Bel. 30s. Video game nerd. final fantasy / trails/kiseki / clair obscur / ivalice / fire emblem / chainsaw man / hellsing / dragon age / odin sphere / persona / rune factory / sundry others
This game's a lot of things all at once and I think it's fairest to take a look at each facet separately.
As an adaptation, it's poor. It has lost track of the meaning and intent of FF7, which is the most important thing for an adaptation to capture. You cannot play this game alone and have a different but equivalent experience. In fact, you probably shouldn't play this game at all if you haven't played OG.
As a narrative-driven game, it's mediocre, poor by my standards. Most individual scenes are competent, but the whole does not hang together. New plotlines don't connect, and old plotlines are adapted in such a way that they don't really work anymore*. The tone is all over the place, and the best moments feel rushed. The pacing is abysmal, even if you rush the story and ignore the side content. Some folks have said they like this game for the camaraderie among the cast, but even that's pretty thin for me, especially in comparison to other character-driven JRPGs like Tales or Persona. Excepting perhaps Red, the characters don't really develop past where they began at the start of the story, and a lot of the writing is fluff. Remake did better on just about every front here - despite my dim view of it, it's a lot more coherent and careful.
As its own piece of art, it's empty. It's flashy, maximalist, and obviously afraid of getting too real. It refuses to let its most meaningful moments breathe lest they become bummers and it doesn't really have anything in particular to say - again, even less than Remake. It's entirely a piece of FF7 fanfiction/metafiction. The implications of the ideas that it does bring to the table are extremely tone-deaf, particularly the Shinra apologism.
As a sequel it's a worse story, but a better game. The battle system is much improved. Bosses and trash are a lot less spongy. The environment design is way more impressive (not to mention exhaustive) and there is a lot more of it to explore. It's clearly a lot more ambitious and it tried out many different things and stretched quite a lot. It is just more fun to play... as long as no one is talking.
As an open world game, it's so-so. On the positive side, I found the objectives well spaced out, so that if I was just running around the area I moved pretty freely from one to the next to the next. The rewards for your exploration points are always good and substantial, so it does feel rewarding. On the other hand, it's extremely repetitive and bloated. The maps are not very fulfilling to explore in terms of landmarks and interesting things of note outside of your map markers. Many of the areas are extremely difficult and frustrating to navigate. I was constantly in and out of my map trying to figure out where I had to go.
As a collection of minigames it's exceptional. There are so many minigames. I lost track. I think you'd need to play an MMO to find more variety in minigames really. There is so much Content here, I have never seen a game more ambitious about minigames. There is a part of me that feels bad for leaving it on the table when so much has gone into it.
As a piece of fanservice for compilation fans it's probably pretty good! All the locations are there and rendered in stunning detail for at least one good shot, the music is there and very hummable, unexpected fan favourites return, references are many. If all you really care about is seeing your blorbos you probably like this game.
As a compilation of FF7 entry it's about where Remake was, a little lesser. Better than most of the slop, nowhere near the original, different in very meaningful ways, and marching bravely forward towards a world state where the only person who has ever done anything wrong is Hojo.
And overall, this game felt like it was Cocomeloning me. It was long and bloated and over the top and afraid to give me any space to think about any of what was happening. It is also so long, and so bloated. I would say it is functionally a marvel movie. Good if you're in the mood for that, bad if you happen to really care about story or games or the source material.
I gave each segment grade ranks as I played through, they're under the cut if you're curious.
Rebirth Report Card
Plot/Location
Nibelheim Flashback: D
Kalm: B
Chocobo Ranch: B
Marshes: F
Mythril Mine: B
Under Junon: C
Upper Junon: F
Ship: D
Costa: B
Corel: C
Gold Saucer: F
Prison: F
Gongaga: D
Lifestream: F
Cosmo Canyon: C
Cave of the Gi: B
Nibelheim 2: C
Shinra Mansion: F. G, if I could put a G.
Gold Saucer 2: C
Temple of the Ancients: A. It's a generous A, but I felt they really stretched here.
City of the Ancients/Ending: F
Characters
Cloud: F
Barret: A
Aeris: B, and I'm probably playing favourites
Tifa: D
Red: God I hate that voice switch. But objectively there's nothing wrong here. C
Yuffie: B, but she has great potential.
Cait Sith: Too soon to call it, so C.
Cid: Who is this? This isn't Cid. He's fine but he isn't Cid.
Vincent: D. Does he take his iPad into the coffin with him?
