The Problems With Alternate-Timeline Games

[vanguard333]

A while back, Square Enix announced a game called Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and in all their advertising insisted that the game really was a remake to Final Fantasy 7... and then the game turned out to actually be an alternate-timeline storyline where certain characters are aware of what happened in the original FF7 and try to change the course of events while other characters try to maintain the original course of events.

A year later, Nintendo announced a game called Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, a spinoff to Breath of the Wild that they kept declaring was a game set 100 years before Breath of the Wild... and then the game turned out to be an alternate-timeline storyline where a good robot egg from the future tries to prevent the calamity while a corrupted robot egg tries to ensure the calamity succeeds, and the events of the great calamity are ultimately prevented before they can happen.

On the same day that Square Enix announced part 2 of the FF7R series, they also announced a remake of Crisis Core: the prequel to FF7... and they just recently announced that this remake of Crisis Core will actually be a prequel to FF7R, not FF7.

 

I have in the past criticized those first two games for their false-advertising and appreciated Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes for being upfront about being an alternate timeline, but with even more of these games appearing, I've begun to think that there are genuine problems with these games beyond marketing that are generally overlooked, and I wanted to address some of them here now that these kinds of games seem to have become a trend:

1. They are alienating to newcomers. This is hardly unique to these games; hard sequels can risk doing so as well, but in these games, it is pretty much unavoidable that a newcomer who isn't familiar with the original game will be confused by the alternate-timeline. One might argue that this isn't inherently a problem as these games are made for pre-existing fans, and fair enough, but even so, this would've been problematic for Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Age of Calamity, as their marketing definitely attracted newcomers. I know a number of people who bought FF7R having never played FF7; with more casual audiences, a modern remake with up-to-date presentation sounds more appealing than playing a port of a game from 1997; I know I bought FF7R because I thought a remake of FF7 would be a perfect entry point into the series for me and that it would likely be easier to get into than a game that's a year older than Ocarina of Time, and I did see people wonder, back in the days when everyone thought Age of Calamity was going to be a prequel, if perhaps it would be better for newcomers to start with Age of Calamity.

But anyway, even if this isn't necessarily a problem for the consumer, it is a potential problem for the publisher if they fail to realize that they are making a game that can only appeal to established fans, and given how much these games are becoming a trend and how much attention most of them have been getting, I don't think they realize that; I genuinely think at least some of them think these games can appeal to newcomers.

2. They present missed opportunities. This admittedly isn't always the case; Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes certainly doesn't. But at least a few of these games present opportunities only for these opportunities to be wasted by the alternate-timeline. Age of Calamity presented the idea of a game that took place during the great calamity, and now, that's likely never to actually happen. Similarly, one problem I see with Crisis Core Reunion is that, while people disappointed with FF7R can still play the original FF7 as ports of it are everywhere, the same is not true of the original Crisis Core. The original Crisis Core was a PSP-exclusive, and Square Enix never ported it to another console, so the remake was a perfect opportunity for people who never owned a PSP, lost their PSP, sold their PSP, broke their PSP, etc., to be able to play Crisis Core, and now that we know that the game's going to be adjusted to line up to FF7R rather than FF7, that opportunity is gone for anyone who just wanted to be able to play Crisis Core.

3. They can undermine important parts of the original. (spoilers ahead)

Spoiler

Because the game is presenting an alternate course of events, the writers are free to do whatever they want without harming continuity; Age of Calamity can have the champions survive, FF7R can have Zack survive the original game's backstory, etc., but this can often end up undermining important themes of the original work. One major theme of Breath of the Wild was bouncing back after failure: you can't undo past failures, but it's what you do now that matters. Then Age of Calamity comes along and says that actually past failures can be undone so long as you build a time-travelling robot egg, and it is easy to see how that can be seen as undermining one of the major points of Breath of the Wild. Similarly, one of the most important points of Crisis Core is the death of Zack; it's Crisis Core's equivalent of the famous "Objective: Survive" ending of Halo Reach. With FF7R having it that Zack's alive, changing Crisis Core to line up with FF7R means altering a core part of the original game that was one of the main reasons it received huge acclaim when it released.

 

Now, please don't take this as me saying that these alternate-timeline games need to stop; far from it. I don't think anything negative of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes for instance; it's just a benign fun little spinoff. But I think that developers need to be more careful with these games and not overhype them as something more than they are so as not to disappoint or alienate. What do you think?

 

Side-Note: Apologies if the title sounds a little like clickbait; it honestly was the least clickbait title I could think of; if anyone can think of a better title for this, please let me know.

