From e0ec66d0c088ee437db4040b91c708e90dc41f6d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jacob Hartmann Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2022 18:37:48 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] fixed typos and such for ffvii post --- posts/Final Fantasy VII.html | 17 +++++++++-------- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/posts/Final Fantasy VII.html b/posts/Final Fantasy VII.html index 9b2ce09..53c2b2b 100644 --- a/posts/Final Fantasy VII.html +++ b/posts/Final Fantasy VII.html @@ -1,20 +1,21 @@


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The idea of replaying Final fantasy VII has long been on my mind. Playing it in 1998 was definitely a turning point. Yet the discourse surrounding it, and experiences I've had since, has definitely altered my perception of the game. Playing Final Fantasy XII a couple of times made me believe the gameplay of Final Fantasy VII was slow and dull. Playing Bravely Second gave me the impression that the job system was the definitive method to customise my little warriors. Sitting in my dorm room bed in Japan and finally playing Final Fantasy IX, gave rise to the idea that, even for a PS1 game, Final Fantasy VII was unforgivably ugly. Submerging myself in Tactics Ogre on my Vita mathematically proved that video game storytelling had reached its zenith on the Super Nintendo. And Final Fantasy VII Remake convinced me that the Midgar section was really the only noteworthy part of Final Fantasy VII.

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The idea of replaying Final Fantasy VII has long been on my mind. Playing it in 1998 was definitely a turning point. Yet the discourse surrounding it, and experiences I've had since, has definitely altered my perception of the game. Playing Final Fantasy XII a couple of times made me believe the gameplay of Final Fantasy VII was slow and dull. Playing Bravely Second gave me the impression that the job system was the definitive method to customise my little warriors. Sitting in my dorm room bed in Japan and finally playing Final Fantasy IX, gave rise to the idea that, even for a Playstation 1 game, Final Fantasy VII was unforgivably ugly. Submerging myself in Tactics Ogre on my Vita mathematically proved that video game storytelling had reached its zenith on the Super Nintendo. And Final Fantasy VII Remake convinced me that the Midgar section was really the only noteworthy part of Final Fantasy VII.

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A few years ago, a bunch of people decided the subpar original translation of Final Fantasy VII needed to go. They were gonna do it right. I can verify they succeeded. Around the time I started playing Final Fantasy VII Remake, I loaded a PS1 emulator with the Beacause translation and the Chicago font, and tried to play the two versions concurrently. Eventually, around Wall Market, I fell off the original and focused on Remake. Remake, by the way, is an absolute triumph. Somehow, later, I decided to give it just one more shot. I must have achieved perfect Japanese Role-Playing Game synchronicity, because I proceeded to have some 38 hours of constant enjoyment.

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A few years ago, a bunch of people decided the subpar original translation of Final Fantasy VII needed to go. They were gonna do it right. I can verify they succeeded. Around the time I started playing Final Fantasy VII Remake, I loaded a Playstation 1 emulator with the Beacause translation and the Chicago font, and tried to play the two versions concurrently. Eventually, around Wall Market, I fell off the original and focused on Final Fantasy VII Remake. Final Fantasy VII Remake, by the way, is an absolute triumph. Somehow, later, I decided to give it just one more shot. I must have achieved perfect Japanese Role-Playing Game synchronicity, because I proceeded to have some 38 hours of constant enjoyment.

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I'll start with the part I care the least about: the story. Yes, gasp indeed, dear non-existent reader. The narrative and how it's told is why we've never forgotten Final Fantasy VII. In this text I argue that it probably isn't the best part, which is saying a lot, because it is undeniably fabulous. It contains a plot development that is always mischaracterized as a twist, that shook the medium so profoundly, that people forgot about the part that was an actual plot-twist. The actual plot-twist is spectacular. Many hours before either of these events occur, there's a scene where the heroes go to the house of Aerith Gainsborough. Her mother recounts how she raised Aerith and the way this exposition happens, shivered me timbers. At one point, in the present, a textbox from the past appears. The camera pans up, barely keeping Elmyra, but not the other characters, in the shot. A diminutive Aerith descends the stairs, and as the camera now tracks her, the other characters are gone, and without cutting, we have seamlessly transitioned to a past event. As the flashback is told, the camera alternately pans right and left, each time returning to a different time-period in the same location as we are presently standing. Finally, it pans down again, and then back up, into the kitching in the present, in a different angle (which, remember, required rendering an entire extra background). Lord, I hope I appreciated this twenty years ago. I sure do now. There’s no need to mock the 3D characters. They did the best they could at the time. Yet they also compensated with every other tool in their inventory. Like Final Fantasy VII recently did, so too did Tactics Ogre on the Super Nintendo later on receive a tremendous retranslation (this one official). Yet even that version didn’t have film-maker editing on this level. Though if we’re swinging our video game cinematic dicks around, Final Fantasy VII doesn’t have a Man Staring at the Sea.

