RE: Final Fantasy VII Remake

So it’s been about two weeks since I finished Final Fantasy VII Remake.  Guess I’d better commit my thoughts to digital paper, huh?

Here’s the burning question, asked (metaphorically) to someone with a reputation for slamming modern Final Fantasy games: what do I think of it?  Is it good?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

I’ve been thinking for a long time about how to approach this.  Exactly what words I want to use.  And, most importantly, how to sum up my feelings about the game.  I would think that the window of relevancy has slammed shut on my fingers (as of writing, the game’s been out for more than a month), but that’s never stopped me before.  I had to know if this entry in the franchise was the redemption it so desperately needed, or just another one to throw on the pile.  But because I’m me -- because I’ve slammed Final Fantasy again and again and again -- I have to be careful.

Can I be fair?  Can I be impartial?  Can I be open-minded?  Can I remove my biases?  Can I keep my preferences from getting in the way?  All those questions and more have swirled around in my head since release day (and well before it).  If I can’t at least appear to be neutral, then my ethos is borked right out of the gate.  Nothing I say will matter if I can’t make a strong case for myself.

And I’m intensely wary of that right now -- the reason being that this is, or might be, another The Last of Us situation.  As far as I know?  Outside of a few bumps and complaints, praise for FF7R is nearly universal.  Gamespot gave it one of their precious 10/10 scores.  The Metacritic score is sky-high on both the critic and user sides of the fence.  People really, really, really like the game, and are ready for more. 

I wish I could be one of them.

Just like with The Last of Us (at least before Naughty Dog’s crunch culture made the rounds and spoilers for the sequel made people hate it all of a sudden), I’m in a bad spot.  A spot where I’m in the minority.  A spot where Squeenix handed out a bunch of rich chocolate, and everybody’s eating the chocolate, and loving the chocolate, and I’m not one of them because I hate chocolate.  It feels like if I speak up, I’ll just get the usual spate of complaints (inasmuch as one who’s drastically overestimating his sphere of influence can get complaints).  “You’re just biased!”  “You don’t like anything!”  “You love playing the contrarian, don’t you?”  And so on, and so forth.  Because apparently, not liking the thing that others do leads to you getting called an overly sanctimonious asshole…which I can say from experience.

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t enjoy feeling this way about FF7R.  You think I went in with the hopes of hating it?  The retelling of one of the games that completely altered the trajectory of my life and ambitions?  You think I’d choose to sit down and waste 45 hours of my life on something I was looking to hate?  You think I want to suffer with what should be an entertainment experience?  Get real.  I’m here to judge whatever art comes my way -- learn and evolve from it, all while engaging with it on the highest levels I can.  I want FF to be good again, for everyone, undeniably. 

This isn’t it.

It hurts to say, but this isn’t it.  And now that we’re locked into this path vis a vis more 7R sequels, I’m worried that it’s still not going to be it for years and years and years and years. 

…

…That all said, it’s not like this is the worst game I’ve ever played.  Far from it.  This franchise can go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay lower than FF7R.

There are good things about this game.  It’s a mainline Squeenix title, so the production values are dancing on Everest’s summit.  There are some technical hiccups tainting the visuals every now and then -- with close-ups on some blocky flowers, as an example -- but more often than not, there are sights and scenery that’ll make you stop and take in…uh…sights and scenery.  The (important) character models are top-notch, too, safely straddling the line between photorealism and anime abstraction.  Barret in particular is unfathomably hot, namely when he takes off his sunglasses. 

As always, the one thing that’s hardest to complain about with these games is the music; I don’t have the OST on lock, but I wouldn’t dare claim that there aren’t some bangers in the mix.  The Turks battle theme (namely the second phase of the 1v1 Reno fight) is a personal favorite that gets the blood pumping.  We’ve come a long way since the days of the polygonal Popeye clones, and it shows; there’s been an incredible effort in making the scenes and moments we expect have actual cinematic flair.  That’s something worth appreciating, if not celebrating.

