Sometimes I feel like we’re living in an
era of remakes; where everything that was once good and popular is destined to be resurrected
so that someone somewhere can squeeze out whatever monetary value they can from its
name, legacy or fanbase. Nostalgia is a commodity and I guess it makes
sense that no one who’s sitting on something valuable wants to let it go to waste, so they
don’t. This is true for movies, cartoons, tv shows,
and god damn is it true for video games. The past decade has seen the numbers of rereleases,
remasters and reboots all increase and the past couple of years have seen big budget
remakes take up an ever large role in the gaming market. So it’s no surprise at all that final fantasy
7, one of the most popular and influential games ever made… would get made again. It was always gonna happen, ever since the
playstation 3 tech demo showed the recreated opening cutscene at e3 2005 and put the idea
at the forefront of fans minds. People wanted it, and with time their desire
for a remake grew right alongside their nostalgia for the original. And sales were pretty much guaranteed, after
all final fantasy 7 was a game that broke sales records for its time and its reputation
and brand recognition have only increased have only increased since. So it almost had to happen, all that was left
were the questions of when… and how. So fast forward to 2015, where it became official,
and this was how people reacted... ”audio of screams and cheering”. That is 27 seconds, of a 7 hour video but I feel like those 27 seconds might be all you need. So what is the point of a remake? Well I guess to give the fans what they want. But when it comes to final fantasy 7, I’m
a fan. This is a game I’ve completed many times. I’ve played it as a child, as a teenager,
and as an adult. I’ve played the spin off games, and watched
the spin off movie and animes. Around 2006 to 2008 I spent many hours discussing
this game, and others, on an online final fantasy message board, which looking back
isn’t exactly the coolest thing I’ve done in my life but I’m really not sure I’d
actually be here, making youtube videos, otherwise, so it still stands out as something important
that was largely centered around final fantasy 7. And I don’t want to go into too much detail
about my backstory, but the point is: I am a fan. I don’t have a list of my all time favorite
or greatest games, but if I did final fantasy 7 would easily find a place towards the very
top. I am a fan and I didn’t want this. I didn’t want it in 2005, I didn’t want
it in 2010 and I didn’t want it in 2015. And don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t radically
opposed to the idea. I understood why so many people wanted a final
fantasy 7 remake and I accepted it. But I wasn’t one of them, because I loved
final fantasy 7. This final fantasy 7, my final fantasy 7,
and I didn’t feel a need for it to be remade because I loved it how it was. It’s not perfect, it was never perfect,
not in 1997 and certainly not today, but I didn’t care because when people love something
they don’t need it to be perfect. It was a classic, an era defining epic, which
in spite of its graphics still retained a timeless sense of charm and adventure that
resonates to this day. So why would you want more than that? Expecting extra is greedy, how much can one
game give. And it’s foolish to think it’s as simple
as updating the graphics. As if a game can just be transcribed one for
one from this, to this, without losing something in the process, something which matters, a
part of what makes it what it is. Final fantasy 7 was too good to just be remade,
the gap in time was too long, the process too complex, and the track record of those
in charge too shaky. To think otherwise was hubris. But people did think otherwise. I mean just listen to them “audio cheers”. So I didn’t want a remake because I loved
this game, but these guys, they loved final fantasy 7 too. So what sets us apart? Well I like to use the never controversial
example of religion. You see I’ve often seen people compare fandoms
to religions, and that makes a lot of sense to me, but people usually make this comparison
to draw attention to the exaggerated nature of fan reactions, and how fandoms seem to
worship their franchises with a level of zeal and fanaticism. But I’ve always liked this comparison for
a different reason, which is to do with faith. That’s the difference between someone who’s
religious and someone who isn’t in my eyes, and you can try to bring in facts and science
and morality and anything else into the equation but it’s unlikely to make a difference because
at the heart of matter it all comes down to faith. And you either have it or you don’t. And I think fandoms are the same way. Either you have faith, like all these guys
do, or, like me, you don’t. So that’s where I was going into final fantasy
7 remake. I was a fan, who lacked faith, going into
the experience with modest expectations, which might give me a different perspective to many
other people but I want you to understand what perspective I had and where it came from. And the question of faith and the purpose
of a remake, and the era we find ourselves in, are all things I’m going to come back
to, but for now, what about the game itself? Well welcome to 2020, where the remake is
finally here… the moment where people’s dreams become reality, and people realize
that dreams are complex and elusive things that are always outside of our control. But before going any further I want to make
it clear that this video will contain some spoilers, for both final fantasy 7 and its
remake, and I feel it’s only fair to point out to people that just because you’re familiar
with one of these games doesn’t mean that spoilers for the other won’t matter. And with that lets get back to Midgar. It’s a strange feeling, to see something
so familiar, yet so different. The opening cutscene of the remake contains
an almost shot for shot re-creation of the playstation 1 original and with twenty three
years of technological improvement, Midgar has never looked better. This cutscene is also almost three times as
long as the original, with a substantial two minutes of new added footage at the beginning,
that shows a rare glimpse into normal midgar life, while cleverly using music, lighting,
