There are many locations throughout each Remake and Rebirth you could level to this kind of factor; a spot the place the brand new video games lack the chunk of the unique.
The most evident instance up till now’s FF7’s ‘Trail of Blood’, a very iconic and creepy sequence within the unique recreation that, within the fashionable model, replaces streaks of blood all through beforehand shiny and sanitized company places of work with a kind of bizarre glowing purple alien goo. The music is identical, however the temper is wrecked by the change; the sequence undermined.
To be truthful, that’s the prime instance as a result of it’s the worst of the bunch. Most of the time, Square Enix’s cautious recreation of scenes from FF7, even when modified, land completely. In truth, the second a part of the Remake trilogy, Rebirth, by no means actually misses. With that stated, it’s additionally truthful to say that on many events, the occasions it depicts lack a few of the heft and punch of the unique.
There’s a raft of recent examples of this in FF7 Rebirth, a recreation that covers a number of fairly traumatic occasions for the forged of FF7. There’s fairly just a few examples that I might discuss – however by means of instance, I wish to zero in on one – the storyline of Barret and Dyne in Chapter 8, round midway by the sport.
As a outcome, from right here on on this article accommodates spoilers for as much as and together with Chapter 8 of FF7 Rebirth. You have been warned.
The storyline of FF7 is of, course, about saving the planet from evil companies and malevolent aliens, however peppered all through are important character vignettes. Barret’s large second comes when the workforce visits the Gold Saucer.
En route he passes by his house village, the place he’s inexplicably reviled – after which ultimately comes face-to-face together with his greatest good friend, who he lengthy thought useless. Through the course of this story we be taught the origin of Barret’s daughter Marlene (whose being a distinct race to him isn’t up thus far addressed), plus find out about his involvement in Shinra’s destruction of his house city.
It’s an necessary second. We be taught so much about Barret’s origins, his motivations, and may put a finger on precisely why he’s so indignant about Shinra earlier within the story. It’s additionally an emotional story – about brothers who’re torn aside and in the end pressured to combat one another by the forces of evil.
All of those occasions are current in Rebirth – however they’ve been subtly adjusted – and in some ways for the more severe.
Rebirth adjusts issues ever-so-slightly right here. For one, within the unique recreation, the hatred the folks have for Barret goes unexplained till later. In Rebirth, it is defined immediately, Barret revealing his story to the celebration in flashback. This introduces you to Dyne, reveals he and Barret have been each gravely injured, and likewise makes clear that it was Shinra, not them, who was in charge. The flashback modifications different small particulars, too; Corel is depicted as a ramshackle mountainside shanty city of types even earlier than the catastrophe – whereas within the unique the flashback Corel is visibly a way more affluent city. But the actual change begins to emerge when you arrive on the Gold Saucer.
In the unique FF7, Barret arrives on the Gold Saucer in a foul temper, having been by a nasty expertise in visiting his ruined hometown and been rejected as a traitor by its inhabitants. Barret storms off with out a lot of a phrase, and the subsequent factor you recognize, you’re listening to a couple of man with a gun for an arm taking pictures up one of many zones of the large theme park you’re in. The recreation teases it out: might Barret have performed this? Has he snapped and killed a bunch of harmless folks? In our hearts, we all know the reply – it’s unlikely an RPG celebration member would flip so completely and so rapidly – however a flicker of doubt is there.
In this, Rebirth suggestions its hand subtly; the sides should be sanded off this narrative. So in Rebirth, we see a cut-away scene of Barret discover one other man with a gun for an arm within the Gold Saucer, earlier than we be taught in regards to the slaughter. Barret follows the person. When information of the mass taking pictures breaks, the celebration worries that Barret is accountable, however we as an viewers already know the reality: it was this different mysterious dude.
That man seems to be Dyne, Barret’s lengthy misplaced good friend from his hometown. The harm that led to Barret’s arm being amputated and changed by a gun was additionally suffered by Dyne, in mirror – Barret misplaced his proper arm, Dyne his left. Both independently had weapons grafted to their our bodies for a similar cause – to hunt revenge. It seems that Marlene is definitely Dyne’s organic daughter, adopted by Barret within the wake of the catastrophe that destroyed the city of Corel, and left everybody else in Barret’s life – most notably Dyne, Dyne’s spouse, and his personal spouse – useless. As it occurs, Dyne did survive.
In each video games, the Dyne we meet within the shadow of the Gold Saucer has misplaced his grip on sanity, ruined by the lack of his spouse, daughter, and residential – and by the brutality of the years since.