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I'll start with the part I care the least about: the story. Yes, gasp indeed, dear non-existent reader. The narrative and how it's told is why we've never forgotten Final Fantasy VII. In this text I argue that it probably isn't the best part, which is saying a lot, because it is undeniably fabulous. It contains a plot development that is always mischaracterized as a twist, that shook the medium so profoundly, that people forgot about the part that was an actual plot-twist. The actual plot-twist is spectacular. Many hours before either of these events occur, there's a scene where the heroes go to the house of Aerith Gainsborough. Her mother recounts how she raised Aerith and the way this exposition happens, shivered me timbers. At one point, in the present, a textbox from the past appears. The camera pans up, barely keeping Aerith's Mother Elmyra, but not the other characters, in the shot. A diminutive Aerith descends the stairs, and as the camera now tracks her, the other characters are gone, and without cutting, we have seamlessly transitioned to a past event. As the flashback is told, the camera alternately pans right and left, each time returning to a different time-period in the same location as we are presently standing. Finally, it pans down again, and then back up, into the kitching in the present, in a different angle (which, remember, required rendering an entire extra background). Lord, I hope I appreciated this twenty years ago. I sure do now. There’s no need to mock the 3D characters. They did the best they could at the time. Yet they also compensated with every other tool in their inventory. Like Final Fantasy VII recently did, so too did Tactics Ogre on the Super Nintendo later on receive a tremendous retranslation (this one official). Yet even that version didn’t have film-maker editing on this level. Though if we’re swinging our video game cinematic dicks around, Final Fantasy VII doesn’t have a Man Staring at the Sea.

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A commonly heard refrain about Japanese Role-Playing Games is the ol’ “dude. Just play it for like 10 hours and then it gets really good”. Not only have you never heard anyone utter this about Final Fantasy VII, you’ve probably heard the reverse. “Yeah it’s real good for the first 3/5/8 hours (varies with how truthful they are about the size of the Midgar section, and whether they admit to playing it with certain settings on), and then it gets kinda boring” . This says a lot about people’s perception of both the genre, and Final Fantasy VII specifically. What I mean is: Due to the complexity of these games, they slowly add mechanics over the course of some 10 hours, and then, when you finally see the whole breadth, you either have Stockholm Syndrome, or you genuinely agree with the designers that this is a good idea. Final Fantasy VII rammed a 10-hour, $80 million symphony of 20-year-old Scotch and fresh new blowjobs, performed by the entire AKB48 ensemble into the roof of its mouth, and blew its own head off. -And then it got good, dude.

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A commonly heard refrain about Japanese Role-Playing Games is the ol’ “dude. Just play it for like 10 hours and then it gets really good”. Not only have you never heard anyone utter this about Final Fantasy VII, you’ve probably heard the reverse. “Yeah it’s real good for the first 3/5/8 hours (varies with how truthful they are about the size of the Midgar section, and whether they admit to playing it with certain settings on), and then it gets kinda boring” . This says a lot about people’s perception of both the genre, and Final Fantasy VII specifically. What I mean is: Due to the complexity of these games, they slowly add mechanics over the course of some 10 hours, and then, when you finally see the whole breadth, you either have Stockholm Syndrome, or you genuinely agree with the designers that this is a good idea. Final Fantasy VII rammed a 10-hour, $80 million symphony of 20-year-old Scotch and fresh new blowjobs, performed by the entire AKB48 ensemble into the roof of its mouth, and blew its own head off.

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Is trying to keep a lid on how much you like a subject a common occurrence? Is it universal for everyone to have the equivalent of what some people call “hiding your power level” or “hiding your crazy”? Final Fantasy VII is really trying to “hide its crazy” with Midgar. Its crazy, is that this is actually a traditional JRPG with all the systems and mechanics that that entails. Parlour tricking you with set-piece dungeons like Wall Market and a gripping and fantastically well-paced and brilliantly told narrative, is really only to keep you around until it feels comfortable showing its true self, and praying you don’t run away screaming. Which a lot of people did.

