I hope that the FF7 Remake makes the story easier to understand

[Deleted member 48434]

I first played though the game in late 2017 on my Vita.
Thought it was ok. Nothing special. I enjoyed it.

And then when I tried to think back to the plot of the game I realized all I remembered was TV static.
Seriously, understanding what the fuck went on for so much of this game required an hour googling and a bunch of time on TV tropes.
As I remember it, then game tries to "Show, not tell" at certain points, except the PS1 graphics do such an incredibly lousy job at showing you won't know what the fuck is happening.
I still don't really remember what happened in this game.

Edit: I assumed it was trying to show, but I guess it was more to do with shitty translation.

 

[Deleted member 437]

Sorry, cant relate.

I'm unsure what was confusing for you.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

...FF7? Hard to understand? What about it was hard to understand?

 

[Horohorohoro]

It will by virtue of it being a current gen game with fully animated cutscenes and fully rendered environments.

That being said, I don't really get this sentiment. After all these years of hearing people say the plot was hard to follow, I played it a few weeks ago for the first time and didn't really have trouble following it at all.

 

[AuthenticM]

well it won't have a godawful shit translation, so there's that to look forward to.

 

[Deleted member 48434]

Sorry, cant relate.

I'm unsure what was confusing for you.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler

I didn't truly realize what the entire sequence in Clouds mind actually meant until after the game.
The game doesn't really explain that after sephireoth died he reformed in the life stream and then made copies of himself from jenovas cells. That required a google. Those are the 2 biggest things. I'm stuggling to remember the rest of the plot.

 

[Disclaimer]

It's really fairly straightforward. Sure you just... can't remember? Details usually become fuzzy after months, let alone years.

 

[Caiops]

What, FFVII is not hard to understand.

The premise is really simple and the plot twists are all well explained. FFXIII is the one hard do understand what's happening.

 

[ZeoVGM]

The translation is bad and I understand that being a problem.

But the story isn't hard to understand as a whole.

 

[Rob]

I'm not sure what's so hard about the plot to FFVII to figure out. There are a lot of moving pieces, but it is a long game.

 

[Deleted member 49482]

well it won't have a godawful shit translation, so there's that to look forward to.

Click to shrink...

Beat me to it. The translation made it unnecessarily confusing.

 

[ZeoVGM]

What, FFVII is not hard to understand.

The premise is really simple and the plot twists are all well explained. FFXIII is the one hard do understand what's happening.

Click to shrink...

Even with XIII, reading a couple datalogs should fix that.

The main problems with XIII honestly comes from the poor naming conventions of the l'Cie and Fal'Cie.

 

[Plywood]

I'm more worried about potentially insufferable additions. I'm looking at you, Roche.

 

[jett]

Sorry, cant relate.

I'm unsure what was confusing for you.

Click to shrink...

I remember having no idea what that Reunion business was back then.

 

[CaviarMeths]

No worries. FF7R is stretching 6 hours of content into a full length game. Surely the 20+ hours of new content will be material explaining the plot in more detail.

 

[Deleted member 437]

Spoiler

I didn't truly realize what the entire sequence in Clouds mind actually meant until after the game.
The game doesn't really explain that after sephireoth died he reformed in the life stream and then made copies of himself from jenovas cells. That required a google. Those are the 2 biggest things. I'm stuggling to remember the rest of the plot.

Click to shrink...

Ok, but that is a small part of the 40 hour story.

You really don't remember the whole thrust of the story? Why you are going to the different towns?

I remember having no idea what that Reunion business was back then.

Click to shrink...

I understand maybe certain segments here and there. But whole chunks of this game not understanding what is happening and why you're doing it?

 

[Noctis]

The story is a straight line there's nothing confusing about it

 

[ultima786]

I think it was straightforward but going through it a 2nd and third time, you'll see soooooooo many small subtle hints of things to come. It's beautiful actually, especially all the white flashes. It's genius foreshadowing.

 

[skeezx]

aside from a few plot points i would think a 3rd grader could wrap their head around it

 

[Lobster Roll]

If it makes you feel any better, the remake is literally just the Midgar / prologue section, so it should quite easy to digest as you're catching a portion of the whole story.

 

[Deleted member 48434]

Ok, but that is a small part of the 40 hour story.

You really don't remember the whole thrust of the story? Why you are going to the different towns?

Click to shrink...

Umm, let's see.
We were with Avalance, down with shinra rah rah, then there was blood all over the HQ building. Then we left midgard and went to that nearby town, and then big snake.......

Yeah I can't remember beyond that off the top of my head right now.

Also, those two things I mentioned are HUGE parts of the story. I think.
Both are like huge plot twists right?