Edited July 28, 2022 by vanguard333

[PostZordem]

I recommend that you add a spoiler tag to this topic or put everything within your third point that isn't in bold text within a spoiler box because you did just spoil Age of Calamity + FF7R (and by extent, Breath of the Wild and Crisis Core) for the people who haven't played those games. Luckily for me, I've already beaten Age of Calamity and I've never really harbored an interest in Final Fantasy, so no harm done there. Though I do want to prevent others from being spoiled because this topic does go over a few major plotlines of the games you mentioned. Anyways, onto my responses to your three major points for this topic.

1. Alienating Newcomers- Valid points you made here. Alternate-Timeline Video games are generally made for fans of the original game that the Alternate-Timeline game is based on. A newcomer will only be confused when the events of the AT game don't match up with the OG game. Now I can understand Newcomers playing FF7R instead of the original game due to the remake just being an upgraded, modernized version of a PS1 classic, but I can't really see newcomers playing Age of Calamity before Breath of The Wild because Age of Calamity is more so a sequel to Hyrule Warriors with BoTW visuals, universe and story than it is a prequel to BoTW (which it technically is up to a particular point), so I believe more newcomers would want to be introduced to Zelda through BoTW- a mainline Zelda title- over AoC, which is a Hyrule Warriors Spinoff title that is merely based off of BoTW.

2. Missed Opportunities- I'm going to disagree with you on this point, but only a bit. AT games are perfect for "What-If?" scenarios where the events of a particular game play out differently, even if it isn't canon. I may not be a fan of the direction that AoC went in towards the end, but I wouldn't say that it was a completely wasted opportunity. AoC did at least show us what a good outcome of the century prior battle would look like, even if it did require the assistance of an egg guardian to pull it off. But there was certainly a missed opportunity when the game was marketed as a tried and true prequel to BoTW. All I'll add to this point is that the game should've been split into two timelines in order to satisfy both outcomes. One that leads into BoTW as to not break the canon of that game, and another that does what AoC decided to go with.

3. Undermining the original games- Hard agree with what you list within your third point. When I figured out that

Spoiler

Age of Calamity was going to go in the direction of a "Perfect Timeline" of sorts where the "Calamity" mentioned in Breath of the Wild never actually happens,

it ruined AoC a good bit for me tbh. These alternate-timelines that these games choose to take ruin the original games (at least ones with a canon, set timeline of events) when they choose to deviate from the canon and do something drastically different. Now, for a video game like Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, it doesn't really matter because Three Houses never really had a set, canon timeline, so Three Hopes going with a very different story doesn't really harm the original game's story. I'd say the biggest problem with Age of Calamity is that it was marketed as a game that would show the events of 100 years before Breath of the Wild (and show the events that would lead into that game), and while that 100 years ago thing was accurate, the events that played out didn't line up with Link's Memories in BoTW.

As for an alternate title for this topic, the best I can think of is: "The Problems with Alternate-Timeline Video Games" or "Why Alternate-Timeline Video Games Don't Work". I don't think you could reword the title of this topic without it sounding at least a bit like clickbait, but I do think that the title of this topic could be shortened.

[vanguard333]

8 hours ago, CyberZord said:

I recommend that you add a spoiler tag to this topic or put everything within your third point that isn't in bold text within a spoiler box because you did just spoil Age of Calamity + FF7R (and by extent, Breath of the Wild and Crisis Core) for the people who haven't played those games.

Good point; I'll fix that now. Thanks.

 

8 hours ago, CyberZord said:

1. Alienating Newcomers- Valid points you made here. Alternate-Timeline Video games are generally made for fans of the original game that the Alternate-Timeline game is based on. A newcomer will only be confused when the events of the AT game don't match up with the OG game. Now I can understand Newcomers playing FF7R instead of the original game due to the remake just being an upgraded, modernized version of a PS1 classic, but I can't really see newcomers playing Age of Calamity before Breath of The Wild because Age of Calamity is more so a sequel to Hyrule Warriors with BoTW visuals, universe and story than it is a prequel to BoTW (which it technically is up to a particular point), so I believe more newcomers would want to be introduced to Zelda through BoTW- a mainline Zelda title- over AoC, which is a Hyrule Warriors Spinoff title that is merely based off of BoTW.

Yeah, I definitely don't see many people playing Age of Calamity without having played Breath of the Wild first; my point with Age of Calamity was more that the number is not zero.