and symbolic imagery to dial up the sense of foreboding. The midway transition from the glow of the
mako reactor into the night sky of the original opening and back into Aerith kneeling in the
alleyway feels particularly impressive. Say what you like about Square, they sure
do know how to make a nice looking opening, and here, in this new and improved cinematic,
we get to see the true ideal of a remake in all its usually unattainable perfection. As in, this cutscene features every single
part of the original, remade to look hundreds of times better, with new added footage that
matches and compliments what was already there and is blended together seamlessly. If every part of every remake lived up to
the standards set by final fantasy 7’s opening cutscene, well, no one would ever complain
about a remake again. Alas, things aren’t always this easy, and
gameplay presents very different challenges to a static cinematic. Like many jrpgs of its time, the original
final fantasy 7 featured turned based battles through random encounters amidst navigating
pre rendered backgrounds, but the idea of turn based battles and random encounters has
proven to be too oldschool for square enix since as early as 2006. It makes sense in a way because the final
fantasy series built its reputation on being an epic, cinematic adventure that was at the
forefront of technological advancement, and a core gameplay system that developed a reputation
as dated as far back as the early 2000’s, simply clashed with everything the series
was marketed as being about. So the old battle system had to go, and ever
since the entire series has felt like it’s been in a bit of a perpetual identity crisis
with its gameplay. While other jrpgs found success by either
staying true to their turn based roots, or by embracing the modern action rpg trend, Final Fantasy was instead too proud for either of those choices. It wanted to have its cake, and eat it. It wanted to be both modern in appearance
with the feel of an action game, while also retaining its traditional tactical style and
strategic sensibilities. And so, each new big budget final fantasy
tried to do this in their own way, and they didn’t do a bad job, but none of them found
a formula that proved popular enough to endure. None of them got that mix of old and new quite
right. None of them found the right foundation for
what modern final fantasy wanted to be… Until now. I don’t think final fantasy 7 remake’s
combat excels at either of the things it tries to be. As an action game it can’t compare to an
actual action game, or even some good action rpgs. Combat can come across as visually cluttered
and messy. Dodging feels a little too ineffective and
unsatisfying. Targeting enemies is sometime inconsistent, with aerial foes proving to be particularly annoying. And stopping in the midst of battle to open
a menu and issue out orders kills the flow and the feel of the action. And, at the same time it’s tactically simplistic,
with only a fraction of the depth of a true turn based game, and teammate AI that’s
so lacking in customizable behavior or common sense, that being forced to take time out
of your busy battle schedule to tell them to actually do something feels a bit more
like being a babysitter than getting a chance to flex your tactical muscles. But the original final fantasy 7 wasn’t
tactically complex to begin with; in fact none of the older final fantasies were. They did just about enough to meet a minimal
level of engagingness while combining that with, for their time, good graphics and addictive
progression systems. This formula was then topped off with plenty
of memorable boss fights and story moments that more than made up for any mediocrity
in the moment to moment gameplay. And I don’t think remake is that different. In fact when it comes to boss fights I honestly
think this might be the best the series has ever been. There are 28 boss fights in the main game,
and none of them feel low effort. These fights are varied; their visual designs
look great, their movesets will force players to engage with the games systems beyond just
mashing the attack button, and they simply do a good job at feeling epic. When the gameplay in boss fights does sometimes
lag behind, the pure spectacle of these engagements are still there to slap the player in the
face so they don’t forget to have a good time. And as strong as the spectacle of these fights
can be, they still feel like something which you’re actively playing through. As opposed to something like final fantasy
15, which also has moments of incredible spectacle, but falls into the trap of creating experiences
that feel more like interactive cutscenes than true boss fights. But remake gets this just right and the sheer
number of great boss fights in this game is really impressive. There are things to complain about like boss
fights resetting their stagger meter when they change phase, and I’m sure there are
more, valid criticism of the combat itself, but overall I like this new hybrid action
combat system quite a lot. And more so than almost any other jrpg I’ve
played, it really does feel like a modern take on the traditional turn based combat
that so many people, including me, have fond memories of. The materia system is also well implemented,
although there aren’t as many cool late game combos and synergies as the original
game had and leveling up materia doesn’t quite feel as important as it once did. It also needs to be said that the vast quantity
of items you pick up, combined with the very generous number of benches you can rest at
to be fully healed, is complete overkill. I understand hard mode does take the opposite
approach, but I still feel the base difficulty would have felt a bit more satisfying if the
number of healing items and benches was toned down by quite a few degrees. But overall, there’s a lot more good than
bad with the new combat and the differences between how each of the main characters plays
does a lot to keep this solid foundation interesting for the games duration. And so it’s easy to adapt an opening cutscene,
anyone can take years of technological progress and make a cinematic better. But the combat system is a whole other story,
and this is a damn fine attempt at building on and modernizing the original game. Of course there are things even more important
