes had something attached to break up the monotony, like one of Cid's draining health.

Aerith got the vast majority of the support ones, though.

Including one that was intentionally overpowered. IMO it's a good thing that she dies from a mechanical standpoint because Great Gospel is stupid.

@ Memers: And that's a damn good counterargument right there. Back to unsure now.

There's also the fact that they're spilting it up into multiple games so we won't have to deal with Aerith's whole Temporary Party Member status for part 1 at least.

edited 25th Jun '16 6:39:03 PM by dmysta3000

I wonder if we're going to see Aertih go all kung fu hit-stick with her staff since its an action RPG now. Should be easy to convert her to a fully playable Dissidia character after the first chapter of Re:VII releases anyway.

... honestly, by now it would be a bigger plot twist if Aerith lived. It's become such an overblown "Not Kept" plot twist that just about everybody who has heard of the game already knows it.

It has to be acknowledged in some way, I feel like. It's the great legend of gamer culture. It's gaming's Hercules or King Arthur.

edited 25th Jun '16 6:09:43 PM by HamburgerTime

It all depends on exactly where part 1 is going to end. But still to appropriately balance out the party for subsequent entries they would have to spread her skills out possibly via an item or add a Replacement Scrappy.

I hope so, we haven't got to see her kick ass with her staff ever even though its completely in her personality to be a complete badass with it considering where she lives and the dangers she faces in day to day life.

To have it not happen or lessen the effect of it would ruin the moment, even to those who know its coming. The fact that Aeris was a complete character added to the blow but hurt the gameplay.

edited 25th Jun '16 6:13:36 PM by Memers

I'd argue it's more comparable to cryptozoology, but yeah.

edited 25th Jun '16 6:12:49 PM by Pulse

My other concern would be that since it's strongly implied she guides the Lifestream to save the day at the end, there'll need to be another option, if she lives, to prevent the meteor from hitting. And things like that are often stupid.

Genesis will do it

Again, don't save her. There's enough mystical stuff in VII that the team finding the Holy Materia somewhere along where disc 2 was in the original and having Aerith appear as a physical shade for what is expressly a limited time would probably work out.

If its a New Game Plus only mechanic just give the players a bonus item that adds her to the party with a tooltip saying it will not affect the story at all.

It could also give you access to the full party 24/7 instead of people leaving and entering a lot. It would be helpful in the event of a hard mode where specific characters are more useful than others. And potentially give you Cid, Vincent, Yuffie, and Cait Sith in the first game if the game does not go that far plot wise.

edited 25th Jun '16 6:45:22 PM by Memers

Why did FF 7 have so many optional characters? And why is Vincent considered optional, since he seems to be part of the backstory? (I'd also ask why FF 7 gets so much extra stuff but it's stupidly popular. Hell, I've got the movie myself.)

To be fair to FF 7, FF 4 and Ivalice come at a close second. I think FF 7 was everyone's exposure to RP Gs as opposed to other games.

Back in the day it wasn't sacrilege to include major content that not all players would see. So an optional character or two or 5 was okay. I guess they really couldn't think of a more solid way to tie Yuffie to the main story's conflict, and Vincent hanging around in a coffin not wanting to be really be bothered fit his character.

It must have been odd back in the day to play through the entire game, only to realize you'd missed a character with a significant chunk of the story to explain to you. Now, I've never played FF 7, but Yuffie's part never seemed to be anything more than she felt like joining. And I don't know how Cait Sith fits in, since I actually don't recall him being in the movie.

Yeah, I think I'm the sacrilegious one here since I'm not absolutely in love with FF 7 (nor have I personally played it nor do I have it on my list of want to plays) and FF 8 remains at the top of my list for FF games.

I wasn't bad mouthing you with the sacrilege joke. It's just nowadays optional characters in anything but tactical titles or games with massive casts generally aren't a thing in the JRPG sphere anymore, where the entire playable cast is revealed sometimes years in advance. I think the perception by developers is that players will feel cheated if they every major event isn't spoon fed to them.

It really wasn't that big of a deal, though. It gave you incentive to play it again and find him. My roommate found a cutscene in a title he'd played semi-religiously for over a decade that he'd never seen before and was blown away by it. Generally stuff like that doesn't happen in modern JRPGs because you can't even advance until you watch every cutscene.

edited 25th Jun '16 11:43:43 PM by Hashil

Well, I think there's a difference between an optional character and a surprise character. *shrug* I don't really have an opinion on that sort of thing. The developers will do what they'll do. It just seems weird to me in this case because Vincent is in fact closely tied to the whole thing yet you don't have to pick up him??

The sacrilege thing on my part is that I genuinely quite liked FF 8 and still do. It was basically my introduction to the series and looking back on FF 7 I don't really understand all the fangirling over Sephiroth or why it got so much more popular than the rest of the series, other than timing. This seems to make me in the minority here.