As many of us are experiencing a surplus of free time due to Everything Going On, we are consuming many pieces of media that we may have not had time for before. This new way of being has led me to a few thoughts/re-examinations of how I consume what I consume, and my relationship with media in general.
For one, I feel that I (if not many other people) feel a compulsion to consume as much media/content as possible. I find myself feeling as though I need to watch every new film, listen to every possible album I may enjoy, play every game that may seem to push the medium forward, or binge every new show that may strike my interest. At its worst it, feels like a sickness, or an addiction. Compounded with this is the fact that I've began to take art criticism more seriously for around a decade or so. I've tried to make more of a point to not just interact with media on a visceral but to think about its construction or analyze its themes as well. Add to that the ADDITIONAL fact that I've had a healthy diet of film and game criticism I've been reading during that same decade, which has had a major influence on how I consume and think about art, and how I think it should be discussed.
All of these issues swirl together and manifest as part of the anxiety that is the background radiation of my life. I have this blog, I have my creative ambitions regarding what I want to talk about, and I have this sense of vague expectations I put upon myself regarding all of these things.
"I should write a lot more. I have all these thoughts and I should express them."
"Ok, I'll write an article a week. That should be easy."
"What do I actually have to contribute to the conversation on this? Is there anything else that should be contributed?"
"I HAVE to watch/play this thing so I can be part of the conversation."
In feeling all of this, I feel awash within a sea of choices: choices in what to consume, what to say, and how I feel. Even saying all of this, I don't think I've accurately expressed this feeling. It's an unease. It's a discontent. It's a fear of saying too much and not saying enough. It's the fear that I'm wasting my time and I have nothing to say, or worse, that I'm speaking to hear myself speak.
I don't know what to do with this. So, I push through. I watch movies, play games, read criticism, keep thinking about the things I'm consuming, and try to do it all in the spirit of wanting to encourage people to think about the art they consume and how they relate to it. I just worry that I'm doing it more for myself than for everyone else.
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Twenty hours into Final Fantasy 7 Remake (or A Mixed Bag at Best)
NOTE: THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST 20 HOURS OF "FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE" OR AT LEAST UP TO CHAPTER 13
Part 1: The Road to Remake
To start, I think some context is needed, as many have no real idea about the fervor around this game. I have no particular attachment to the original Final Fantasy 7. Like many, I played it as teen and enjoyed it, but moved on to the next game. It was nothing more than just another great piece of interactive entertainment that I still enjoy to this day. For some, there was a much stronger connection, and this passion and intensity was seen by the developers and publishers at Square Enix (previously Squaresoft) leading to a few ports of Final Fantasy 7 to PC's and to later PlayStation systems via the digital store. Along with this came a prequel (Crisis Core) for the PSP, a sequel (Dirge of Cerberus) for the PS2, another sequel in the form of a movie (Advent Children), and even appearances in other games (Cloud and Sephiroth are both in the Kingdom Hearts franchise).
Though many wanted a HD remake of the game (no doubt fueled by a tech demo shown at the 2005 E3) there was denial by many in charge that this was happening. Finally, on June 15, 2010, it was announced that the remake was in development. It was also announced that the game would be in multiple parts, as opposed to recreating the game on a 1:1 basis. There was a split reaction to this, as it was also announced that the game would only cover the initial starting location of the original game, the city of Midgar. This section only took about three to five hours to clear, so the idea of it being stretched into a full-length, 40-plus hour game was a lot for people to swallow. Nevertheless, the game continued in development and was finally released on April 10, 2020.
I, throughout my observation of the development, had a morbid interest in how this would turn out. Knowing about the intensity around it, would this be a success? Would it be possible to find a fresh take on this well-trod ground that would please both old fans and new? Being (somewhat) in the former category, I had to see this through. I've spent roughly twenty hours now in the new look at an aged game at the time of writing, and I've been fairly mixed on the results. To better organize all of this (as this is my own writing and is for no publication, so there) I've decided to split this into sections. First the good, then the bad, and finally the conclusion.
Part 2: The Good
For me, the biggest, and most immediate, change from the polygonal and isometric view of the original is how much graphical fidelity there is. Every aspect, from the hair on each character, to the individual fibers of each article of clothing, to even the individual movements of each person are so well-defined as to be almost photo-realistic. That change lends itself to the more emotional moments people may have where, instead of having to infer the intensity of the moment due to how little expression the graphical capabilities of the PS1 allowed, one can see the character feel the emotion. You can see them furrow their brows, or shed a tear.