than combat to a final fantasy game, and one thing I was sure the remake wouldn’t get
right, was the characters. Now before we get into this I think it might
be a good time to flex my Microsoft paint skills a bit and start things off with an
introductory diagram. So here we have an original idea. It exists inside someone’s head and it’s
perfect. This will then need to leave someone’s head
to be turned into a thing, and that will change it slightly. It’s now less perfect but that’s the price
you pay for creation. A person, like me, will then come along and
consume that thing, creating their own interpretation, which, again differs slightly. But other people consume that thing too and
they have slightly different interpretations. And then if they remake the original thing,
it comes from their collective interpretations and it changes again. And then along comes our consumer who then
interprets the new thing. And maybe you can see the problem but if not here’s a big arrow to draw attention to it. So the point is this: in each arrow the original
idea changes slightly to become something new, so the more arrows, the more it changes,
and this can then cause a big difference between the way the original seems to us, and the
way the remade thing seems, which can be a problem. This is, of course, a simplification of what
really happens but I still think this process plays an important role in remakes, particularly
when it comes to characters. In a story like final fantasy 7 the characters,
and the player’s attachment to them, play a crucial part in our enjoyment of the game. These characters matter to us, they are the
closest any single part of the experience comes to being sacred, the thing that can’t
be messed with, and so any time we see these characters again they have to seem like our
characters. And this feels particularly relevant in the
case of final fantasy 7 because this is something the final fantasy 7 compilation already got
wrong. I hate the final fantasy 7 compilation. Well maybe, hate is a strong word but, I hate
the final fantasy 7 compilation, and while there are several reasons for that it’s
mostly about the characters and how wrong they felt to me. In advent children Cloud is a moody, brooding,
generic anime protagonist and I hate it. And this is a character I should love. An even worse offender was Aerith in Crisis
Core. Aerith, who in the original final fantasy
7 is confident and charming, and a little bit flirty without going full Jessie, and
really, just one of the most likeable and seemingly normal characters in the entire
game. In crisis core however, she’s just weird. Like every single line she says has this unnatural
awkward style, which I think is meant to play up how innocent or cute she’s meant to be,
but that’s not aerith. This thing is like some alien pretending to
be human, and it’s terrible. I mean come on, aerith already had to die
once, was it really necessary to do this to her legacy too. This is not my cloud, this is not my cloud
either, this is not my sephiroth, this certainly isn’t my aerith, and I’m sure if I spent
more time with these fuckbois I’d have something to say about them too. And this doesn’t just make me dislike the
final fantasy 7 compilation, its worse; it harms my pure and perfect memories, as if
these characters are a body of crystal clear water that someone’s just dumped a load
of mud right in the middle of and now I can’t see them in the same way anymore, they’re
all murky and advent children-y, err. But here’s the real m. night shyamalan part
of this little story. These characters aren’t actually that bad. I mean really, they’re not that different
to the originals, but the problem is that we each have our own subjective interpretation
of things. It comes down to that big blue arrow and the
dissonance between our two different interpretations of what should be the same thing. So, in summary, characters are important and
characters are fragile. Or maybe its fans that are the fragile ones,
but either way, there’s a real risk that a remake will get the characters slightly
wrong in the eyes of the one who matters the most, the player, and even when they are only
slightly wrong, that can still have a substantial negative impact. So with all that said we get back to final
fantasy 7 remake…....... and the characters are perfect. This is my aerith: confident, charming, just
a little bit flirty, and an all round fun party member. And this is the Tifa I remember: the girl
next door archetype with a big heart who’s afraid to speak up directly about her feelings
for Cloud or her confusion about Clouds past. And Barret seems spot on too. His antagonism with Cloud is there and still
really prevalent, but the writers make sure to not push it too far to the point where
Barret starts to seem unlikeable. His light hearted comic relief side is here
too, but again the writers don’t take it far enough so as to undermine his believability
as a real character. And his hard-line uncompromising anti-shinra
side is here as well in all its glory, with the writers very deliberately not pulling
any punches to try to sugarcoat his morally questionable extremism. It really is great; Barret comes off as a
likeable and flawed character with real depth, and considering how this is a character who’s
been unfairly criticized for years as just being a cheap Mr T knock off as well as being
a character who is a massive terrorist in a now post 9/11 world, it makes it all the
more impressive how strong his characterization is here while staying completely faithful. And after seeing Barret I honestly can’t
wait to see how the writers handle Cid, because Cid is a character I thought for sure would
be changed or ruined, until I actually played the remake. But now I think they’ll do it, I think they’ll
do Cid justice, who would have thought. Cloud seems well done too, although it’s
too early to judge his character fully. But his cool mercenary façade has enough
cool in it to endear him to audiences and the wrongness of his act shines through all
the time too without being so heavy handed that it feels like too much. Best of all though, he feels genuinely relatable. Even if you know why he acts the way he does,