 

8 hours ago, CyberZord said:

2. Missed Opportunities- I'm going to disagree with you on this point, but only a bit. AT games are perfect for "What-If?" scenarios where the events of a particular game play out differently, even if it isn't canon. I may not be a fan of the direction that AoC went in towards the end, but I wouldn't say that it was a completely wasted opportunity. AoC did at least show us what a good outcome of the century prior battle would look like, even if it did require the assistance of an egg guardian to pull it off. But there was certainly a missed opportunity when the game was marketed as a tried and true prequel to BoTW. All I'll add to this point is that the game should've been split into two timelines in order to satisfy both outcomes. One that leads into BoTW as to not break the canon of that game, and another that does what AoC decided to go with.

True; the "what-if" scenario is the main appeal of these games. I don't want to say that these games are complete wastes of opportunities; just that they can present opportunities that now will likely not happen, and I agree that the missed opportunity when it comes to Age of Calamity was more the fault of its marketing rather than the game itself. That's the reason I tried to put more emphasis on the Crisis Core remake and how only people who still own a PSP can play the original Crisis Core, so changing Crisis Core to be in line with FF7R is a disservice to anyone who wanted to play Crisis Core and didn't own a PSP.

A version of Age of Calamity that had both the original timeline and the alternate timeline as separate campaigns would have been amazing.

 

8 hours ago, CyberZord said:

3. Undermining the original games- Hard agree with what you list within your third point. When I figured out that

  Reveal hidden contents

Age of Calamity was going to go in the direction of a "Perfect Timeline" of sorts where the "Calamity" mentioned in Breath of the Wild never actually happens,

it ruined AoC a good bit for me tbh. These alternate-timelines that these games choose to take ruin the original games (at least ones with a canon, set timeline of events) when they choose to deviate from the canon and do something drastically different. Now, for a video game like Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, it doesn't really matter because Three Houses never really had a set, canon timeline, so Three Hopes going with a very different story doesn't really harm the original game's story. I'd say the biggest problem with Age of Calamity is that it was marketed as a game that would show the events of 100 years before Breath of the Wild (and show the events that would lead into that game), and while that 100 years ago thing was accurate, the events that played out didn't line up with Link's Memories in BoTW.

As for an alternate title for this topic, the best I can think of is: "The Problems with Alternate-Timeline Video Games" or "Why Alternate-Timeline Video Games Don't Work". I don't think you could reword the title of this topic without it sounding at least a bit like clickbait, but I do think that the title of this topic could be shortened.

Thanks. Yeah; I agree that Three Hopes is pretty much harmless and that Three Houses already having multiple routes made it a perfect fit for having an alternate-timeline spinoff.

Thanks; I'll shorten the title.

Edited July 6, 2022 by vanguard333

[Fabulously Olivier]

I think AoC was only egregious because the story people wanted was never actually experienced.

 

Three Hopes' alternate timeline is perfect.

 

Final Fantasy 7's story was told already. It is more interesting for its remake to tell something new. And as a newcomer to the series who had never liked a Final Fantasy game before, 7 Remake wasn't alienating - it was fun and refreshing. 

[vanguard333]

8 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I think AoC was only egregious because the story people wanted was never actually experienced.

 

Three Hopes' alternate timeline is perfect.

 

Final Fantasy 7's story was told already. It is more interesting for its remake to tell something new. And as a newcomer to the series who had never liked a Final Fantasy game before, 7 Remake wasn't alienating - it was fun and refreshing. 

I suppose. I do agree however with those that argue that the plot of AoC goes against Breath of the Wild's theme of bouncing back after failure.

I did say that I consider Three Hopes to be a benign example.

The problem I see with that is that there already was plenty of opportunity for the remake to tell new things while still being a remake; speaking as a newcomer who never played a Final Fantasy game before FF7R and did feel alienated by the reveal that the game was actually an alternate timeline, I found stuff like the Jessie backstory chapter a lot more fun and interesting than anything involving the Whispers.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Time travel is a major element of Zelda so it doesn't bother me. But this is very much a case where they could have had their cake and ate it too.

 

In Warriors Orochi 3, you see things go wrong and then you use time travel to fix it. In some cases, you CAN'T save a character the first time you do a mission until someone you recruit later can be taken back to solve the problem. So you get both experiences. You get the darkest timeline and then the happy ending. It's how time travel should be handled.

[Etrurian emperor]

16 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

1. They are alienating to newcomers.

On a purely anecdotal level I don't think this has to be much of a problem. I never played the original FF7 and I didn't feel I missed anything. Granted FF7's holy cow status within gaming means I knew post twist in the original through cultural osmosis, but I suspect that many people who now jumped onto the FF7 train were in the same boat unless they're really new to the medium. 

