Final Fantasy 7 Remake - Episodic in nature

Started by derozio December 7th, 2015 1:43 PM
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derozio

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Posted August 16th, 2019
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14 Years
Don't see any threads on the game so I'm just gonna go create one. I had no place to rant on about the current situation so I'm just gonna go ahead and do it over here. :p

So, the remake was announced and people thought it was the best thing ever and the greatest miracle ever. But guess what? As noted here, the remake will be episodic in nature. You won't get the complete package in one go. People's reactions on the internet?

BURN IN HELL.
DIE, SQUARE ENIX.
YOU'RE NOT THE SAME ANYMORE, SQUARE. SQUARE SOFT DAYS ARE GONE.
There goes my preorder of "Day One Super Hyper Ultimate Edition" to "Will pick it up from the bargain bin".
THIS IS TERRIBLE. But not unexpected because Square Enix are a bunch of money-hungry pigs.

Shall enclose the rest of the post in spoilers - my stance on the situation, pretty much.
Spoiler:
From the point of a consumer's view, their immediate reaction isn't exactly unexpected. You might end up paying more than the usual $60 you're used to spending since each "Game" might end up being anywhere between $30 to full priced $60. And that's irritating, sure. Rage-inducing, even. But there's this thing - people haven't considered this decision from the developer's point of view. Here are some things of note:

Game Development has changed significantly in the past 20 years. When all you had earlier were 2D assets as backgrounds with 3D character models, no voice acting/text-based conversations and the world "BG" clearly designed to mask the dead ends and whatnot, creating assets to be used wasn't that big of an issue. You cannot do with that in a remake of the kind they're going for (everybody saw the trailers. It looked incredible). They're going for a full-fledged modern remake. It implies them having to create 3D assets for everything from ground up. And recording voices for characters. And successfully translating that massive 2D world into a 3D world seamlessly without inconsistencies. This takes time. And money. LOTS OF MONEY.

See, time is fine. They could've announced the game later on - you know, when they were close to finishing the entire thing. And released it as a $60 game as a full package. And it would've sold millions, definitely.

But people aren't considering the fact that the game all that time ago came out on 3 discs and was massive in scale. To convert everything from that game and fully translate it into a 3 dimensional modern game would require massive amount of man power and money. Financial investment into a game of this scope would most definitely be a big gamble on their part - they could complete the whole thing but their development budget would be massive. Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain, for instance, reportedly took up $80 Million to make (including creation of Ground Zeroes, I presume). But that game, content-wise, gets dwarfed by FF7. It has two huge playgrounds - Africa and Afghanistan - that are mostly scarcely populated with tons of reused assets. Amazing game, no doubt, but very limited in scope as far as "assets" developed for the game goes. And it still has to sell about 6-7 Million copies for it to make a profit after all the stages the game goes through and the developers get their cut. For a game like FF7 Remake, they'd be creating a lot more content and investing a lot more money. For it to justify "JUST" a $60 price, it'd have to sell a lot. Something similar to Skyrim numbers. Like, 20ish Million copies? That's not exactly unrealistic considering the crazy hype the game has, you think? But what if it bombs? What if? That'd damage the company badly. Like, really badly.

What if they divide the game into parts? 3 parts with 40-50 hours of gameplay each? That'd make for a decent amount of gameplay content/price paid even if you're shelling out $60 each piece (don't tell me 40-50 hours of gameplay for $60 dollars is less, please) and help the developers get back revenue that much more easily. AND, it'll help get the game out in public faster. In parts, but yes.

To counter my stance, people can bring up the perfect example - The Witcher 3. A very polished open world RPG with amazing graphics created entirely on a budget of close to $50-$60 million. And it being able to get back the money in sales AND turn a profit in just 3-4 Million copies of it being sold. All at a normal $60 retail price.

But, to that, I'd answer with this - CD Projekt Red's entire game development ecosystem is a very different beast from your regular AAA game made by your regular game development company. Their money management is very efficient (by any standard) and they're backed by the GOG service they own that enables them to make more money per unit sold than games usually would. That is not a luxury enjoyed by most companies out there, tbh. For an average company that isn't CD Projekt Red, a game on the scale of The Witcher 3 could easily take double the amount of development and advertisement costs (or more). Which they can't get back if they don't sell a LOT more than the Witcher 3 did.

tl;dr - if people think from the developer's point of view, then a decision like this does make sense. An undertaking as massive in scope as this, for its very existence to be real, regrettably had to take this approach, speaking strictly from a financial perspective.

To me it always seemed like a mystery how, after so many years, Square changed their stance from "The game being remade is impossible because making a game of that size and scale with current visual fidelity and gameplay is impossible" to "WE ARE REMAKING IT, GUYS!".

