Tophokles
196 reviews liked by Tophokles
Xenogears
1998
Gave myself a day to kinda just sit with the whole experience of my first playthrough. Xenogears is one of those games that kinda just existed within the culture in a way where I always heard people vaguely gesture at its greatness, but never actually got any full details about what exactly made it so great. So for years and years and years and years and years I kinda just kept putting it off, playing many other games before and after it, hearing about its complexities but never really the details as of what those complexities were. Finally experiencing it for myself I completely get it.
An experience that is some parts Neon Genesis Evangelion, some parts Gundam some parts sci-fi novels and films, Xenogears wears all of its inspirations firmly on its sleeve and proudly bears it all as it goes into its own psychological, religious explorations of the self.
The ways in which it talks about running away from your problems rather than dealing with them and how that inevitably comes to bite you in the ass, there's a quite good example with the martial arts tournament you enter that genuinely surprised me when it happened.
The ways it delves into how trauma can inform and explain behaviors, can cause people to drift one way or another instead of facing the real problems within themselves, be lead to more and differing kinds of abuses, or completely shut themselves down due to their inability to truly cope with the things that've happened to them. But it also firmly discusses how important it is to continue to live, to continue to fight and go on despite the struggles we face in life, how we have to take responsibility for ourselves and the things we do despite our traumas, that again our traumas can be an explanation for behaviors and actions you may take, but at the end of the day you have to be responsible for your own actions.
There are a few characters I do wish were able to get more from the story (Rico, Maria, Chu Chu) and the very clear rushing of things does absolutely fuck with what was clearly supposed to be this ambitious and sprawling experience, though I will say in spite of the clear rush job that Disc 2 ends up as, I genuinely still quite loved the way they handle the presentation and style. Some of the quick cuts are really sharp and effective, I dig the kinda play stage type beat they do for some of the cutscenes they didn't have time to fully make enviornments for, I like the way they frame each part from differing characters POV's. There's a lot of cool things that make that second disc really interesting, kinda reflecting episodes 25 and 26 of NGE in ways.
It's such a strange feeling in ways cause like I kinda despised the gameplay at times (ground combat relies a bit too heavily on deathblows and grinding them out where-as I feel like the Gear combat is a bit better balanced in terms of building up to your deathblows and having to strategically manage your fuel levels in interesting ways). But even though I wasn't huge on the combat or some of the dungeon design (fuck Babel Tower) the whole thing just really came together for me. Everything it was doing was absolutely fuckin aces, it honestly reminded me of watching NGE for the first time as a teenager AS WELL AS watching both Shiki-Jitsu and Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 with what exactly it was going for in its messaging and just how much it resonated with me. How much Fei's character arc resonated with me, how dense and packed of an experience it was overall.
I think I can safely say that I'm getting into the series cause I wanna see what else can come from anyone involved who was able to put this together.
An experience that is some parts Neon Genesis Evangelion, some parts Gundam some parts sci-fi novels and films, Xenogears wears all of its inspirations firmly on its sleeve and proudly bears it all as it goes into its own psychological, religious explorations of the self.
The ways in which it talks about running away from your problems rather than dealing with them and how that inevitably comes to bite you in the ass, there's a quite good example with the martial arts tournament you enter that genuinely surprised me when it happened.
The ways it delves into how trauma can inform and explain behaviors, can cause people to drift one way or another instead of facing the real problems within themselves, be lead to more and differing kinds of abuses, or completely shut themselves down due to their inability to truly cope with the things that've happened to them. But it also firmly discusses how important it is to continue to live, to continue to fight and go on despite the struggles we face in life, how we have to take responsibility for ourselves and the things we do despite our traumas, that again our traumas can be an explanation for behaviors and actions you may take, but at the end of the day you have to be responsible for your own actions.
There are a few characters I do wish were able to get more from the story (Rico, Maria, Chu Chu) and the very clear rushing of things does absolutely fuck with what was clearly supposed to be this ambitious and sprawling experience, though I will say in spite of the clear rush job that Disc 2 ends up as, I genuinely still quite loved the way they handle the presentation and style. Some of the quick cuts are really sharp and effective, I dig the kinda play stage type beat they do for some of the cutscenes they didn't have time to fully make enviornments for, I like the way they frame each part from differing characters POV's. There's a lot of cool things that make that second disc really interesting, kinda reflecting episodes 25 and 26 of NGE in ways.
It's such a strange feeling in ways cause like I kinda despised the gameplay at times (ground combat relies a bit too heavily on deathblows and grinding them out where-as I feel like the Gear combat is a bit better balanced in terms of building up to your deathblows and having to strategically manage your fuel levels in interesting ways). But even though I wasn't huge on the combat or some of the dungeon design (fuck Babel Tower) the whole thing just really came together for me. Everything it was doing was absolutely fuckin aces, it honestly reminded me of watching NGE for the first time as a teenager AS WELL AS watching both Shiki-Jitsu and Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 with what exactly it was going for in its messaging and just how much it resonated with me. How much Fei's character arc resonated with me, how dense and packed of an experience it was overall.
I think I can safely say that I'm getting into the series cause I wanna see what else can come from anyone involved who was able to put this together.
Some of the platforming challenges are a little too reliant on spikes with disjointed hitboxes that kill you instantly, but with a generous checkpoint system even that is rarely an issue.
The combat feels a little sluggish or basic at first, but once you get the feel of how to quickly access abilities to react to the environment and get a few upgrades, it flows really well.
The story and voice acting are so, so good. A setting like the one this game has is too rarely touched upon in popular media, and the world is portrayed in such an awesome way. A truly beautiful tale of grief, purpose, and life.
The combat feels a little sluggish or basic at first, but once you get the feel of how to quickly access abilities to react to the environment and get a few upgrades, it flows really well.
The story and voice acting are so, so good. A setting like the one this game has is too rarely touched upon in popular media, and the world is portrayed in such an awesome way. A truly beautiful tale of grief, purpose, and life.
Absolutely stunning visuals - the game nails the painting-like anime flair perfectly with tons of little touches to the shading and textures in both the characters and environment.
Tons of different playable characters with very distinct movesets, and at least most of the ones I tried felt fun to control with polished combat feel.
I think I would have preferred a more open-ended design akin to something like the recent Ys games, rather than the strictly mission-based structure in the game. But within that structure it does work well.
I enjoyed completing the main story, although the story was almost exclusively made of very, very familiar narrative elements. However, the particular type of long-term progression systems this game employs, which feels very reminiscent of the few mobile games I've tried, didn't click well with me, so just main story completion was satisfactory.
Tons of different playable characters with very distinct movesets, and at least most of the ones I tried felt fun to control with polished combat feel.
I think I would have preferred a more open-ended design akin to something like the recent Ys games, rather than the strictly mission-based structure in the game. But within that structure it does work well.
I enjoyed completing the main story, although the story was almost exclusively made of very, very familiar narrative elements. However, the particular type of long-term progression systems this game employs, which feels very reminiscent of the few mobile games I've tried, didn't click well with me, so just main story completion was satisfactory.
NieR Re[in]carnation
2021
![NieR Re[in]carnation](https://images.igdb.com/igdb/image/upload/t_cover_big/co7bm4.jpg)
If you're a Nier fan hear me out:
1) THE STORY IS EXTREMELLY GOOD, it's way worth watching it, it's on pair with the other 2 Nier games, this IS Nier 3, not because Yoko Taro says so, it's because the game's blatantly clear about it.
But most importantly, the story of Reincarnation fills all the holes and doubts in the Nier lore, I literally can't picture a 4th Nier game unless it's thousands of years in the future, but...
2) Gameplay SUCKS, it's not a good game, even for gacha standarts...
The gameplay it's just mash buttons or put auto-mode and make big numbers, if you have low numbers, you can't access Nier lore and have to go to make some pulls or use your sweet credit card.
