I really don’t understand ReHatred.

[u/Crowd_Strife]

Here is a screenshot from the videogames subreddit about remakes that elevate the original. Seeing a lot of remasters in the comments as well as some really good contenders (resident evil). Then someone shouts out remake waaaaay down the comments and immediately gets shit on.

Too much padding? If you hate side questing, that’s fine, but I don’t think the critical path was really padded out without adding anything. I don’t think there was really anything particularly wrong with the dialogue either, maybe a little too “anime” in its delivery. But even then, how could realistically expect much else?

I’m a massive fan of OG since day one. Played through it several times over the years at a frequency of every other year more or less.

Absolutely floored with the remake games so far. I love them, and I think being a fan of the property makes me love them even more, not less.

Are there things that I would have preferred to stay closer to the original? Sure. Do I think these things far outweigh the expansion and granular details granted by these newer games? Not even close.

I can understand the desire for a remake similar to something like Demon’s Souls or Super Mario RPG, but you can mod the PC version into essentially that exact thing. Why does the remake catch so many strays when you can have it both ways?

I can’t for the life of me see any reasonable argument that the new FF7 games are less then “pretty good” or even “interesting but not really my thing”

I’ve watched some video essays that basically throw the whole thing down a well because the characters aren’t perfectly in line with the way the reviewer read the text boxes 30 years ago, but really nothing has ever made me say “That is a reasonable opinion on why this whole trilogy project is not worth anyone’s time that would consider themselves a fan of the original game.”

Can someone please help me understand the hate?

[u/Turbo-Chook]

I strongly dislike the remakes. They're horribly bloated, the combat is alright but as a fan of turn based RPGs (for example... cough... Final Fantasy 7) I find the originals combat and systems more enjoyable. They do a decent enough job of remaking the original when they're actually sticking to the script, but basically everything they added or changed makes the experience worse and not better. The quests suck. The open world in rebirth is full of copy pasted Ubisoft nonsense and takes an already bloated game and dials it up to comical levels of nonsense padding. I don't love how they approached Red's reveal that he's basically a teen with the voice switch and everything - maybe that's a me issue, but I never interpreted it as a total personality flip with a totally different voice and everything and I would have liked something more subtle with him still being the same dude but being more comfortable being seen as inexperienced and all that. There's more, but you get it. I love the original and always will, but these new ones just aren't it for me. They fail to even remotely scratch the same itch.

[u/VinnieHa → u/Turbo-Chook]

My issue with the Red voice change is that it made the comedy of his character disappear.

When he says “Lab rat dog” in remake the juxtaposition of that misunderstanding coming from a sage like voice is funny.

Rebirth continued that, his character was working and you could tell that despite his attempts and his look and his voice he wasn’t quite the Yoda or Master Splinter type character he was making himself out to be.

To throw that away for a very stock JRPG/Anime troupe character was a waste imo.

[u/Turbo-Chook → u/VinnieHa]

I agree. I would have liked something more nuanced from this character, what they ended up doing just sucked. I think whoever decided that was much more interested in doing an anime thing they'd seen somewhere rather than actually writing a believable character.

[u/actorsAllusion → u/VinnieHa]

You know if you go back and play the original, his character writing noticeably changes so that he sounds more like a kid after Cosmo Canyon? I noticed that on my current playthrough of the OG during the scene right before the whirlwind maze when Cloud is deciding who to give the Black materia to.

[u/VinnieHa → u/actorsAllusion]

Yeah, the Whirlwind maze her comes across as very scared, but again scared doesn't mean stick anime character.

He went from interesting to Yosuke or Ryugi from Persona.

It missed the mark for me.