There's a certain energy here that I can only describe as "anime-esque," where characters perform absurd acrobatic feats, and have grand gestures and movements that are almost operatic in nature. This is something that occurs a great deal in a number of Japanese RPGs, so it's no surprise it's here as well. The larger point is that I think they all work and all match the level of drama the rest of the game brings.
On the subject of incredible changes, the renovations to the music is where I would put the most accolades. Nobo Uematsu's compositions, while limited by the hardware and software of the PS1, still stuck out to me and with me to this day. Songs like "Still More Fighting" and "J-E-N-O-V-A" are expanded far beyond their original scope with the help of orchestral arrangements that elevate them to the same level as the graphical achievements. I should admit that my knowledge of music theory isn't deep enough to dig deeply into the mechanics of the score's successes, but I encourage one to listen to the soundtrack to perhaps see what I mean.
While not exactly in the category of change, certain elements of the original were expanded in ways that lead me to actually feel something for characters and settings that were just hinted at. You get to actually see more of the interior lives of characters like Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie, people who you only got a few lines from in the original. An entire section of the game is spent with the protagonist, Cloud Strife, having what amounts to an extended bonding sequence with the trio. This also leads to an extended "boss fight" with a sword-wielding opponent on a motorcycle. All of this in service of elevating three characters who were formerly elevated extras into fully realized constructions.
This can also be extended to the whole of Midgar, as instead of loosely sketched environments that were static due to the limitations of the PS1, we have people in the streets talking and actually doing things. The player can see the ramshackle favelas of the undercity as the plates of the top city tower hundreds of feet above, the drunken energy of the red-light-district known as Wall Market, and the dark and polished halls of Shinra Inc. For me, the whole of the city becomes a character far richer than before.
In addition to the expansions, some story beats were completely rearranged and occur at different points or in slightly different ways. All of this is to great effect, as they find new ways and angles to old ideas. For example, the Wall Market section originally featured a moment that can only be described as "gay panic" within a bath house involving Cloud. In the new version, this is replaced with a rhythm-game based dance sequence all bookended by Cloud being taught about the ways of the Market as well as opening himself up to others. It's brash, and bright, and I love it. The idea that it lets this deadly serious, sulking guy be so broad and flamboyant in the same breath is frankly refreshing.
One major change that I thought was very interesting was the evacuation of Sector 7. Originally, Shinra Inc destroys the Sector 7 slums in the undercity by causing the top plate to fall on top of it, destroying both. All of this was an attempt to frame the protagonists as to better get to them. In this version, most of the population manages to get out and live on. As small as this may seem, this adds a further element of hope and goes along with the added depth given to the other characters, as you get to meet and know many of the evacuees early in the game. This can have the effect of uniting the cause of the protagonists to what the player is connected to.
While all of these positives revolve around the story, I would be remiss to forget to mention the joys of the new combat system. At its best, I find it exciting and engaging. The blend of third-person action gameplay, a la Kingdom Hearts, with the need to switch between different characters strategically sells the anime-esque nature of the game. Characters can play off of each other while all getting "big action moments" in the form of Limit Breaks and other special moves. It's fast and definitely requires one to be on their toes in order to take advantage of the openings in combat. This all works for me because it elevates fairly straight-forward turn-based combat into something that (again) matches the level of gravitas of all of the other elements of the game.
Part 2: The Bad
All of that being said, the combat is where my least liked things lie. The focal point for this feeling is how counterintuitive the camera and lock-on functionality can be during combat. More often than not, I would find myself left with a camera that would whip around as I tried to adjust to keep the enemy on-screen, or that being locked-on to an enemy leads to my not seeing another enemy's telegraphed attack which obliterates another party-member, or even the environment itself getting in the way of what I can see which leads to everything being this cacophonous mess of translucent bodies and environments, with damage counters appearing and me having to disengage the lock-on and pull back just for it to happen again. Something I learned, too late, was that there were several settings within the game that could be changed to alleviate much of this, but it doesn't merely take it to a more personally preferable place. It made it feel actually functional. The fact that this issue which even the Kingdom Hearts games didn't really have occur here is a bit puzzling to me.
In addition to this, I found that the real use of party members I didn't control was mostly to try to get the attention of the other enemies or the boss monster, as they use no special abilities that may actually be useful unless you make them by taking control. In the worst moments, the boss monster would only attack the character I'm currently controlling, the character who most likely had the specific materia equipped to handle the particular weakness of the enemy at hand. There is the bizarre push and pull, sometimes from battle to battle, where things would work perfectly then completely fall apart as two characters would be inflicting a good bit of damage to an enemy and pulling its attention, only to lose that attention as I switch to the designated healer in the distance who attacked one time to build up the energy to cast a healing spell. It was hard to know how much damage was needed to really pull that attention.