This answers it.

Nobody likes incomplete games. Nobody likes paying more money. Neither do I. But I'm just trying to think about the decision instead of jumping on the hate train like most people are doing all over the internet.

What's your stance on the situation if you were a prospective buyer? Even if not necessarily, how does this affect your stance on the game?

machomuu

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Seen March 4th, 2023
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Posted this in the DCC, but might as well pasta it here.

I wasn't particularly happy to hear this, and as you said, many others weren't either. This is a risky move, as FFVII's remake has always been an ace in the hole for Squenix. Merely by changing it to an ARPG they've created some division between fans. This episodic business, especially so soon after the gameplay footage was released, is not only divisive (probably more so), but it also creates doubt. Doubt about pricing. Doubt about why data-size would require them to release in parts. Doubt regarding quality. Doubt regarding what will be changed/added. All of which, at this point, I'd say are understandable to question. This is an odd move, and I'm starting to think that Squenix's confidence behind this ace might be its undoing.

derozio

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Posted August 16th, 2019
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I personally think that as long as they make each part have a decent amount of content (if the entire game is 100-130 hours long, they can divide it into 3 parts of 30-40 hours each) and price it slightly lesser than full retail price, it is an okay decision. I mean, you can't expect a game that packs so much content WITH AAA production values be the same price as a game that packs, like, 1/10th of the content. Content is proportional to price in this case.

But if they make it something ridiculous like dividing it into really small parts with corner cutting (Missing content/features from the original. For size, think MGS Ground Zeroes here. Or slightly bigger. Ground Zeroes was THE WORST in this regard), and then charge close to retail for each part - yeah, that's just gonna bomb. Hard. People are gonna be angry. Square Enix better prepare their collective asses for the rage that they'd have to face in that case.

I wasn't particularly happy to hear this, and as you said, many others weren't either. This is a risky move, as FFVII's remake has always been an ace in the hole for Squenix. Merely by changing it to an ARPG they've created some division between fans. This episodic business, especially so soon after the gameplay footage was released, is not only divisive (probably more so), but it also creates doubt. Doubt about pricing. Doubt about why data-size would require them to release in parts. Doubt regarding quality. Doubt regarding what will be changed/added. All of which, at this point, I'd say are understandable to question. This is an odd move, and I'm starting to think that Squenix's confidence behind this ace might be its undoing.
They're DEFINITELY playing with fire here, true. A LOT of unknown variables at play here leading to doubt. Which is dangerous.
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14.5 Years
Going by this interview, it sounds more like what they're doing is similar to what was done with both .hack series (which makes sense with CyberConnect2 helping them) and Xenosaga rather than going the Telltale route and chopping it into a bunch of a few hour games. As long as they do what they say and make each part its own game with plenty of content and avoid cutting a bunch of stuff and don't spend ten years developing it, then I don't have an issue with it. What they're doing is still risky, but probably nowhere near as much as if they release everything as one game and either cut a bunch of things from the game or go all out with one game and possibly end up having to raise the price above the usual $60.

Arc

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Posted January 31st, 2017
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From what I've read and inferred, development is still in the baby-steps. Personally, I'm dissatisfied with hearing about this, not a lot though, I'm not going to be scorning them for all of eternity for it. It's a fairly sound financial plan for them. Instead of a full-blown release in, say 2020, they can release it in chunks in like 2017 with one year intervals between each entry to reap in the profits earlier than later, like dero said. But, for them to decide this early is sort of worrying. You could take it that they're being "smart" about it and planning ahead, yet it seems like they're really overestimating the scale of the game.

Also, FFVII being three discs, is more like two discs and 1/10 of a disc. I believe that last disc is only the last dungeon, lol. In general, the game runs at an average of 40 - 50 hours of playtime. It's not "super" stuffed with content, but it still has a fair amount. Optional content really only adds another 15 - 20.

To break it up further.

Disc 1: 20 - 25 hours. This is the absolute longest of them all.

Disc 2: 15 - 20 hours. Eh, you'll breeze past this.

Disc 3: 1 - 2 hours. Legit. I'm not joking when it's only the final dungeon.

Feasibly, I can only really see them breaking it up into two parts. Three parts is stretching it, and that's getting into a territory that most people are going to be probably furrowing and eyebrow at, depending on how much they'll be charging for one part. Cut content is not an option here, they'll have to be adding.