his mannerisms and word choice feel just as easily explained by good old run of the mill
social awkwardness as anything else. And this results in him feeling very human. It’s easy for the player to feel invested
in his character, and considering the direction his story will go, that’s incredibly important. So the writers seem to understand their characters
perfectly and that cognitive dissonance that I felt so clearly in every other final fantasy
7 related spin off is nowhere to be found. These characters are great. The main characters are vastly expanded in
terms of the quantity of dialogue but they still always seem to retain their original
personality, they’re also all likeable, and the large amount of sexual tension between
them is pretty enjoyable too, which is an unusual thing to be able to say about a video
game. Dialogue also feels believable, with solid
voice acting, and the side characters, both original and returning, are good as well. And so if I was worried my background as a
fan would somehow get in the way of my enjoyment of an otherwise good game, well I couldn’t
have been more wrong. There’s a simple pleasure in seeing characters
you’re always loved faithfully brought to life again in an all new and expanded role. And that doesn’t just apply to the characters,
it’s true for every memorable moment, every story scene you know and love and every little
quirk you didn’t think would make the cut. Not all of Remake is faithful, but the parts
which are have been translated very well. Take the whole of wall market, Midgars sleazy
red light district, which is not only visually incredible, but also manages to stick very
close to the events of the original game, while adding new interesting characters. And that’s not an easy task because the
original wall market section… was weird. Like seriously weird, in a “you couldn’t
do that after the 90s” kind of way. But here it is and the parts that matter the
most are still here. Such as Cloud cross dressing, which still
comes off as absolutely ridiculous in how it’s played completely straight with characters
like Tifa being apparently unable to recognize him until he speaks, like come on how do people
not recognize that hair. This shouldn’t work in modern graphics,
but it still does. Then you have Don Corneo, the cartoonish crime
lord, who combines rapey-ness with comic relief, and that doesn’t sound like a winning combination
in 2020 but this character still works perfectly. Even down to individual lines of dialogue,
like the gang threatening to castrate Don Corneo, and Corneo’s whole why does a villain
reveal his plan shtick. A few things aren’t included of course,
like the satanic ritual you can peek in on in the honey bee inn. As well as, what I can only assume, is a friendly
communal bath between cloud and the boys. Hey, we all get a little sweaty after a good
squat, not sure why people would interpret this otherwise, it’s clearly wholesome. But then there’s also that other room in
the honey bee inn that’s a bit different. You know, the one where cloud, the main character,
the players controlled character, is casually raped by a guy after passing out. Hey, at least it restored your hp and mp,
but yeah if a few little things like this were lost or changed, well it’s not a big
deal because the things the matter the most are still here in all their glory. I’ve always hated it in youtube videos when
people say: “and then this happened and I was just grinning like an idiot” because it seems like such an overused and annoying expression to me. But then the Demon House boss fight happened
and I’m not sure how else to say this. So, then the Demon House boss fight happened
and there I was, just smiling like a simpleton. I have a set of notes from my last playthrough
of the original final fantasy 7, where one of them mentions the Demon House as something that would never work in a modern game and would never actually be in the remake. Oh, how wrong I was. You have to keep in mind here that the Demon
House was just one single random encounter enemy you might run into in the Aerith escort
section. It wasn’t an important part of the original
game; it was just one sort of badly designed enemy in a game full of crazy enemy designs. But it was so weird that it became important
to fans over time, and remake’s developers understood this and not only kept it but also
turned it into a glorious boss fight which doesn’t even feel that out of place. It makes me wonder about red 13 dressing up
as a sailor or Clouds adventures with the dolphin. But where once all I felt was vague curiosity
over what things remake would actually remake, now I feel nothing but excitement, and playing
this game I was always looking forward to seeing the next big moment that I knew was
coming. But even if I was looking forward to these
parts, the amount of time in-between them was not something I expected, and as much
as I do like some parts of final fantasy 7 remake, the padding in this game is unbelievable. I haven’t read any official reviews for
this game, but I assume this is something that every single one of them draws attention
to. This feels like such an obvious piece of criticism
that part of me feels like it’s not even worth going into in much depth, but at the
same time, it has such a big impact on the game that I feel like I can hardly not go
into detail. This game is padded, really padded, and that
negatively affects it. And it mostly comes down to one simple thing,
which is that the decision to make the game Midgar only was a mistake. In the original game you begin in Midgar and
then will leave after about 6-8 hours, with the total game being 40-50 hours. However in Remake, leaving Midgar is when
the game ends, and this take 30-40 hours. So in the original, Midgar is 15% of the total
game, and yet somehow those in charge decided that it was a good idea to stretch this 15%
out for the entire games duration. And while it’s true that fitting the whole
original story into one modern game might not have been possible, and it’s also true
that leaving midgar serves as a sort of end of act 1 that makes for a nice climax, the
original game also had a big moment that would have made for a good end point, which is the
end of the first disc, you know, the most famous part of the entire game. But instead we get Midgar only, which means
