Failed Focus
New member
As i'm sure pretty much everyone dedicated to FFVII to be sticking around in these forums knows by now, an original draft of Final Fantasy VII would see almost all of Avalanche perish in their raid on Midgar towards the end of Disc 2.
I'm conflicted by this. Whilst I think the team probably made the right decision by ultimately deciding against this, I am utterly fascinated by how this version of the game would play out. If I had the ability to visit alternate universes, checking out the timeline where this version of FFVII was released is embarrassingly high on my list of priorities.
If you had the chance to play this version now, what two other characters would you bring to survive Midgar - naturally assuming Cloud is mandatory and HAS to survive.
My first instinct would be Cloud, Barret, Tifa to bookend the game with the original trio fighting to save the Planet... but then, that almost feels a little too safe. I'd be morbidly curious to see how Cloud reacts to a situation where Tifa dies after everything they've been through together and the events in the Lifestream. For how abrasive and unlikeable he was at times, Cid gave one hell of a speech about protecting the Planet and I'd be very interested to see how/if his bravado holds up continuing that fight having lost so many allies.
Of course development realities limit just how deep the plot potential of this is. For most of the game the story doesn't have any idea who's in your party and each character has like, one line of dialogue to reflect how they're feeling at the time which the game promptly forgets. If you take Tifa into the Cave of the Gi, the game won't remember that and have any deeper exploration of her relationship with Nanaki because of it. So outside of some very specific examples (Barret living but Tifa dying, and vice versa) i'm not even sure we'd get dialogue about how characters feel about and react to others dying. I certainly wouldn't expect a lot of detail about Vincent feels about the death of Yuffie, for example.
Still, I find this idea fascinating and i'm curious who'd be your final three and for what reason? Which characters you like the most, the character dynamics you'd be most interested in seeing when they're the final three?
I'm conflicted by this. Whilst I think the team probably made the right decision by ultimately deciding against this, I am utterly fascinated by how this version of the game would play out. If I had the ability to visit alternate universes, checking out the timeline where this version of FFVII was released is embarrassingly high on my list of priorities.
If you had the chance to play this version now, what two other characters would you bring to survive Midgar - naturally assuming Cloud is mandatory and HAS to survive.
My first instinct would be Cloud, Barret, Tifa to bookend the game with the original trio fighting to save the Planet... but then, that almost feels a little too safe. I'd be morbidly curious to see how Cloud reacts to a situation where Tifa dies after everything they've been through together and the events in the Lifestream. For how abrasive and unlikeable he was at times, Cid gave one hell of a speech about protecting the Planet and I'd be very interested to see how/if his bravado holds up continuing that fight having lost so many allies.
Of course development realities limit just how deep the plot potential of this is. For most of the game the story doesn't have any idea who's in your party and each character has like, one line of dialogue to reflect how they're feeling at the time which the game promptly forgets. If you take Tifa into the Cave of the Gi, the game won't remember that and have any deeper exploration of her relationship with Nanaki because of it. So outside of some very specific examples (Barret living but Tifa dying, and vice versa) i'm not even sure we'd get dialogue about how characters feel about and react to others dying. I certainly wouldn't expect a lot of detail about Vincent feels about the death of Yuffie, for example.
Still, I find this idea fascinating and i'm curious who'd be your final three and for what reason? Which characters you like the most, the character dynamics you'd be most interested in seeing when they're the final three?