I truly do not understand it though. FF7 has already been whored out to a thousand different thing. It has several spin-offs (some most of which received a terrible reception), a movie, light novels, has appeared in a bunch of FF crossover games (and let us not forget Ehrgeiz lol), and is referenced very often. LR has a shitload of costumes (seemingly dozens upon dozens) including those pulling from a bunch of Final Fantasys and FF7 happens to be one of them. My brain can't process this anger.
Also I don't understand where the "shame" is suppose to be coming from? Should Capcom and co feel be ashamed when they put referential costumes into SFIV? Then you have the "Tales of" games lol.
With regards to the first point, let's step away from FF7 for a minute, simply because I can better explain this with regards to another game. The game I'm referring to is, of course, Final Fantasy IV. FF4 gets released
constantly, and it gets shoehorned into other games at times, too. Now, FF4 itself doesn't have the same hate that FF13 does, but there are a few reasons for that.
FF4 was not poorly received when it first came out. The world was a different one, no doubt, and that works wonders in FF4's favor. The game, already well received, is protected by the fond feelings people have had for it for years.
The second point is that FF4 did not receive a true sequel for
seventeen years. The porting has been nigh constant, no doubt, but that sequel waited seventeen years to come.
By contrast, the world has changed considerably between 4 and 13, and the game has had, shall we for the sake of agreement, say a
sizeable and
vocal opposition almost since its launch. That it did not live up to six years of expectations is inarguable, I would think, but the point is, people already weren't as warm to 13. Reception of the initial product plays an important role in reception of later products as well.
Likewise, the amount of time between XIII and XIII-2 is comparatively miniscule. Though 14 launched between them, it was at the time rather poor and so there wasn't much to alleviate people. You may have noted that some people find it funny that the third game is called "Lightning Returns" when, in a very real sense, it feels as if she has not ever left at all. With so few full length Final Fantasy games released overseas between these games, surely you can see why at least some would be reasonably Lightning fatigued? Fewer people hate Cecil the way they do Lightning because IV waits.
Now, having established that, let us remember the reactions from the most recent TAY rerelease, shall we?
you are killing me square enix
I like FFIV as much as the next person, but just what exactly does Square-Enix like about it so much to remake/sequel/whatever to 4 that they won't do for 5 and 6?
Uh, what? This is so weird. The PSP version looked great, this is a definite downgrade in looks IMO.
Hopefully they'll tweak some of the stuff that actually was wrong with TAY though. (Give Harley blue magic dammit.)
can we please get a ff5 port/remake to the 3ds instead of this grindfest bullshit?
Not interested, really tired of FFIV whatever.
Why does SE love FFIV so much? It's the weakest of the SFC trilogy.
And this all hails from the first page, indicating that people are as it happens, quite tired of IV and its constant receiving of ports. And this is IV, mind you, which people generally like. It's still outstayed its welcome, or worn it thin, if you will, with showing up all the time. Now take into account that IV's rereleases rarely receive the kind of press which XIII's cross promotions are. Is it still so surprising to see that people should feel somewhat tired of seeing Lightning? Heck, sometimes people are annoyed to see FF1 get ported again.
Now let's go back to the Compilation of VII, shall we? I have to disagree with your statement, or at least implication, that VII does
not suffer as XIII does. There are just as many vocal detractors of Compilation titles as Dirge of Cerberus, for instance. People really did get sick of seeing the Compilation. I would note that this does not apply to VII's initial cross-overs, like Tactics or Ergheiz, but I would argue that first, as I said earlier, a game's initial reception plays a huge role in after receptions, and VII was wildly popular and inarguably more so than XIII, and second that it is precisely the similarity between what happened with VII and what happened with XIII that people are calling out. You can see it in this thread and the myriad others recently, that with VII Square struck oil and now it feels to some that they are acting as if they did it again with XIII, when they, at the very least in the eyes of those making the claim, did not.
But again, VII definitely rankled some feathers during the Compilation's days, and people were definitely glad to see it go. This is often brought up as a reason why the Compilation, technically, never received a proper ending.
Now, with reference to your second statement, I can't really say. Lightning in skimpy outfits is whatever, since that's been a thing since FFII. The reference bit, though, is people seeing it as Square trying to increase Lightning's popularity via these costumes, by tying her to other more popular games. There may be perfectly reasonable explanations for them (Lightning in Aerith's outfit makes sense, since they share a voice actress in Japan), but when framed in another, perhaps larger context, people are annoyed to see Lightning tied to VII, X, and XIV. Especially since XHD and XIV are both big things right now, so it seems like, and I should think obviously is, a marketing ploy to increase LR's popularity by promoting her in all their big titles. Whether you think that's heinous or just marketing depends, of course, on which side of the XIII divide you land.
Now, as I have said before, I actually liked XIII and Lightning a pretty good amount back when they came out. I don't begrudge others their like of her, and I don't take for serious some of the things said because I myself have been known to joke about how awesome I think Cecil is, especially when in the presence of those who are vocal about their dislike of him. I think that's just in good fun, really. At the same time, though, I feel that the complaints voiced by people who don't like XIII, especially now, are not without their legitimacy, and certainly are not beyond the realm of understanding. The simplest reason that Lightning herself gets all the hate (when other characters in XIII were far worse than her) is that the XIII series has taken her as its mascot or face, and so she becomes the symbol of all that people like or hate about it, independent of her own character. After all, the XIII series has since adopted the name
Lightning Saga, so making Lightning the face of this is something that Square itself intended, and with that must come the people who associate her with the manifold disappointments that the Lightning Saga of the FNC has brought.
I recognize this is a long post, but despite that, I don't think the situation is
really that hard to get.
Not that I am surprised.