Both of these things tend to happen at the same time in the very worst moments. It's beyond me that there's no way to pre-program some behavior for the characters you aren't controlling in combat like FF12. By having this, you could avoid these moments where the speed and intensity of the combat works against you due to the camera obscuring some important information, leading a character getting wiped out by something that wasn't even visible. Characters could automatically respond to certain situations. You would still need to jump in sometimes if a party member becomes incapacitated, but it makes it feel as though you're actually on a team, which would compliment all of the narrative strides the game makes.
On that same note, I have to comment on how little I like how some of the boss fights fall into the category of being "bullet sponges," or enemies that aren't really difficult due to strategy but due to the fact that they have an incredible amount of armor or health. I find these to be incredibly tedious and complete buzzkills compared to how fantastic I find the monster designs to be. A good example of this is the final fight you face in the colosseum in Wall Market. Very few attacks hurt it, and most of the time is spent avoiding its attacks and hitting it when it actually is vulnerable. While there's some reading you need to do of its attack patterns, it's fairly simple and is more a matter of how quickly you can dodge and switch back and forth between your two characters. In short, it's a long waiting game, because once you know what its weakness is, due to acquiring the Assess materia early on, you just hit it with the corresponding spell or abilities and run around.
Sadly, this disappointment stretched to even some of the expanded areas, where it seems things were added just to extend this to around 40 hours as opposed to 20. Sequences like the sewer escape post Wall Market, the Train Graveyard after that, and the collapsed highway are moments that were just a few screens in the original that were stretched out with no real value added. The same effect could have been given with shorter moments. In the sewer escape and collapsed highway, puzzles were added for padding, and they ultimately felt pretty tedious as opposed to challenging or even interesting. They boiled down to: walk up, push a button/move a lever, proceed. I wouldn't call that very engaging.
The very worst part of these moments is the Train Graveyard, which adds in a small sub-plot of a specter that kidnaps children and keeps their souls as well as a somewhat friendly ghost that kind of aids your party in getting back to sector 7. The problem is that this adds nothing, and is connected to nothing. It's just a moment full of the same combat issues I had before. It's almost the platonic ideal of all of the issues I have with this game. It'd be one thing if it expanded something that was previously established, or was used as part of the reconfiguration of the story, but it isn't. The cinematics are nice, but it's to the effect of nothing.
Part 4: Conclusions
If I had to describe my time with the first 20-or-so hours with one word, it would be: Mixed. There's so much here that made a big positive impact on me, so the negatives being so large is just an incredible let-down. The big bright spot is that there seem to be some very interesting narrative directions this could be going. The question is, will the narrative and mechanical sore spots keep me from enjoying this as much as I want to? On some level, I thought to myself, "Perhaps I'm being too hard on this, and much of this is user error or my nitpicking a bit too much." Then, I would keep playing and be reminded of just how frustrating these negatives were, at one point threatening to overshadow the positives in my mind. There are a few things I didn't mention, like the barely-there side quests (aka run around the same spaces to fight one thing), or the real crawl that the act of locomotion can be. I can only hope that things pick up, so that I don't come out of this completely bummed out.
Part 1: The Road to Remake
To start, I think some context is needed, as many have no real idea about the fervor around this game. I have no particular attachment to the original Final Fantasy 7. Like many, I played it as teen and enjoyed it, but moved on to the next game. It was nothing more than just another great piece of interactive entertainment that I still enjoy to this day. For some, there was a much stronger connection, and this passion and intensity was seen by the developers and publishers at Square Enix (previously Squaresoft) leading to a few ports of Final Fantasy 7 to PC's and to later PlayStation systems via the digital store. Along with this came a prequel (Crisis Core) for the PSP, a sequel (Dirge of Cerberus) for the PS2, another sequel in the form of a movie (Advent Children), and even appearances in other games (Cloud and Sephiroth are both in the Kingdom Hearts franchise).
Though many wanted a HD remake of the game (no doubt fueled by a tech demo shown at the 2005 E3) there was denial by many in charge that this was happening. Finally, on June 15, 2010, it was announced that the remake was in development. It was also announced that the game would be in multiple parts, as opposed to recreating the game on a 1:1 basis. There was a split reaction to this, as it was also announced that the game would only cover the initial starting location of the original game, the city of Midgar. This section only took about three to five hours to clear, so the idea of it being stretched into a full-length, 40-plus hour game was a lot for people to swallow. Nevertheless, the game continued in development and was finally released on April 10, 2020.