16 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

2. They present missed opportunities

That is true but it can also introduce new opportunities. From what I heard Barrett was kind of a racist stereotype before but now he's quite the great character. Similarly I think everyone seems to agree the new Jessie is adorable, and President Shinra seems more imposing. A remake can be a tool to expand on certain characters or update characters that might not be acceptable anymore.

16 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

3. They can undermine important parts of the original. (spoilers ahead)

That's something I think FF7R did suffer from in one area. The game seemed to completely miss the point about sephiroth and insisted to depict him as boring as possible. Also the idea of Cloud and co having a final boss fight with him at the end seems kind of lore breaking, since the big power difference between Sephiroth and the gang was kind of a big deal in the original. 

[vanguard333]

33 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

On a purely anecdotal level I don't think this has to be much of a problem. I never played the original FF7 and I didn't feel I missed anything. Granted FF7's holy cow status within gaming means I knew post twist in the original through cultural osmosis, but I suspect that many people who now jumped onto the FF7 train were in the same boat unless they're really new to the medium.

I never played the original either, and I did know about most of FF7's twists thanks to cultural osmosis as well, and I still found the alternate-timeline reveal a little alienating. I knew the major twists, but I don't know all the events of the original FF7; not even close, so a lot of the stuff where it went "we're being an alternate timeline" threw me off.

 

34 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

That is true but it can also introduce new opportunities. From what I heard Barrett was kind of a racist stereotype before but now he's quite the great character. Similarly I think everyone seems to agree the new Jessie is adorable, and President Shinra seems more imposing. A remake can be a tool to expand on certain characters or update characters that might not be acceptable anymore.

All those changes could still have been done with a remake rather than an alternate timeline. Your last sentence even says, "a remake can be a tool to expand on certain characters or update characters that might not be acceptable anymore", so I'm kind-of confused.

 

36 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

That's something I think FF7R did suffer from in one area. The game seemed to completely miss the point about sephiroth and insisted to depict him as boring as possible. Also the idea of Cloud and co having a final boss fight with him at the end seems kind of lore breaking, since the big power difference between Sephiroth and the gang was kind of a big deal in the original. 

Yeah; the boss fight with Sephiroth in particular was weird. I was a little forgiving of his early appearances in the game as hallucinations, as everyone today knows that Sephiroth is the villain where back when FF7 released it was a twist that he was the villain, but then it just went really weird and, as you said, boring.

[Capt. Fargus]

Maybe Im alone in this but as one who’s never played the ones the OP mentioned I wouldn’t find that alienating. Or at the very least it wouldnt stop me from enjoying the game. Id manage to put the story together somehow 

[lenticular]

As someone who disliked both FF7 and BotW (yes, yes, I know, double blasphemy), I wasn't really impacted by either of these two specific examples since I wasn't interested to begin with. I'm fairly sure that both of them would have irritated me greatly if I had been interested, though. I don't think it's the case that alternate timelines are worse than faithful remakes or faithful remakes are worse than reimaginings or anything like that. Tastes vary. No matter what route a game developer takes with their remake, there are going to be some people who are completely into it and some people who really wish they'd gone in a different direction. That's just inevitable.

I think that the problem comes when what the game delivers is not what was promised. Since you can't please everyone, what I want is to have an accurate description of what the game is and then I can decide for myself whether I'm part of the target audience or not. If the game isn't going to be what I wanted then I can just skip it and no harm, no foul. And I do get it. For some people, being surprised by the divergence from expectations is part of the appeal. So I can see some justification to being secretive about that sort of thing. But that sort of misdirection is always going to alienate a proportion of the player base.

Ultimately, I see it as a "caveat emptor" sort of situation. I never preorder games, I usually wait until at least a week after they're released before buying them, so I can check how they're received, and I do my best to avoid being caught up in hype. That way I'm less likely to end up in the sort of situation where I will feel misled, and can instead just chalk things up as not for me and move on without any hurt feelings or wasted money.

[Jotari]

I don't think alienating new comers is actually that big an issue. So long as the game is actually good. Like, imagine we didn't get Fire Emblem Awakening, instead we got Fire Emblem Chrom's Quest, a tale about the tragic down fall of a protagonist who is eventually betrayed by his best friend. Then, four years later they release Fire Emblem Awakening, an alternate timeline sequel where Chrom's young daughter travels back in time to undo the events that lead to the destruction of her world. Would Awakening be any more alienating to new comers than it is already with the existence of this hypothetical Chrom's Quest game? The answer is no, if it were written and framed in the same way as it is. People can understand alternate continuities and time travel and parallel worlds. So long as a game does it right, it shouldn't be an issue (from what very little I've seen from FFVII Remake, I don't think they did do it right, at least for the scene I've seen, which involved some monster thing showing the characters iconic clips from Advent Children and stuff, which I criticize for being meaningful only because they are recognizable to the player while they should be absolutely meaningless to the characters in question).

