When it was announced that there would finally be a Final Fantasy VII Remake my immediate reaction was concern. I remembered a quote where some Square Enix executive had stated they wouldn’t remake Final Fantasy VII until they made something that surpassed that. I enjoyed Final Fantasy XV, but it certainly wasn’t the record shattering international success of the original Final Fantasy VII.

So, I thought to myself, Square Enix is running out of ideas but they need to keep the cashflow going. It wasn’t until I saw the first glimpses of in-game action that my cynicism started to wane. It looked fun to play! At the very least, I told myself, it will be an interesting and challenging new combat system. Deep down I wanted Final Fantasy VII remake to be amazing, but I was tempering my inner child with the reality of Square Enix’s recent mainline Final Fantasy titles.

When I finally finished Final Fantasy VII Remake I had a lot of thoughts and feelings to sift through. Having discovered video games during Square’s golden age, I got to experience Final Fantasy VII for the first time in the late 90s during the peak of its popularity. I was a kid then, I barely knew anything but I liked to think I was smart, I was ferociously optimistic, and had a smart mouth, and I was totally taken in by Final Fantasy VII.

It was 1999, and three of my favorite things were Star Trek, Star Wars, and Final Fantasy. But now I’m older, the childlike wonder is gone, the mystery and wonder blanketed by a better understanding of reality. Star Trek, Star Wars, and Final Fantasy are still things I love, but the feelings have gotten more complex. I can look back and see the cracks I didn’t notice before. Which is why I can confidently say that Final Fantasy VII Remake felt like a Star Wars special edition version of a Final Fantasy game.

It’s fresh, it’s new, it’s changed, it’s the latest technology, it’s the creators looking back at something they did and wanting to make some tweaks they think would either improve the game, or help it appeal to a modern audience, it’s Han Solo head bobbing to avoid an added gun blast. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s the Jabba’s palace dance sequence with the horrible CG aliens.

The game has these massive disparities in quality of writing, pacing, and storytelling. Sometimes it is spot on, everything is clicking, you’re flinging spells, you’re busting baddies, you’re seeing beautiful vistas of Midgar, you’re learning new things about established characters. But wait, put on the brakes, we need to walk very slowly down a hallway. No wait, you need to move containers with a remote control hand. Oh, you thought you were about to get to the goal? Nope, go this way now.

There are so many moments in this game when you are nearly at your destination and the floor literally falls out from under you forcing another slog through more hallways. Sure, the diversion allows for more combat, but a lot of the enemies in these linear sections aren’t challenging enough to be engaging; I can just slice, shoot, punch, or magic missile my way through. Thankfully the boss fights bring some enjoyable challenges, and some of the side quests pit you against enemies that will embarrass if you’ve not equipped the correct Materia. Despite my comparison to the much maligned Star Wars special edition, I enjoyed a lot of what was added to the original experience of Final Fantasy VII.

I liked getting to know the Avalanche members better. Biggs, Wedge, and Jesse are now all unique individuals who have distinct personalities. I grew to care about them and enjoyed the little moments, like helping Jesse meet her parents, or helping Biggs and Wedge out with their neighborhood watch. I liked how some citizens of the undercity cheered Avalanche, while others jeered, adding some realistic tension to an otherwise fantastical setting. I liked the angle that Shinra enabled Avalanche’s activities to frame their old enemies, Wutai. What I didn’t like was the waffling around when it came to committing to anything of real significance.

The handling of Wedge is a good example of this game’s inability to commit to a concept or choice.Wedge didn’t die where he did in the original game, fine, that was interesting I was curious to see how things played out. A few minutes later in cutscene it looked like Wedge was killed off. Okay game, I see what you’re doing, I can live with that, at least he went out savings some kitties. But wait, later it’s discovered Wedge is not dead he just buried under rubble. After another forgettable dungeon dive Wedge is rescued and all seems hunky dory; an interesting change to the original story that could lead to some changes down the road. That is it could have been, until reaching the end of the game where Wedge was killed off…maybe…it, like all the “deaths” in this game have been offscreen.

Our two favorite gal pals aren’t free from the wishy washy treatment either. On the one hand we’ve got Tifa, who constantly claims she doesn’t want people to get hurt, unless of course they’re Shinra guards, helpless animals, street toughs, abused experiments, or really anyone or anything else that gets between her fist and breaking faces. On the other hand we have Aerith who is at times sagely, seeming to know much more than she lets on, and other times an idiot savant acting as though she lacks a fundamental understanding of who she is or what she can do.