And when I say you have to use your credit card, I mean you have to use it A LOT, because the grinding required to pass some stupid walls to continue the story is ASTRONOMIC. How ASTRONOMIC? Well, first wall can ask you for 5000 cristals and second wall ask you for 12000 OR 18000 OF THEM!!!
And don't think about using an emulator, yes you can use Macros to make grinding automatic and make sure you get those cristals (because yes, not only you have limited attempts but the fights not always leave you cristals, only the hardest quests guarantee you some) but due to it's gacha nature, your play time is limited with stamina, and it takes 24hs to refill it.
My recommendation:
- First (and this is optional), read the 10H mini-novel "A Much Too Silent Sea".
It's not mandatory, but it gives you context, it's like watching Ant-Man 2 to understand why in Endgame Scott was trapped in that machine.
Here's 10H novel: https://nier.fandom.com/wiki/A_Much_Too_Silent_Sea
2) Watch, the story on youtube. Again THE STORY IS REALLY WORTH WATCHING, but do not lose your time playing this thing.
The story is divided in 3 seasons and is already finished. The story of the 3 seasons together last almost 20hs.
I'll put the videos for all the seasons down below.
Shout out to BuffMaister for his hard work.
Season 1 Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbE-6D_dLPA&list=PLaoKfFfkcXxCHnkLqjm6DUKWpgBaqVBjQ&index=22
Season 2 Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whQCIqiGds8&t=15880s
Season 3 Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAam56qxIK0&t=25197s
And finally, it's a shame that Yoko Taro decided to make the 3rd Nier game a gacha... If this story was made in any other game format (aside of a light novel) it would easily be a master piece on pair with the other 2 games.
It pains me that a story this good and this beautiful won't be discovered for a lot of people because of this greedy and poor decision.
1) THE STORY IS EXTREMELLY GOOD, it's way worth watching it, it's on pair with the other 2 Nier games, this IS Nier 3, not because Yoko Taro says so, it's because the game's blatantly clear about it.
But most importantly, the story of Reincarnation fills all the holes and doubts in the Nier lore, I literally can't picture a 4th Nier game unless it's thousands of years in the future, but...
2) Gameplay SUCKS, it's not a good game, even for gacha standarts...
The gameplay it's just mash buttons or put auto-mode and make big numbers, if you have low numbers, you can't access Nier lore and have to go to make some pulls or use your sweet credit card.
And when I say you have to use your credit card, I mean you have to use it A LOT, because the grinding required to pass some stupid walls to continue the story is ASTRONOMIC. How ASTRONOMIC? Well, first wall can ask you for 5000 cristals and second wall ask you for 12000 OR 18000 OF THEM!!!
And don't think about using an emulator, yes you can use Macros to make grinding automatic and make sure you get those cristals (because yes, not only you have limited attempts but the fights not always leave you cristals, only the hardest quests guarantee you some) but due to it's gacha nature, your play time is limited with stamina, and it takes 24hs to refill it.
My recommendation:
- First (and this is optional), read the 10H mini-novel "A Much Too Silent Sea".
It's not mandatory, but it gives you context, it's like watching Ant-Man 2 to understand why in Endgame Scott was trapped in that machine.
Here's 10H novel: https://nier.fandom.com/wiki/A_Much_Too_Silent_Sea
2) Watch, the story on youtube. Again THE STORY IS REALLY WORTH WATCHING, but do not lose your time playing this thing.
The story is divided in 3 seasons and is already finished. The story of the 3 seasons together last almost 20hs.
I'll put the videos for all the seasons down below.
Shout out to BuffMaister for his hard work.
Season 1 Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbE-6D_dLPA&list=PLaoKfFfkcXxCHnkLqjm6DUKWpgBaqVBjQ&index=22
Season 2 Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whQCIqiGds8&t=15880s
Season 3 Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAam56qxIK0&t=25197s
And finally, it's a shame that Yoko Taro decided to make the 3rd Nier game a gacha... If this story was made in any other game format (aside of a light novel) it would easily be a master piece on pair with the other 2 games.
It pains me that a story this good and this beautiful won't be discovered for a lot of people because of this greedy and poor decision.
This review contains spoilers
This is a companion to my initial thoughts on Rebirth, and if you're like me and just kind of mindlessly click on things that are spoiler tagged, consider this your warning that I will be talking about the game's ending and many other elements unique to Rebirth's narrative. But first, I'm gonna start off by going over some stuff I missed in that first review: side quests are overall higher quality and hold a lot more intrinsic value (i.e. they're actually kinda rewarding on their own merit and not just for the rewards themselves; i love the one with the puppy and the one with the cats don't remember da rest tbh), however there's way more of them so numerically speaking there's a lot more stinkers and personally I'm just not a huuuge fan of gameifying progression within relationships -- the bright side of that is the relationship system isn't really that strict, and I think you get more relationship boosts for just playing the main scenario and using synergy abilities than you'd expect. Didn't really annoy me as much as other AAA games, but I'd say I prefer just having relationships form naturally through the narrative (or have the progression be invisible like the original, at least until new game plus, which they did partially do).
On that note, I really loved the chapter 12 visit to the Gold Saucer; Final Fantasy VII finally has its 90s love ballad and I think compared to its PSX Final Fantasy theme song brethren it's my new favorite (still fucking love Eyes on Me and Melodies of Life tho). Highly recommend aiming for the Tifa date, it's really awkward how non-present she is in the Loveless sequence compared to other characters when you go for Aerith being the princess in the Loveless play, and her little words of encouragement to Aerith before she sings is so cute (me when I see a girl being nice to another girl in a piece of media: she's literally me). I'm happy it's pretty easy to go back and see different variations of the date in new game plus though. Also Cloud and Tifa in the ferris wheel was pretty cute, and he wasn't a butthole for once, which like god damn he fucking SUCKS in this game it kinda rules.
I think my one major gripe is that they added a new sequence to the Gongaga Reactor portion where Cloud essentially puts Tifa in mortal peril, but nobody feels as upset about it as they should? Like maybe I'm just reading the scenes wrong, and it does fit into Tifa's character at this point in the narrative that she would forgive him given some time, but kinda felt like there needed to be a little more exploration on the emotional and physical implications of Cloud's mental degradation and the potential danger the people he cares about face because of that. It's a very cool sequence regardless, which tbh I think is me being biased cuz 50% of it has Tifa as the temporary party leader.
There's other things that I think people are gonna bitch about that I kinda see the value in adding, like Yuffie's presidential assassination attempt is pretty fucking cool imo, very based of her. Roche's little side plot is extremely Final Fantasy and I'm here for it, mostly for the homoeroticism. I love how often Tifa and Aerith have to bitch at Cloud for being a creep/weirdo/insecure prick, it rules. I love how much the characters suck in this game while still feeling like they're just trying their best to do the right thing. Really wish they were more okay with wanton murder of Shinra employees and the other unamibiguously evil wastes of breath that exist in this game's world, but I guess this ain't that kinda story so I'll take what I can get.
So uh, the multiverse, huh? Yeah, it's a tough thing to unpack considering it's not actually all that present within the core narrative, mostly showing up between major events and culminating in the finale. I wanna say first off, I fucking hate multiverse shit; most of the time it's utilized when a story has nowhere else to go or to cheaply introduce fan service. And I won't say that Rebirth's utilization of multiverse theory isn't at least partly the latter, but it's definitely more complicated than that, because like the wisps in Remake, the utilization of alternate "timelines" (I believe they're referred to as worlds in the game itself) due to Sephiroth and Aerith's meddling with the built-in defense mechanisms of the planet that maintained a specific planetary determinism had actual consequences. It's, extremely heady to say the least, but that's Final Fantasy, baby!
