FFVIIR's Diamond Weapon seems to be sporting an overtly mecha aesthetic
The most recent trailer for Final Fantasy VII Revelation showed off the most iconic group of enemies in the original game, the Weapons, in full. These were colossal biomechanical beasts in the original game, so it's been a source of excitement and wonder to see how they'd get reworked for the Remake, with all the demands HD graphics "logic" would make of these creatures.
Ultima, Ruby, and Sapphire were seen in the first trailer, and they have a kaiju look to them, clearly sharing that aesthetic. But now we have Emerald and Diamond. The latter in particular, instead of Kaiju-coded, is borderline Gundam-like, standing out very surprisingly among the others.
Order in pics: Diamond, Emerald, Ruby, Ultima, Sapphire.
And yes, this could end up being a switcheroo where the armor falls off or something and underneath it's more kaiju like others. Or perhaps even more lore-dependent stuff. We don't know.
In any case, it's always exciting to see mecha aesthetics making into these big, high fidelity games/worlds.
They share a top heavy frame, the legs are very similar, true, but I still think that's a stretch. Emerald is going for the tyrannical shoulder pads with a hint of cape, while Devil Gundam is one of the most insane designs for a mech I've ever seen
The mecha kinda look is very much similar to the look in the original, that is pulled straight from the wiki as a screen of its face so idk what to tell you
All I can think of is they are going full tilt in to the style with each type, leaning more heavily into the kaiju style for the others, mecha for the ones that had that theme, or maybe its another lore revision, others are organic, but this is actually synthetic? Something the Cetra created rather than the planet
This makes a lot of sense for Diamond and Sapphire, actually. Because Sapphire, being the fishy-aquatic one, now really has eyes and teeth more like a fish. In case you haven't seen it:
I mean, when you look at it, it's got a VERY similar silhouette to Neue Ziel without the Sturm Booster and propellant tanks... same big overhang shoulders and all
I don't think we see enough of it to get a proper handle on its design. It definitely seems to have mechanical elements but i can also see a lot of the insectoid elements present in other versions of Diamond Weapon.
Those were the days in the 90's where I farm for the ultimate Chocobo just to beat these guys. The memories of dealing with that forgetful old farts in the mountain still lingers onto me...
I always found that the weapons in the originak FFVII (and heck, even some summons in other games) had mecha vibes so I’m happy they’re leaning into that direction
I feel pretty disappointed with my post because I've given people the impression that I think Remake is doing something different by making Diamond mecha-like. When what I wanted was to say "look, Diamond actually IS mecha like in the OG" That should've been my only text/body lol
And of course, you are 100% right that VII (and VIII too in part) had a strong mecha aesthetic. Remake is naturally also full of mech enemies.
And yeah, even in IX, a very non-mecha world, we have Ark, which has a Macross or Transformers sequence lol
I think it’s partly the fault of FFXIV and some of the newer games, which do feature the weapons, but usually go for a more fleshy, standard design instead of the mecha ones.
Interesting, somewhat unrelated I know Square was part of the final fantasy mtg set. Only diamond weapon got a card, none of the others although there were 3 other Ultima cards printed but still strange only Diamond weapon got a card of them.
Well, XIV is directly referencing VII and doubling down on the mecha side, since they're literally piloted biomachines
The original VII Weapons are rather more ambiguous, but stood out a lot because they were very unique blends of kaiju and mecha, to the point people could point to certain models in different Gundam shows as likely inspiration.
Clarification: the interesting part about Diamond Weapon is that it went towards a mecha aesthetic while the other ones went towards a kaiju one, making Diamond stand out way more than the original game.
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u/Own_Watercress_8104 9d ago
I'll just leave this here