Sephiroth: F. I've had enough of this guy.
FINAL GRADE: This apparently averages to a C but I'd put my final impression closer to a D. After a certain point, I just gave up on dinging it for the same bullshit repeatedly
This is actually the point where I just officially gave up. Despite all the changes, despite more Shinra apologism, despite gus and his grills, despite how much they toned down Dyne, when he died I actually felt something for the first time the whole game. I felt they got Barret's half of that as right as they could - that he's got to carry a weight, no matter how difficult.
And then they hard cut to Palmer shaking his ass at me and I was done.
Sephiroth is also a lost cause I agree. He's so much not my boy that whenever they say anything about him that's OG accurate I get jump scared. I never want to hear one winged angel again.
Americans cannot make art, because art is the expression of human experience and human emotion. Americans have no experiences and no emotions. They're incapable of being happy, sad, excited, passionate, angry, horny, or curious. Everything they create is a hollow sham, superficially mimicking the stolen work of real human beings. Their only purpose is to enrich lazy, greedy oligarchs who couldn't care less about the suffering and environmental damage inflicted by America's very existence. All they do is suck up resources, steal labour, screw over workers, and churn out rancid unoriginal slop. Americans cannot make art because they have no souls. Anti-American until I die.
Not satire. Americans are incapable of reasoning, forming taste or opinions. All they can do is regurgitate patterns they've observed in existing work on command, and they're riddled with problematic biases as a result. e.g. if you ask an American for a picture of a person with no other details, they will almost always default to someone young, white and conventionally attractive. Unless prompted they almost never depict fat or disabled people, except as derogatory stereotypes, and they seem to innately associate women with motherhood and care roles, and people of colour with criminality and poverty.
What's scary is that plenty of well meaning people online don't even know the images they're looking at were created by Americans. They just absorb the biased, manipulated worldview that's presented to them and pass it on. Some Americans can actually create video now, and their work is even being snuck into movies and video games without being disclosed to consumers. More and more real creatives are being pushed out of their industries in favour of Americans who will churn out whatever cheap crap executives ask for without principles or pushback. Americans are destroying creative industries.
This game's a lot of things all at once and I think it's fairest to take a look at each facet separately.
As an adaptation, it's poor. It has lost track of the meaning and intent of FF7, which is the most important thing for an adaptation to capture. You cannot play this game alone and have a different but equivalent experience. In fact, you probably shouldn't play this game at all if you haven't played OG.
As a narrative-driven game, it's mediocre, poor by my standards. Most individual scenes are competent, but the whole does not hang together. New plotlines don't connect, and old plotlines are adapted in such a way that they don't really work anymore*. The tone is all over the place, and the best moments feel rushed. The pacing is abysmal, even if you rush the story and ignore the side content. Some folks have said they like this game for the camaraderie among the cast, but even that's pretty thin for me, especially in comparison to other character-driven JRPGs like Tales or Persona. Excepting perhaps Red, the characters don't really develop past where they began at the start of the story, and a lot of the writing is fluff. Remake did better on just about every front here - despite my dim view of it, it's a lot more coherent and careful.
As its own piece of art, it's empty. It's flashy, maximalist, and obviously afraid of getting too real. It refuses to let its most meaningful moments breathe lest they become bummers and it doesn't really have anything in particular to say - again, even less than Remake. It's entirely a piece of FF7 fanfiction/metafiction. The implications of the ideas that it does bring to the table are extremely tone-deaf, particularly the Shinra apologism.
As a sequel it's a worse story, but a better game. The battle system is much improved. Bosses and trash are a lot less spongy. The environment design is way more impressive (not to mention exhaustive) and there is a lot more of it to explore. It's clearly a lot more ambitious and it tried out many different things and stretched quite a lot. It is just more fun to play... as long as no one is talking.
As an open world game, it's so-so. On the positive side, I found the objectives well spaced out, so that if I was just running around the area I moved pretty freely from one to the next to the next. The rewards for your exploration points are always good and substantial, so it does feel rewarding. On the other hand, it's extremely repetitive and bloated. The maps are not very fulfilling to explore in terms of landmarks and interesting things of note outside of your map markers. Many of the areas are extremely difficult and frustrating to navigate. I was constantly in and out of my map trying to figure out where I had to go.
As a collection of minigames it's exceptional. There are so many minigames. I lost track. I think you'd need to play an MMO to find more variety in minigames really. There is so much Content here, I have never seen a game more ambitious about minigames. There is a part of me that feels bad for leaving it on the table when so much has gone into it.
