I don't want Final Fantasy VII to become like Kingdom Hearts

Concept art of Sephiroth and Cloud

I started this year with a notion to make it the Year of JRPG's, #theyearofjrpg, and I have so far been through Persona 3 and 4, started with Final Fantasy V and is currently finishing of Final Fantasy VII. For this reason I was surfing the internet for some information about the new re-release (for that is what it is) of FFVII on ps4, something it have been really quiet about since the announcement. There I read a post about it, saying that there is more to the re-release of FFVII than we think, stating that games like Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus and other media that was produced during the middle of 00's like Advent Children, was building up to something, that there was lore to take from, for a sequel to the original Final Fantasy VII, and that the re-release would remind, or initiate, people to the game, to set up a new one. If you're more interested, read the article.

As I was reading about the possible storyline of a new game, and the references to Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core-plots, I got this horrible feeling of deja vu...

The logo for Dirge of Cerberus, almost looks a bit like KH

I first played Kingdom Hearts when they released it in 2002, and absolutely loved it. I heard that there was a spin-of on the Game Boy Advance, but didn't pay it much mind, I was only 13, and didn't have the money for a GBA anyway so. But then KH2 came out and I realized something was wrong. why is Sora trapped in a white thing at the start? That's not how the first game ended. I gnawed at me throughout the game, a game I still really liked, but I couldn't feel connected to as the first. the GBA game Chain of Memories, had not been a side-story, but a direct sequel to the first game, meaning that I missed out on some of the lore in the world I was playing. This is not how it is supposed to work, I should be able to play the first and second game without feeling like I've missed something, and I just dread for the people who played Kingdom Hearts one and two and then nothing, and are still longing for the third one, because they loved the main games, but never bothered with the side-games. They are going to be incredibly confused, I am probably, even though I've played most of the side-games as well, going to be really confused, I am already! You can't make a sequel to a game based on lore from a spin-of.

The Emotions...

I love Final Fantasy VII, played it through probably around ten times since I acquired it in 1999. I love the game, and I realize more and more things about it and the world every time I play it. When I read about the lore in the other games, I felt the same feeling as I do when I think of Kingdom Hearts. It's getting too complicated, and it's taking lore from the spin-of games to build on the new one. I don't want this, it's already too complicated. Final Fantasy VII had at its core a simple storyline. It starts off as a people versus the establishment, and had a environmental theme throughout the game, bad guy shows up, the way the bad guy threatens the planet is in line with what has been established about the planet, it's complicated, but not too complicated. It makes you think. Having a sequel that builds on a spin-of, that builds on the main game, gets a bit too complicated, for there are suddenly a lot more to follow, if you want to understand everything, and for people who didn't own a PSP, or didn't played Dirge of Cerberus, which was a LOT of people, they've suddenly missed a big chunk of what the story is based on.

Still, the worst part is the supposed villain. The first game establishes it pretty well, Sephiroth is the biggest and the best member of SOLDIER, and is a man that in the end was one with the planet, a God literary, and we kicked his ass (another common FF-theme)! To put another First Class SOLDIER that Sephiroth could have easily won over (and if he didn't in some spin-of I haven't played, I call bullshit) is just anti-climactic. Cloud and the gang managed to defeat him, the biggest threat in the world. The new guy would spend the entire game running from an inevitable Omnislash to the face. Maybe they could pull it of, if the bad guy was some new kind of Ancient Weapon, something that builds on what we know of Final Fantasy VII.

The supposed hinted villain of a hypothetical FFVII-2

There is the core of it, a hypothetical Final Fantasy VII-2 would have to take its story and setting from the original game, and honestly completely disregard the spin-of games, do a Lucas and declare them not canon, let them be rumours or fan-fiction by Tetsuya Nomura. I'm not completely against a sequel, there might be something to build on here, even though I rather never see one, as it might risk tarnishing the original game even more. But don't make a Kingdom Hearts and alienate more people than necessary. A spin-of is not a sequel, and to market a sequel as a spin-of is misleading from the start, and that's what Kingdom Hearts does, they make sequels. so please Square-Enix, don't do the same to Final Fantasy VII, or you might want to start locking your doors.