I honestly expected that the Zack sections of the game would take up like 30% of the game or something, but I'd estimate it's somewhere closer to between 1% and 5%. And like, another preface here to show how meaningful it is that these sequences mostly worked for me: I do not like Crisis Core. I think it's stinky, it's bad, and I don't really hate Zack as much as I found his story to be really pointless and centered around needless fan service; like if they made a whole game about FF6 Locke's ex-gf or something and the intro involved the magitek armors going to Narshe while Terra's theme played for some reason. But it's whatever I'm over its whole existence, and I kinda like Zack he's a fun little guy, hard to hate him really, and outside of the context of Crisis Core I learned to appreciate him. And while my initial reaction to the ending was, "well, what was the fucking point of the multiverse shit then", it eventually sunk in for me what they were going for by adapting it in this way.
It's a bit of a mystery box, but unlike most mystery boxes (like Lost if it it was only a little bit stupid and not completely stupid), people were able to kind of predict this one correctly! Aerith doesn't die! And I mean, she does die, but I'm kind of cautiously really fucking down with what they're doing by placing Cloud's consciousness between two different worlds essentially, one where he saved Aerith and his actual reality where Aerith dies, and how that specifically adds to both his visible mental degradation and an even deeper inability to cope with the loss of Aerith. At least that's my interpretation since they go out of their way to show that Aerith's "spirit" was noticed by Nanaki in the final scene and that it wasn't an outright hallucination on Cloud's part, which I would've preferred, but I can see what they're cooking here.
I mean, really, I would've preferred none of this extra shit, and the way the leads devs talk about the "shock value" of it all is definitely off-putting, but I think... I think it kinda works? I'm pretty sure Aerith died in the original for pretty similar developmental reasons, and while I def need even more time to really figure out why it ended up working, it definitely left me in kind of malaise that not many other games since like, the ending of Drakengard 3 or something have made me feel for days on end.
But what's especially interesting is that my initial reaction to Aerith's death scene was outright confusion and frustration as it was extremely difficult to parse if she was actually alive or not until I beat the final boss -- but I believe that's kind of the point. Both Cloud and the player are in denial, how much of what happens in the final sequence is real and how much of it is a "fever dream", as Sephiroth puts it, is up to player interpretation. There's some physically established reality to the multiverse shit ofc, but thematically speaking, making the two characters that show up for Cloud in these dream-like sequences be Zack and Aerith fits so fucking well into Cloud's inability to process loss that I feel that was more the intention than simply fan service. Also Biggs and Zack being buddies is kinda cute, but from a utilitarian perspective these sequences help to prove that the dying worlds are indeed really happening, and not necessarily just "Aerith's dreams" or purely in Cloud's mind, even if functionally that's kind of what they end up being since I think (?) they're connected through the lifestream, which up to this point only really Sephiroth and Aerith have been able to navigate.
Again, not really the direction I would've personally chosen, and there are some aspects lost in terms of impact in Aerith's death scene, particularly Cloud's speech (which is more implied by voiceless cutaways within the "Aerith dies" universe) and the individual reactions each character once had are no longer there, which makes sense when you consider there like 7 other dudes there now when last time you just had two other characters in your party during that scene. But it'd be remiss if I didn't mention that a lot has been gained: both Barret and Tifa's reactions are so visceral that it's difficult to outright dismiss this iteration, at least until you're thrown into a 10 phase boss battle, which if that loses you after that point, I guess I can't blame you. I don't think the reality of it all is fully lost in the end though, the game takes ample time to linger on the loss of the party's beloved flower girl, in such a way that I can't really stop thinking about it, even days after completing the game for the first time. The original scene makes me cry every time without fail, but there's something to be said for how much feels truly lost this time, how much more Aerith means to the party and to the player this time around is much more "real" in a way that the original game was only able to suggest in key moments.
Basically, the multiverse is there for fan service to a certain degree, but a) it's not some annoying MCU bullshit like people are gonna inevitably strawman it as, and b) it's more there to create a physical representation of Cloud's grief, and while I think it significantly detracts from the force of nature that Sephiroth could feel like in the original, there's something going on here that feels unabashedly Final Fantasy VII, and not even in the shitty ass Compilation way, just the way it chose to expand on the emotional core of the original without necessarily stepping too far out of the game's already somewhat flimsy physical rules. Like seriously, the reason we love Final Fantasy VII in the first place is because there is no place the game was afraid to go. Not perfect, but it feels special all the same. Also Tifa's reaction to Aerith's death is so fucking raw, and Cloud just smiling away because he has a ghost gf now is just, absolutely fucking gutwrenching, I love it man. I'm glad at least Nanaki is comforting Tifa in the final scene or else I think I'd be emotionally ruined probably. Can't wait for Cloud to be absolutely unbearable for the first 30 hours of part 3!!!
And on that note, Part 3 is probably gonna be the weakest of the trilogy, both in terms of narrative and gameplay, so I'm not too gutted about having to wait 4 years for the finale, but I'm excited nonetheless. I'm not really sure what they're gonna do for the areas you're expected to return to though? Either way, I hope the open world shit is toned a bit overall, more condensed regions similar to Nibelheim and Junon would be nice. There's lots of hints of extra shit that didn't exist in the original's disc 2 and 3, and that kinda makes sense when you stop and consider just how empty disc 2 kinda feels towards the end, particularly compared to disc 1. Really excited for part 3 to have a Sonic Adventure 2-esque opening where Cloud snowboards away from his troubles...
Idk man, maybe I'm being too lenient, but it's just Final Fantasy in the end; if people can love the endings to games like FF8 and FF10, then FF7 Rebirth is like easy mode compared to those two games' fucking insane stories. 10 years from now it'll maybe still hold some level of controversy within broader gaming culture, mostly by people who were told to be mad about it by the internet, but I feel like the consensus will turn out to be mostly positive. I think back to the first time I played the original Final Fantasy VII, there are so many aspects of that game that I found to be really fucking stupid back then, that now I deeply cherish -- I wouldn't have them any other way, in their own right, of course.
At the same time though, I get it if it didn't work for you, cuz it almost didn't work for me, and I might have just gaslit myself into loving it as a coping mechanism (kinda meta when you think about it...). Also why does Chadley talk like he's presenting a Nintendo Direct and why is he a horrible misogynist to his vtuber pokedex daughter, she didn't do anything wrong besides infodump about her special interests...... :(
edit: after reading details from the Rebirth Ultimania that just released and also after rewatching the final scenes several times after the past month, i think the vagueness is intentional from a thematic sense since so much is unclear to cloud himself, the player surrogate
i feel like soooo much "theorycrafting" misses the like
thematic point of a lot of these things. whether the aerith we're seeing at various points in the finale are lifestream aerith or sephiroth hallucination aerith doesn't ultimately matter because it serves two points:
a) to demonstrate's clouds mental and emotional degradation, he is at his lowest point yet. he can't even see what's right in front of him -- aerith has died and tifa desperately needs his support. he is failing himself and the people around him. the only productive thing he ultimately does is pointing out where to go next (but we all know what happens when he gets to northern crater with the black materia in-hand)
b) i think they really did want to give aerith a more meaningful goodbye, even if the rest of the party can't see it. she's made the ultimate sacrifice, and it allows the player to really understand the weight of what she's lost in allowing herself to perish to save the world
also it's not multiverses :) it's just other worlds existing in the lifestream shit, which is cool, and was mostly already clear in retrospect, i think gamer discourse jargon is destroying meaningful art discussion at times. once again, it's final fantasy baby!!