all of those great story moments and recreated scenes are spread thin in between hours of
unfulfilling busywork. In some parts of the game remake adds new
content, which ranges from okay to great. Examples of this are the whole of chapter
4 where we go to Jessies house, or the expanded wall market section. If the remake had stuck to this approach of
just adding lots of new scenes, showing new sides to life in Midgar or expanding on previously
minor details, then this wouldn’t have been so bad. It still wouldn’t have been the right decision,
but it would have been at least tolerable. But instead 90% of the padding is just slowing
down the main story by stretching out the sections between the actually meaningful events. Just look at a breakdown of the original Midgar. This is based off my last playthrough and
covers the entirety of this part of the game. You can see that combat sections are broken
up with non-combat sections in between, and that no single section lasts more than 40mins
until you get to the big finale where you’re infiltrating Shinra HQ. Important story moments and character development
happens in all sections, so no section drags on past its welcome and the story always keeps
moving. The original final fantasy 7 is a game with
great pacing. In fact in the entirety of the first disc
there isn’t a single section that really drags. The longest combat section is probably Shinra
HQ and you’re always moving onto new areas, with plenty of story integrated into the action. Now here’s is an attempt to map the same
general structure, again based on my playthrough, but this time for remake. As you can see, everything takes longer but
some parts are more affected than others, particularly the parts where remake features
side quests. And of particular note is the section between
the sector 7 plate falling, and infiltrating Shinra HQ. This section is 22.5 times as long, and that’s
a huge increase. So what happens in this section? Well side quests, an uninteresting underground
lab, going back through the sewers, because the sewers are surely interesting enough to
warrant a return visit, and also climbing up from the slums to the plate, an event which
featured no combat in the original but now drags on for over 1 hour, with annoying aerial
enemies and unforgettable views… like this. This background would look bad in a playstation
2 game; in 2020 this is just embarrassing. I’m not someone who talks a lot about graphics,
and final fantasy 7 remake’s frequent low resolution textures generally didn’t bother
me in an otherwise great looking game, but this thing, this pre rendered abomination
actually offends me on some level. And the rest of this 7 hour 30 minutes section
isn’t much better. In the original you go from the drama of trying
to stop the plate falling, to the groups lowest moment where they reflect on their failure
in the face of an insurmountable opposition in Shinra, which leads straight into the big
assault on Shinra HQ that’s given an all or nothing feeling, a moment of defiance,
a decision made in direct retaliation and opposition of the plate falling. In remake you just wander around a lot and
then go back into the sewers and learn about Leslie’s uninteresting backstory, yay. And by the time you get to Shinra HQ the plate
falling feels like a life time ago, like a completely disconnected event in a plot that’s
been entirely deflated by all the time wasting. Pacing matters and remake fucks this up. Midgar’s 6 hour story could be expanded
to 10 even 15 hours of gameplay, and it might be fine, but expanding it to 30-40 hours is
just harmful to the games previously well paced narrative. When so much else in remake was well done,
this becomes all the more disappointing, and I don’t even think this is a situation dictated
by the financial realities of triple A game development. I’m sure remake was a very expensive game
to make, and as big as its budget must have been no budget is limitless. But these filler sections still have new areas,
new enemies, new cutscenes, decent boss fights, plenty of voiced dialogue, some unique animations
and so on. Outside of the side quests, which are reusing
in game areas, most of the rest of this filler content would have been just as expensive
to make as continuing to tell the real story. But even though money has went into these
filler sections they’ll still always be brought down by the fact that nothing very
interesting can happen in them because they just exist to pad out the real story. When you go to the sewers, the first time,
you fight Don Corneo’s pet, the group chats about what happened in wall market, and then
you look for a way out. During this there are multiple cutscenes that
try to add some drama or excitement to a section the developers most now is boring. But here’s a challenge for you: there are three cutscenes in the second part of the sewers. What happens in them? I mean hopefully you’ve just completed remake,
so this should be fresh in your mind, they should be easy to remember. So anyway times up, the answer is: some unimportant
dialogue that could have just been used to fill silence while exploring, as well as the
exciting moment when the group crosses a bridge where aerith almost doesn’t make it, and
then the exciting moment where you cross another bridge which collapses, causing cloud to almost
fall, and then the big finale where fish guys show up, and oh my god what’s gonna happen
the tension is too much to bare… oh the group just leaves. So, did you even remember all of these events? And if you did, did the drama they tried to
add have any affect what so ever? As I said, effort went into these filler sections,
and it’s such a shame that that effort wasn’t spent on something more worthwhile, like telling
the games actual story. In addition to these entire filler chapters,
you also have a range of smaller but still noticeable features which all serve to exacerbate
the overall pacing problem. Slow walking sections, slow animations when
interacting with things, slow menus, cutscenes that could have been normal in game dialogue,
boring side quests where the player tackles such important things as: killing local rats
and searching for missing cats. Then there’s things like that part in Hojo’s
lab where you have to keep swapping materia over when the game keeps forcing you to switch