In the unique, nevertheless, Dyne has a clearly said purpose. He says he desires to “destroy every thing” – and that’s why he heads as much as the Gold Saucer and slaughters a bunch of random innocents. He’s appearing out, principally. When Dyne finds out Marlene is alive, his thoughts goes to just one place: his daughter has to die. She ought to, he causes, be together with her mom – and it’s Dyne’s responsibility to “take her” to her late mom. This is in the end why Dyne assaults Barret, and why Barret counters – Barret stands in the way in which of Dyne killing Marlene.
In FF7 Rebirth, the scene is markedly completely different. Dyne assaults Barret in the end as a result of he’s simply mad about what occurred up to now. He additionally sees Cloud’s uniform and errors him for a Shinra SOLDIER, which riles him up extra. Barret and Dyne. It’s solely after they’ve fought that he even finds out Marlene remains to be alive.
The sequence actually unravels for me from right here. Suddenly, Shinra troopers present up en masse. At first I believed this was to present the remainder of the forged a distraction to maintain them away from Barret and Dyne’s showdown. It does serve that function – however the troopers additionally they make their approach to the gun-armed duo, too. An emotional scene between two damaged buddies is undercut by a platoon opening hearth on them.
In the top, Rebirth’s Dyne takes a load of bullets from Shinra troopers – and basically saves Barret’s life, as when the troopers present up Barret’s gun arm is unequipped, having been knocked off of their duel. In that sense Dyne goes out in a blaze of glory, to some extent. Plus within the unhinged state the sport presents, and together with his hatred of Shinra, he would’ve attacked these troopers anyway, to save lots of Barret or in any other case. The unique recreation’s Dyne has a really completely different finish; coming considerably to his senses, he causes he’s performed an excessive amount of evil, his arms too bloodsoaked, to ever reunite with – or not be a hazard to – his daughter. Dyne then jumps off a cliff to his loss of life.
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What’s fascinating is that the Rebirth scene actually isn’t dangerous. John Eric Bentley, the voice actor behind Barret within the English model, turns in an unbelievable efficiency right here. As Dyne lays dying, Bentley’s Barret lets out a gut-wrenching cry that offers approach to sobs; it put a lump in my throat. The cutscene course is gorgeous. The dusky time of day the occasions happen in is ideal for a wild west showdown between two gunmen. It’s actually good. But it’s not as good, you recognize?
Never thoughts that the very subsequent factor that occurs after that gut-wrenching scene – actually a minute later – is a boss combat towards a comic book reduction villain in a large frog-like mech. The scene itself simply feels undercut.
I can see why the builders may’ve taken a step again and determined that having an tried infanticide be a significant plot level won’t be one thing they’d wish to do in 2024. Likewise for Dyne taking his personal life versus having it snuffed out by enemy troopers in a determined final stand. But, being actual, and for all that I really like in regards to the new scene, I nonetheless assume the unique, extra uncooked model is in the end higher.
I really feel equally about plenty of moments within the recreation – like how the spooky setting of the occasions with Jenova on the cargo ship are changed with a extra bombastic rush and a collection of escalating battles. It’s a largely cold affair – although I say this understanding that the cutscene instantly earlier than the boss combat there may be, I feel, one of many single greatest within the recreation.
Like the trial of blood in Remake’s nerfing, or the watered-down physique horror parts of Jenova’s existence, plenty of this appears like a call to keep away from something within the recreation being too uncooked. Final Fantasy 16 may’ve been a bloody M-Rated affair, however FF7 Remake and Rebirth are T for Teen throughout. That’s for good and for unwell.
Indirectly, FF7 Remake’s bosses have defined this, too. Speaking throughout a latest BAFTA occasion, unique FF7 director and Remake collection Producer Yoshinori Kitase truly purchased up scores – and aiming for one thing extra broadly acceptable – as a key goal for Rebirth.
“I’m not criticizing this in any respect, I feel you very a lot do want these sorts of extra excessive expressions of issues, and depictions of issues that are just a little bit quirky, just a little bit bizarre,” Kitase says of extra expressly violent video games. “But I feel to be broadly accepted by mainstream tradition we have now to go for the center floor as nicely and have extra generic, extra mainstream depictions of issues that are simply regular and common, and try to make these portrayals as practical as attainable.”
“That’s one thing that we’re striving for in Final Fantasy. Again, all that excessive, on the market stuff – that is all nice and we’d like that too. But we have to have a bit extra of a steadiness as nicely.”
Kitase’s phrases make good sense. And actually, it doesn’t damage Remake or Rebirth that a lot within the grand scheme of issues. At the identical time, nevertheless, I do mourn for the unique variations of scenes like Trail of Blood, the Cargo Ship, Barret and Dyne’s showdown, and others. I additionally marvel if a growth workforce as laser-focused on the mainstream would’ve even be capable to make a recreation as texturally wealthy as the unique FF7.
Times have modified, and I really like what we’ve acquired – however nonetheless miss what we’ve misplaced – and it’s an ideal reminder of why the unique will at all times be untouchable.