On that note, I really loved the chapter 12 visit to the Gold Saucer; Final Fantasy VII finally has its 90s love ballad and I think compared to its PSX Final Fantasy theme song brethren it's my new favorite (still fucking love Eyes on Me and Melodies of Life tho). Highly recommend aiming for the Tifa date, it's really awkward how non-present she is in the Loveless sequence compared to other characters when you go for Aerith being the princess in the Loveless play, and her little words of encouragement to Aerith before she sings is so cute (me when I see a girl being nice to another girl in a piece of media: she's literally me). I'm happy it's pretty easy to go back and see different variations of the date in new game plus though. Also Cloud and Tifa in the ferris wheel was pretty cute, and he wasn't a butthole for once, which like god damn he fucking SUCKS in this game it kinda rules.
I think my one major gripe is that they added a new sequence to the Gongaga Reactor portion where Cloud essentially puts Tifa in mortal peril, but nobody feels as upset about it as they should? Like maybe I'm just reading the scenes wrong, and it does fit into Tifa's character at this point in the narrative that she would forgive him given some time, but kinda felt like there needed to be a little more exploration on the emotional and physical implications of Cloud's mental degradation and the potential danger the people he cares about face because of that. It's a very cool sequence regardless, which tbh I think is me being biased cuz 50% of it has Tifa as the temporary party leader.
There's other things that I think people are gonna bitch about that I kinda see the value in adding, like Yuffie's presidential assassination attempt is pretty fucking cool imo, very based of her. Roche's little side plot is extremely Final Fantasy and I'm here for it, mostly for the homoeroticism. I love how often Tifa and Aerith have to bitch at Cloud for being a creep/weirdo/insecure prick, it rules. I love how much the characters suck in this game while still feeling like they're just trying their best to do the right thing. Really wish they were more okay with wanton murder of Shinra employees and the other unamibiguously evil wastes of breath that exist in this game's world, but I guess this ain't that kinda story so I'll take what I can get.
So uh, the multiverse, huh? Yeah, it's a tough thing to unpack considering it's not actually all that present within the core narrative, mostly showing up between major events and culminating in the finale. I wanna say first off, I fucking hate multiverse shit; most of the time it's utilized when a story has nowhere else to go or to cheaply introduce fan service. And I won't say that Rebirth's utilization of multiverse theory isn't at least partly the latter, but it's definitely more complicated than that, because like the wisps in Remake, the utilization of alternate "timelines" (I believe they're referred to as worlds in the game itself) due to Sephiroth and Aerith's meddling with the built-in defense mechanisms of the planet that maintained a specific planetary determinism had actual consequences. It's, extremely heady to say the least, but that's Final Fantasy, baby!
I honestly expected that the Zack sections of the game would take up like 30% of the game or something, but I'd estimate it's somewhere closer to between 1% and 5%. And like, another preface here to show how meaningful it is that these sequences mostly worked for me: I do not like Crisis Core. I think it's stinky, it's bad, and I don't really hate Zack as much as I found his story to be really pointless and centered around needless fan service; like if they made a whole game about FF6 Locke's ex-gf or something and the intro involved the magitek armors going to Narshe while Terra's theme played for some reason. But it's whatever I'm over its whole existence, and I kinda like Zack he's a fun little guy, hard to hate him really, and outside of the context of Crisis Core I learned to appreciate him. And while my initial reaction to the ending was, "well, what was the fucking point of the multiverse shit then", it eventually sunk in for me what they were going for by adapting it in this way.
It's a bit of a mystery box, but unlike most mystery boxes (like Lost if it it was only a little bit stupid and not completely stupid), people were able to kind of predict this one correctly! Aerith doesn't die! And I mean, she does die, but I'm kind of cautiously really fucking down with what they're doing by placing Cloud's consciousness between two different worlds essentially, one where he saved Aerith and his actual reality where Aerith dies, and how that specifically adds to both his visible mental degradation and an even deeper inability to cope with the loss of Aerith. At least that's my interpretation since they go out of their way to show that Aerith's "spirit" was noticed by Nanaki in the final scene and that it wasn't an outright hallucination on Cloud's part, which I would've preferred, but I can see what they're cooking here.
I mean, really, I would've preferred none of this extra shit, and the way the leads devs talk about the "shock value" of it all is definitely off-putting, but I think... I think it kinda works? I'm pretty sure Aerith died in the original for pretty similar developmental reasons, and while I def need even more time to really figure out why it ended up working, it definitely left me in kind of malaise that not many other games since like, the ending of Drakengard 3 or something have made me feel for days on end.
But what's especially interesting is that my initial reaction to Aerith's death scene was outright confusion and frustration as it was extremely difficult to parse if she was actually alive or not until I beat the final boss -- but I believe that's kind of the point. Both Cloud and the player are in denial, how much of what happens in the final sequence is real and how much of it is a "fever dream", as Sephiroth puts it, is up to player interpretation. There's some physically established reality to the multiverse shit ofc, but thematically speaking, making the two characters that show up for Cloud in these dream-like sequences be Zack and Aerith fits so fucking well into Cloud's inability to process loss that I feel that was more the intention than simply fan service. Also Biggs and Zack being buddies is kinda cute, but from a utilitarian perspective these sequences help to prove that the dying worlds are indeed really happening, and not necessarily just "Aerith's dreams" or purely in Cloud's mind, even if functionally that's kind of what they end up being since I think (?) they're connected through the lifestream, which up to this point only really Sephiroth and Aerith have been able to navigate.
Again, not really the direction I would've personally chosen, and there are some aspects lost in terms of impact in Aerith's death scene, particularly Cloud's speech (which is more implied by voiceless cutaways within the "Aerith dies" universe) and the individual reactions each character once had are no longer there, which makes sense when you consider there like 7 other dudes there now when last time you just had two other characters in your party during that scene. But it'd be remiss if I didn't mention that a lot has been gained: both Barret and Tifa's reactions are so visceral that it's difficult to outright dismiss this iteration, at least until you're thrown into a 10 phase boss battle, which if that loses you after that point, I guess I can't blame you. I don't think the reality of it all is fully lost in the end though, the game takes ample time to linger on the loss of the party's beloved flower girl, in such a way that I can't really stop thinking about it, even days after completing the game for the first time. The original scene makes me cry every time without fail, but there's something to be said for how much feels truly lost this time, how much more Aerith means to the party and to the player this time around is much more "real" in a way that the original game was only able to suggest in key moments.
Basically, the multiverse is there for fan service to a certain degree, but a) it's not some annoying MCU bullshit like people are gonna inevitably strawman it as, and b) it's more there to create a physical representation of Cloud's grief, and while I think it significantly detracts from the force of nature that Sephiroth could feel like in the original, there's something going on here that feels unabashedly Final Fantasy VII, and not even in the shitty ass Compilation way, just the way it chose to expand on the emotional core of the original without necessarily stepping too far out of the game's already somewhat flimsy physical rules. Like seriously, the reason we love Final Fantasy VII in the first place is because there is no place the game was afraid to go. Not perfect, but it feels special all the same. Also Tifa's reaction to Aerith's death is so fucking raw, and Cloud just smiling away because he has a ghost gf now is just, absolutely fucking gutwrenching, I love it man. I'm glad at least Nanaki is comforting Tifa in the final scene or else I think I'd be emotionally ruined probably. Can't wait for Cloud to be absolutely unbearable for the first 30 hours of part 3!!!
And on that note, Part 3 is probably gonna be the weakest of the trilogy, both in terms of narrative and gameplay, so I'm not too gutted about having to wait 4 years for the finale, but I'm excited nonetheless. I'm not really sure what they're gonna do for the areas you're expected to return to though? Either way, I hope the open world shit is toned a bit overall, more condensed regions similar to Nibelheim and Junon would be nice. There's lots of hints of extra shit that didn't exist in the original's disc 2 and 3, and that kinda makes sense when you stop and consider just how empty disc 2 kinda feels towards the end, particularly compared to disc 1. Really excited for part 3 to have a Sonic Adventure 2-esque opening where Cloud snowboards away from his troubles...