characters, and my god does the speed at which this game moves at times feel glacial. These things aren’t that important on their
own, but they all combine together to slow your progression down and when combined with
a poorly paced story with entire sections that feel unneeded, it becomes near impossible
to view the decision to make the game Midgar only as the correct one. That said there is one type of filler content
that I do think is valuable, which are the minigames. Minigames were a big part of the original
and they were often quite simple and quite strange. There aren’t many games that take a similar
approach, particularly games that are otherwise trying to be cinematic and epic, but while
these minigames weren’t that good, they did have a certain charm, and that’s only
become truer as time went on. There’s something so endearing about these
sections, precisely because you wouldn’t see them in a modern game, and then along
comes remake, once more staying faithful, and proving that actually they can work. It makes me so glad that things like the squat
competition are still here, and gameplay wise these minigames are much improved to the point
where they’re actually pretty fun, but they also provide a break from the norm of walking,
talking and fighting, making them the only type of filler content that I really enjoyed. So as bad as the pacing and padding can be,
I guess final fantasy 7 remake is still a big success, and as a remake of the original
game, it gets so much right, more than I expected. In the intro of this video I talked about
faith; the thing that all those screaming fans have which I lacked. The belief that square enix do still have
it in them, that the remake was a good idea, and that something like this can both be faithful
and fun. So I guess what I’m saying is I was wrong
to be so skeptical and remake made me a believer. The original final fantasy 7 is a classic,
one of the all time video game greats, and seeing this new version of it in high definition
with new scenes is amazing. But this story doesn’t stop here. You see, we seem to be living in an era of
remakes, and that means something. And in the case of final fantasy 7, it turns
out that means quite a lot of things. I don’t have a problem with remakes… in
principle, because unless something goes very wrong, looking at you Blizzard, a remake should
not replace the original. The original will still be there and you’ll
still be able to play it and enjoy it and no matter how bad a remake is it can’t take
that away from you. And remakes also allow for things which are
good to be introduced to new audiences and new generations. When it comes to something like The Lion King
it’s hard to understand what the problem with the original movie is, but games are
a little different. Final Fantasy 7 is about the same age as the
lion king, but whereas the lion king is still a beautifully animated piece of art, games
from that era have sometimes aged less gracefully. So the way final fantasy 7 looks will be a
problem for many people, and I get that. A remake makes sense, financially and otherwise. But a game like final fantasy 7 remake isn’t
made in a vacuum. We seem to be living in an era of remakes,
and there are consequences to that. For every thing that gets remade or re-imagined,
brought back from beyond the grave to live on as an immortal icon of pop culture, well,
something else never gets a chance to live, and part of me will always dislike remakes
because of this. Final fantasy 7 remake is the game we got
instead of final fantasy 16. And final fantasy 16 will likely still be
made and released, one day, but it’s not today and the reason for that is because square’s
A team made this game instead. And that’s an easy thing to reconcile when
you’re thinking about one single game, particularly one that isn’t half bad, but this isn’t
about one game. This is about society, and we live in a society…
of remakes, which means originality is more important than ever before. So I guess there’s something else we need
to talk about here. In case you didn’t know, final fantasy 7
remake is an incredibly faithful if padded game… right up until it isn’t. Think of this as a second spoiler warning
if you like, because from here on out its spoilers all the way down. Anyway throughout your adventures in Midgar,
returning players will notice one thing that isn’t so similar, which is the presence
of these ghost like creatures referred to as The Whispers. These show up in a number of scenes where
they seem to intervene to prevent certain actions. Later on these are explained by red 13 as
being “arbiters of fate, entities drawn to those who would alter destinies course”. And if you go back and check the times the
whispers show up you’ll see this seems true, they act so as to keep the events of the remake
in line with the original game. This includes stopping Cloud form killing
Reno in the church, injuring Jessie before the second reactor bombing mission to make
Cloud go instead, stopping Hojo from telling Cloud about his past too early, and even jumping
in to save Barret’s life after he’s impaled by Sephiroth. When something goes wrong and an event happens
which contradicts or changes the original storyline, the whispers are there to act as
janitors, tidying up anything out of place, so that remake keeps on being the thing is
was marketed as, a remake of the original game. However as the party reaches the end of the
game, where you escape from Midgar, things get a whole lot crazier, as Sephiroth turns
up, which by the way is something that happens far too often in the remake, seriously all
those early fake out scenes quickly loose all dramatic impact when they happen so often. But here, Sephiroth turns up, as he likes
to do, the whispers starting screaming, and then Sephiroth taunts the party and then enters
a mysterious portal that will lead to a showdown with destiny itself. You pursue, defeat destiny, and alter the
course of fate forever. It’s here the game ends, with the future left as something no longer bound to the events of the first game. Now anything can happen. To prove this a flashback shows Zack surviving
his previously iconic death, with a poster of a dog which has now changed, suggesting