Zet

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Posted May 16th, 2020
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15.7 Years
I am fine with it being episodic as long as SE won't charge too much for it. And I'm assuming it is episodic in nature due to file size limitations. My only concern about the remake is DLC and microtransactions.

mew_nani

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Posted August 25th, 2018
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I really have to wonder just why they're doing it. Are they stuffing things in there that would make slicing it into episodes necessary? I don't see Square slicing up Final Fantasy games just to wring more money out of people. There has to be some reason for it. Maybe they're implementing extra storylines and things? There IS that traveling salesman sidequest that never got implemented.... Man just imagine the world building and extra locations and things this would allow them to do. Though if they just do it to wring out money... that possibility leaves me one part depressed and one part frustrated.

As for the 3 disks, it is true that primarily Disk 3 contains the final dungeon. But it also contains the bonus boss fights with Emerald, Ruby and Ultimate Weapon, which you don't get to fight until you progress that far.

I am fine with it being episodic as long as SE won't charge too much for it. And I'm assuming it is episodic in nature due to file size limitations. My only concern about the remake is DLC and microtransactions.
If they do this I will rally for an assault on Square Enix with an army of angry gamers equipped with pitchforks and torches. Keep that dang microtransaction crap out of my RPG dang it! It has no place there!

I support:

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1946 - 2017

Pinkie-Dawn

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Square Enix has explained why FFVII Remake is going to be episodic. Apparently, they want to add more content than the original but can't compress all of it into one game, but with the existence of large open world games like GTAV, Fallout 4, and Xenoblade Chronicles X that can be compressed into one disc, either Square Enix is awful at compressing files or they're just too lazy.

derozio

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Posted August 16th, 2019
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I really don't think it is gonna be about the disc space tbh. Multiple discs can solve that issue pretty damn easily. And a blu-ray holds a mukload of data, anyway.

Adding more content and whatnot makes sense on top of the original stuff since it is a remake but I think they're doing it purely out of the financial requirements and taking into consideration all the business risks involved in undertaking such a gargantuan task/monumental risk of a project. Project divided into parts = More possibility of them earning money back. And they can even cancel the project midway if they think that the initial part(s) didn't fare well in the market. A win-win for them. Much better than making an entire game with a monumental budget and risking it all at once only to see it not even touch anywhere near the amount of units it'd need to sell to break even - hence, effectively, ruining Square Enix's ace project and, in turn, them as a video game company too (maybe not this but it'd still burn a huge hole in their business).

mew_nani

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Square Enix has explained why FFVII Remake is going to be episodic. Apparently, they want to add more content than the original but can't compress all of it into one game, but with the existence of large open world games like GTAV, Fallout 4, and Xenoblade Chronicles X that can be compressed into one disc, either Square Enix is awful at compressing files or they're just too lazy.
You mean we might actually be able to explore all of Midgar and the slums? Ooh imagine all the secret places we'll get to go to. I get excited just thinking about it. ^^

I support:

R.I.P Isaac J. Southerland Jr.
1946 - 2017

Satoshi Ookami

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Interesting way how to relive the memories =D

I'm not sure how to feel about it... on one hand, it's obvious BS, but on the other hand, I won't feel obliged to buy it day 1 and I can wait for price drop of the complete version.
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acatfrommars

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Woooow I was thinking of getting FF7 but didn't know this! Definitely won't be getting the game now and this is disspointing. Glad I saw this on here, I had only looked at trailers on the game when my friend told me about it. I think Square Enix is doing this for 2 reasons:
1.) They are too lazy, and instead of updating the game regularly they want to make the game last longer.
2.) They want to make the game into multiple discs to milk the money

This is a stupid tend I've been seeing nowadays, and companies are able to get away with it. Pisses me off.

Eruption

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Posted November 17th, 2017
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At first, I was pretty disappointed in the news, but once they explained their reasoning behind it then it became okay. I probably would have bought the game even if the concept still annoyed me anyway.

I see two positives from this - A) we will probably get to start playing the remake much earlier than expected. B) I might be motivated to play side quests if I cannot progress with the main story past a certain stage.

Squeenix will get away with this as long as the game is good which I'm optimstic about.

mew_nani

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Woooow I was thinking of getting FF7 but didn't know this! Definitely won't be getting the game now and this is disspointing. Glad I saw this on here, I had only looked at trailers on the game when my friend told me about it. I think Square Enix is doing this for 2 reasons:
1.) They are too lazy, and instead of updating the game regularly they want to make the game last longer.
2.) They want to make the game into multiple discs to milk the money

This is a stupid tend I've been seeing nowadays, and companies are able to get away with it. Pisses me off.
You mean you'd rather have the full game released with DLC you have to buy later? That doesn't make much sense, since you'd still be paying the same amount either way for the same content and still complaining that they're milking it for money.