To be sure, this is a clear step up from the dark days of the FF13 games, and I’d personally put it above 15 while I’m at it.  When the combat works, it works; there’s a certain magic in being able to go ham with Cloud and Tifa’s offense, or landing a big hit with Barret’s blasts, or even double-casting magic with Aerith.  It takes a little while to get used to managing the ATB and skills/menu, but by endgame weaving my way through and commanding the party felt natural. 

More to the point?  7R is at its best when you actually have to learn the fight instead of mashing through or relying on raw statistical power.  Granted it’s not as if getting those BIG NUMBERS for your characters is impossible (there’s more to customization this time around besides Materia-slotting, which I appreciate), but the most satisfaction comes from applying the knowledge you gain mid-fight.  This is going to sound biased coming from a dilettante of fighting games, but if we have to abandon turn-based combat, then the more fighting-game-like it becomes, the better off we’ll be.    

Rest assured; I gnawed my fingers down to the bone over how bad the story would get.  The story, the characterization, the dialogue, the writing from scene-to-scene and overall.  Having finished the game, I can confirm that it’s not the train wreck this company has a talent for putting out.  There’s been an effort to inject life and charisma into the cast, and it shows with scenes that (intentionally) got some laughs out of me.  Some of the character interactions are definitely a highlight, either as raw entertainment or as a way to flesh them out beyond their PS1 incarnations.  I’m not going to call this game subtle by ANY means, but I appreciate the elevator scene during the first bombing run where a panicky Barret picks up on Cloud’s stoicism and actually takes a lesson from the “ex-SOLDIER”.

The scars from Kingdom Hearts III (and other KH games…and other FF games while we’re at it) led me to believe that Squeenix has only gotten worse at storytelling over time, even within the 10-ish year span from The Lightning Saga (HRRRRRRRRRRGKH) on.  Even so, there are things in this remake that a jaded, black-hearted grump like me can appreciate about this game.  There are signs that things have gotten better.  The men and women behind it have gotten better.  The game, from an objective perspective -- such as it is -- is better than what we’ve gotten in years.

I’m just so goddamn bored by it.

Is this a better entry than most modern Squeenix fare?  Yes.  That doesn’t mean it’s not riddled with problems.  Moreover, just because the game is better doesn’t mean that it’s got a high score; more like it’s moving toward par.  Towards acceptable.  Towards average.  It’s a matter of net worth.  When you take the good and the bad and mix them in a pot, the end result is what matters -- and the end result, to me, is a game that’s got too many issues to reach that TENOUTTATEN space.  It is, however, a game that successfully put me to sleep a couple of times.

I said that this was another TLOU situation, and I meant it.  One of my complaints for that game -- which carries over to three out of four Uncharted games -- is that it’s too damn long for the story it’s trying to tell.  7R works the same way.  For those unaware, the Midgar section of the original so lavishly reproduced here only takes about 5 hours to clear.  How do you stretch that into a full, standard-length JRPG?  The obvious answer, and the point that’s gotten the most complaints, is to pad everything.  The filler sidequests have rightfully gotten slammed, because they kill the pacing of the game.  They’re not the only issue, though.  7R moves at a depressingly slow clip, with overlong areas prone to throwing progress-blocking obstacles in your way.  Dunkey brought up the robot arm navigation, but it’s far from the only example; whereas the original game had Cloud, Tifa, and Barret pressing buttons simultaneously in a reactor once, this game has you doing the same thing multiple times with increasing difficulty and dialogue in between.  Because…excitement?

Every time there’s something I can praise, there’s something -- or many more things -- that I can complain about.  But since I’m talking about speed, let’s follow through on that.  The pacing of this game is uneven.  Events and interactions that could have been resolved quickly drag on forever, be it traversing a sector, clearing a dungeon gimmick, or just getting through a cutscene.  That last one’s a real killer, because it feels like a lot of times, these scenes aren’t providing you with any new information.  Yes, effort has been made to characterize the cast for the modern day, but not it’s to the point where the devs overcorrected.  Overdid it.