I, throughout my observation of the development, had a morbid interest in how this would turn out. Knowing about the intensity around it, would this be a success? Would it be possible to find a fresh take on this well-trod ground that would please both old fans and new? Being (somewhat) in the former category, I had to see this through. I've spent roughly twenty hours now in the new look at an aged game at the time of writing, and I've been fairly mixed on the results. To better organize all of this (as this is my own writing and is for no publication, so there) I've decided to split this into sections. First the good, then the bad, and finally the conclusion.
Part 2: The Good
For me, the biggest, and most immediate, change from the polygonal and isometric view of the original is how much graphical fidelity there is. Every aspect, from the hair on each character, to the individual fibers of each article of clothing, to even the individual movements of each person are so well-defined as to be almost photo-realistic. That change lends itself to the more emotional moments people may have where, instead of having to infer the intensity of the moment due to how little expression the graphical capabilities of the PS1 allowed, one can see the character feel the emotion. You can see them furrow their brows, or shed a tear.
There's a certain energy here that I can only describe as "anime-esque," where characters perform absurd acrobatic feats, and have grand gestures and movements that are almost operatic in nature. This is something that occurs a great deal in a number of Japanese RPGs, so it's no surprise it's here as well. The larger point is that I think they all work and all match the level of drama the rest of the game brings.
On the subject of incredible changes, the renovations to the music is where I would put the most accolades. Nobo Uematsu's compositions, while limited by the hardware and software of the PS1, still stuck out to me and with me to this day. Songs like "Still More Fighting" and "J-E-N-O-V-A" are expanded far beyond their original scope with the help of orchestral arrangements that elevate them to the same level as the graphical achievements. I should admit that my knowledge of music theory isn't deep enough to dig deeply into the mechanics of the score's successes, but I encourage one to listen to the soundtrack to perhaps see what I mean.
While not exactly in the category of change, certain elements of the original were expanded in ways that lead me to actually feel something for characters and settings that were just hinted at. You get to actually see more of the interior lives of characters like Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie, people who you only got a few lines from in the original. An entire section of the game is spent with the protagonist, Cloud Strife, having what amounts to an extended bonding sequence with the trio. This also leads to an extended "boss fight" with a sword-wielding opponent on a motorcycle. All of this in service of elevating three characters who were formerly elevated extras into fully realized constructions.
This can also be extended to the whole of Midgar, as instead of loosely sketched environments that were static due to the limitations of the PS1, we have people in the streets talking and actually doing things. The player can see the ramshackle favelas of the undercity as the plates of the top city tower hundreds of feet above, the drunken energy of the red-light-district known as Wall Market, and the dark and polished halls of Shinra Inc. For me, the whole of the city becomes a character far richer than before.
In addition to the expansions, some story beats were completely rearranged and occur at different points or in slightly different ways. All of this is to great effect, as they find new ways and angles to old ideas. For example, the Wall Market section originally featured a moment that can only be described as "gay panic" within a bath house involving Cloud. In the new version, this is replaced with a rhythm-game based dance sequence all bookended by Cloud being taught about the ways of the Market as well as opening himself up to others. It's brash, and bright, and I love it. The idea that it lets this deadly serious, sulking guy be so broad and flamboyant in the same breath is frankly refreshing.
One major change that I thought was very interesting was the evacuation of Sector 7. Originally, Shinra Inc destroys the Sector 7 slums in the undercity by causing the top plate to fall on top of it, destroying both. All of this was an attempt to frame the protagonists as to better get to them. In this version, most of the population manages to get out and live on. As small as this may seem, this adds a further element of hope and goes along with the added depth given to the other characters, as you get to meet and know many of the evacuees early in the game. This can have the effect of uniting the cause of the protagonists to what the player is connected to.
While all of these positives revolve around the story, I would be remiss to forget to mention the joys of the new combat system. At its best, I find it exciting and engaging. The blend of third-person action gameplay, a la Kingdom Hearts, with the need to switch between different characters strategically sells the anime-esque nature of the game. Characters can play off of each other while all getting "big action moments" in the form of Limit Breaks and other special moves. It's fast and definitely requires one to be on their toes in order to take advantage of the openings in combat. This all works for me because it elevates fairly straight-forward turn-based combat into something that (again) matches the level of gravitas of all of the other elements of the game.