this is a different timeline/alternative universe. Whether this means Zack has retroactively
been brought back to life in the party’s timeline, or that the party have now switched
timeline, or something else entirely, is deliberately left unclear. The point is this: the future has changed,
this is no longer a remake, and nothing is off the table in the next game. And I have to say, I didn’t see that coming. I like the interpretation that views the whispers
as the fans, those who want the remake to be as faithful as possible, who oppose all
changes and who will cry out and maybe even act up when something is changed. Following this view to its logical conclusion,
this would make the party’s actions at the end of the game a sort of meta commentary
where the writers are defying fan expectations and taking back control, freeing themselves
of the previous restrictions to tell this story exactly the way they want to. And I like this interpretation not because
I agree with the whole ‘fuck the fans’ style debates that seems to happen on the
internet every few months, but because if we live in an era of remakes then there’s
inherent value to originality, and a game which uses its status as a remake to break
free and becomes its own thing is a great idea, it’s an original idea, and this was
also one of the biggest surprises for me personally I’ve ever experienced in a video game. So I love this idea… as an idea that is,
the execution is pretty bad. I think some people might try to defend the
whispers on the basis that they don’t need to make sense, that that’s not the point
in them and if you dislike them then you just don’t get it, but I don’t think that’s
true. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is telling its own
story, and as meta as the whispers might be, that doesn’t change the fact that they play
a role in Remakes story. And the role they play is inconsistent, contradictory
and overly confusing, which leaves them feeling cheap and, as a narrative device, unsatisfying. This was already a story with the will of
the planet, and ancients, and aliens, and science experiments, and magic, and materia,
and mako, and the mega weapons and so on. So, this was already a story that was reaching
its limit in how convoluted things can be before adding in physical manifestations of
destiny that are also apparently the will of the planet, let alone stepping into the
realms of time travel and alternative universes, and all this isn’t even a very original
concept for a jrpg I means it’s only a few years ago that we had an entire trilogy of
final fantasies with the exact same theme. But even ignoring all this, there are still
clear problems. Firstly, if the whispers are destiny, keeping
the games event on track, then what’s causing things to go off track? There’s no consistency to the times the
whispers show up. They stop Cloud killing Reno in the church,
but why is Cloud trying to kill Reno? They stop Hojo telling Cloud about his past
but what’s made Hojo recognize Cloud now when he didn’t in the original game? If the whispers are a force of destiny keeping
things on track, then what force is acting to make things go off track in the first place? It would make more sense if there was some
variable or factor causing a divergence from destiny. This could be Aerith, who as an ancient is
able to glimpse the future, though I have a problem with that I’ll mention later. Or it could be sephiroth whose connection
to jenova or his position within the lifestream makes him immune to the whispers meaning it’s
possible for him to change destiny. Or they could take the more meta approach
and have the player be the variable, where the whispers show up to stop the player going
off script, like if you try to save Biggs or Jessie, or just go in a direction you’re
not meant to. This would be harder to pull off with any
amount of subtlety, but it would potentially make the parties decision to challenge destiny
much more impactful for the player, if the player was the one the whispers had been opposing
all this time. Instead though these off script events that
trigger the whispers just happen randomly, and this feels cheap. The whispers also seem inconsistent in their
behavior. Do the whispers act before someone goes off
script, to keep them on script, or do they tidy things up after someone makes a mistake,
because we see them doing both. For example Barret gets stabbed by Sephiroth,
which doesn’t happen in the original game, so shouldn’t the whispers act to prevent
him being stabbed in the first place, rather than just somehow bringing him back from the
dead straight afterwards. And then what about Wedge? Wedge is meant to die when the plate falls,
but he doesn’t. But then the whispers try to kill him as the
party’s escaping Shinra HQ anyway, so why do they wait until then to intervene? Did the whispers just forget about Wedge and
only remember he’s meant to die later on or do they just think Wedge is so unimportant
that its fine to let him live another day because he’s too useless to change anything
anyway? Really the whispers seem a little incompetent,
which hardly matches their supposed role as manifestations of destiny, and for something
like this to work in a story it needs to come across as carefully thought out and consistent,
which it doesn’t. And on the topic of not thinking things through,
why does the party decide to fight destiny. At the end of the game its Sephiroth who convinces
the party to jump into a portal to another dimension for a showdown with fate. Sephiroth taunts the party to follow him here,
so it’s clear this is what Sephiroth wants, and what reason does the party have to ever
do what Sephiroth wants? At what point does the party decide destiny
is bad in the first place? I mean think back to the last important thing
the whispers do, which is literally saving Barrets life. That doesn’t make them seem like the bad
guys. Red 13 describes the whispers and the fixed
nature of destiny, as being “the will of the planet itself”. But the planet is, more or less, the force
of good in this story. I mean we’re fighting Shinra because Shinra
are killing the planet, but its fine for us to go kill the will of the planet? How does that work? Really, outside of Aerith who is more complicated,
there’s no solid motivation for anyone else to think fighting destiny is a good idea,
