[the_snooze]

I enjoyed my time enough with Remake, but it's relied waaaay too much on having prior knowledge of FF7 and its extended universe. Remake threw Sephiroth in your face within the first hour of gameplay, without much explanation of who the guy is. In the original, Sephiroth was just the subject of whispers and rumors until you got an up-close look at him in the flashback after you've left Midgar.

[internet101010]

I did not play the original but did play the Remake. I went into it completely blind and I did not feel out of the loop at the end of the game.

[bsoup]

That is because if you don't know the story of the original, you don't even realise that the loop is there. (That's not meant to insulting - the game is specifically written that way.)

Throughout Remake, the game toys with the knowledge and expectations of the player who's familiar with the original - in ways that are sometimes moving, subtle, beautiful and elegant (e.g. Chapter 8), sometimes ridiculously clumsy and terrible (e.g. Chapter 17). But it is written so that a new player wouldn't even know there is a whole layer of the story that they have missed. That is why so many players who don't know the original never even realise, even after they finish Remake, that it is not a "remake", in the sense of a modern version of the original; the word "remake" in the title is wordplay, and the game reveals itself to be a requel. I've watched quite a few streamers start with the Remake, love it enough to go back to play the original, love it, then go back to replay the Remake - and start seeing this whole layer that they didn't see before, didn't even realise was there. It would be a lot better if Square Enix were honest and clear about this, but I guess they know they would sell far fewer copies if they told everyone how much of the story depends on knowledge of the original and its spinoffs. It doesn't mean Remake can't be enjoyed on its own - it's written so that its story makes some sense on its own - it's just that you miss out on a lot if you don't know what came before. (I mean, they're now saying that Rebirth can be enjoyed on its own too, without having played Remake. What they never bother to make clear is that "can be enjoyed" and "best enjoyed" are very different things.)

[baobun]

This comment reminds me of the recent Dune movie franchise.

[steve_adams_86]

That’s bizarre. How is he introduced in the remake? That seems all wrong, but maybe it makes sense.

[Shish2k]

> That seems all wrong, but maybe it makes sense

<spoilers>It is wrong by the original story, but Remake doesn’t follow the original story - it is more along the lines of “what if sepiroth projected himself back in time to mess with the timeline and ensure that his original plan succeeds?”. Most of Part 1 features weird ghost things which block any attempt to stray from the original timeline, but they die at the end of Part 1, so I’m expecting Part 2 to go far further off the rails</spoilers>

[steve_adams_86]

Hm, that’s interesting. That could be awesome. And although I loved the idea of a remake, it seems right to have fun with it and diverge from the original a bit.

[bitwize]

See also Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, in which time fuckery-duckery is involved to tell a different story with the same characters. I rather liked it, but I guess I was in the mood for something different from seeing a rehash of the comic or movie.

[jncfhnb]

The same characters… without Scott pilgrim though.