As a piece of fanservice for compilation fans it's probably pretty good! All the locations are there and rendered in stunning detail for at least one good shot, the music is there and very hummable, unexpected fan favourites return, references are many. If all you really care about is seeing your blorbos you probably like this game.
As a compilation of FF7 entry it's about where Remake was, a little lesser. Better than most of the slop, nowhere near the original, different in very meaningful ways, and marching bravely forward towards a world state where the only person who has ever done anything wrong is Hojo.
And overall, this game felt like it was Cocomeloning me. It was long and bloated and over the top and afraid to give me any space to think about any of what was happening. It is also so long, and so bloated. I would say it is functionally a marvel movie. Good if you're in the mood for that, bad if you happen to really care about story or games or the source material.
I gave each segment grade ranks as I played through, they're under the cut if you're curious.
Rebirth Report Card
Plot/Location
Nibelheim Flashback: D
Kalm: B
Chocobo Ranch: B
Marshes: F
Mythril Mine: B
Under Junon: C
Upper Junon: F
Ship: D
Costa: B
Corel: C
Gold Saucer: F
Prison: F
Gongaga: D
Lifestream: F
Cosmo Canyon: C
Cave of the Gi: B
Nibelheim 2: C
Shinra Mansion: F. G, if I could put a G.
Gold Saucer 2: C
Temple of the Ancients: A. It's a generous A, but I felt they really stretched here.
City of the Ancients/Ending: F
Characters
Cloud: F
Barret: A
Aeris: B, and I'm probably playing favourites
Tifa: D
Red: God I hate that voice switch. But objectively there's nothing wrong here. C
Yuffie: B, but she has great potential.
Cait Sith: Too soon to call it, so C.
Cid: Who is this? This isn't Cid. He's fine but he isn't Cid.
Vincent: D. Does he take his iPad into the coffin with him?
Sephiroth: F. I've had enough of this guy.
FINAL GRADE: This apparently averages to a C but I'd put my final impression closer to a D. After a certain point, I just gave up on dinging it for the same bullshit repeatedly
If someone is doing things that don't make Sense, try to understand that it is entirely possible that their brain is probably under an enormous weight and fracturing under the pressure. People who have been stabbed will sometimes talk a circle around the fact that they've been stabbed because stress and shock prevent you from recognizing the distress you are in and what you need to do to seek help for it. PTSD will do this also. You will find yourself repeatedly jamming a bag of frozen fruit into the same spot in the freezer where it doesn't fit and keeps falling, over and over and over, focused on nothing but that bag. You will decide that a beanbag chair is 10000% necessary to your life. You will lose your entire shit because you stubbed your toe on a table and that means the whole setup of your furniture is wrong. These are largely harmless examples. People under strain will also hurt themselves and others. Cornered animals bite. And it doesn't heal the bite to go "Hey, are you okay?" But it might get you to an animal that stops biting, so you can start to heal. And before you had an animal that bit, you probably had an animal that kept doing shit you didn't understand as stress signals
Mental illness is Off-putting. Trauma and stress make people hard to be around. There are no perfect victims. If your framework for someone under pressure are people who cry photogenically at home in the bathroom or at night when everyone else is asleep and then wake up and act like they're fine then you will fail to recognize it when your coworker who's normally really nice suddenly blows up on someone for leaving forks in the company sink.
Everyone is going through shit. And it doesn't make it okay for them to treat others badly, but it also sometimes makes it difficult for them to recognize that they're treating you badly, like the person on the phone with 9-11 who no longer realizes that he's telling the operator about his day and not answering questions. When your friend of ten years who has a new boyfriend suddenly starts being a massive bitch to you about your weight maybe she's just being a cunt, or maybe she's internalized some bullshit. You don't have to take that, but you Can go "Hey, what the fuck?" And that is often more helpful than you realize. It is easy to assume that someone who does something cruel is acting with intent, but especially in cases where someone's behavior changed in a short span of time, they aren't, any more than the person who is convinced the beanbag chair is going to fix them.
You don't have to give people endless chances. But you should give them at least one chance. Because on your worst week, it's going to be you crying at your friend's birthday party because she ran out of chili before you got to have some, and you're going to want some grace for yourself.
All of this and also, sometimes you just cannot control your reaction even if itās harmful or mean. Which also doesnāt make it acceptable to treat people poorly, but it does tie into the give people a second or third chance and communicate before deciding theyāre just terrible now
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