especially not when it’s established to be what sephiroth wants. And on the subject of Aerith, if she does
want to alter destiny then that’s a major retcon from the original game, in which its
later revealed that Aerith had some understanding of the future, and deliberately goes to the
forgotten city knowing she’ll die all for the good of the planet, you know the same
planet the party is now basically opposing. So I like the idea of the whispers. I like that the remake goes in a different
direction. I like things that are meta. And I like the concept of a remake being deliberately
misleading in order to be something else. I’ve seen others complain that this is deceptive
and false marketing, and while I understand this perspective, it’s not something I have
a problem with at all. If anything, I love things like this and I
actually wish more things used deceptive marketing to create more genuine surprises. But I don’t think the whispers are a well
executed idea. And when the whispers are the original part
of this story, and future games will now be going in an original direction, the fact they’re
poorly handled here feels like a bad sign. And I don’t want to speculate too much on
what this means for the future, because I’d rather not judge something until I’ve experienced it. But, there are other reasons to be worried
here. Like how multiple characters have seemingly
just been brought back to life, which completely removes so much of the games emotional and
thematic importance. Its one thing to change destiny meaning a
certain characters death becomes no longer set in stone. It’s another thing to go full on “no one
really dies” and bring previously dead characters back to life. And what about the challenge in handling future
events now? The next 20 or so hours of the original game
are spent slowly traveling around the world in pursuit of Sephiroth, who’s legend and
presence are built up bit by bit. In the original game we haven’t seen Sephiroth
yet, and we don’t for quite a while. Instead we get these ‘Sephiroth was here’
moments, with the first being arguably the single greatest moment in the whole of the
Midgar part of the game. Which is where the party finally gets to the
top of the shinra building, only to be quickly captured and imprisoned by president Shinra. The party is then stuck, until you wake up
with your jail cell unlocked to find all shinra personal dead or missing, and this big trail
of blood leading from where you previously saw some mysterious entity in hojos lab, all
the way up to the top floor,president, where the the guy who easily captured and defeated you, is sitting impaled on a long sword that Cloud recognizes as Sephiroth’s. And suddenly the games main antagonist, the
president to the most powerful company in the world, is dead just a few hours into the
experience. And it’s here that you realize, “well
shit, I guess things are about to get crazy” and they do, without any arbiters of fate
or epic sword fights in other dimensions. The original final fantasy 7 does get crazy,
but it waits until the right time, with careful build up that meant when those big moments
do finally come they truly mean something. But now this can’t happen. The stakes have effectively already been shattered
with us defeating destiny itself and having an epic showdown with Sephiroth in an alternative
dimension so being faithful and using the same set up of a slow pursuit with gradual
build up can’t really work anymore. So where does this reimagining go from here? The thing is, this is a good game, but the
best parts of it where when it was recreating moments from the original. There’s a certain irony here, in that before
playing this game I didn’t want a faithful remake, but actually the faithful remake was
what I ended up enjoying so much. Final fantasy 7 Remake proved that a remade
final fantasy 7 can work; that this team can pull it off, that there is a way to do it
justice. But now, that’s not what we’ll actually
get and who knows what will happen. There’s a voice in my head telling me this
will end badly, and I think that voice is called logic, and evidence, and years of experience. There’s a voice in my head telling me this
is a mistake, that this is exactly the kind of thing I was worried about and that this
is how the legacy of an all time classic gets ruined. But at the same time, I can hardly deny that
I am excited and honestly I can’t wait to see what happens next. And in an era of remakes this kind of risky
move is something I can’t help but respect. So I guess there’s nothing to do but sit
back and enjoy the ride. It’s like Barret always says. There ain’t no getting off this train. And I have to admit, it does feel pretty good,
the wind in my hair, the not knowing, the endless possibilities. But between you and me, I’m not so sure
about the driver. Tetsuya No-mura is like a mad genius, without
the genius part. There are reasons to have doubts here, many
reasons, many sensible, respectable reasons, In fact if you don’t have doubts you’re
a fool. But that’s the way it is, the way is has
to be; that is the price of originality, the price of freedom. There’s no getting off this train, and I
guess we’re all just destined to be passengers on Mr Nomura-san’s wild ride. And honestly, I don’t think the breaks work. And you know, sooner or later that means we’re
all gonna crash, and probably there’ll be a great big explosion, and screaming fans,
and new things like genesis and these three, *shudder noise*. We are all gonna crash, and it will probably
be awful. So why do I feel like I did back in 2005,
before the final fantasy 7 compilation or final fantasy 13 dashed my expectation’s
plump fleshy head against realities unmoving brick wall. This is not going to end well, so why am I
excited? I guess that’s the difference that faith
can make; it can turn you into a believer, even when reason and logic want you to think
otherwise. There’s no getting off this train, so I
guess I’ll see you at the crash site. Choo Choo motherfuckers. *music playing* *I hope you can hear the music* *because I bet the ending feels weird without it* *really you're missing out a bit* *but at least you get these unique subtitles to make up for it* *wow, subtitles, very cool* *until next time friend*