There’s a moment near the end of the game where she pulls out some shiny magic, like Gandalf fighting off the Nazgul, and when asked how she can do this her answer is effectively “I dunno, I’m special!”. And speaking of the ending it’s time to discuss the most divisive portion of this game. Any previous examples of unclear waffling bow before the mighty of Final Fantasy VII Remake’s ending

Up until the last moments of the game I was quite satisfied with Final Fantasy VII remake. A little inconsistent in quality at times, but so was the original. Padding in the modern age is nothing to the random encounters and constant grind of the Final Fantasy VII I remember playing on my PC in 1999. Then, out of the shadows, Tetsuya Nomura’s story telling clichés start to rear their ugly head.

Let’s list a few of them that show up in the end of Final Fantasy VII remake:

1. Being transported to a cosmic realm
2. Time travel
3. Threat of a vague end-time scenario
4. FATE
5. Plot twists for the sake of plot twists
6. Borrowing ideas from Star Wars

If you’ve played a game with heavy Nomura influence, Final Fantasy VIII, and the Kingdom Hearts franchise being the best examples, you are probably pretty familiar with these clichés and have a fairly high tolerance for them as well. I thought I did, and maybe I still do when a few are selected for use, but the ending of this game feels like someone threw all the ideas in a blender slapped the ice crush button and just let it go until it turned into a story-telling slurry.

Like when you’re trying to make a breakfast smoothie and you’ve got all these tasty things like bananas, strawberries, mangos, peanut butter, avocado, broccoli, chocolate, yogurt, orange juice. Some combinations of these things may be tasty, but all together look like poo and taste like barf. Like someone confusedly and tiredly throwing together a horrifying breakfast smoothie, I feel like Nomura and his team are stretching their creativity thin and are going for a “kitchen sink” approach.

There was a moment where I realized that the final Whisper boss was Darkside from Kingdom Hearts. Actually, the entire final sequence felt like something that would have been more at home in Kingdom Hearts. It felt very similar to the end of Kingdom Hearts 1, where it is revealed the person who thought was the bad guy is in fact a time travelling space wizard, the heroes are transported to a cosmic dimension where they fight a big black and purple monster who uses gravity attacks.

There are nice bits in this Nomura smoothie, like gorgeous character and environment design, fun and flashy combat sequences, a wonderfully soundtrack, and lots of cinematic sequences but this all feels very surface level. It feels like trying to be deep and thoughtful without saying anything of consequence. It’s a kitchen sink slurry smoothie someone put a paper umbrella in and declared was “fancy”.

And suddenly the fever dream is over, and you’re snapped back into reality.

When I reflected on my experiences with Final Fantasy VII Remake, I realized a common pattern. I’d be sucked in, then something would take me totally out of the game’s established reality, then I’d be snapped back. There are immense quality differences in terms of pacing, writing, and story telling between the portions of remake which borrow and expand on the original Final Fantasy VII, and the ideas that are new to Remake. The new additions, which aren’t extensions of the original felt out of place, like they belonged in another game.

Dramatic as it is to say completing Final Fantasy VII remake was one of those reminders that my childhood is over. You’d think at 28 I’d have realized by now I’m not a child, but I like to stay young at heart and not become to jaded or embittered by the world. The Final Fantasy I grew up with, for better or worse, is gone. But I don’t pine for the past, I just worry about the future. I’m worried about Square Enix and Final Fantasy. I’m worried they are running out of unique ideas. I’m worried they’re relying on exploiting existing franchises rather than taking interesting risks. I’m worried Nomura is going to keep retelling the same kinds of stories, because there really is only one Nomura story. The game was technically sound, the combat was fun, the characters stuck with me, but it was all offset with what felt like a need to prove FFVII still has something new to say.

Square, I know you’re a business, and I know trying new things is risky and scary, but if you want to tell a new story, make a new story, don’t force your new story into an existing one. Artistically Final Fantasy VII Remake doesn’t hold up, it feels like a product designed to be sold, a thing that exists to make money The soul of Final Fantasy VII is buried under a layer of attempts at revitalization, energy that could have been spent on something new and unique. You don’t need to rely on tugging at our nostalgia, there is a brave new frontier to be forged if you’re willing to move on from the past.