Idk man, maybe I'm being too lenient, but it's just Final Fantasy in the end; if people can love the endings to games like FF8 and FF10, then FF7 Rebirth is like easy mode compared to those two games' fucking insane stories. 10 years from now it'll maybe still hold some level of controversy within broader gaming culture, mostly by people who were told to be mad about it by the internet, but I feel like the consensus will turn out to be mostly positive. I think back to the first time I played the original Final Fantasy VII, there are so many aspects of that game that I found to be really fucking stupid back then, that now I deeply cherish -- I wouldn't have them any other way, in their own right, of course.
At the same time though, I get it if it didn't work for you, cuz it almost didn't work for me, and I might have just gaslit myself into loving it as a coping mechanism (kinda meta when you think about it...). Also why does Chadley talk like he's presenting a Nintendo Direct and why is he a horrible misogynist to his vtuber pokedex daughter, she didn't do anything wrong besides infodump about her special interests...... :(
edit: after reading details from the Rebirth Ultimania that just released and also after rewatching the final scenes several times after the past month, i think the vagueness is intentional from a thematic sense since so much is unclear to cloud himself, the player surrogate
i feel like soooo much "theorycrafting" misses the like
thematic point of a lot of these things. whether the aerith we're seeing at various points in the finale are lifestream aerith or sephiroth hallucination aerith doesn't ultimately matter because it serves two points:
a) to demonstrate's clouds mental and emotional degradation, he is at his lowest point yet. he can't even see what's right in front of him -- aerith has died and tifa desperately needs his support. he is failing himself and the people around him. the only productive thing he ultimately does is pointing out where to go next (but we all know what happens when he gets to northern crater with the black materia in-hand)
b) i think they really did want to give aerith a more meaningful goodbye, even if the rest of the party can't see it. she's made the ultimate sacrifice, and it allows the player to really understand the weight of what she's lost in allowing herself to perish to save the world
also it's not multiverses :) it's just other worlds existing in the lifestream shit, which is cool, and was mostly already clear in retrospect, i think gamer discourse jargon is destroying meaningful art discussion at times. once again, it's final fantasy baby!!
Final Fantasy VII Remake project has absolutely no right working as well as it does, and Rebirth doubles down on what made Remake work -- and occasionally what really brought it down, with more unsavory additions to spare. But don't get the wrong idea, in Rebirth's extravangance and conceptually superfluous presentation exists the most actualized and engrossing take on the events of Final Fantasy VII's post-Midgar disc one that one could possibly even imagine, and I'm saying this as somebody whose love for the original is ironclad and unbreakable: Rebirth is probably going to end up being my favorite way to experience the moments tucked away in what was once a maybe 7 to 12 hour-ish section of a 25 hour long game -- with the 7 to 12 hour section now being close to 50 or 60 hours on average I'd imagine. That is to say, I've come to terms with a lot of the liberties Square has taken with the narrative and characterization and presentation, everything really; what made the original special to me, and most likely to many others as well, can't be perfectly replicated anyways, so I really do mean it when I say that the end result given here is bordering on a "best case scenario" for an adaptation of this vast a scope.
Much like Remake, characters that were once tableaus feel alive and truly connected as a group in a way the original just didn't have the ability to convey, just on an even more detailed and broader scale. And once again don't take that the wrong way, they're tableaus that I cherish dearly -- Final Fantasy VII's cast is my absolute favorite across like, all media -- but they're expanded upon so meaningfully: Tifa's self-destructive people-pleasing, Aerith's down to earth and fun attitude, Barret being the leftist extremist father figure we all know and love, Red XIII's deep loyalty, Yuffie's obnoxious little sister energy, Cait Sith's inopportune joviality, Cid's weird uncle vibes, and Vincent being the resident goth kid that has issues with authority. And their relationships with one other: Aerith's deep friendships with Tifa and Red XIII, Barret's new found friendships with Yuffie and Red XIII, and even the basic and immediate kinship many of them feel towards one other is more detailed and vibrant. I don't know man, I just love all these fuckin' guys, I constantly had the stupidest fucking grin on my face while playing this game it was honestly kinda cringe. Even side characters have so much more going on with them, certain characters that were previously throwaway will often give one a sense that there's something deeper going on with them as they continue to try to exist in this broken world, even the ones that are more comic relief than pathos-invoking.
The plot can often feel clumsy, but I'd say it's a lot more cohesive than the original's, pretty significantly too, the original occasionally feeling aimless and as it tried to find a reason to send you to the next exciting setpiece; even as somebody who replays the game often I find myself being confused which event flag I need to trigger next. And really the original Final Fantasy VII can be best-described as like, a bunch of Final Fantasy VI opera scenes strung together, and Rebirth leans into that so hard that I could see it being way too much for some people. If Final Fantasy XVI was way too dry for many, myself included, I could genuinely see Rebirth being perceived as excessively "wet" for others. Though, as a side note, when playing Final Fantasy XVI I'd often find myself unintentionally dozing off, whereas with Rebirth I actually had enormous trouble sleeping, both in finding a place I wanted to stop playing and the mild insomnia the excitement of getting to play the game again induced in my four day-ish long binge (which, I haven't done in a long fucking time without needing to take significant breaks, which happened quite often with Final Fantasy XVI, and as an adult in her 30s I think that's saying a lot).
On the topic of CBU1 styling super fucking hard on CBU3, god damn the combat in Rebirth is exactly what I wanted it to be, probably my favorite combat in general, from like, any video game? Like, it's not mechanically the deepest action game I've ever played, but it does expand upon Remake's systems in a meaningful way without upending what made those systems work in the first place. Final Fantasy has been focused on telling the player what any given character is about through how they play since like, FF4, and Rebirth's execution of that philosophy doesn't miss at all. Tifa is more fun than ever with an extensive aerial toolkit, I fucking love that she can juggle enemies and it kinda became my go to strategy at a certain point, which like Tifa was the blueprint for young Theia so I'm so glad they did her so good in this game both on a gameplay and narrative level. Red XIII I have to say feels a little bit busted!! I'm bad at playing as him, and he still seems really fucking useful even with unskilled play. Cait Sith I'm still trying to wrap my head around, but I wouldn't have it any other way than making Cait Sith a confusing mess to properly utilize. I wish Vincent was playable, one of like 10 or so boys in media that I actually care about, but I kinda understand why he isn't when he shows up so late that it was probably better to just focus on polishing the rest of the cast than implementing what's probably going to be a pretty unique kit on top of everything else going on.
There's a particular level involving Cait Sith that I'm pretty sure is gonna become like the third or fourth most contentious thing about the game, but I fucking loved it in a really fucked up Banjo-Tooieian way and nobody can take that away from me. The thing I can see becoming the second most contentious aspect about the game, what I thought would be the primary contention until I got to the ending (which I'll get to in a bit, and without spoiling anything, but if you don't want to know literally anything just be forewarned), is the open world game design elements. The best way to describe it is probably Xenoblade with some pointless Ubisoft shit, but it's not really as bad as it sounds, and much of it is entirely optional only providing secondary or tertiary benefits to character progression. As a "modern" interpretation of the original's wide, open, and mostly empty fields populated by sets of random enemy tables, I think it's probably a fair enough way to go about things. The life springs and towers I wasn't so much a fan of, like why do the towers play the BotW theme But At Home when you activate them, but the summon temple thingies felt a lot more meaningful than just picking up a materia off the ground, like how it usually worked in the original (seriously who was dropping all those bahamut variants and just leaving them there). The map designs themselves I did enjoy though, even if the Cosmo Canyon and Gongaga regions can be a little tedious at times, I honestly prefer having to mentally map out the geographical logic of an open world than the modern trend of empty fields with little identity and often no reason to engage with a game's environments and systems.