 

[Deleted member 32822]

 

[Yukari]

I don't think FF7 Main Plot it's hard to understand?

Or you mean Jenova's subplot?

 

[SmittyWerbenManJensen]

I agree with you, OP. I am on your side. I think FF7 is kind of difficult to follow, but that's probably due to the original translation. Hopefully the remake will make things a bit clearer.

 

[Deleted member 48434]

I don't think FF7 Main Plot it's hard to understand?

Or you mean Jenova's subplot?

Click to shrink...

Hmm, maybe I am just thinking about Jenova.
Everything to do with Jenova and Sephiroth was just... Impossible to follow without googling.
Like, I don't think the game actually says that the Sephiroths you've been fighting are Jenova cells. Not clearly at least.
We see a cutscene of Sephiroth getting BTFOed in the past, but then the game never really explains how he ended up in the Northen crater. Not to my memory.
He's just... there.

 

[Another]

FF7 came out at the height of Evangelion's popularity. It's contrived and convoluted for the sake of capturing that zeitgeist but unlike Eva there's no actual depth or merit to it, it's actually a very straightforward story, the faux-impenetrable fluff is actually just chaff.

 

[KushalaDaora]

I agree, they could start off by renaming the title to Final Fantasy 7RE-Make 0.8 Midgar Chapter Prologue ~cry of the planet~

 

[TheChungusAmongUs]

I can relate OP

Played the game for the first time on PS4 in 2015.

I had no idea what

- Sepiroth Clones
- The Reunion
- The Lifestream
- Mako

were

and I don't fucking understand why Vincent is a vampire

 

[Weiss]

Everyone jawing about how the game is so simple to get probably forgot the English translation was a trainwreck.

 

[Deleted member 48434]

Everyone jawing about how the game is so simple to get probably forgot the English translation was a trainwreck.

Click to shrink...

Is there even any other translation available to English speakers? I played the PS1 version on my Vita.

 

[Weiss]

Is there even any other translation available to English speakers? I played the PS1 version on my Vita.

Click to shrink...

Nope. Just the one with "this guy are sick" and "Beacause you are a puppet."

 

[TheChungusAmongUs]

Heres my hot take:

Even with the missing pieces, FF15 is more understandable than FF7

 

[Hystzen]

If anything remakes going make it more convoluted with the extra shit they shoving in

 

[Demon Lizardman]

Considering the added BS like the Watchers of Fate, I feel like the opposite will happen.

 

[Deleted member 48434]

Oh, oh yeah, and I think I vaguely remember cloud losing control and hitting Aeris, and the game was like "lol, Sephiroth" and then doesn't really elaborate.

 

[Disclaimer]

Nope. Just the one with "this guy are sick" and "Beacause you are a puppet."

Click to shrink...

Those were actually fixed in the re-releases, I believe. But the loc's still a mess, obviously.

 

[Lindsay]

The problem isn't that the game story was hard to understand, its that ya played it once, years ago an are now getting confused reading lil bits & pieces about it without the actual framework of the game making it sensible. Look its 20 hours tops ta breeze through the story, just give it a replay an all will make sense!

 

[Deleted member 71]

Is there even any other translation available to English speakers? I played the PS1 version on my Vita.

Click to shrink...

There's a full fan translation of the original Japanese script for the Steam version that's pretty good. It's called The Reunion, and is pretty straight forward to install, complete with the options to customize the additions to your own liking.

[FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods and Modding Framework-The Reunion [R06f]

[FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods and Modding Framework-The Reunion [R06f]

forums.qhimm.com

It's not the final version, but I went through it in 2018 and honestly really enjoyed it. Looks like it's had a massive overhaul since then.

There's a pretty interesting Eurogamer article about the project as well:

Why would someone spend five years retranslating all of Final Fantasy 7?

Five years ago, 20-something Mancunian Daniel Burke set out to retranslate Final Fantasy 7.Now aged 31, Burke, who goes…

www.eurogamer.net

 

[Deleted member 48434]

The problem isn't that the game story was hard to understand, its that ya played it once, years ago an are now getting confused reading lil bits & pieces about it without the actual framework of the game making it sensible. Look its 20 hours tops ta breeze through the story, just give it a replay an all will make sense!

Click to shrink...

Ok, so I AM having difficulty recalling the plot right now, but I do explicitly remember being confused as fuck about all the jenova crap immediately after I first finished it, and it drove me up the wall. There was absolutely shit I had to google to understand. Particually the thing with Clouds identity too.

 

[Yukari]

and I don't fucking understand why Vincent is a vampire

Click to shrink...

Spoiler

Hojo use his as test subject.