All of the screenshots included were captured during my playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Remake, if you want to see more, check out the my screenshot gallery :)

Citations

Square Enix. (2020, April 10). Final Fantasy VII Remake
[Video Game Software]. Retrieved May 26, 2020, from https://ffvii-remake.square-enix-games.com/en-us

That Journal Though

For my money Red Dead Redemption 2’s (RDR2) most interesting feature is Arthur Morgan’s journal. We’ve all heard how the game has been lauded for its massive and beautiful open world stuffed with more activities than a theme park, its strong narrative, and choice-based gameplay, and I’m not sure how much more we can discuss these topics without retreading over familiar ground.

I realize the journal has been mentioned by others before but I don’t feel it gets the attention it deserves when compared to the game’s flashier elements. I wanted to express my thoughts on why I feel it is so interesting and valuable.

What Others Do

Many games rely upon a simple logging or journaling system to keep track of your adventures throughout the world. Often these are in the form of small text summaries of some events that you can pull up in the game’s menus.

Reading these summaries can help you get caught up if you’ve taken a break from a game for a while, or if you’re looking to learn a little more about the world you inhabit. In most games these are emotionless impersonal entries that seem to have been made by the omnipotent force that powers the game’s world.

Very little connection is made to the characters other than describing what they’ve done and the world they inhabit. Like a sports play-by-play with the passion of and encyclopedia entry.

What RDR2 Do

Read Dead Redemption 2’s journal is different because it is not the game’s log, it is Arthur’s journal. While Arthur’s journal serves a similar practical function to other game logging systems, the highly personal nature of the writing makes the entire experience more introspective and thoughtful.

Simple things, like what you think of your friends and coworkers. Arthur remarks on such an incident, when reflecting on findings the German family while scouting for a place to make camp with Charles at the end of Act 2:

It’s not eloquent, but Arthur’s opinion of Charles is honest, almost to the point of being blunt, relfecting what we see of the protagonists personality in cutscenes, as well as offering a little insight into his true feelings. Word choice and phrasing alone do not a writer make though, and in the days before typewriting, handwriting gave us another window into the personality of the writer.

Notes are written in Arthur’s own hand, and I find when comparing his scrawl to that of others’ (particularly Dutch) it’s a bit more efficient; Lacking in Dutch’s flourish, but certainly of more practiced than John’s scratched-out mispellings.

Yes, you can read them as nicely formatted typewritten text, but I found it more rewarding to squint my way through the cowboy’s cursive scrawl (shout out to Ms. Vermillion my 3rd grade teacher for teaching me cursive). It reads like a real journal! Not that I go around reading others’ private journals…

The personal and single perspective driven nature of the entries not only make them feel more worthwhile to read, as you can get a look into Arthur’s psyche, his motivations, and how he reflects on events and himself; I also found it inspiring me to do the same.

How did I feel about a heist we pulled, or some stranger I helped, or the raiders I killed? What does that mean to me? How else will I know if I don’t spend time thinking about it and getting those ideas down, like Arthur does? Taking a step back I realized that I don’t engage in enough in self-reflection on my personal life, let alone my video game experiences.

RDR2’s Journal Inspired Me

Some video games have a quality that triggers in me a process of taking a moral and ethical invetory, and in helping me identify my lack of time spent in personal reflection, Read Dead Redeption 2 can be counted among those games which have impacted my life. The only reason I’m writing this at all is because I spent time reading Arthur’s journal entries and wanted to do the same; to learn from myself.

My life may not be as exciting as Arthur’s but it is still uniquely mine. I want to be able to review my experiences and examine my own observations and feelings outside of myself, much like I was able to do with Arthur, and I assume he was able to do with himself (as if he was some kind of real person).

Similar to how reading the in-game journal helped me learn more about Arthur and further cemented the reality of the character, I want to be able to reflect on my own feelings to learn more about myself and keep myself more grounded in my own reality.

Life is growing ever more fast paced, and it’s hard to keep up with everything and process all the inputs I receive and the feelings I may have. Read Dead Redemption 2 inspired me to slow down a bit and remember to reflect. Did it do this with direct and purposeful animations? Long distances I had to travel, or forcing me to get off my horse in camp? No, it did this with something as simple as a personalized journal.  