That said, the more linear "dungeon" levels are kinda mostly the same deal, but they did an even better job at making them feel like real places you're exploring this time 'round, as opposed to the modified FF13 hallway dealie in Remake. They're still largely linear, but the best way to explain why I think they work better is how the Final Fantasy standby of forked paths with option A being progression and option B being a treasure chest is more heavily obscured; I actually got a little bit lost in a couple of levels!!! Though sometimes that was the result of perhaps poor tutorialization of a level's specific gimmick or progress not being visually distinct enough, which like god damn the graphics are so fucking good in this game that it's almost hard to see anything unless I walked up to my TV (maybe I just need to invest in a larger screen for my old lady eyes but whateverrr), it's no wonder that there are several areas where the Uncharted climbing walls have the RE4R yellow paint on them. I know people are gonna slam the game for shit like that, which is like, yeah I can kinda get it, personally would've preferred more non-diegetic signaling over things that make me have annoying CinemaSin-esque intrusive thoughts about "who is painting all this shit out here in the middle of nowhere".
And you know, it's not gonna be the most discussed thing in the end, as uninspired as Rebirth's "structural quirks" may feel now, they'll probly become innocuous given enough time; that's just how these thing typically go. I wanna say the same will happen for the game's ending which... yeah. Not gonna say much here, but if you find yourself frustrated by it, I'd say give yourself some space and rewatch it on YouTube or something. It's a lot to take in, and I found it a lot more impactful after I had gotten some sleep and finally digested what was being shown to me. I don't think it was all exactly what I wanted it to be, far from it maybe, but there's something to be said about the way the entirety of Rebirth takes special moments dear to us and recontextualizes them into new special moments, sometimes even more special.
And a bit of a tangent, but I loathe the critic scores for this game. Not so much because they're necessarily wrong for enjoying the game, but because I'm starting to strongly believe that art, and especially interactive art, can't really be quantified on such simple terms, especially when people tend to have such viscerally opposed reactions to their experiences with any given work. What does a 10/10 even mean? On a personal level I could almost understand, but detached from the context of that personal experience how can we consider any piece of media to be in some arbitrary upper percentile of perfection? I guess I'm saying this because I know with scores like that people are going to come at this game with a certain set of expectations, but despite it being one of the most gorgeous and polished Final Fantasy titles that CBU1 has brought out in recent years, it's a deeply uneven experience. You will be frustrated, maybe you'll even get annoyed at the many side quests that suck ass and are total shit!!! Or something, maybe you'll hate the combat even if it's exactly what my brain has always wanted FF7's combat to be. But I guess like, when you look at a piece of art in its totality as opposed to a given qualification of Good or Bad, it's easier to just appreciate things as they are. Or even fucking hate them for what they are! People on this website tend to tear the shit out of really popular games and who's to say they're wrong for looking past consensus into a deeper inner truth, which you know, even if that comes from a place of unfounded contrarianism, good for them, man. Fuck video games!!
I hope it doesn't come off like I'm waffling or anything, I just really love this game, and I feel like the things I hated about it only made me love it more in a really fucked up way. I think playing Drakengard 3 for the first time a year ago gave me brain damage or something. Also like, on a final note, let me get more on brand here: there's some premier fucking queerbaiting going on here, and if that ain't more accurate to the actual single lesbian in her early 30s experience than any other AAA video game that has some fake ass porn-afflicted interpretation of sapphic romance where flesh puppets say sweet nothings at each other after completing a single questline or whatever the fuck, than I don't know what is. Anyways, sorry I had to make it gay in the end, but truly that is what the Final Fantasy VII was about all along: twinks with swords and bisexual women who can suplex kaijus. Which, you know, being able to do the latter is what's going to be main determinant if part 3 is good or not, so the ball's in your court now Square...
Much like Remake, characters that were once tableaus feel alive and truly connected as a group in a way the original just didn't have the ability to convey, just on an even more detailed and broader scale. And once again don't take that the wrong way, they're tableaus that I cherish dearly -- Final Fantasy VII's cast is my absolute favorite across like, all media -- but they're expanded upon so meaningfully: Tifa's self-destructive people-pleasing, Aerith's down to earth and fun attitude, Barret being the leftist extremist father figure we all know and love, Red XIII's deep loyalty, Yuffie's obnoxious little sister energy, Cait Sith's inopportune joviality, Cid's weird uncle vibes, and Vincent being the resident goth kid that has issues with authority. And their relationships with one other: Aerith's deep friendships with Tifa and Red XIII, Barret's new found friendships with Yuffie and Red XIII, and even the basic and immediate kinship many of them feel towards one other is more detailed and vibrant. I don't know man, I just love all these fuckin' guys, I constantly had the stupidest fucking grin on my face while playing this game it was honestly kinda cringe. Even side characters have so much more going on with them, certain characters that were previously throwaway will often give one a sense that there's something deeper going on with them as they continue to try to exist in this broken world, even the ones that are more comic relief than pathos-invoking.
The plot can often feel clumsy, but I'd say it's a lot more cohesive than the original's, pretty significantly too, the original occasionally feeling aimless and as it tried to find a reason to send you to the next exciting setpiece; even as somebody who replays the game often I find myself being confused which event flag I need to trigger next. And really the original Final Fantasy VII can be best-described as like, a bunch of Final Fantasy VI opera scenes strung together, and Rebirth leans into that so hard that I could see it being way too much for some people. If Final Fantasy XVI was way too dry for many, myself included, I could genuinely see Rebirth being perceived as excessively "wet" for others. Though, as a side note, when playing Final Fantasy XVI I'd often find myself unintentionally dozing off, whereas with Rebirth I actually had enormous trouble sleeping, both in finding a place I wanted to stop playing and the mild insomnia the excitement of getting to play the game again induced in my four day-ish long binge (which, I haven't done in a long fucking time without needing to take significant breaks, which happened quite often with Final Fantasy XVI, and as an adult in her 30s I think that's saying a lot).
On the topic of CBU1 styling super fucking hard on CBU3, god damn the combat in Rebirth is exactly what I wanted it to be, probably my favorite combat in general, from like, any video game? Like, it's not mechanically the deepest action game I've ever played, but it does expand upon Remake's systems in a meaningful way without upending what made those systems work in the first place. Final Fantasy has been focused on telling the player what any given character is about through how they play since like, FF4, and Rebirth's execution of that philosophy doesn't miss at all. Tifa is more fun than ever with an extensive aerial toolkit, I fucking love that she can juggle enemies and it kinda became my go to strategy at a certain point, which like Tifa was the blueprint for young Theia so I'm so glad they did her so good in this game both on a gameplay and narrative level. Red XIII I have to say feels a little bit busted!! I'm bad at playing as him, and he still seems really fucking useful even with unskilled play. Cait Sith I'm still trying to wrap my head around, but I wouldn't have it any other way than making Cait Sith a confusing mess to properly utilize. I wish Vincent was playable, one of like 10 or so boys in media that I actually care about, but I kinda understand why he isn't when he shows up so late that it was probably better to just focus on polishing the rest of the cast than implementing what's probably going to be a pretty unique kit on top of everything else going on.
There's a particular level involving Cait Sith that I'm pretty sure is gonna become like the third or fourth most contentious thing about the game, but I fucking loved it in a really fucked up Banjo-Tooieian way and nobody can take that away from me. The thing I can see becoming the second most contentious aspect about the game, what I thought would be the primary contention until I got to the ending (which I'll get to in a bit, and without spoiling anything, but if you don't want to know literally anything just be forewarned), is the open world game design elements. The best way to describe it is probably Xenoblade with some pointless Ubisoft shit, but it's not really as bad as it sounds, and much of it is entirely optional only providing secondary or tertiary benefits to character progression. As a "modern" interpretation of the original's wide, open, and mostly empty fields populated by sets of random enemy tables, I think it's probably a fair enough way to go about things. The life springs and towers I wasn't so much a fan of, like why do the towers play the BotW theme But At Home when you activate them, but the summon temple thingies felt a lot more meaningful than just picking up a materia off the ground, like how it usually worked in the original (seriously who was dropping all those bahamut variants and just leaving them there). The map designs themselves I did enjoy though, even if the Cosmo Canyon and Gongaga regions can be a little tedious at times, I honestly prefer having to mentally map out the geographical logic of an open world than the modern trend of empty fields with little identity and often no reason to engage with a game's environments and systems.