Part 2: The Bad
All of that being said, the combat is where my least liked things lie. The focal point for this feeling is how counterintuitive the camera and lock-on functionality can be during combat. More often than not, I would find myself left with a camera that would whip around as I tried to adjust to keep the enemy on-screen, or that being locked-on to an enemy leads to my not seeing another enemy's telegraphed attack which obliterates another party-member, or even the environment itself getting in the way of what I can see which leads to everything being this cacophonous mess of translucent bodies and environments, with damage counters appearing and me having to disengage the lock-on and pull back just for it to happen again. Something I learned, too late, was that there were several settings within the game that could be changed to alleviate much of this, but it doesn't merely take it to a more personally preferable place. It made it feel actually functional. The fact that this issue which even the Kingdom Hearts games didn't really have occur here is a bit puzzling to me.
In addition to this, I found that the real use of party members I didn't control was mostly to try to get the attention of the other enemies or the boss monster, as they use no special abilities that may actually be useful unless you make them by taking control. In the worst moments, the boss monster would only attack the character I'm currently controlling, the character who most likely had the specific materia equipped to handle the particular weakness of the enemy at hand. There is the bizarre push and pull, sometimes from battle to battle, where things would work perfectly then completely fall apart as two characters would be inflicting a good bit of damage to an enemy and pulling its attention, only to lose that attention as I switch to the designated healer in the distance who attacked one time to build up the energy to cast a healing spell. It was hard to know how much damage was needed to really pull that attention.
Both of these things tend to happen at the same time in the very worst moments. It's beyond me that there's no way to pre-program some behavior for the characters you aren't controlling in combat like FF12. By having this, you could avoid these moments where the speed and intensity of the combat works against you due to the camera obscuring some important information, leading a character getting wiped out by something that wasn't even visible. Characters could automatically respond to certain situations. You would still need to jump in sometimes if a party member becomes incapacitated, but it makes it feel as though you're actually on a team, which would compliment all of the narrative strides the game makes.
On that same note, I have to comment on how little I like how some of the boss fights fall into the category of being "bullet sponges," or enemies that aren't really difficult due to strategy but due to the fact that they have an incredible amount of armor or health. I find these to be incredibly tedious and complete buzzkills compared to how fantastic I find the monster designs to be. A good example of this is the final fight you face in the colosseum in Wall Market. Very few attacks hurt it, and most of the time is spent avoiding its attacks and hitting it when it actually is vulnerable. While there's some reading you need to do of its attack patterns, it's fairly simple and is more a matter of how quickly you can dodge and switch back and forth between your two characters. In short, it's a long waiting game, because once you know what its weakness is, due to acquiring the Assess materia early on, you just hit it with the corresponding spell or abilities and run around.
Sadly, this disappointment stretched to even some of the expanded areas, where it seems things were added just to extend this to around 40 hours as opposed to 20. Sequences like the sewer escape post Wall Market, the Train Graveyard after that, and the collapsed highway are moments that were just a few screens in the original that were stretched out with no real value added. The same effect could have been given with shorter moments. In the sewer escape and collapsed highway, puzzles were added for padding, and they ultimately felt pretty tedious as opposed to challenging or even interesting. They boiled down to: walk up, push a button/move a lever, proceed. I wouldn't call that very engaging.
The very worst part of these moments is the Train Graveyard, which adds in a small sub-plot of a specter that kidnaps children and keeps their souls as well as a somewhat friendly ghost that kind of aids your party in getting back to sector 7. The problem is that this adds nothing, and is connected to nothing. It's just a moment full of the same combat issues I had before. It's almost the platonic ideal of all of the issues I have with this game. It'd be one thing if it expanded something that was previously established, or was used as part of the reconfiguration of the story, but it isn't. The cinematics are nice, but it's to the effect of nothing.
Part 4: Conclusions
If I had to describe my time with the first 20-or-so hours with one word, it would be: Mixed. There's so much here that made a big positive impact on me, so the negatives being so large is just an incredible let-down. The big bright spot is that there seem to be some very interesting narrative directions this could be going. The question is, will the narrative and mechanical sore spots keep me from enjoying this as much as I want to? On some level, I thought to myself, "Perhaps I'm being too hard on this, and much of this is user error or my nitpicking a bit too much." Then, I would keep playing and be reminded of just how frustrating these negatives were, at one point threatening to overshadow the positives in my mind. There are a few things I didn't mention, like the barely-there side quests (aka run around the same spaces to fight one thing), or the real crawl that the act of locomotion can be. I can only hope that things pick up, so that I don't come out of this completely bummed out.
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