Hi. I just played the 12.1 revamp version and I played the original completely first and so far the revamp is incredibly great. I am just confused about something in the story. Was it intended for Mikhail's backstory to be exactly the same as Zack's backstory from the beginning or (and please don't take this the wrong way) were you just being lazy in your story telling. I do not remember, at the beginning, anything that suggested that the backstory was not Zack's and was him just repeating what Mikhail told him so I am confused as to who's backstory is real and what the story is telling me. I really like this story but I need some clarification on this so it makes sense to me.
heya, so nothing changed from that scene in the original story versus the revamp.
[SPOILER]
in that scene with mikhail, mikhail is indeed referencing the beginning prologue of the game. the beginning of the game was intentionally misleading to make the reader think it was zack but it wasn't. throughout the original story (and the revamp) we will get extremely limited backstory of zack. i didn't want zack backstory in the game, i thought that it was more powerful to have his backstory ambiguous and left up to the reader, allowing them to justify some of his decisions or mindset. but in terms of the mikahil scene: that scene was done for a couple of reasons. i wanted zack to view mikhail as this powerful character but i wanted mikhail to actually have some backstory where he wasn't and i wanted him to be able to empathize with zack while coming from that part of himself. i also wanted to depict the idea that being strong isn't necessarily something you're just born with. mikhail's character is pretty consistent in that many of his weaknesses are things that he learned to overcome. i think that's a hopeful message and i think it's something that makes mikhail a much stronger character. it's also a hopeful message to zack in that he is very stuck within his own head and sometimes hopeless and to realize that a powerful friend of his, that he looks up to, has actually struggled with the same idea before and overcame it is incredibly validating and hopeful. i'll also say that the prologue was intentionally shot in black and white so it helps mask the skin tones a bit but if you look closely at the prologue pictures, it was clearly mikhail in the prologue pictures and not zack, mikhail was just a bit younger then so his frame is thinner and he didn't have his tattoo yet but facial structure (what parts you see) as well as his hair and other physical features are all the same. the first time we see zack in the game is in the dorm room.
thanks a lot. glad to clear it up. i think it was less obvious in the original because i had very limited scenes in the prologue, which is one of the reasons it was completely redone with new visuals but i like introducing mikhail very early like that. it means he's always been present in the story and it's one of the very few cases in the game where we see anything that happened prior to when the story started. thanks for reading and hope you enjoy the rest of the revamp <3