I understand why Jenova's plot or what happening in the past hard to follow.
It's more explain later on the guide book, novel and spin-off game

 

[Dice]

Oh, oh yeah, and I think I vaguely remember cloud losing control and hitting Aeris, and the game was like "lol, Sephiroth" and then doesn't really elaborate.

Click to shrink...

lol I played through that part not too long ago and died when Cid speaks up 🤣

 

[sn00zer]

DIRECTED BY

TETSUYA NOMURA



​

 

[Nif]

This depends on how involved Nomura is with the story. Take Kingdom Hearts, for example.

 

[Deleted member 7883]

The overall story is fine, but the beat for beat story moments did confuse me. I have a helluva lot of childhood nostalgia with the game from watching my dad play it/playing it myself, but I never made it past Disc One. I just beat it a few days ago.

Here's an excerpt of the notes I was jotting down while playing:

what I've learned in FF7

• I (Cloud) am five years old
• my memories are fucking broken
•while being five years old I was also born 20+ years ago
• Sephiroth is my Brother?
• Sephiroth is my Father?
• Sephiroth's dad joined my party?¿ he's an edgy vampire????
• Sephiroth doesn't even exist
• SEPHIROTH IS REAL AND HAS BEEN FROZEN
• Sephiroth actually IS fake and is just a bunch of illusions made from a tentacle
• weapons called weapons
• I can suplex literally anything and everything under the sun; the sun included

 

[truncated_pachyderm]

DIRECTED BY

TETSUYA NOMURA



​

Click to shrink...

Nomura did not direct Final Fantasy 7, Yoshinori Kitase did. Nomura designed the characters.

OP, I understand your confusion regarding the details surrounding Sephiroth's "resurrection" and how exactly it ties in to Jenova. I think what others are successfully arguing is that those details are not the bones of the plot itself. The plot is that you're out to save the planet by stopping Sephiroth from crashing a huge-ass meteor into it. Cloud's identity crisis and subsequent catharsis is character development, but I'd say it's not necessarily related to the "plot" itself.

One of my least favorite things about Advent Children and other representations of FF7 after the original game is how much they play up Sephiroth and Cloud's relationship, as if they've been lifelong rivals or something. If you pay attention to the original game, it's clear Sephiroth doesn't know (or care) who the fuck Cloud is. By the time you actually face him in the Northern Crater at the end of the game, Sephiroth has pretty much "ascended" and barely acknowledges your party's presence aside. IIRC, he doesn't even address anyone in your party by name.

I agree that Cloud's identity crisis isn't necessarily part of the "plot" of FF7, however I think it's hugely important and one of the best developments throughout the game. Cloud isn't the "chosen one," - that's Sephiroth. He's a bit of a wanna-be who ended up being in the right place at the right time, but once he finally comes to terms with his own shortcomings he decides to step up and finish the job.

 

[Deleted member 721]

imo the most confusing part is the genetic part, there's stuff i only got to understand completely about that, after reading the wiki 2 years ago

 

[Burt]

I was going to say something about Sephiroth being projections the entire game was poorly illustrated in the base game and not something I fully understood until I read it on the internet years later, but then I saw this thread on the internet and learned that what I had learned on the internet and believed for years was wrong.

Yes, they could be clearer about some stuff.

 

[Mesoian]

...FF7? Hard to understand? What about it was hard to understand?

Click to shrink...

I mean so...And I've talked with a few people about this and it still doesn't really make sense.

Spoiler

So Cloud isn't a clone, we know this. The whole thing about him being a jenovah clone is a lie told by Hojo. Cool. Why then, when that lie is told, does Cloud basically start teleporting around and jumping insane heights as if he WERE a jenovah clone? That entire scene is baffling and really doesn't make any sense.

The overarching stuff about the story isn't confusing but some specific scenes are REAL strange and come off as artistic licensing in order to pull a bait and switch at best, and plotholes at worst.

 

[Peacemillian]

I mean so...And I've talked with a few people about this and it still doesn't really make sense.

Spoiler

So Cloud isn't a clone, we know this. The whole thing about him being a jenovah clone is a lie told by Hojo. Cool. Why then, when that lie is told, does Cloud basically start teleporting around and jumping insane heights as if he WERE a jenovah clone? That entire scene is baffling and really doesn't make any sense.

The overarching stuff about the story isn't confusing but some specific scenes are REAL strange and come off as artistic licensing in order to pull a bait and switch at best, and plotholes at worst.

Click to shrink...

Cloud IS a Jenova clone, just like all the others in the black hoods, he was experimented on by Hojo in the Shinra mansion and injected with Jenovas cells.

The games use of the word "clone" can be a bit confusing to be fair.

 

[Cactuar]

It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.