That said, the more linear "dungeon" levels are kinda mostly the same deal, but they did an even better job at making them feel like real places you're exploring this time 'round, as opposed to the modified FF13 hallway dealie in Remake. They're still largely linear, but the best way to explain why I think they work better is how the Final Fantasy standby of forked paths with option A being progression and option B being a treasure chest is more heavily obscured; I actually got a little bit lost in a couple of levels!!! Though sometimes that was the result of perhaps poor tutorialization of a level's specific gimmick or progress not being visually distinct enough, which like god damn the graphics are so fucking good in this game that it's almost hard to see anything unless I walked up to my TV (maybe I just need to invest in a larger screen for my old lady eyes but whateverrr), it's no wonder that there are several areas where the Uncharted climbing walls have the RE4R yellow paint on them. I know people are gonna slam the game for shit like that, which is like, yeah I can kinda get it, personally would've preferred more non-diegetic signaling over things that make me have annoying CinemaSin-esque intrusive thoughts about "who is painting all this shit out here in the middle of nowhere".
And you know, it's not gonna be the most discussed thing in the end, as uninspired as Rebirth's "structural quirks" may feel now, they'll probly become innocuous given enough time; that's just how these thing typically go. I wanna say the same will happen for the game's ending which... yeah. Not gonna say much here, but if you find yourself frustrated by it, I'd say give yourself some space and rewatch it on YouTube or something. It's a lot to take in, and I found it a lot more impactful after I had gotten some sleep and finally digested what was being shown to me. I don't think it was all exactly what I wanted it to be, far from it maybe, but there's something to be said about the way the entirety of Rebirth takes special moments dear to us and recontextualizes them into new special moments, sometimes even more special.
And a bit of a tangent, but I loathe the critic scores for this game. Not so much because they're necessarily wrong for enjoying the game, but because I'm starting to strongly believe that art, and especially interactive art, can't really be quantified on such simple terms, especially when people tend to have such viscerally opposed reactions to their experiences with any given work. What does a 10/10 even mean? On a personal level I could almost understand, but detached from the context of that personal experience how can we consider any piece of media to be in some arbitrary upper percentile of perfection? I guess I'm saying this because I know with scores like that people are going to come at this game with a certain set of expectations, but despite it being one of the most gorgeous and polished Final Fantasy titles that CBU1 has brought out in recent years, it's a deeply uneven experience. You will be frustrated, maybe you'll even get annoyed at the many side quests that suck ass and are total shit!!! Or something, maybe you'll hate the combat even if it's exactly what my brain has always wanted FF7's combat to be. But I guess like, when you look at a piece of art in its totality as opposed to a given qualification of Good or Bad, it's easier to just appreciate things as they are. Or even fucking hate them for what they are! People on this website tend to tear the shit out of really popular games and who's to say they're wrong for looking past consensus into a deeper inner truth, which you know, even if that comes from a place of unfounded contrarianism, good for them, man. Fuck video games!!
I hope it doesn't come off like I'm waffling or anything, I just really love this game, and I feel like the things I hated about it only made me love it more in a really fucked up way. I think playing Drakengard 3 for the first time a year ago gave me brain damage or something. Also like, on a final note, let me get more on brand here: there's some premier fucking queerbaiting going on here, and if that ain't more accurate to the actual single lesbian in her early 30s experience than any other AAA video game that has some fake ass porn-afflicted interpretation of sapphic romance where flesh puppets say sweet nothings at each other after completing a single questline or whatever the fuck, than I don't know what is. Anyways, sorry I had to make it gay in the end, but truly that is what the Final Fantasy VII was about all along: twinks with swords and bisexual women who can suplex kaijus. Which, you know, being able to do the latter is what's going to be main determinant if part 3 is good or not, so the ball's in your court now Square...
fucking finally.
This is not a bad game, quite the opposite. But it's not MY game.
I left the game for months, shortly before fighting ganon for the last time.
Before this, the game and me really didn't hit it off.
I am not a fan of the building mechanics mostly because I think the controls were weird. I don't know whats worse: flying on my self-build airplane or riding a horse. Both feel not exactly intuitive. Again: quite the opposite.
The story didn't grab me either. There were nice moments in it. Like realizing what happened to Zelda was genuinely touching.
As always, the ending was well done! But the characters didn't really feel alive and some narrative choices are overdone imo. Please let Ganon/dorf be something more than just evil. I know you can do it bc you HAVE done it, dear franchise! You can do it again. I have faith in you.
(Which I will probably regret as always, when I proclaim faith in something that solely exists to make money.)
So I get how people adore this game. Sadly I am not one of them.
The horses look nice though!
But you still can't pet the dogs. WTF?! What is wrong with you, game? D:
This is not a bad game, quite the opposite. But it's not MY game.
I left the game for months, shortly before fighting ganon for the last time.
Before this, the game and me really didn't hit it off.
I am not a fan of the building mechanics mostly because I think the controls were weird. I don't know whats worse: flying on my self-build airplane or riding a horse. Both feel not exactly intuitive. Again: quite the opposite.
The story didn't grab me either. There were nice moments in it. Like realizing what happened to Zelda was genuinely touching.
As always, the ending was well done! But the characters didn't really feel alive and some narrative choices are overdone imo. Please let Ganon/dorf be something more than just evil. I know you can do it bc you HAVE done it, dear franchise! You can do it again. I have faith in you.
(Which I will probably regret as always, when I proclaim faith in something that solely exists to make money.)
So I get how people adore this game. Sadly I am not one of them.
The horses look nice though!
But you still can't pet the dogs. WTF?! What is wrong with you, game? D:
Final Fantasy X
2001
they don't make them like this anymore, man. everything about final fantasy x bleeds unfettered confidence and an uncontrollable optimism for games as a medium of art and entertainment alike; not only did kitase and his posse clearly believe video games could Be More but they were doing everything in their power to make those dreams corporeal, to make the future of games become a "here and now" rather than some distant aspiration that video games could one day hope to touch. it's really funny how hallmark western titles like braid or the last of us that would come in the ballpark of a decade later were lauded as "games finally being art," or kojima's insistent and insensitive portrayals of sexual assault in metal gear solid v to apparently "validate" games as art suggest an insecurity in the form, a need to prove itself, when squaresoft in their prime knew games were something special and were putting in all the legwork they could to make people see that and had been doing that since the eighties.