There actually are sensible reasons for doing this that don't involve milking the game for money. You know how big Skyrim is, with all those towns and grottoes and explorable places? Skyrim has all that content, and is only the size of a small country, so it can fit on a disk and be sold feasibly. FFVII has an entire planet to explore. Imagine having an entire planet's worth of places and secrets like in Skyrim in just one game. It would be next to impossible to do, as it would take a very long time and take so much money you couldn't really make a profit on it. FFVII by itself has a ton of locales and places that will now have to be rendered in full 3D, not counting any of the other things they want to add. There's just no feasible way they can compress all that into a single package without having to resort to either episodes or DLC. They already said they're not removing anything, so if they're adding things in with it they sort of have to divide it up or else it'll take them a very long time to do it and they'll risk going bankrupt.

I support:

R.I.P Isaac J. Southerland Jr.
1946 - 2017

Satoshi Ookami

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1. The game will have full voice overs, so characters that weren’t in Advent Children will need new voice actors. They haven’t been decided yet.
2.The date event will be fully voiced, but due to changes in the social situation certain scenes have to be implemented carefully, like the Honey Bee Inn.
3.Info on the overworld cannot be provided yet, but it won’t be an open world or sandbox game. Nomura-san is more interested in showing how characters affect the environment.
4.Minigames that have left an impression with the fans will be included. The inclusion of the smaller ones will require consideration, as they all need to be developed with the latest tech.
5.The game’s development is in the initial stages, they started developing the battle system.
Apparently people hate the fact that it's not gonna be open world.
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Necrum

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Posted July 13th, 2017
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10.9 Years
After reading the OP, I have a couple bits of info that I think are relevant. For one, in relation to the old games being remade for a new market, a very similar game remake to FFVII would be Oddworld New N Tasty, a game which was also tons of 2D assets originally and was remade with fully 3D environments. That game was 1 disc long, its sequel 2. The remake took 4 years to create, and they sold it for 20 dollars. Full environment construction in that game takes up about 8 gigabytes, but there are some elements that could be reused often like the platforms you actually play on. FFVII is set to come out after games with giant file sizes though, games like GTA V which take 60 gigs on my PC for quality that I'm sure Enix is trying to match. Not to mention the fact that they're basically competing with games like Fallout 4 which have a ton of extra side content to explore, so they have to increase the content in order to make the game feasible for re-release in the modern market, or else only the die hard fans would really care to play it. This all adds up to a TON of work (all of which explains how long we have to wait for release) and as Derozio said, a ton of money. Selling it for just a single $60 price tag might not be a reasonable request, and honestly if they're doing it right then we shouldn't be maddened by this. Games are gonna increase in price, it's the nature of the beast. We have to accept that or else no one who produces games is going to be able to make a living. I think if the chapters come out to 30 even 40 dollars I would be willing to pay for them. 60 may be a stretch, but again if done right then even that price tag can be justified.

As for reasons for the actual episode format, I haven't seen anyone mention one of Square Enix' greatest recent successes, Life Is Strange, which is also delivered in an episodic format. Clearly Square sees the benefits of this format having already benefited from it in the past, and what better way to try and take the format to a genre other than interactive story than with one of their most popular titles of all time? I get the skepticism but honestly I don't see this as a bad thing at all. As long as Square Enix doesn't completely drop the ball.

Satoshi Ookami

Memento Mori

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14.8 Years
As for reasons for the actual episode format, I haven't seen anyone mention one of Square Enix' greatest recent successes, Life Is Strange, which is also delivered in an episodic format. Clearly Square sees the benefits of this format having already benefited from it in the past, and what better way to try and take the format to a genre other than interactive story than with one of their most popular titles of all time? I get the skepticism but honestly I don't see this as a bad thing at all. As long as Square Enix doesn't completely drop the ball.
But there's one fundamental difference.
Life is Strange is as you said adventure/interactive movie.
These obviously work in episodic format. But can you say the same about RPG?
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acatfrommars

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No, games that do well like The Walking Dead did and Life Is Strange has done (even though I've never played Life is Strange) don't dish out each episode for 40-60 dollars. That would be ludicrous. I know that the competition is steep and that games are probably becoming more and more complex to make, but that is just the nature of the industry. Natural selection (lol), if a large company like Square Enix can't compete with companies like Bethesda or Rockstar Studios then it makes them look bad.

