FFVII was a game I never played because I wasn't a PS1-person when I was a kid (I was all about the vastly superior console: The N64 and Ocarina of Time, baby.) But you'd be hard-pressed to never hear of Final Fantasy let alone see all the iconic screens and marketing for FFVII. It's like I didn't know what it was but I would always know what it looked like. Suffice it to say, getting into the Remake was a treat, as someone who has never actually seen the original through.
I finished FFVIIR last week on my PS4. Here's a few blurbs about it.
So I'm here, full of questions and anticipations for Part 2 that we may not see until 2023, but we're all in an FFVII mood, so here I am playing the original on the Switch. I played FFVII once before, but never got too far in it. I made it to the part when you leave midgar, on the old PC version, and then my game hit a game-breaking scene that caused me to give up on the playthrough. So, I've never seen anything beyond part 2 or SPOILER ALERT (That character that dies and everyone knows about it from everyone who played FFVII!). Pretty exciting, and immediately there has been things that jumped in my face.
The pacing. Like, holy shit, we knew Remake would pad things out because that's the devil's deal when you remake something in "The Hobbit" style. It really wasn't a surprise but even so, going back to OG after the remake it's almost crazy just how concise and brief its writing and depiction of the scenarios are. Often it's a plus, but there's actually a couple of areas so far where I think the remake did a much better job at pulling me into the world and making me care.
So, a few things I've experienced so far:
But there's some problems too. I think the writing in the original suffers from localization that's in the same realm as Ocarina of Time's but it's also maybe worse? It's so reliant on characters and writing that sometimes I have to stop up and say to myself "Who would ever talk like that?" It seems like a lot of lines got translated out of context, not that it's incomprehensible but it can seem incongruent at times.
But the game is cute and I'm interested to see where the story actually goes past Midgar. I remember seeing the overworld once. I'm also curious how that will be done in Part 2 of the remake, by the way.
Oh, and the Switch port is great right now. It's stable, no issues with the music and the speed-up feature is nice.
I finished FFVIIR last week on my PS4. Here's a few blurbs about it.
- Incredible, slick implementation of cutscenes and gameplay.
- Amazing conversion of the "semi-realtime" combat that FFVII created but in actual real-time.
- Characters you quickly grow to love thanks to fantastic cinematics design, writing and performances (even the english dub is fantastic, minus anime-grunts!)
- The "part 1" aspect of the remake has a fitting close-off point I would say.
- But there's of course some controversy everyone's talking about:
I've discussed my theories and understanding of the ending in many other threads. Instead I'll give my take as a "new player": Incomprehensible. It seems like Square is pissing off veterans with this stuff, but they're also completely confusing newcomers. Even ignoring everything that happens inside the singularity the way they introduce it at the dead end on the road it felt like the tone and mood of all the characters changed, and became increasingly illogical. Instead of asking "What will I find in there?" Tifa says "What will we find on the other side?" and really, all I kind of wanted was for one of these guys to say "What the hell is that?" because at this point in the story even with materia and magic, nothing of this calibre of nonsense has been revealed before, and no one should be this complicit with it.
So I'm here, full of questions and anticipations for Part 2 that we may not see until 2023, but we're all in an FFVII mood, so here I am playing the original on the Switch. I played FFVII once before, but never got too far in it. I made it to the part when you leave midgar, on the old PC version, and then my game hit a game-breaking scene that caused me to give up on the playthrough. So, I've never seen anything beyond part 2 or SPOILER ALERT (That character that dies and everyone knows about it from everyone who played FFVII!). Pretty exciting, and immediately there has been things that jumped in my face.
The pacing. Like, holy shit, we knew Remake would pad things out because that's the devil's deal when you remake something in "The Hobbit" style. It really wasn't a surprise but even so, going back to OG after the remake it's almost crazy just how concise and brief its writing and depiction of the scenarios are. Often it's a plus, but there's actually a couple of areas so far where I think the remake did a much better job at pulling me into the world and making me care.
So, a few things I've experienced so far:
- The mako 5 intro. Again, incredibly short, even shorter than I remembered, but the intro sequence itself... man, that part is so good that I really feel like the Remake didn't live up to it, now that I rewatch it. The continued focus on the "stars" in the first couple of seconds before pulling the camera into midgar and Aerith has a feeling of intent to it that the remake has replaced with more "realistic" stuff, like showing the citizen and the city. I really love theme and symbolism and this part is great. Even in that Windows-style midi the music still gives you chills. A testament to great composition.
- I keep talking to Jessie, Biggs and Wedge and then I remember how we almost don't get to know them before they're out of the story.
- Really cool, for its time, how this game blends adventure-game style text-boxes but lets you occasionally walk around during them. They have actual "set-pieces" in these chibi-graphics and pre-rendered backgrounds. Cinematics, but also gameplay-pieces like running through the train with a timer on it. Here, the original also does a better job at keeping the player in the game than the remake did (forced walking and forced transitory segments are very dull)
- The distance between areas is so short it keeps surprising me. From the second Mako Reactor mission to meeting Aerith to suddenly having to cross-dress to get in at Don Corneo's place is so brisk that I can't believe I've already seen all that.
But there's some problems too. I think the writing in the original suffers from localization that's in the same realm as Ocarina of Time's but it's also maybe worse? It's so reliant on characters and writing that sometimes I have to stop up and say to myself "Who would ever talk like that?" It seems like a lot of lines got translated out of context, not that it's incomprehensible but it can seem incongruent at times.
But the game is cute and I'm interested to see where the story actually goes past Midgar. I remember seeing the overworld once. I'm also curious how that will be done in Part 2 of the remake, by the way.
Oh, and the Switch port is great right now. It's stable, no issues with the music and the speed-up feature is nice.