though i treasure final fantasy xvi, i can't help but look at it as having fallen to the same insecurity i alluded to in the aforementioned western titles - which makes ffx's confidence in itself and celebration of its own achievements all the more commanding of respect and admiration. yoshi-p wanted a return to a more conventional fantasy setting so he neutered a lot of the whimsy and off-the-wall wackiness from final fantasy for a grim-and-grisly dark fantasy setting inspired by the hot-button fantasy stories of the era such as game of thrones and god of war. what did kitase do whenever his fanbase demanded a return to a traditional european fantasy setting? he acted in direct defiance of that and instead looked to the folklore, customs, cultures and traditions of east and southeast asia (in particular okinawa) and started from the ground up, sculpting every aspect of the game to make something unlike anything final fantasy had ever seen or would ever see again. that even bleeds into its storytelling - sure, final fantasy x gets a lot of flak as the "goofy" one due to tidus's infamous laugh (fuck you it's one of the best romance scenes in all of final fantasy) or its loud-and-proud nature as a product of the turn of the millenia, but i think this is probably final fantasy's most gripping and eloquent political narrative... even and especially in comparison to the more "serious" political final fantasy games such as tactics, xii and (again) xvi. while a lot of political narratives in jrpgs tend to more broadly broach abstract ideas about classism, imperialism and war, final fantasy x's politics are rooted firmly in okinawa's historical relationship with mainland japan and the ties therein with institutional religion in modern-day japan. it's an aggressively japanese game in just about every manner, to the point where i can't help but wonder if there's a tie between ffx being the laughingstock of the series in the mid-to-late 00s and the really racist hatred of japanese games in the west during the seventh console gen... hmm
speaking of the seventh gen and onward it feels like every single way that developers try to flex the power of their hardware and their grasp over it is just graphics, graphics, graphics, to the point where we're getting diminishing returns and the games just flatly don't look all that great because they're bereft of visual direction and identity. i'm not really gonna do much talking about x's graphics (although this is STILL probably one of the best-looking ps2 games, especially those fmvs - oh my god!)... again, compensating for something, forgetting what makes games what they are. like yeah, games are a medium of art capable of conveying powerful messages and emotions like any other medium, but games are fun too! and man, what a better way to flex the capabilities of the recently-launched playstation 2 by making final fantasy x a GAME's game on top of all the shit it has to say as a story. there's so much shit to do in this game, man. it seems like every other nook and cranny has some minigame, sidequest or post-game content for you to sink your teeth into, squaresoft just packing all this random bullshit into this game because they COULD. like fuck, did you know there's a butterfly hunting minigame in the macalania lake? i sure as hell didn't until this playthrough!
i can't help but mourn what games have become and the state of the industry over the past decade and some change. square enix is a shell of its former self between its unbelievably slimy business practices and the increasingly-cynical nature of its output and middling quality of its games. final fantasy x seems like a relic of a bygone era that we can never return to, a reminder of better times, and a testament to the potential that video games in the AAA sphere have broadly failed to live up to.
but - true to the game's main message - final fantasy x also acts as a reminder of what games can be, what we can hope for and expect out of games, and a reminder that games are not inherently as rotten as the industry nowadays would lead you to believe. who knows? i certainly don't, but i also don't want to just give up and accept the stagnation that games have broadly been reduced to, or resign myself that this spiral of cynical corporate product-pushing is all that there is.
and i don't have to, really. the glory days of the aaa sphere might be over, but making games (and sharing them) is easier than ever. the titans of tomorrow are getting their start now with nothing more than their passion for the medium and a desire to connect with people whose passion matches theirs. ultimately, that's what brings people together to begin with: shared convictions, shared faith, shared ideals and shared love for their favorite things in the world.
and when that love brings people together and unites them in a common belief, thus enabling them to exert their will upon the world at whatever scale their numbers and determination allow for... things change. isn't it wonderful?
though i treasure final fantasy xvi, i can't help but look at it as having fallen to the same insecurity i alluded to in the aforementioned western titles - which makes ffx's confidence in itself and celebration of its own achievements all the more commanding of respect and admiration. yoshi-p wanted a return to a more conventional fantasy setting so he neutered a lot of the whimsy and off-the-wall wackiness from final fantasy for a grim-and-grisly dark fantasy setting inspired by the hot-button fantasy stories of the era such as game of thrones and god of war. what did kitase do whenever his fanbase demanded a return to a traditional european fantasy setting? he acted in direct defiance of that and instead looked to the folklore, customs, cultures and traditions of east and southeast asia (in particular okinawa) and started from the ground up, sculpting every aspect of the game to make something unlike anything final fantasy had ever seen or would ever see again. that even bleeds into its storytelling - sure, final fantasy x gets a lot of flak as the "goofy" one due to tidus's infamous laugh (fuck you it's one of the best romance scenes in all of final fantasy) or its loud-and-proud nature as a product of the turn of the millenia, but i think this is probably final fantasy's most gripping and eloquent political narrative... even and especially in comparison to the more "serious" political final fantasy games such as tactics, xii and (again) xvi. while a lot of political narratives in jrpgs tend to more broadly broach abstract ideas about classism, imperialism and war, final fantasy x's politics are rooted firmly in okinawa's historical relationship with mainland japan and the ties therein with institutional religion in modern-day japan. it's an aggressively japanese game in just about every manner, to the point where i can't help but wonder if there's a tie between ffx being the laughingstock of the series in the mid-to-late 00s and the really racist hatred of japanese games in the west during the seventh console gen... hmm
speaking of the seventh gen and onward it feels like every single way that developers try to flex the power of their hardware and their grasp over it is just graphics, graphics, graphics, to the point where we're getting diminishing returns and the games just flatly don't look all that great because they're bereft of visual direction and identity. i'm not really gonna do much talking about x's graphics (although this is STILL probably one of the best-looking ps2 games, especially those fmvs - oh my god!)... again, compensating for something, forgetting what makes games what they are. like yeah, games are a medium of art capable of conveying powerful messages and emotions like any other medium, but games are fun too! and man, what a better way to flex the capabilities of the recently-launched playstation 2 by making final fantasy x a GAME's game on top of all the shit it has to say as a story. there's so much shit to do in this game, man. it seems like every other nook and cranny has some minigame, sidequest or post-game content for you to sink your teeth into, squaresoft just packing all this random bullshit into this game because they COULD. like fuck, did you know there's a butterfly hunting minigame in the macalania lake? i sure as hell didn't until this playthrough!
i can't help but mourn what games have become and the state of the industry over the past decade and some change. square enix is a shell of its former self between its unbelievably slimy business practices and the increasingly-cynical nature of its output and middling quality of its games. final fantasy x seems like a relic of a bygone era that we can never return to, a reminder of better times, and a testament to the potential that video games in the AAA sphere have broadly failed to live up to.
but - true to the game's main message - final fantasy x also acts as a reminder of what games can be, what we can hope for and expect out of games, and a reminder that games are not inherently as rotten as the industry nowadays would lead you to believe. who knows? i certainly don't, but i also don't want to just give up and accept the stagnation that games have broadly been reduced to, or resign myself that this spiral of cynical corporate product-pushing is all that there is.
and i don't have to, really. the glory days of the aaa sphere might be over, but making games (and sharing them) is easier than ever. the titans of tomorrow are getting their start now with nothing more than their passion for the medium and a desire to connect with people whose passion matches theirs. ultimately, that's what brings people together to begin with: shared convictions, shared faith, shared ideals and shared love for their favorite things in the world.
and when that love brings people together and unites them in a common belief, thus enabling them to exert their will upon the world at whatever scale their numbers and determination allow for... things change. isn't it wonderful?
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
I cannot put into words how much I fucking adore the mature and gritty tone permeating the entire game being paired with such incredibly earnest youthful optimism. People are undoubtedly gonna call it "kingdom hearts" or "too anime" with smug grins (tl note: "too japanese") but it genuinely moves me to tears seeing how much hope and soul and overwhelming love they stuffed into this grimdark mega-budget blockbuster.
Main downside to the game, which is reaaaaallly glaring, is how horribly handled Jill is. She's the main heroine but stands around saying and doing nothing for most of the game, like she has no agency whatsoever. I'm not usually one to harp on stuff like this but her writing is just blatantly misogynistic which is really weird coming from the team that gave us characters like Ysayle and Alisaie.
Main downside to the game, which is reaaaaallly glaring, is how horribly handled Jill is. She's the main heroine but stands around saying and doing nothing for most of the game, like she has no agency whatsoever. I'm not usually one to harp on stuff like this but her writing is just blatantly misogynistic which is really weird coming from the team that gave us characters like Ysayle and Alisaie.
Breath of the Wild and its consequences have been a disaster for the gaming industry
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