Basically, FF7R in a lot of ways is racing…well, causally walking…toward the same conclusions we drew about these people back in 1997.  Relative to the runtime, there’s not enough new information provided each time to outweigh the old.  Barret gets some good scenes, but he’s exactly the same guy I knew back when I watched my brother’s first playthrough.  Tifa is exactly who I thought she was, only with more scenes telling us as much.  Same fore Aerith.  Same for Cloud.  By the halfway point, I was internally going “Yeah, okay, I get it, thanks” whenever the game tried to sell me on the cast. 

It would have helped, immensely, if there was a stronger push in the plot -- a sort of narrative urgency.  But it’s not there.  Sure, plenty of that’s owed to the pace-breaking padding along the way.  Part of that’s owed to the lack of new information (I’m legitimately intrigued by them playing up the conflict with Wutai and Shinra’s mind-numbing propaganda, and wish there was a bigger focus on that).  Part of that comes from the devs retreading ground I’ve walked along personally at least four times in my life.  Part of that comes from the deluge of Advent Children-level, lavish action scenes -- fun to look at for a bit, but basically the visual equivalent of a sack of bacon cheeseburgers.  But the real sin is that the actual plot is treated way too similarly to a Kingdom Hearts game…which by extension means that Squeenix still doesn’t know how to write.

I’m not going to talk about the ending now, outside of saying that a certain one-winged angel was mishandled from start to finish.  Honestly, even with all the buzz around the ending (the one thing that people complained about the loudest), it didn’t hit me as hard as it could have.

That’s actually not a good thing.

I would think that art -- the best of it, at least -- is supposed to leave an impression on you.  Have an impact.  Make you feel emotion.  By the time I started my solo trek with Aerith, I was on my way toward mentally checking out.  The sudden assault of lame sidequests only hastened the fall.  No matter how much Squeenix boated about the crossdressing quest, it was too late.  By then, the game had become less of an adventure and more of an obligation.  Punch in, punch out.  Game start, game clear. 

There’s stuff I can praise the game for, certainly.  But every time I think about talking about this game, more complaints than compliments come to mind.  I feel like I’ve implied as much with this very post; virtually everything, even the music, has something gripe-worthy about it.  The combat is especially aggravating at times, a mix of poor execution and bad design.  Why is the AI so bad?  Why does something as crucial as the ATB gauge fill so slowly for the partners you have to rely on?  Why can enemies just casually walk out of my spells’ area of effect?  Why are flying enemies such a pain in the ass?  Why are there so many attacks that stun you and leave you helpless?  The list goes on.

And I’m sorry, but Midgar doesn’t really do it for me.  It’s fine in both the original and the remake, but in the original’s case, the grimy future aesthetic was offset by the (seeming) scale of the world, and the variability of the environments.  In the remake?  Outside of a few places like the reactors, Aerith’s house, and the Shinra building, it’s a bunch of junk-filled slums.  Junk, dilapidation, urban decay.  Dingy subway tunnels and sewers are supposed to be our respite.

By the way, those sewers?  You have to go through them twice.  Praise be to Squeenix for blessing us with such magnanimity. 

Not all of my issues are equal in severity (or credibility, at least in terms of “objectivity”).  But there are enough of them that they pile up over time, and become too hard to ignore.  With all that in mind, it’s kind of a moot point.  What I’m doing here isn’t trying to drag people down to my level, and convincing them a game that they like is somehow trash and they’re trash for liking trash like the trash they are.  At best, I’m only trying to rationalize my feelings.  Explain how I reached the conclusions I did.

Like it matters.  I’m only typing out these words -- with more to come, guaranteed -- to give form to my feelings.  Really, though, those feelings are what matter most.  What I felt in those moments, all the way up to the end credits, are what’ll stick with me.  What drives me to do what I do.  So, I’ll be honest: when those credits rolled?  When the Squeenix logo crawled its way up the screen?  I was laying there on my couch, slumped, deflated, eyes half-shut.  For a brief moment, my thoughts of “Yeah, okay, whatever” and “Finally, I’m done” and “I need to go to the store” gave way.  Why?  So I could give that logo a stealthy yet committal middle finger.

*sigh*

You know what?  It’s pretty fitting that the game’s theme song is titled “Hollow”.  Because by the time I was through, that’s the only thing I could feel.

See you around.

(Maybe next time I can talk about games I actually like.)