When I buy a game I look at the amount of content the developers have put into the game at the time I'm buying it, and from that I dictate if I will buy it or not. Well...that's one of the criteria I have when choosing to buy a game. I see more and more episodic-type games nowadays as well; a Game of Thrones game that my friend has been playing on PS4 is like that as well. I actually like the idea, it allows us impatient gamers to get a glimpse of the game while the company is able to work on new content for future episodes; I just don't want to pay more than $15 for a new disc/episode. When that happens, to me it's as the company is milking the consumer for money which pisses me off because I am a frugal cheapskate I guess. I think that with FF7, if Square Enix decides to make the games in episodes, they should either:

a.) Release each new disc at $35 if the buyer doesn't have the game, or have an option where players can buy the new episode online and charge them $25 if they have the game.
b.) Go for a season-pass type of deal for $40-$50 after the game is released which would allow players to get all episodes for free.

Necrum

I AM THE REAL SONIC

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Seen August 20th, 2019
Posted July 13th, 2017
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10.9 Years
But there's one fundamental difference.
Life is Strange is as you said adventure/interactive movie.
These obviously work in episodic format. But can you say the same about RPG?
We can't find out if an RPG will work episodically unless someone is bold enough to actually try it. We've seen the episode format applied to FPS games before in the form of Half-Life 2. While that didn't pan out in the long run (WHERE IS EPISODE 3 GABE N.???) I thought it worked quite well. Obviously that is a completely different genre from either interactive stories or RPGs, so it's not entirely comparable, but before that there hadn't been anything like that since Doom (which wasn't really sold separately by chapter, though the first one was released as shareware). If we want to talk about RPGs that are comparable, Mass Effect is sort of like this situation. Sure they were separate games instead of episodes, but each one can be connected to the last, a concept that would easily be applicable to this episode format. The game will still be a continuous experience, we just have to wait for part of it. Which is actually more satisfying to the human psyche, something that mobile games take advantage of by limiting how long you can play for so you don't get burnt out. If you took all the content from FFVII and added even more to it, then you would have to play for a long time just to finish it. Splitting this up gives people a chance to rest between releases and get excited for the next part, ultimately leaving us feeling more fulfilled by the end. I mean would you rather be done with it in 2 weeks or spread it out over 2 years?

mew_nani

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Posted August 25th, 2018
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13.4 Years
1. The game will have full voice overs, so characters that weren’t in Advent Children will need new voice actors. They haven’t been decided yet.
2.The date event will be fully voiced, but due to changes in the social situation certain scenes have to be implemented carefully, like the Honey Bee Inn.
3.Info on the overworld cannot be provided yet, but it won’t be an open world or sandbox game. Nomura-san is more interested in showing how characters affect the environment.
4.Minigames that have left an impression with the fans will be included. The inclusion of the smaller ones will require consideration, as they all need to be developed with the latest tech.
5.The game’s development is in the initial stages, they started developing the battle system.
Apparently people hate the fact that it's not gonna be open world.
Does this mean we won't get to explore stuff like we could in the original? Is it gonna be like Final Hallway XIII? Cause if that's the case that might be a dealbreaker. The game really opened up once you got the airship.

As for Wall Market.... yeah. I dunno how they're gonna implement that. They're gonna anger certain activist groups if they release it, but they'll anger the fans if they don't.

I support:

R.I.P Isaac J. Southerland Jr.
1946 - 2017

JJ Styles

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Posted November 10th, 2019
3,924 posts
8.4 Years
Pretty much everyone has spoken what i want to say but this one reminded me of Starcraft 2 being separated into 3 of the faction's single player campaigns split in three, where one game (or in this context the episode) focused on the Terrans, the other was on the Zerg, and the last one for the Protoss, but the whole gig was about the story of Starcraft 2. Those angry reactions from people are basically the same ones that plagued the SC community back in SC2's announcement.

So yeah, just sharing what is sorta related. Obviously Starcraft is not a grand magnificent creature of legend like Final Fantasy 7 was, but if the Episodic Nature is executed well, such as being able to carry over data such as items and levels from one completed campaign to the other, i might as well just deal with it.

Shhwonk

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Posted April 20th, 2016
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9.5 Years
Thanks for imparting your knowledge from an industry standpoint, derozio! I was one who jumped on the bandwagon of hating on Square for the decision, but now I'm definitely more empathetic.
Also, after having played the episodic Life is Strange, I can say that there are advantages for both players and developers. If every episode ends on some sort of cliffhanger, there's the opportunity for players to build the hype and make theories. Since it's going around that Square is changing the formula up (making it more open-world), it can be assumed that they're adding in a bunch of extra content, hopefully also to draw out the playtime in every separate part to ~40 hours -- new characters with side-stories that are connected between parts, or something. Then from a developer's perspective, they can listen to what players want in the next episode, make improvements, etc.

Idk, there are a lot of things that we have to be optimistic about. For one, they are actually releasing a remake at all!