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And then it got good, dude.

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Playing Final Fantasy VII this time felt strangely like playing it for the first time. I recalled many moments, and yet so many mandatory sequences seemed completely new to me. Numerous times I had to question how I ever finished it when I was… 9? That can’t be right. Did I play it in 2001? That seems too late. Who am I? Did every unit of time once exist in a much, much smaller period, so that a playthrough of Final Fantasy VII could somehow occupy the mental space of what would today be an entire decade? Describing what I once knew or observed as something so trivial as nostalgia seems like a gargantuan disrespect to whatever it is to be a child. How could I possibly be in a position to reflect on what Final Fantasy VII felt like to play for a kid that barely spoke and read English? How could that kid possibly appreciate the richness and generosity of this work? He played it alone. No one else thought Cloud Strife fucking cool. He didn’t even know the game was from Japan. Did he?

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Is trying to keep a lid on how much you like a subject a common occurrence? Is it universal for everyone to have the equivalent of what some people call “hiding your power level” or “hiding your crazy”? Final Fantasy VII is really trying to “hide its crazy” with Midgar. Its crazy, is that this is actually a traditional Japanese Role-Playing Game with all the systems and mechanics that that entails. Parlour tricking you with set-piece dungeons like Wall Market and a gripping and fantastically well-paced and brilliantly told narrative, is really only to keep you around until it feels comfortable showing its true self, and praying you don’t run away screaming. Which a lot of people did.

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Man, I used to be a genius. I must have been. This game is fantastic. Every single battle is a joy. Somehow the Final Fantasy series jumped from the Super Nintendo to the Sony Playstation and became far more kinetic, faster, more responsive, and didn’t lose any complexity. The throwaway random battles are deliciously balanced between relaxing usages of the game’s systems, and constant pick-me-ups of magical skirmishes with that banging little battle theme. The boss fights all mow down whatever is in front of them, just to tell me that this fight, this time, will be even cooler. Those Who Fight Further has never been topped. Sorry IV fans. I genuinely apologise, V fans. Final Fantasy VII has the best battle music, regular OR boss.

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Playing Final Fantasy VII this time felt strangely like playing it for the first time. I recalled many moments, and yet so many mandatory sequences seemed completely new to me. Numerous times I had to question how I ever finished it when I was… 9? That can’t be right. Did I play it in 2001? That seems too late. Who am I? Did every unit of time once exist in a much, much smaller period, so that a playthrough of Final Fantasy VII could somehow occupy the mental space of what would today be an entire decade? Describing what I once knew or observed as something so trivial as nostalgia seems like a gargantuan disrespect to whatever it is to be a child. How could I possibly be in a position to reflect on what Final Fantasy VII felt like to play for a kid that barely spoke and read English? How could that kid possibly appreciate the richness and generosity of this work? He played it alone. No one else thought Cloud Strife looked fucking cool. He didn’t even know the game was from Japan. Did he?

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Man, I used to be a genius. I must have been. This game is fantastic. Every single battle is a joy. Somehow the Final Fantasy series jumped from the Super Nintendo to the Sony Playstation and became far more kinetic, faster, more responsive, and didn’t lose any complexity. The throwaway random battles are deliciously balanced between relaxing usages of the game’s systems, and constant pick-me-ups of magical skirmishes with that banging little battle theme. The boss fights all mow down whatever is in front of them, just to tell me that this fight, this time, will be even cooler. Those Who Fight Further has never been topped. Sorry IV fans. I genuinely apologise, V fans. Final Fantasy VII has the best battle music, regular OR boss.

The previously mentioned generosity is the key. Another not-uncommon criticism of Japanese Role-Playing Games is that they are disrespectful of the player’s time: The result of random battles is a foregone conclusion, and being underpowered for a mandatory battle, necessitates that you run in circles, fighting more and more lighting slugs and unicycle horse robots, until you feel ready for the next challenge. This, my imaginary reader, is the wrong perspective. It is wrong, because it misunderstands the genre. It misunderstands the genre, because it didn’t come to have a good time. It came to the party to have a bad time, and argue and to leave in huff. This would only be a strawman argument if it wasn’t so god damn true.