I actually have experience with this first hand. I played Valkyrie Profile 2 before Valkyrie Profile 1 (and, in fact, still haven't played 1).  It's a game that presents itself as a prequel to the first game going through events that were partly referenced in the first game's backstory. But then towards the end it reveals itself as a time travel plot with continuity diverging from what was established in the first game pretty radically. This was not overwhelming or confusing to me at all, because, well, the characters themselves explain what's going on. I still don't know what from Valkyrie Profile 2 was a nod to things established in Valkyrie Profile 1 and what was clever subvsersions, but I didn't need to know to understand Valkyrie Profile 2's pretty decent story. Would playing the first game have enhanced the experience? Maybe, though considering people seem to dislike the second game and love the first game, it might have actually been to the detriment of the game (I personally really enjoyed Valkyrie Profile 2). Not playing the first game certainly didn't make it alienating though, because the game did a good enough job of establishing it's context and actually explaining what was going on, which should be a prerequisite of a game whether it's an alternate timeline or not.

[vanguard333]

…It turns out that I was rather quick to criticize Crisis Core Reunion. A recent interview with the game's producer revealed that the tweet referring to the game as "a prequel to Final Fantasy 7 Remake" was just for marketing purposes and Reunion will in fact be a "faithful retelling" of the original Crisis Core with the story intact. In other words: 

Spoiler

They are not going to change the ending so that Zack survives, and the game is still going to be a prequel to FF7

 

I don't know if I should edit my topic to reflect this new information or not; on the one hand, it means it's no longer a valid example, but on the other hand, the concern over whether or not Crisis Core Reunion would alter things to reflect FF7R was the thing that inspired me to make this topic.

[Jotari]

On 7/7/2022 at 5:52 AM, Etrurian emperor said:

Also the idea of Cloud and co having a final boss fight with him at the end seems kind of lore breaking, since the big power difference between Sephiroth and the gang was kind of a big deal in the original. 

I haven't played Remake, but unless they've changed the continuity of the backstory quite a bit, it's impossible for the party to actually even fight Sephiroth outside of the Northern Crater. What they must have fought was Jenova, whom you do fight several times throughout the game, only I guess this time she fought using the Sephiroth form rather than transforming into a big mass of tentacles.

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

…It turns out that I was rather quick to criticize Crisis Core Reunion. A recent interview with the game's producer revealed that the tweet referring to the game as "a prequel to Final Fantasy 7 Remake" was just for marketing purposes and Reunion will in fact be a "faithful retelling" of the original Crisis Core with the story intact. In other words: 

  Hide contents

They are not going to change the ending so that Zack survives, and the game is still going to be a prequel to FF7

 

I don't know if I should edit my topic to reflect this new information or not; on the one hand, it means it's no longer a valid example, but on the other hand, the concern over whether or not Crisis Core Reunion would alter things to reflect FF7R was the thing that inspired me to make this topic.

Was there anything to actually suggest the backstory went down differently in the "remake"?

[vanguard333]

45 minutes ago, Jotari said:

 

Was there anything to actually suggest the backstory went down differently in the "remake"?

Spoiler

In the backstory of the original FF7, Zack died, and his death caused, among other things, Cloud to misremember things and become convinced that he was a SOLDIER 1st Class. Crisis Core is all about Zack and his time as a SOLDIER leading up to his death, with his death being the last mission in the game. Final Fantasy 7 Remake and all the pre-release information for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth heavily implies that, in its timeline, Zack is somehow alive and will play a major role in the plot.

 

51 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I haven't played Remake, but unless they've changed the continuity of the backstory quite a bit, it's impossible for the party to actually even fight Sephiroth outside of the Northern Crater. What they must have fought was Jenova, whom you do fight several times throughout the game, only I guess this time she fought using the Sephiroth form rather than transforming into a big mass of tentacles.

Spoilers for FF7 Remake:

Spoiler

Remake is an alternate-timeline caused by Sephiroth and Aerith somehow becoming aware of the events of Final Fantasy 7, with Sephiroth actively working to change events and prevent his ultimate defeat. The boss fight against him at the end of the game is still weird and convoluted even in context; I know I don't really understand it.