Citations

Rockstar Studios. (2018, October 26). Read Dead Redemption 2 (Version 1.05)
[Video Game Software]. Retrieved January 19, 2019, from https://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption2/

CINEMATIC GAMING. (2018, October 27). Red Dead Redemption 2 - Morgan Saves the German Family
[Video Upload]. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pkp91H4a1Q

The year is 2011, still fresh faced and optimistic just having graduated from high school only a year ago I took my meager wages to the local electronics retailer to get myself a new game. Usually I kept my interactions in retail environments as short as possible due to my fear and loathing of my fellow humans, but that day was different; I asked for a recommendation based on what I had to spend. The surprisingly kind employee pointed me to a game that would change my preference for fast paced action forever…BAYONETTA.

But wait…isn’t this about Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (candidate for either best, or worst, title in video game history)? Aha, you are correct, but both games were created by the same developer: Platinum Games! Platinum’s glistening logo first attracted me to Revengeance, it was actually the first Metal Gear game I ever played. I tried playing Revengeance a few years ago, got to the first proper boss (blade wolf)and barely made it through. Afterward I took a break that lasted a lot longer than intended.

At the time I wasn’t up for the level of frenetic action and punishing difficulty of Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. Truthfully the parry was throwing me for a loop, I just couldn’t figure out how to get it to work consistently, or when it could be used, and when I started getting repeatedly smashed by some regular enemies it was too much for my patience. I was too used to being able to abuse witch time from Bayonetta, and Raiden certain is no witch. Things are different now.

The me of today has gotten through some tough stuff like Dark Souls, and Bloodborne, and (most) of Sekiro (still haven’t finished…); I live for banging my head against a challenge of skill I know I can overcome if I just persist and continue to apply what I’m learning. Metal Gear Rising Revengeance certainly offers that kind butt clenching experience. And since I had just completed MGS 1 – 4, needing a break from the slower paced stealth, Revengeance was a nice change of pace. After the somewhat painful experience that was MGS4 MGRR was a breath of fresh air.

Boss fights are where Metal Gear Rising Revengeance shines. The in between moments, while fun, are restricted to running down linear hallways and can get a bit repetitive. Each boss is unique and memorable, not only in their visual design but also how they are fought. Most memorable for me are Mistral, who fights with a staff made from [patriot drone from mgs4 that was a ball with 3 arms] arms, and Monsoon, whose android body can be extended and retracted using magnetics force (and felt like the first real skill check of the game, prepare to parry). Most importantly, each boss spouts off a Metal Gear Solid 1 - esque monologue about their values before engaging in battle.

Honestly, the entire game gave me a strange nostalgic feeling for Metal Gear Solid 1. Don’t get me wrong the games are entirely different from one another in their playstyles, but their pacing feels equally snappy, and the dialogue isn’t too bloated. MGRR might have some of the most concise cutscenes and dialogue in the entire series. It manages to make some good points of its own about being true to yourself, and even manages to touch on some of the heady concepts from MGS2 without tripping all over itself. No, it’s not winning any BAFTAs, but I enjoyed the game overall…certainly more than Metal Gear Solid 4.

Maybe I’m just biased. Actually, I am definitely biased, we all are, but I’ve got a particular soft spot for Raiden, and I enjoyed how this game gave me an experience that felt more uniquely his and gave me an ending that I found more satisfying than what was presented before (I’m looking at you again Metal Gear Solid 4). I know this game has been declared non-cannon but I really can’t understand why. Revengeance doesn’t detract from the universe of Metal Gear, it’s certainly more legitimate than Metal Gear Survive! You hear that universe; I like Metal Gear Rising Revengeance and you can’t stop me!

I recently beat Metal Gear Solid 2 (MGS2) for the first time and by golly is it a strange game. All the silly ridiculousness of Metal Gear Solid 1 is pushed to an higher level, and the serious topics become ever more abstract and heavy. In MGS2 you have both a fancy dancing vampire who can walk on water, as well questions about human nature and the power of memetic legacy. It feels like a game at war with itself: there is extreme camp and extreme seriousness. I believe the dissonance created by extreme camp, and heady seriousness is exactly what makes Metal Gear Solid 2 so memorable.

Things kick off with a bang (literally) in the first mission, but after its completion the game says “You know that protagonist we’ve established in previous games, the one you’ve been playing for the past hour sneaking around a ship? Well fuck you, here’s our new guy”. If I was playing in 2002 the game would have totally subverted my expectations, but I’m a fantastical space man of the future where information never dies, so I was aware of MGS2s infamous bait and switch opening. Enter Raiden, voiced by Quinten Flynn (got it memorized?), who in almost every way is the opposite of our established series protagonist Snake.

Metal Gear Solid established Snake as a gritty, experienced, no-nonsense, multi-talented, action hero badass who could give any hollywood cliché a run for their money. Snake’s confidence is backed up by experience. At the start of Solid 1 he’s already successfully completed two mission and killed the legendary mercenary Big Boss. In MGS his character develops further, from action hero badass to…well an action hero badass who’s a bit more self aware. Raiden, on the other hand would be more at home in an anime drama with his flair for the dramatics. He starts of cocky and confident, but it’s a much different confidence than Snake’s.

Raiden’s confidence is presented to us as a false pretense; supposedly gained only from VR training he’s gone through. In his own words Raiden says “I feel like some kind of legendary mercenary”. I can’t deny this, I can’t tell him how he FEELS, but the game is quick to slap him in the face and remind him he’s just a scrub hyped up on VR. Things don’t get any easier for Raiden. He begins to lose his cool and start to panic as what he understood as his reality unravels around him.

Raiden’s descent is highlighted by the fact that he’s the only character in the game who experiences any real development or growth. Everyone else we see is fairly one dimensional, not demonstrating much growth during the events of the game! Especially not Snake, he seems to exist to be that cardboard cutout version of his most badass elements from MGS1. Antagonists aren’t much better: Solidus isn’t a particularly memorable villain with his knockoff doc-oc suit, and muscles that can SWOLE at will; Vamp is pure camp; Emma is there to make Otacon cry again; Ocelot is there to be a turncoat, Olga doesn’t shave her armpits; and Fortune does stuff. Honestly I had to go look up a list of these characters names because so many of them are so non-essential to the meat of what I feel this game is trying to tell. Fortune, I had to look up Fortune okay.

I mean Fortune’s character is perfectly fine, and the voice acting isn’t bad. She’s motivated by revenge, her preferred weapon is a railgun that would look more at home mounted to the back of a military jeep, and she gets an incredible Jean Gray moment towards the end of the game…but nothing really happens with her…She’s just kind of there being a sad sack. Which I guess was the point…And most of my arguments about the frivolousness of the supporting cast can be refuted by that very statement. Towards the end of the game when you get the massive exposition dump its learned that everything you’re doing was an elaborate simulation of what Snake went through during Shadow Moses, so I guess they’re not supposed to be that memorable. MGS2’s supporting cast is there to just fill roles in a simulation…oh yea I forgot Fatman too.

But a supporting cast of husks works to the game’s favor because it drives the focus to Raiden who unlike his fellows goes through an incredible amount of growth. Starting as a cocky, whiny face-punchable sap, he begins to question his orders, question his mission, question reality itself! He sticks up for himself and his feelings, he becomes more self-actualized, and eventually accepting his convoluted, dark past saying “Fuck it, I’m gonna be my own person” deciding to become the master of his own fate. Like a bunch of happy clowns dancing around a sobbing man whose sadness is emphasized through contrast.

But you know where there isn’t much contrast, there isn’t much dissonance, and there isn’t much to remember? The combat. MGS2 plays almost exactly like MGS1, in fact most of your weapons are identical, and some of them even operate more poorly than they did in the game that came before (I’m looking at you Nikita). I don’t have much to say about the combat in MGS2 because what is there to say? Did you play MGS1? Did you like the claustrophobic camera angles and staring at the soliton radar? Then you’ll like MGS2 just fine. I did, it was fun enough, but its simply less memorable than other elements.

Memorable is the word I’d use to describe Metal Gear Solid 2 overall; the game possesses a striking quality that is hard to forget. Yea, the writing is questionable at times, and most of the characters are obnoxious at worst and forgettable at best, but there is something charming about just how earnestly the game wants you to take its message seriously. I was lulled into a false sense of comfort by the both over the top and boring as shit side characters and main objective of “save the president” that I was blindsided when the game handed me a Katana and then proceeded to question my understanding of reality and the meaning of truth. It certainly got me to think. GW talking about how much data we generate is junk…how misinformation is spread easily, rewarding the development of “convenient half-truths”, how humans are unqualified to determine what is passed on… Individuals having too much power for an “immature species”. It’s the “humans are the real virus” trope but framed here and in our current climate it speaks quite profoundly. Its awkward, and campy, and poorly written, but I will not forget this game, it has seared itself into my memory like a showtune singing chestbuster.